Worcester Video

From RecksRead:

There were some other videos posted to YouTube this week that I missed, including one from someone who apparently doesn't like Mike Germain, a six minute interview with Bret Herholtz, a terrible advertisement for pizza shop that's very good, a 15 second clip of a WPD cruiser, and a two minute clip about Wednesday's snow.

And then there's the ongoing accrual of so much more Worcester video that can be found at this link.

Quote of the Day

"...these companies prefer to worry about the sensitivities of corporate-ass-covering lawyers and law enforcement agencies instead of putting their users and transparency first."

- Ryan Singel, at Wired

Noblegge oblige

I've had the conversation face to face and via e-mail a number of times over the past couple of years... Should you put advertising on your blog? Should you put a "donate" button on your blog?...

And the answer that I've always given has been, "Yes! By all means! Do it!"

I put that "donate" button over there in the right column today because, after nearly three years of putting it off... I finally got around to it.

This post is not a bleg, however...

Heh... well, maybe it is.

Writing, as a matter of course for me, is not a paid activity. I did consider "being a writer" early in life, but the starving artist aspect of spending my whole life trying to be creative didn't appeal to me. Instead, I traded much more mundane services to earn my income, and just continued writing in my spare time because... well, in order to be a writer, all you really have to do is write.

And that's all I ever expected to do here, quite frankly. The ad blocks and the "donate" button carry no further expectations than spending the five minutes it takes to paste in the html and test them out, so that I could get it done. Kathy donated a dollar to test the "donate" button.

It works.

I look at it as a sort of de rigueur blog widget that, should someone with an appreciation of what I do here, along with the kind of disposable income that makes a difference, and they're trying to figure out how to dispose of it, ...can simply give me ten thousand bucks immediately, so that I can retire right now.

Anything less than that, of course, would be just as gratefully received.

But I have no expectations or unrealistic hopes that I might enjoy any sudden windfall in either this, or the state lottery. With the lottery, your chances of winning are dramatically reduced if you don't play... and, likewise, nobody will donate any money for my blogging if I don't put up a "donate" button.

Driving that goddam taxi for another ten months is hardly going to be a problem. But every thousand bucks I can rake in before the end of this year will put me one month closer to retirement.

So make a donation now. Give generously. Pay me for doing what I do here.

If you really like this blog... then show me the money!

Worcester's CitySquare Project

I first heard about the project when I read this article in the T&G on Saturday, February 7, 2004, reporting on the sale of the downtown mall, and the developer's intention to tear down the mall and create a mixed use project in its place.

There's an interesting quote in that article... "I understand it was a real fire sale," said one city councilor, who requested anonymity.

My favorite quote from that six year old article, though, is this one: "The face of downtown just went from looking like Olive Oyl to Mona Lisa," said District 5 Councilor Frederick "Rick" Rushton, after hearing news of the sale. "This is not just about the sale of the mall. It is a symbol of the start of our revitalization."

It's my favorite quote because it was the first of a now uncountable series of quotes over the next half decade from city officials, making this whole thing out to be the best thing to come along since sliced bread.

A little over four months later, on June 22, 2004, the T&G published this article...

Sixteen tiny paragraphs into that piece, a little tidbit of information is thrown in, saying that Berkeley's mixed use project, which included tearing down the mall, was pegged at $300 million.

Between February and June of 2004, though, something changed here in the City of Worcester. Where both the first article in February and the second article in June have quotes from the City Dictator, ...it's not the same guy. But it took another seven months before the $300 million tidbit of information got lost forever, and I learned that the big "CitySquare Deal" had become a $563 million public/private partnership.

And that's it.

End of story.

Nothing else ever happened.

Today's article in the T&G sheds no more light on this six year non-event than any of the periodic articles they've published about this project since February 2004. And in all this time, the T&G has never been able to report on a satisfactory explanation for the sudden firing of former City Dictator, Thomas Hoover.

Once they got rid of Hoover, the city administration deftly maneuvered Berkeley Investments into inking a deal with the city that, oddly enough, no longer included a target date for completion. Further, they cleverly forced Berkeley to agree to fork over an additional $170 million if they could get potential occupants to sign lease commitments on properties that not only didn't exist yet, but would also have to wait for the demolition of the mall...

Should we talk any more about the crafty art of establishing insurmountable dis-incentives for a private developer to move forward?

Heh... probably not, but I can hardly resist...

From where I sit, this was such a brilliant strategy by the city that it protected us from ever ending up with anything happening here at all... for over a half a decade!

But everything has changed, now.

