I hate to be meta and talk about blogging and blogging tools, but I just upgraded to WordPress 2.6. They’ve added post revisions…something I’ve been hoping for for a while. I use the MoinMoin Wiki at work, and I’ve really missed the automatic revisioning that happens on a Wiki when working with WordPress. The interface is a little rough at the moment, but I’m sure that will evolve over time.
Congratulations and thanks to the WordPress team.
I went for a walk this morning on the Monon Trail and explored Carmel’s new Central Park for the first time. It’s a curious and somewhat schizophrenic beast. I say beast because, for the area, it’s pretty large at 160 acres. The schizophrenic bit results from perhaps trying to be too many things at once.
The park straddles the Monon Trail, the 15 mile greenway that stretches from downtown Indianapolis to the Northern end of Carmel. At its center is the Monon Center, a combination health club, community center, and aquatic park. West of the center are some natural wetlands, an artificial lagoon, walking trails, a board walk, and, despite the fact that the park is surrounded on three sides by roads, a road right through the middle of it! The only thing I can figure is that they really wanted to spend a lot of money to build a pretty bridge over the lagoon.
I guess it never occurred to them that they could have build a number of pedestrian bridges over the wetlands and lagoon for less. The end result of all these roads is that you can never really suspend disbelief that you are in an urban area, like you can in the real Central Park, because you are always within ear shot of traffic. The west side is pretty, but not very functional. The walk trails get use, but you don’t see people lounging or picnicing on the lawn like you do in many urban parks. This may have something to do with the fact that all of the maintained lawns are on a slope. They didn’t design the landscaping very well on the slopes, and some serious erosion has resulted.
The east side of the park is an abomination. Once again, the park is bisected by a road, and, since the park is narrower on this side, there is not really room on either side of the road for any other amenities. I’d say roughly 30 of those 160 acres are useless as result.
In the end, the Monon Center is a fabulous amenity, but the surrounding park could use some work.
A friend a work suggested I check out the Pickens Plan:
So, I visited the website and watched the video:
I was intrigued. A charming old Texan talking to charts; he kind of reminded me of Ross Perot. But, what of his figures? Check this page at the DOE website. The 70% figure might be a bit of an exaggeration, but given the trend lines it’s not far off. Look at the weekly import figures in the Navigator, and do the math. It’s a staggering amount of money we are sending out of this country every year. Money for a consumable that literally goes up in smoke within a couple of months. Money that in turn finances others growth, not ours, and drains our economy and contributes to the weaken of our currency.
Next, I caught an appearance on CNBC on YouTube:
The quality is poor and it’s broken into eight parts, but it is worth your time. This was earlier this year, and there are some rather accurate predictions about where we’re at right now. Toward the end, he recalls a discussion he had with Bob Dole about energy policy when he was running for president. He gave his ten minute pitch. When he finished, Bob told him that he was probably right, but that energy dependence was one of the sleeping dogs of politics. If Clinton wasn’t going to wake the dog, neither was he.
Well, with oil at $130 a barrel, the dogs awake. It’s time to have that discussion, and neither of the current candidates are anywhere close to reality. This isn’t a complete solution, but it’s a place from which to start and evolve.
It’s been a while since my last ride, and I could really feel it. I’ve had an allergic inflamation of my left eye, and I’ve tried to avoid exacerbating that by staying away from the places where my allergies flare up. Those just happen to coincide with the type of places I like to ride. My eye doctor gave me some Allerex eye drops. Those seem to help, so I thought I’ld give it a try…we’ll see how the eye looks tomorrow. I’ve walked the Fallcreek Greenway before, but this was my first time riding it. All in all it was a nice ride; except, there was a nasty wind out of the south which had me exhausted by the time I hit the Monon. Anyway, here’s the route:
I recently revived my interest in photography. Getting a new toy will tend to do that for you. However, as the boys on This Week in Photography will tell you, it’s not the gear; rather, it’s the person, his eye, and the subject that make a picture. The other thing the TWIP guys often say is that the best way to improve your photograpy is to take pictures. So, today I decided to work on my nature photography, and made a trip to the beautiful gardens at the Indianpolis Museum of Art.
With the cloudy conditions today, the light was inconsistant, but I think I managed to get some nice shots. For some of the long shots, I really could have used a haze filter. I also discovered I really like taking macro shots. I may just have to get a true macro lens. Anyway, here are some of the better shots. Enjoy…
