10 Years Blogging

Yay. May 2003 saw the first post in the Kole Hard Facts. It certainly has tailed off in the past couple of years, such that I completely missed the actual 10th Anniversary of the blog.  That's a pretty fair summation of the entire enterprise.

I've always known that to be a successful blogger, you have to post regularly- at least once daily, and early in the morning, so that you make the feeds & readers. I've never been good at that.

It helps to have a couple of topics that are the drum you bang. Mass transit comes close, I guess, but I never really found those. Limiting my sphere? I've never been good at that.

It helps to talk about the issues in the pop news that everybody is talking about. OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson, Jodi Arias, the petty scandals, etc. Just like in radio, play the hits! I've never been good at that.

Being that I'm not so good at doing what needs to be done to be a successful blogger, I'm not surprised that the blog has gotten 10-20 hits/day for years. I would occasionally hit periods where I did one of these three things well, and it never really impacted readership numbers, so being that it wasn't coming naturally, I would shrink back to my very random, reactive blogging self.

I marvel at those who really do it well. Hoosiers Doug Masson, Paul Ogden, and Gary Welsh certainly have my respect and admiration.

Where's George Hits the Rails

Some of my fellow 'Georgers' do an annual Amtrak trip from NY to California. This year's trip featured a layover in Chicago, so I decided to meet with them.

Turns out, before they left Penn Station in NYC, a few of the folks I would meet were interviewed about the hobby by NPR:

When you hear the words "social network" you probably think of Facebook or Twitter. But years before either of those websites — when most of us weren't using the Internet at all — a smaller, stranger community was emerging around something called WheresGeorge.com, a 15-year-old subculture that's dedicated to the $1 bill.

At Kabooz's Bar and Grill at New York's Penn Station, Jennifer Fishinger is covering her table in stacks of ones. There are 500 $1 bills laid out.

At the next table over, David Henry has his stacks of cash in plastic bags. They're paper-clipped $1 bills in groups of 10.

Not just the $1 bill. I get some grief at home that there should be a Where's Abe? site for $5s, etc. Sorry, that's not my call.

We ended up at Giordano's Pizza, home of one of the True Chicago Style Pizzas, and David had a little ambivalence going in, as a New Yorker with pride in his local pizzas. Turned out he really enjoyed the stuffed pizza, and was a little sheepish in admitting he enjoyed it more than NY's thin crust offerings.

Good fun, good people. Be sure to check out the video attached to the NPR article. Most fascinating to consider the flow of money as relates to human movement. I can tell you from my own county hit map- the money moves along the Interstate Highways. Now, if considering epidemics in the future and how we can expect them to spread, yes, I would consider getting away from a county with an Interstate in it. Naturally, I live within two miles of an Interstate exit.

Dropped The Show

It was a decisions I was struggling to make over the past several weeks, but I did conclude that I should drop the Kole Hard Facts show.

Many thanks to Gary Snyder at Indiana Talks for giving me the opportunity. I was very flattered to be offered the chance, so on the strength of his belief in me, I took a shot at it. Please continue to listen to Indiana Talks, as the lineup will continue to improve as more and more hosts take their shows live, take calls, and generally make for very relevant radio.

It has been very hard for me to balance the concerns of a heavy workload (a good problem to have), household projects, family, fitness, and frankly feeling sane, in the past several months. Something had to give, and the show was the thing that could give. I just feel buried.

I appreciate that Gary kept the door open should things change in the future. Good man, that Gary Snyder! I appreciate him very much.

Columbus Hockey Recap

Many thanks to my friend Bob May for putting a great event together. Some 20-25 guys in a party bus from Greenfield to Columbus, and as my great luck would have it, I got to sit on the bus next to Indiana Supreme Court Justice Mark Massa.

Let me tell you- Justice Massa is a big-time hockey fan. We geeked out for about an hour on the old school hockey that drew us to the game- for him, the Chicago Blackhawks of the late 60s and 70s and their greats Hull, Mikita, and Esposito. My first NHL game in 1976 to witness the Cleveland Barons host the mighty Montreal Canadiens. The Blackhawks would take on the Blue Jackets later in the evening.

The reason I was on the trip really was to play one last time. For as fun and great as the event was overall, playing really sucked. It was perfect, though. It erased all doubts about whether or not to stop playing. I mean it had it all- teammates who wouldn't pass if there was a gun pointed to their heads, opponents who would trip you behind the play even though they knew you were hurt, uncompetitive lopsided balance of talent. Yep, I've had my fill of that. It would be so cool to find a league somehow, some way, that was just into the fun of the game. Alas.