The change is that someone here in town wants to take over this project. This is the best thing to happen since sliced bread.... No, really! I mean it! I'm not kidding when I say that local investment by local people is what can make this finally happen. And as long as city officials don't stick their hands too deeply into this pie, that private investment venture can definitely bear fruit.

After six years of "announcements" by gushing city officials, they have apparently learned that their public utterances on this project are not only worthless, but have actually ended up having a net negative effect over the long term... as evidenced by this part of today's article in the T&G: "Mr. Murray and City Manager Michael V. O’Brien have both declined to publicly comment on the situation, apparently because — as was the case with many interviewed for this story — they are afraid that publicity could further stall or kill the negotiations."

A little earlier in that article, Shaun wrote: A source close to the negotiations characterized them as nearly complete but still “fragile.”

The fragility escapes me. The worst that can happen is that they can't come to terms and make a deal.

How could that possibly be any worse than what has already (never) happened?

Well, ...and I say this without rancor... if city officials think they need to do anything except give private developers whatever they want, then they still haven't completed their years long transition across the learning curve on this project.

Denholms in Downtown Worcester

There's an interesting article in the T&G today about Princeton native Christopher Sawyer's work on some window displays in the Denholm building in downtown Worcester.

Unfortunately, when you get to the end of the article and it says that he has a blog... the link doesn't show up online. So, here it is.

There's currently a poll at the top of that blog page, and on some browsers it may look like that's all there is there... scroll down, though, and there's plenty of additional content that Christopher has been posting since August of 2009.

The T&G site also has another page on Denholm's.

Update(9:40am): They now have the link for the blog "in the upper right" on that page.

Tiger's Wood - where does it end?

The self-contradictory nature of today's Nemethesis is apparently elusive for the author.

Addressing the City Council

Ronal Madnick wants more public access at City Council meetings.

He, of all people, should know by now that addressing the City Council is like talking to a wall.

More Chrome

These two columns from the blogroll were screen capped before (left) and after (right) I cleared the history cache in Chrome.

The amount of time that transpired between capturing the left column and the right column is less than a minute.

On the top left, Worcester is Major's post is marked at "33 minutes ago". But on the right it's been moved down to sixth place, and marked "2 hours ago".

The Eastern Boarder post in the left column is marked at "3 hours ago", while the refreshed list has it marked at "6 hours ago".

It's clear that the history cache in Google Chrome prevents refreshing. Basically, using Google Chrome means that if you frequently check certain active sites, you'll be fooled into thinking that nothing new is being posted.

It doesn't matter if I hit the "refresh" button in Chrome, because it apparently won't do an actual "refresh" of certain web pages until I delete the history. I don't know if this happens with all sites, but this is pretty much a show-stopper for me.

The only reason it seems "faster" is because it won't refresh the next time you re-visit certain types of active sites. It just takes it out of memory, instead of going back onto the web to retrieve the most recent update.

I woudn't have a problem with this, except that there's no option to turn off this history grabbing thing. I know that you can opt to open all your activities in an "incognito" window, but this "option" just makes me even more suspicious of the info gathering that Google is doing with this browser.

Pinched Traffic

In Grafton this morning, I snapped this picture of a utility pole being replaced on Worcester Street, right about the middle of the 100 block near the Mass Pike overpass.

Since they had the southbound lane blocked, it was a little bit of a wait.

Quote of the Day

“Yes, the economy is terrible, but Worcester has been this way for years."

- Shavarsh Azizian

He goes on to say, "“Even in good times, our city does little for businesses. They’ve been working on sidewalks, but they’re in the wrong section of the city!”

An Early Evening Show Tonight

Jubilee Gardens will be playing in the Front Room of the WCUW-FM studios at 910 Main Street in Worcester tonight at 7pm.

No Right Turn For Trucks

It's been almost two weeks since a functional illiterate tried to make a right turn here.

And nearly every day since, I've tried to get a decent picture of the sign that says, "No Right Turn For Trucks"...

Every picture I've taken has either been too blurry, bad contrast (can't read the sign), or snapped too late to catch sight of the sign.

I've kept trying, though, because it's been a matter of dissonance between the virtual world and the real world, especially after I took the picture in this post, which placed a record in the virtual world where the sign didn't seem to exist.

If you compare the picture I took this morning with that picture I took a week ago Wednesday, it really is difficult to ascertain exactly where that sign is located, and how long it's been there.

But take my word for it... that rusty pole has been been displaying that sign for a very long time.

The problem of sign location and placement is certainly evident to me, though, now that I've tried taking this picture for over a week. Like other signs in other places, if you can't see it when you're waiting at the stop line, then the sign's effectiveness is dramatically reduced.

