Ohio Adventures

seems to be endemic

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/20-ohio-cities-and-towns-youre-probably-pronouncing-wrong/Slideshow/38343627/38294596

Similar in Wisconsin, though not necessarily so confusing.  New BER-lin.  And the joy of hearing out-of-state radio announcers fail with Waukesha, not to mention Oconomowoc. : )

PS I like seeing your visual on the forum home page, puts my morning gripes in perspective.

thanks.

meanwhile, I'm excited! I'll finally be in the total solar eclipse path. coming in april.

Hi drummerboy. Just checking in about your blog as it's been a while. I like your observations about the differences there and from whence you came. I have a question for you. Do you plan to get involved with politics to the extent of doing what you can as a resident to get Ohio's state legislature changed? I just read a disturbing news article that the legislature overturned the governor's veto:
"Ohio lawmakers on Wednesday overrode Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that would bar transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy or gender transition surgery."

And FWIW, whether it's going door to door in my state to help a Democratic maintain their seat or making calls in swing states when the time comes I do my thing. Wondering if you plan to like my friends in Florida do to do what you can to bring some humanity back to some legislatures. 

wendy said:

Hi drummerboy. Just checking in about your blog as it's been a while. I like your observations about the differences there and from whence you came. I have a question for you. Do you plan to get involved with politics to the extent of doing what you can as a resident to get Ohio's state legislature changed? I just read a disturbing news article that the legislature overturned the governor's veto:
"Ohio lawmakers on Wednesday overrode Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that would bar transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy or gender transition surgery."

And FWIW, whether it's going door to door in my state to help a Democratic maintain their seat or making calls in swing states when the time comes I do my thing. Wondering if you plan to like my friends in Florida do to do what you can to bring some humanity back to some legislatures. 

yes, I'm looking to see what I can do with the Summit County Democratic Party. Nothing definite yet though.

meanwhile, I can't find Hormel Dilusso Genoa Salami anywhere. The alternatives are not cutting the mustard.

And have I mentioned that I've turned into a pickleball addict? Since October I've been playing several times a week. It's very popular in my general vicinity. In addition to playing at my health club, The Natatorium, (very nice place) I've been playing at a local church that attracts up to forty people a night. The pictures are from the church.

On a downer note, I've been inexplicably losing my sense of taste, which really sucks when you love food. I can taste some things ok, some things slightly, and some things not at all. Went to a Japanese noodle place last week and couldn't taste anything other than the hot sauce. OTOH, went to a mid-eastern place yesterday and was able to taste most things ok. baba ganouj, grape leaves, beef shawarma. Weird. This started a couple of years ago. Not covid related. Finally went to a neurologist about it but apparently there's not much in the way of treatment. 

not Ohio related, but had to share

Ohio is very big on lenten fish fry dinners, I've noticed. All over the place.

I was in Ohio last week for work, In Cincinnati--first time. Really friendly people, and I liked what I saw of the city--lots of street art--and neighboring Kentucky. Had a couple of excellent meals, too. (don't get all the fuss over that chili, tho)

So it seems marijuana is legal now in Ohio, but there are no stores yet? The aroma of weed was pervasive... (not complaining at all, just commenting)

haven't been to Cincinnati yet, though you can get the chili here. I bought it once as take out, but I never got around to eating it. it just didn't call to me.

yeah, no stores yet. medical marijuana was already legal so there are dispensaries ready to go. drove by one today and almost went in to see if they were selling to the public yet.

just read that it might happen by September. depends on what our reprobate legislature decides to do.

==============================================================

on another subject, drove to Kent today and there's a strip of 3 shopping centers within about 1/2 mile or so that has 4 supermarkets. seems kind of odd to have them all almost on top of each other.

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and finally, our Senator JD Vance won the CPAC poll for most admired senator.

yay

drummerboy said:

haven't been to Cincinnati yet, though you can get the chili here. I bought it once as take out, but I never got around to eating it. it just didn't call to me.

yeah, no stores yet. medical marijuana was already legal so there are dispensaries ready to go. drove by one today and almost went in to see if they were selling to the public yet.

just read that it might happen by September. depends on what our reprobate legislature decides to do.

==============================================================

on another subject, drove to Kent today and there's a strip of 3 shopping centers within about 1/2 mile or so that has 4 supermarkets. seems kind of odd to have them all almost on top of each other.

==============================================================

and finally, our Senator JD Vance won the CPAC poll for most admired senator.

yay

JDV is the devil, but I ❤️ Kent. Can’t explain the close proximity of the supermarkets, but if you add the town population to the student population it’s probably about 50,000, so that’s a lot of groceries being shopped for!

I drive around a lot.

One thing that kind of drives me batty is the fact that so many streets have ditches right off the shoulder, instead of underground storm drains. It makes the shoulder narrow so you can't pull over and strikes me as a risk factor in that if you go off the road you don't land on someone's lawn but instead fall into a ditch. Also, they're just kind of ugly. You have a nice house, a nice front lawn, but it ends in a ditch.