The tunnel the NHL's Blue Jackets players use to get to the ice, behind me.

Oh, did we turn it over without a pass? Time to get into the backcheck.

With Phil Partlan after the game, posing at center ice at Nationwide Arena. Phil's one of the good guys- so much so that I give him a pass for a Red Wings jersey.

If you've ever played recreational hockey, you'll love this. What's great about an event with an NHL team? The locker rooms! It's the little things: showers equipped with actual soap, and with both kinds of water; no slime on the floor; heat; adequate space. If you can't score three goals in your last hurrah (I didn't score any), you may as well have the amenities.

My non-hockey luck continued as I got to have dinner with Phil Partlan and Justice Massa, and sit with them during the game. It was a good game, too, as the Blue Jackets gave effort aplenty but came up a goal short. Loads of Blackhawks fans in attendance.

I found time in there to ask the Justice about my own Supreme Court case that was heard shortly before his appointment. With us being friends, would he have had to recuse himself? He said no, that simply playing hockey together is not nearly enough to give the impression of a connection that could prejudice his judgment. It would have been interesting, had he been behind the bench.

And now, to get my back looked at by my chiropractor.

Last Hurrah

I haven't played hockey in over a year now, thanks to a collision that left my back a mess of spasm, sprain, and general non-function. I really miss it, not the least of which because I gained 15 pounds since the injury.

My chiropractor and doctor both agree that if I play, the back will always be vulnerable. The hit was an accident in a no-check league, so I know full well it could happen again any time.

So, I'm going to play one last game and as much as it pains me, I'll hang 'em up.

The last hurrah is a pretty cool deal. The Columbus Blue Jackets offer a 'Rink Of Dreams' deal, where a group or team gets to use the NHL dressing rooms and have a game on the NHL ice prior to a regular season game, and then watch that game afterwards. Last game- Saturday, January 26, before the Blue Jackets host the Chicago Blackhawks.

I don't know if the deal is a double secret whisper campaign thing. They don't have a link on their website under group sales or anywhere else.

And- while I say this is the last time, truth is, I will hold out for one more future skate. My favorite team, the San Jose Sharks offer a fantasy camp. The cost is fairly prohibitive ($2,000 or thereabouts), so this year is RIGHT OUT. The way the economy kicked me in the balls repeatedly the past four years, it might be possible ten years down the road. But should I have that extra dough...?

Small News, Large Reflection

I found a somewhat dated (Nov 2012) article regarding some job losses at the CSX 'Collinwood Yard' in the Cleveland neighborhood of the same name as the yard. The inclusion of some history was of great note to me.

The Collinwood Railroad Yards &; Diesel Terminal at E. 152nd St. on Cleveland's East Side, was once one of the major repair facilities and freight transfer points for New York Central Railroad and later the Penn Central Transportation Co., according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

In 1929, the yards were expanded to handle 2,000 freight cars a day, and by 1933, about 2,000 engineers, firemen, brakeman, conductors and others worked there.

 Interesting to me- nothing was said about the steam locomotive shops. Those are long gone, of course, but those shops were a prime reason I was born and raised in the Cleveland area. As the family folklore goes, my great-great grandfather was lured from Slovenia to work in the shops. Apparently, a foreman was a Slovene. When he needed experienced machinists, he turned to the Old Country. My best guess is that my great-great-grandfather came around 1900, but certainly prior to World War 1.

Collinwood Yard seems to have lost a little bit of relevance with each railroad merger since it was New York Central property. Those locomotive shops were an enormous presence, highly visible from I-90. I had a hockey teammate in Cleveland who worked on the then-Conrail 'RIP' (repair-in-place) track in the late 70s. It's long gone too.

Technologies come and go, and steam disappeared better than 50 years ago, so I'm not surprised the old shops came down. With mergers, I'm not surprised if within the new, larger systems a more efficient place to work on locomotives and cars. More than lament the shrinking of the yard, I wonder more about our country as a place that creates huge numbers of jobs and attracts immigrants. While the way we live changes and yesterday's top technologies are replaced, our attitude about immigrants, about policies regarding job creation matter. My Slovenian ancestor wasn't lured to England, nor to Germany or Russia. I refuse to go back to Cleveland due to tax policy, as I estimate I saved an entire average year's income since moving to Indiana, just on tax rate differences.

There is much to be learned in policy in these areas.

What To Get For Junior's Birthday?

So, I was doing my long-range planning for Ethan's birthday, and was thinking how much he loves anything automated: model cars, trains, all that. But what to get for him that would really be unique?

I love Amazon, because the product reviews are so useful. No kidding! I mean, check out this one, for a to-scale model drone.