Chrome, cont'd

One annoying part of Google Chrome is that it doesn't always refresh when you hit the refresh button.

Apparently, all it does with some pages is to simply re-load what it has already stored (in history). But if I clear the history, close Chrome, and then re-open it... suddenly the page is up to date.

This is most apparent on my own webpage for the blogroll.

All of it being inside the Google universe (blogger, Chrome, Earth...), I have to assume that the incognito option really means nothing.

You're So Vain

David Geffen?

Not Too Much Slippy-ish Conditions Yet

Here's a shot of Union Station taken just after 9 this morning.

As you can see, there's no accumulation of any snow, despite there having been some fairly intense squalls during the morning commute.

About an hour earlier, during the worst of it, I was coming down West Chester Street and slowing to turn in to the Mercy Center when traction became just about non-existent. It's happened at that spot before, too, during other slippery road conditions in the past. An inexperienced driver will usually panic in that type of a situation, stand on the brakes, and go completely out of control.

...And I have to admit that it's counter-intuitive to take your foot off the brake when it feels like you're beginning to slide and won't be able to stop on a dime. But the person behind me never knew anything was amiss, as I glided into the Mercy Center driveway without any problem.

I also have to admit, though, that when the car I'm driving starts slipping like that, that panicky feeling still flashes itself, whether I like it or not.

It doesn't look too good for the rest of the day.

It doesn't look too good for the rest of the weekend, either.

The temperature here right now is 34 (F) degrees, but it's still snowing outside...

Honestly, I don't know how any weathermen can possibly predict what will happen here in Worcester with all this unsettled weather over the next few days, and the temperature hovering right there at the freezing mark throughout...

Prohibition

How much do you think these plants would be worth if there was no prohibition?

How much police resources do you think would be freed up if there was no prohibition? How many people do you think would not be in jail today if there was no prohibition?

How much longer does America have to suffer the adverse effects of making it a crime to self-medicate with a weed that has grown wild on this continent since time immemorial?

Update: And how many more of these kinds of stories will we read about before we stop making criminals out of people who, for whatever reason, like to get high.

The Bureau of Information Disbursal

The daily online "permanent record" here in Worcester is an ephemeral thing. Facts can change without anyone knowing that they've changed.

Yesterday evening's breaking news article about some robberies in town originally reported that three Honey Farms stores had been held up. This morning I see that they've changed it to report that two Honey Farms stores and one Honey Dew Donuts shop were robbed, instead.

That the T&G has always done this sort of thing is bothersome. What else do they change without making any notation that changes have been made?

Since the comments to articles are eventually deleted at some point, here's a screen cap of how it all looked this morning before the 5am update. I've underlined the altered lines in the article in red, and the first comment is enclosed with a red line... which indicates that the previous erroneous report did, in fact, get posted first.

Heh...

But it gets better.

This morning's updated version of the story turns out to be the original, erroneous report.

You can see that that the date on the screen cap (above) is February 25, and the date on the screen cap (below) is February 26...

Heh.

I wonder how long it will take for either of the links to go dead?... or further changes are made?... without, of course, any slightest notation.

Happy Birthday, George!

Today is George Harrison's 67th birthday.

He helped to create one of the best bands that ever existed.

Dave Is Right

I think Dave Goldberg is definitely hitting the nail on the head when he connects the dots between the punks of the 70's and 80's, and the current neo-faux-conservative phenomenon.

Heh... When all the parents are banned from their kids' basketball games, they just might be punks (greatly missing the mosh pit).

The Surveillance Continues

As if there's nothing that M$ wants to hide...

Tonight - 5 to 7 pm

The Fog

It was so foggy when I left for work this morning, that it was hard to focus.

No Road, No Hub

It still comes up, even today, this problem of having no six lane interstate highway passing close enough to the Worcester Regional Airport to make it viable...

The story is a very long one, though. It's the Worcester-centric NIMBY side versus the statewide planning view. If you live on the west side of Worcester, you don't want a better road to the airport, and you don't want a busier airport. Period.

The Massachusetts Turnpike could've been built to pass right by the airport, but since the folks with the power to say so at the time didn't want that, the Mass Pike bypassed Worcester entirely.

But then, after it became obvious that bypassing Worcester with the Pike turned out to have orphaned this once prosperous mill town, second thoughts arose... When Interstate 290 was being planned as a major east-west route through middle of the state, the NIMBY problem came up again. And instead of going across the state, it was instead built to go right through the middle of Worcester, and they put a big right-angle turn in Millbrook valley. It went directly east-west from I-495, but then changed abruptly to north-south before it could possibly run into any of that expensive west side property...

