Archive for January, 2006

Studentification is evidently becoming an issue in some English cities. I grew up in a college town where we have a lot of the same issues: transient students living amongst established residents for 9 months of the year, then leaving for the summer. To force this through the vise of certain social scientists, we’ve evidently named this phenomenon to match ‘gentrification.’ So… moral of the article? Universities and towns have to work together, and you know the rest.

Some people don’t get the weight of it when I tell them Steeler’s fans are much more fanatical than those of any other team. Leave it to residents of my hometown to name their child after the number of Ben Roethlisberger (after passing by an 84 Lumber sign, for which the town of Eighty Four is named, but that another line of stories altogether). The ethnic relations class incident at the end is a hoot too.
Thanks to Brando for the tip.

This evening, I was heading back home and took the bus to M and Wisconsin and got off to wait for the 38B, noticing a couple of police cars were down the road. Didn’t think much of it right away and started waiting. Suddenly, two cops pull their cars blocking Wisconsin in both directions, then force all of the traffic from both directions of M onto Wisconsin. Within 2-3 minutes, M street (which is usually gridlocked in both directions) is deserted of vehicles. Very eerie.

Does anyone know what was going on? I didn’t see anything about it in the Post, so I’m just assuming that Bush or some other VIP was heading to Georgetown for the evening and needed space. In any event, I ended up walking to Rosslyn then Metroing further in.

Someone was recently asking for help with my podcasting software and we got into a discussion about Joomla. At the end of his last post he made the following comment:

I’m sure I’ll be around. Your project looks like the right fit for my site. Its wonderful being able to add this kind of usefulness so seemlessly. That what I’ve always like about Mambo/Joombla.

And this is why I still write components for Joomla. When I’m done writing a piece of software, I can throw it into a .zip, hand it over to someone with absolutely no coding experience, and they can have it up and running within a minute.

This article about small towns is a good summary of my feelings on small towns. I also think that the same things this writer is saying can be echoed about certain older inner-urban neighborhoods (at least the ones that haven’t radically gentrified).

My show notes here

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In this New York Times article, we visit city people who just barely make it through a year in the suburbs. Many take a loss on the suburban digs just to get back to the city. My favorite quote from the article has to be this one:

“We had this beautifully landscaped acre-and-a-half of land for the kids to play in, but we were terrified of Lyme disease,” Ms. Sweeney said.

I understand the desire to live in a convenient neighborhood where you’re close to work and can get to know your neighbors (and paying a premium for the privilege), but c’mon honey… mow the lawn!

Maybe it’s all the better that these people live in Manhattan and I don’t.