Saturday, August 28, 2010
Holga Pics!
Here's some shots I took with my Holga of the Missouri River, trains that run on the tracks right along the river, and the fountain on the north mall of the Capitol (facing the river).
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Dropoff Hell
I will have to get a pic of this to post.
Today Louis and Bryce and I headed up to Columbia on our usual early Thursday morning run. For the midweek, Wednesday night visit, I sprint up to Columbia from JC to fetch them, we have dinner together, play games or watch a movie, go to bed, get up and motor back to Columbia, then to JC to my office. It's like a lightning round version of the weekend. Anyway, school has been in session for a week and Columbia traffic has already reached a fever pitch. It seems I drop off Louis at Middle School at the same time the office drones and the college kids are all out on the roads doing their thing, too. It is chaos. Every intersection overflows. In an attempt to mitigate traffic problems at the school, parents can only approach the dropoff circle drive from one direction. It happens to be the opposite direction from 99.9% of the city. Today the traffic was clogged in both directions despite the two traffic monitors' best attempts to maintain order. This place is swarming, infested, overcrowded, teeming with vans and SUVs and oblivious parents whose minds seem more on their next destination than their current location. dangerous stuff.
This week, I also learned that my son's lunch hour is 10:30-11:00AM. 10:30. That's not lunchtime. That's morning snack. Predictably, he says he's famished most afternoons by 3:00. This is also the week I learned Louis' classes sometimes take place in one of the many trailers on the property.
I know all schools have the trailer thing. But the thing that peeves me the most is they have sacrificed distributed administration to save costs, most likely, but also perhaps to consolidate power in the central administration. The result is kids are bused from all over the city. My son spends an hour on the bus, sometimes two, one time three hours when the substitute driver couldn't tell their nether regions from a hole in the ground. And the time since they drove all over the city to get to their single destination, there were plenty of opportunities to collide with another vehicle, an opportunity the driver decided to take that day.
Meanwhile, neighborhood schools get the shaft- they are underfunded, understaffed. The buildings are neglected. Parking and play areas rarely get upgrades.
What would be ideal is for a kid to get to go to a neighborhood school throughout their school career. They would get to know their neighbors and build local bonds. The families would meet each other through school and other events. They could walk to school, or at least be driven a short way to their school. More locations, fewer students per classroom means better learning opportunities. Fewer trailers, I can only imagine.
Don't think I'm some kind of segregationist or something. I have no problems with integration and I believe we should all be equals in each other's eyes. But there is no reason why a school in a marginal neighborhood can't be a a good school, a clean school, a well-maintained school, a school to inspire pride of membership. Lift up the school, lift up the neighborhood. Why isn't this a priority in this day and age? Celebrate a neighborhood's uniqueness instead of dooming it to failure because of stereotypes and unwillingness to let go of some control.
But instead of fixing old schools and leaving things local, school boards vote to hand over large sums to land developers (who are frequently on these boards, along with the City Council) and opt for large, expensive, very inconvenient centralized schools. Who loses? the students, mostly, and that is a shame. But the taxpaying citizens lose, too, because centralizing services like this, while it seems it would save money, actually costs a lot more in the long run. It's almost always cheaper to renovate than it is to build new (not always, of course, but usually). And there is a lot of collateral damage that their budget reports can't incorporate, like wasted personal time, higher fuel consumption, risk of life and limb with increases in traffic, and the hit that quality of life takes.
I dunno. I'm no expert, but I can't accept that this is a good thing, that this helps anyone, that it's preferable.
Today Louis and Bryce and I headed up to Columbia on our usual early Thursday morning run. For the midweek, Wednesday night visit, I sprint up to Columbia from JC to fetch them, we have dinner together, play games or watch a movie, go to bed, get up and motor back to Columbia, then to JC to my office. It's like a lightning round version of the weekend. Anyway, school has been in session for a week and Columbia traffic has already reached a fever pitch. It seems I drop off Louis at Middle School at the same time the office drones and the college kids are all out on the roads doing their thing, too. It is chaos. Every intersection overflows. In an attempt to mitigate traffic problems at the school, parents can only approach the dropoff circle drive from one direction. It happens to be the opposite direction from 99.9% of the city. Today the traffic was clogged in both directions despite the two traffic monitors' best attempts to maintain order. This place is swarming, infested, overcrowded, teeming with vans and SUVs and oblivious parents whose minds seem more on their next destination than their current location. dangerous stuff.
This week, I also learned that my son's lunch hour is 10:30-11:00AM. 10:30. That's not lunchtime. That's morning snack. Predictably, he says he's famished most afternoons by 3:00. This is also the week I learned Louis' classes sometimes take place in one of the many trailers on the property.
I know all schools have the trailer thing. But the thing that peeves me the most is they have sacrificed distributed administration to save costs, most likely, but also perhaps to consolidate power in the central administration. The result is kids are bused from all over the city. My son spends an hour on the bus, sometimes two, one time three hours when the substitute driver couldn't tell their nether regions from a hole in the ground. And the time since they drove all over the city to get to their single destination, there were plenty of opportunities to collide with another vehicle, an opportunity the driver decided to take that day.