And the prospect of maybe someday extending the interstate system in Massachusetts from that point at Millbrook valley... well, it's just never gonna happen as long as the property on the west side of Worcester is owned by the people who call the shots in this town.

I've posted about this before.

It's just the way it was, is, and probably always will be.

Routes 13 & 2

If you have to drive through the interchange area on Route 13 at Route 2 in Leominster, then the complicated descriptions of what they want to do there will make some sort of sense.

I just spent about 10 minutes looking at the Google map of that area, reading each sentence carefully, looking at the streets involved... and I gotta say: This looks like a decent plan.

It'll be a big improvement when it's done, but the construction phase will be absolute murder!

Even during off-hours, traffic can back up on Route 13 southbound for a lot more than just a couple changes of the lights at Prospect Street. I've never had to negotiate that section of Route 13 during rush hour, though, because it's just not a section of road I care to get stuck on... But I can imagine that during the morning rush, southbound traffic on Route 13 might actually back up all the way to Townsend.

Heh... it's kinda like the way Lincoln Square and Doherty High backs up traffic here in Worcester some mornings, all the way to Tatnuck, ...only worse.

WoMag's Owner Scoops Itself

Heh.

Frontline: Behind Taliban Lines

A real eye-opener.

Stop & Shop

The United Food and Commercial Workers union is still in talks with Stop & Shop, and they're saying that they'll be going through midnight Saturday... but after that, they may Stop & Strike.

Sunshine Week

It's coming up in two and a half weeks.

Palin as Punk

Dave Goldberg says he's gone Galt... and he may be right about viewing Palin as the new Johhny Rotten.

Heh.

But a money-grubbing Rogue In Name Only, pathological liar, and out to lunch theocrat in public office?

Sorry, Dave... that's not going Galt, that's just going brain dead.

CK Smith - episode 4

Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but this morning's the first time I noticed this gas station was closed.

It's the Irving Station on lower Grafton Street, opposite Barclay.

Back on January 29th, the news was that "A few C.K. Smith-owned Irving Gas stations, based inside convenience stores, remain open..."

Then on February 3rd we learned that "...the 24 gas stations previously operated by the company are now on the market."

I wonder when, exactly, this station on Grafton Street was closed?

[Episodes one, two, and three.]

Washington Square Crosswalks

The crosswalks in Washington Square are always the last thing to get shoveled...

...if ever.

Quote of the Day

"Evil demands a response that overcomes rather than compounds evil."

- David A. Hoekema

Worcester: Parking Is Not A Problem

Not working today has deprived me of hearing what Jim Polito had to say about Clive McFarlane's column in today's paper.

Polito calls Clive the worst columnist in the world, and has his imaginary dog, Wizzo, piss all over the paper whenever he mentions him. Then there's Rick Rushton... Polito plays a little audio clip demeaning Rick Rushton's intellect every time he mentions his name... so having Clive write about Rick has to be a banner day for Jim Polito.

Meanwhile, the column elicited an immediate response from Rick in the comments section:

"To all,

Boy did I mess up on this one. Going forward I am going to pay these parking tickets as I get them.

The only part of this story Clive misunderstood is for a stretch I did not receive tickets because I was able to finish my work before the meters ran out. Pumping in 50 cents for 2 hours is usually cheaper than paying the 10 dollars, but I've learned paying the tickets without late fees saves me alot of headaches and money. That being said by not paying them on time opens me up to fair criticism. I will continue to use the meters downtown, but if I do get tickets, which I invariably will because as you can see I receive no special treatment, I will pay them promptly and not let them build up. I am also bummed for my wife being mentioned as she is a great wife, and mother, and a much better parker.

Sincerely,

Rick Rushton"

It's interesting to note that Clive tosses in various random factlets in many of his columns. Today's treat is a very revealing bit of information: "...in the last fiscal year, the city had $4.7 million in unpaid parking fines on the book."

I have to wonder... what percentage of the overall parking fines is that $4.7 million? It's important information, and more to the point, it's an awful lot of parking fines for a city government that always claims parking is not a problem in this town.

Heh... well, no wonder they say that! Of course it's not a problem... it's a huge source of punitive revenue!

So here's a great big un-kiss to the city government for making parking in the city so bad that fining people for parking is now one of the city's most significant chunks of income every year!

Heavy and Wet, cont'd

The snow had already turned to rain when I started cleaning off the walks and the driveway.

I couldn't have ended up wetter if I stood in the shower.

And I really did think my snowblower-specific muscles were in shape, at this point in the season... But as I type this, the ones in my hands are still protesting.

I truly feel sorry for anyone who has to wait until this afternoon to even try to move any of this slush...