I don't understand.

another thing I've noticed is that occasionally there are small ponds, maybe 50 feet from the road, whose water surface level is higher than the road bed. Looks weird.

And again, I don't understand.

drummerboy said:

I drive around a lot.

One thing that kind of drives me batty is the fact that so many streets have ditches right off the shoulder, instead of underground storm drains. It makes the shoulder narrow so you can't pull over and strikes me as a risk factor in that if you go off the road you don't land on someone's lawn but instead fall into a ditch. Also, they're just kind of ugly. You have a nice house, a nice front lawn, but it ends in a ditch.

I don't understand.

You are used to suburban America.

Rural America, with its lower density and lower tax base, doesn’t have the resources to put such things underground.

And realistically, they don’t need to.

I guess, but it's not just in rural areas. Even in many of the suburban areas the ditches are common. And in what are clearly affluent areas. That's what makes it kind of strange.

We call those ditches ‘gutters’. Sometimes they’re paved/concreted, often they’re not. Depends how close to the city centre you live. 
One memorable summer’s day about 30 years ago my MIL and I had to have her car towed out of a deep gutter near a major sporting venue because we didn’t see it as we U-turned. 

I had to help a young driver get out of the gutter on oakview ave some years back during a snowstorm. You can easily drive into it if you’re not familiar with the road, luckily she was going downhill which made it easier for me to get the car out. 
in Florida these gutters are very deep, I’ve seen quite a few drunks walk away staggering after driving into them. It’s for rain runoff to prevent flooding on the roads. In Ohio sometimes rains can get very tropical quickly. Plus it’s easy to push the snow into them when plows go through. 

To me a gutter was always the area of the street directly adjacent to the curb. After looking it up I see that ditches also qualify, as do other structures, as long as they drain away street water.

They're still annoying.

drummerboy said:

To me a gutter was always the area of the street directly adjacent to the curb. After looking it up I see that ditches also qualify, as do other structures, as long as they drain away street water.

They're still annoying.

why? You feel you’re gonna veer off the road and end up in the ditch? Don’t drive at night because it’ll reek havoc on your nerves.

Jaytee said:

why? You feel you’re gonna veer off the road and end up in the ditch? ...

yes!

it's like they're calling for me.

also, they narrow the available shoulder so it's harder to find a place to pull over.

also also they can be pretty ugly. you've got this very nice house, impeccably manicured lawn and front yard, and it terminates with a ditch.

Funny what you notice or don't. We had those ditches were I grew up. Do we really not have them here in NJ? I'm going to have to look more carefully when I drive around.

One difference is that it's so dense and suburban here, and has been for a while, whereas in much of the midwest what's now suburbs was farmland not so long ago, so you do end up with those ditches in suburban areas. But we really don't have those ditches in the rural parts here?

Huh -- checked out some street views on Google maps in parts of NJ I thought I'd seen roadside ditches, and looks like they aren't there. OTOH, now I remember occasionally having the thought that roads out here sometimes feel weirdly "flat", and it's probably the lack of ditches that was probably tugging at my subconscious.

drummerboy said:

also also they can be pretty ugly.

And a little big.

(h/t Thurber and White)

PVW said:

Funny what you notice or don't. We had those ditches were I grew up. Do we really not have them here in NJ? I'm going to have to look more carefully when I drive around.

One difference is that it's so dense and suburban here, and has been for a while, whereas in much of the midwest what's now suburbs was farmland not so long ago, so you do end up with those ditches in suburban areas. But we really don't have those ditches in the rural parts here?

I don't know if NJ has them or not. All I can say is that if I ever drove by any in NJ they were not enough to warrant any special attention from me. Out here they're ubiquitous and impossible to not notice.

During my brief sojourns to Ohio, in and around Youngstown, what was most irksome to me were nasty photo speed  traps, and large fines for going a few miles per hour over the speed limit in the most innocuous of places.  It felt like they were just waiting to nail out-of-staters.  

The kids live in a Frenchtown NJ suburb and they’ve got ditches all over .

Not only ugly but some are deep enough that I’d worry about needing help to get out if I got caught in one

Jasmo said:

During my brief sojourns to Ohio, in and around Youngstown, what was most irksome to me were nasty photo speed  traps, and large fines for going a few miles per hour over the speed limit in the most innocuous of places.  It felt like they were just waiting to nail out-of-staters.  

tell me about it. got such a ticket in Garfield Heights, outside of Cleveland, for $180

Jasmo said:

During my brief sojourns to Ohio, in and around Youngstown, what was most irksome to me were nasty photo speed  traps, and large fines for going a few miles per hour over the speed limit in the most innocuous of places.  It felt like they were just waiting to nail out-of-staters.  

A relative outside of Youngstown years ago wrote out backroads directions for us from her home to Cleveland - noting all of the known speed traps we’d be passing through - apparently it’s a common thing out there.

drummerboy said:

I guess, but it's not just in rural areas. Even in many of the suburban areas the ditches are common. And in what are clearly affluent areas. That's what makes it kind of strange.

They probably spent their money on burying the power lines.