Meanwhile, neighborhood schools get the shaft- they are underfunded, understaffed. The buildings are neglected. Parking and play areas rarely get upgrades.
What would be ideal is for a kid to get to go to a neighborhood school throughout their school career. They would get to know their neighbors and build local bonds. The families would meet each other through school and other events. They could walk to school, or at least be driven a short way to their school. More locations, fewer students per classroom means better learning opportunities. Fewer trailers, I can only imagine.
Don't think I'm some kind of segregationist or something. I have no problems with integration and I believe we should all be equals in each other's eyes. But there is no reason why a school in a marginal neighborhood can't be a a good school, a clean school, a well-maintained school, a school to inspire pride of membership. Lift up the school, lift up the neighborhood. Why isn't this a priority in this day and age? Celebrate a neighborhood's uniqueness instead of dooming it to failure because of stereotypes and unwillingness to let go of some control.
But instead of fixing old schools and leaving things local, school boards vote to hand over large sums to land developers (who are frequently on these boards, along with the City Council) and opt for large, expensive, very inconvenient centralized schools. Who loses? the students, mostly, and that is a shame. But the taxpaying citizens lose, too, because centralizing services like this, while it seems it would save money, actually costs a lot more in the long run. It's almost always cheaper to renovate than it is to build new (not always, of course, but usually). And there is a lot of collateral damage that their budget reports can't incorporate, like wasted personal time, higher fuel consumption, risk of life and limb with increases in traffic, and the hit that quality of life takes.
I dunno. I'm no expert, but I can't accept that this is a good thing, that this helps anyone, that it's preferable.
Learning the ABCs of our environment in school
I would love for Missouri to follow in Maryland's footsteps!
Learning the ABCs of our environment in school | delmarvanow.com | The Daily Times : "the Maryland State Board of Education is on the verge of adopting a statewide environmental literacy plan."
Missouri River Fog
It's not uncommon to find the Missouri River shrouded in its own fog bank in the mornings. Not every day, of course, but when dewpoints and temps meet, it's practically guaranteed. The effect can be very dramatic in the winter, in fact. But this was just an ordinary summer morning. We've been lucky to have a few nights of the temps falling into the fifties this week; it's been welcome relief. Feels much more normal than the roller coaster of blistering heat and violent thunderstorms that have dominated the weather this summer.
I grabbed a couple of quick snaps while crossing the Missouri River bridge and in the river bottom that 63 straddles for a while before zig-zagging into the foothills, eventually heading north to Columbia.
I grabbed a couple of quick snaps while crossing the Missouri River bridge and in the river bottom that 63 straddles for a while before zig-zagging into the foothills, eventually heading north to Columbia.
Haze on the banks
Peering through the uprights
River behind the trees.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
I am now a coffee snob
Although I caved and bought a bag of Kaldi's French Roast beans at the supermarket today because I was already there. I'm glad I did. Although I am very fond of Dunn Bros.' Tanzanian Peaberry, this Kaldi's French Roast has surprisingly complex flavor for a dark roast. Not a hint of burned taste, just sweet and buttery, with hints of blackberry. It's one of the few coffees I've tried that really live up to the "chocolate" description that gets heaped onto so many beans. It blows anything I've gotten from Dunn Bros. out of the water.
I'm not sure if it's smugness I'm feeling, but the use of this mill does provide satisfaction. It takes about five minutes of serious cranking to get enough finely ground coffee for a double espresso, but the effort is very much worth it. Not only is the flavor startlingly fresh, but I appreciate it all the more having applied a little elbow grease to make it. And there is something meditative about the milling of each bean exactly as long as needed for a good cup. I'm not sure if I will feel so at one with the universe on a morning when I'm more desperate for instant gratification, but I think the inconvenience will be good for me. Help me build some character.
Godawful Summer
Summer in Missouri is punishing enough. A visitor once told me the thing that struck them about Missouri is it had no discrimination regarding bad weather; it's got it all. A typical Missouri summer is case in point, and the Summer of 2010 seems bound and determined to remain in our memories as one of the most uncomfortable. It's been unusually hot, the temps reaching in the 100s twice, both times earlier than normal; with them has come high humidity to make it feel even hotter. Midwestern summer afternoons can be characterized by pop-up thunderstorms due to the heat, but this summer the storms have been nonstop, more extreme than usual, releasing so much rain the tributaries are perpetually overflowing, the mighty Missouri running uncomfortably close to flood stage for a couple of months now. Storms have made for some interest sky watching as well. These were taken with a bad camera, but I think you can still tell the sky has looked pretty ominous, and downright bizarre, this July and August.
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| Dome Cloud |
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| weirdly shaped layers |
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| lit from within |
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| heading into it |
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| run away! |
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