Big Brother is Watching You

George Orwell's dystopian fictional society, wherein personal privacy is nonexistant, hasn't quite fully arrived yet...

But it's getting closer all the time.

Here in Worcester, public housing has an ongoing program to fully equip all indoor common areas and outdoor public areas with video coverage. I really don't have a problem with that... as long as offcials in our government don't have a problem with pictures and video taken of them in public, too.

Which, of course, they certainly do have a problem with.

Heavy and Wet

We just got plowed.

The street was a slip'n'slide before.

Ugh...

I guess I better get out there with my snowblower, sooner or later, before this stuff gets any slushier.

DBTim3

Everybody has something to say about Kelley Square...

This is from username DBTim3, who set up his YouTube account last week. This is his third upload.

His first upload highlights a hardware store in Webster.

Yesterday, he showed us the inside of his apartment...

Grafton Will Get a New High School

The best coverage of yesterday's vote is, as usual, not printed on a dead tree.

Worcesteria's City Council Liveblog

This week, Jeremy tried a new online format for the City Council Liveblog. It turned the liveblog into a meeting without a moderator... way more fun to read this morning!

And it snagged a couple of quotes that a single liveblogger may not have otherwise:

"The most important project in the history of our city"

- (master of understatement) City Councilor Phil Palmieri [nicole@7:37 mark], discussing the CSX railyard expansion.

"anything less than extraordinary effort is not worth pursuing"

-City Councilor Barbara Haller [nicole@8:41 mark], discussing the prospect of the city requesting that Google do their high speed fiber demonstration here.

When I first started reading the liveblog this morning, I thought that it de-focused the activity going on in the actual Council meeting somewhat. But long before I had gotten through to the end, it had turned into its own online event.

This not only looks like a keeper, but it may end up being way more informative than any City Council meeting media coverage ever was!

Some Snow

There's around three inches of snow on the ground this morning, according to my storm door snow gauge.

But the amount of snow on the roof of the Jeep looks more like four or five inches.

When I got up, I was very surprised to look out and see a blanket of white. I really thought we'd just get rain, that the snowfall forecasts would be bogus, and that I'd be going to work today.

And who knows?... maybe this will suddenly turn to rain and melt all this snow in the next hour or so!

Well... I suppose I would be very surprised if that happened.

All day yesterday, I got passengers who asked me what the forecast was. I usually don't get that. Usually, if the topic is the weather, it's more along the lines of the usual New Englander's complaints, especially when snow is in the forecast.

But yesterday, one after another, I picked up people who asked if the snow was going to amount to anything. So I told them what I heard on the radio... that it wasn't going to amount to anything (yesterday), but Wednesday was looking like 4 to 8 inches...

This morning's radar makes it look like we'll be getting a lot of precipitation for a long time...

The temperature here right now is exactly on the freezing mark, so this will probably turn into a classic winter storm for Worcester...

Worcester is, after all, right in the middle of the slush belt.

More Orange Thiro Trucks

I spotted this orange Thiro truck on Plantation Street this morning.

The other truck is also a Thiro truck, but for whatever reason, it's white.

Maybe the different color motifs represent guys who drive and ride in them with different pay grades, or something...

They were working on a light pole, just north of Brown Square.

I saw a number of other orange trucks today, and I found that it was getting more difficult to sneak up on them to take a picture.

Heh...

This one must've seen me coming up Providence Street, because as I got closer to Marion Ave, the orange Thiro truck made a hasty escape up the hill...

The accompanying white truck, though, remained parked.

You can see the trailer behind it with at least four aluminum light poles on board.

One thing we know about the orange Thiro trucks is that National Grid is subcontracting them. They are obviously repairing, upgrading, and/or replacing light poles all over town. They've been doing this since late last year.

Thanks to Clive, we also know that the city's plan to buy all the street lights from National Grid hasn't gone as planned, and that now... the electric company is jacking up the rate for supplying electricity for the street lights in the city by $650,000 a year.

My guess is that $650,000 will probably be enough for National Grid to come out ahead on the cost of subcontracting Thiro for all this work.

So much for the city's plan to "save money" by buying all the street lights, eh?

Storm Comin'

Here's a shot of Madison Square, looking west, at quarter of one this afternoon.

The clouds are certainly in place.

The sky has been spritzing us with tiny bits of snow-like stuff all day.

I didn't see any rain, though.

The morning weather reports on the radio were saying we would be getting some more serious snow here between 4pm this afternoon and 4pm tomorrow afternoon, with a total accumulation between 4 and 8 inches.

Looking at the online clip of the NECN noon weather report, though, I see that the hour by hour forecast is showing Worcester getting mostly rain...

But then the snowfall forecast says we'll be getting around 5 inches.

Hard to figure whether I'll have to use a snowblower or a squeegee on the driveway tomorrow afternoon.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has a seven to ten inch forecast snowfall here through tomorrow afternoon.

Then, after that... we will apparently have unsettled weather right through the weekend.

Only The News They Choose

It's difficult to figure out what the definition of "newsworthy" is at 20 Franklin Street. For three days in a row, their highest paid writers dwelled on Tiger Woods... Sunday... Monday... and today...

But since Saturday, the only mention of this local news story in the T&G was the dismissive last sentence in Dan Sweeney's review.

I'm sure they all believe that they are martyrs for the cause of "fair and balanced journalism" down there at 20 Franklin Street, but all I've ever been doing here with my responses to their effluvium has been to say how it looks to me out here, outside that monopolistic box... and it ain't pretty.

Tiger's Wood, ad nauseum

Heh. This makes three days in a row for Worcester's highest paid writers.

BK Bailing Out of Grafton

The only fast food burger chain restaurant in Grafton is closing.

Fun Food Fact

General Tso never tasted (or even heard of) General Tso's Chicken.

Webster

...Where the golden arches are still livin' large.

CSX Expansion in Worcester - part 3

This is a three shot picture taken from the cab this morning on Barbara Lane.

If you look at the map I posted on Saturday, the upper half of the area enclosed by the red line is what's in the picture I took this morning. If you look closely at the satellite image on that map, you can make out the dozens and dozens of trailers that were already being parked there whenever that satellite image was made. (Those images can be a year old, or more.)

Note that they look just like the dozens and dozens of trailers on the other side of Franklin Street in the main yard.

There were also a bunch of M&M trucks parked behind where I was sitting (in the area of the map that says "Richard O'Brien Three Decker"). So, there's already another trucking business in there, but not within the area CSX will be taking over.

Basically, except for the abandoned Shaw's, this area is already filled with trucks... mostly truck trailers and CSX rail containers.

And it's been that way since not too long after the Shaw's market closed.

Taking the Shaw's market building and parking lot will effectively double their space on that side of Franklin Street.

But anyone who thinks this will be a huge change hasn't been around that area much lately. There's constant truck traffic back and forth across Franklin Street between the main yard and this newer area all day, every day. And it's been going on for quite a while, now.

This proposed change by CSX will, essentially, shift the truck traffic off of Franklin Street and onto Grafton Street, just a few hundred feet from the I-290 entrance. They're projecting a 20% increase in the overall daily truck traffic.

Holes in the Road

I spotted these guys on the 200 block of Lincoln Street this morning at nine o'clock.

There used to be a distinct season for digging up pieces of Worcester streets, but lately it's been sputtering along out of season, too.

Usually, at some arcane trigger point around the beginning of springtime, there will be an influx of uncountable hoardes of Bump Installation Crews who dig holes in the streets. They putter around down there for a while, doing who knows what, and then they fill in the holes and patch them over, creating new bumps.

I can't, in all good conscience, call them Bump Installation Crews during the off-season, though.

Paving isn't all that workable below a certain temperature. Winter road patching can't be expected to be much beyond a temporary thing...

Nonetheless, if you drive around the city and take notice, the overwhelming majority of bumps that you encounter will be shoddily made road patches over holes that had been dug in the street.

Here's another snapshot of them from the other direction...

In this case, the hole(s) being dug here (it looked like more than one) are alongside the curb. That will make any bumps they install less noteworthy, since regular traffic won't be driving that close to the curb.

For me, though, bumping around on the streets of Worcester every day leaves me a bit sensitive to the prospect of the coming season.

I did note that towards the end of last season, there were a large number of road patches that were re-done to absolute perfection. This is something that I've wanted to see for quite some time: road patches that actually restored the road surface.

Copper Chopper

It's hard to find a good news story like this, especially with a good link at the end. It's even rarer to have police involved in a T&G story ...when they aren't being vilified.

Update: Wow! Another positive news story with cops in it! Heh. Now that they've published two articles in one day with good press for all the local town cops surrounding Worcester, as well as the State Police... that leaves only one police department without some good press today... as well as the past week... and the past month... and the past couple of years.

Tiger's Wood, cont'd

Heh. Clive just couldn't resist.

Linky Magic

This doesn't look like a Hitch cartoon.

Now we have to wait and see how long the link remains good for the wrong cartoon...

Update(9:30am): Heh. It didn't take them long to make that link go dead...

Whiskerite

It's all about the beards.

Never Better Than Late

Tiger's Wood

I think a lot of people are still waiting for the secretly made sex videos...

Heh. Meanwhile, even though No Drumlins pointed out some of the irony in all of this yesterday, that didn't stop Dianne from milking the media hathos-fest today.

Nick Gives Kudos

Although it has always been a chuckle for me to read Dianne Williamson whenever she referred to Tim Murray as "The Boy Mayor" over the years, there's one thing about him that I can't deny: When you meet him in person, it's almost impossible to not like him.

Today, Nick Kotsopoulos has written a prose ode to Tim, crediting him as the key motivating force behind getting increased commuter rail service between Worcester and Boston, along with the decision by CSX to relocate their main freight yard activities here.

I have to agree that this has Tim Murray's name all over it.

It's been a long, arduous road to this point, and we've got another couple of years to go, as well. But nobody should steal Tim Murray's thunder on this one.

Thank you very much, Mr. Murray. It obviously takes more than a year for that hopey-changey thing to actually work, especially when half the populace has such a short attention span and always screams out their selfish demands for instant gratifcation.

Quote of the Day

“We cannot afford to undermine one of the most successful lotteries in the country."

- Mass State Rep (D) Jennifer M. Callahan

Yup... That's why I've always felt that any expanded gaming measures in Massachusetts should only be enacted under the Mass State Lottery Commission's control.

There's no excuse under the sun to not have slot machines in Massachusetts that printed out a winning ticket (instead of spewing out coins), which could then be cashed in by official Mass State Lottery agents, the way all the prizes are already awarded now for other games.

Even casinos could be under the aegis of the Lottery Commission, where all chips are sold and cashed in by official agents of the Lottery.

But the crooks on Bacon Hill have other ideas about this business. They want those big time gambling operations from out of state, dealing with cash business under their own big time operators, so that they can slice off the skim in ways that our own Lottery Commission can't, and give them much bigger porky pieces of the pie.

Do You Feel Stimulated?

The idea of all that stimulus money gushing forth out of Washington, DC, makes me dizzy... I can't comprehend numbers like a billion or a trillion.

Well, maybe I can. A billion seconds is nearly thirty-two years... which is about how long ago I was last stimulated.

That's right, I got stimulated with a federally funded job training program, back in the late 1970's. I got a C.E.T.A. job as assistant engineer at WCUW-FM, back then.

Because of that job, I was able to switch careers from accounting to electronics. And I ended up working as an electronics technician for a quarter of century, getting better and better jobs, making more and more money over those years. If it hadn't been for the stimulus funding for that first C.E.T.A. job, though, none of that would've happened.

These types of government programs take a very long time to bear fruit.

Credit Card Act of 2009

It goes into effect tomorrow. The provisions, called a Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights, probably should have been included in the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999.

Of course, back then they weren't all that worried about screwing the public. But let's face it, even with the Credit Card Act of 2009, they're still not too concerned.

CSX Expansion in Worcester, cont'd

The proposed CSX expansion is outlined in red.

I would suggest that the area I've outlined in green should be taken by eminent domain, as well.

This morning when I posted about this project, I had obviously not read the entire article... (Thanks and a hat tip to Jonnie Alco for calling my attention to it.)

There are two major things I missed. One is that an overpass is proposed for yard traffic going back and forth from one side of Franklin Street to the other. The other is that the entrance to the rail yard would be relocated from Franklin Street to Grafton Street.

Not knowing about the plan for an overpass, half my post this morning was taken up with musings about the impact on traffic if they were planning to close a piece of Franklin Street. Heh... now it looks like more and more rush hour traffic will end up wanting to bail out to Franklin Street, once this railyard project is complete.

I've gotten some bits and pieces of rumored information about this possible expansion over the past couple of weeks, and had hoped Worcester would be getting this. Back when the prospect of additional railyard space being set up west of Boston first came up (a few months ago), I probably wouldn't have bet that Worcester would be getting anything out of it. But more recent rumors I've heard from passengers in the cab put the prospect of the old Shaw's parcel into the picture... and I thought that would be great if it actually happened.

The Grafton Street entrance, according to the article, will have this... "A 120-foot acceleration lane will be constructed at the new terminal entrance on Grafton Street to facilitate the movement of exiting traffic into the westbound travel lanes on Grafton Street."

Personally, I really think they'll need the area I've circled in green on the map for that to be done without any unintended consequences. I mean, I tend to think that the retail spaces on Grafton Street inside that area will end up being orphaned by the railyard expansion and the heavy truck traffic (which is expected to be up to 500 trucks entering and exiting there every day).

Even now, the businesses there are difficult for people to get in and out of when arriving and leaving by car. And delivery trucks end up blocking that right lane all the time. I just can't picture delivery trucks for those businesses parked and blocking the lane after the railyard entrance opens.

With a September 2012 target date for completion, this looks like it'll be a pretty busy place from the time they start building.

5000 Posts

Here's my 5000th post on this blog.

I had a chance to chat with Kevin Ksen for a while last Saturday after we finished the 100th episode of the 508 Podcast with Mike Benedetti, and one of the things that came up was how my attention has extroverted since starting this thing...

I've been writing continuously since I was a kid. I don't know why. I just write a lot. But mostly, until I got into this blog, my writing was very inwardly focused. Despite the topics that I'd find myself writing about over the years, addressing all sorts of political stuff, religious stuff, technical stuff, and other things (such as difficult people and the ever-increasing un-coolness of growing older), it was still a matter of never really caring whether anybody ever read any of it or not. It was just for me. It always gave me a sense of having sorted things out, somehow, even if only temporarily... but it was always inwardly focused.

Blogging is different. This is outwardly focused. I'm not trying to sort anything out, and I'm just looking outward, pointing to things and, basically, just saying, "...here's something to look at. And how about this? Huh? And this? And this?..."

It just goes on and on, and never has to conclude anywhere. Very outwardly focused...

This particular post, of course, is more inwardly focused. Hitting some milestone like this will do that. I look back instead of forward. I look inward instead of outward... it's like diving into my belly-button...

Ommmmmmmm...

Yeah. Well. Alright. So there it is. Five thousand.

Tea Party Stories

Every once in a while, you get to see how inaccurate or phony information slips into national print media propaganda, counter-propaganda, or whatever else you might want to call it. It's the small details that bother me, like the first person mentioned and quoted in this article today in the Wall Street Journal, saying he was "...working at his family's Purchase Street Market in Worcester, Mass., in 2008..."

There are no markets on Purchase Street in Worcester.

Purchase Street in Worcester runs between Clark Street and Quinapoxet Lane, and is zoned along its entire length for residential only.

There is, however, a "purchase street market" in Milford. A comment posted to that Facebook page on November 3rd says that the business has opened up a second location in Milford... so they must be doing really well to have the scratch to make that happen. It certainly belies the tone of anything and everything quoted in the Wall Street Journal article from that 20 year old, claiming that business is so "down" that he was moved to join the Tea Party...

If even the once venerable Wall Street Journal can't get simple facts correct, like the town their lead quotable comes from, it leaves the accuracy and veracity of the entire publication in question.

Of course, when they have such a blatant agenda to mold public opinion, no-one should ever expect them to let the facts get in their way.

Grafton's Most Expensive Infrastructure

The light at the top of Worcester Street in Grafton Center wasn't there last week.

It has been replaced, yet again.

The light blinks yellow for traffic on route 140 in either direction, and blinks red for traffic crossing at that intersection in front of the old town hall building.

It's been there forever.

It was there when I was a kid.

We always referred to it as "the dummy cop".

Back then, the era of police officers directing traffic inside of special podium type enclosures, permanently placed in the middle of intersections, was long over. They had been replaced by automated lights, which people from my grandfather's generation likened to railroad controls... a development on our roads that many of them considered utterly absurd.

There are two of these "dummy cops" in Grafton Center.

This one's just a few yards away, in front of the Grafton Inn.

This one doesn't get wiped out as often, if ever.

It may well be that this one in front of the Grafton Inn is the original installation for this particular model...

You can see that the actual light fixture on top is of a much older vintage than the one that was just replaced. And although it does appear to be a bit scarred, and slightly out of plumb, I can't remember ever seeing it missing or wiped out.

The first one, though... that baby's been replaced enough times to make it one of New England's all time most-replaced pieces of highway infrastructure.

More Dirty Snow

I got this shot today at South Plaza, in front of Stop & Shop.

There's some slight evidence of glacial melt, here.

The mini-glaciers all over town are looking pretty consistently dirty, though, so when they do finally melt away, they'll leave behind some fairly significant mini-moraines...

Trumble Square Traffic Lights - finis

I snapped a picture of the now working traffic lights this morning.

They apparently got them up and running sometime in the last day or two.

I first noticed them yesterday afternoon, but couldn't get a decent picture on my way home (it ended up blurry).

Now that the lights are up and running, all they need to do now is finish the sidewalks, tear down the mall, plant Unum in its place, extend Front Street to Union Station... and then... and then everything will be okay?

CSX Expansion in Worcester

If this works out, the abandoned Shaw's supermarket building at the bottom of Grafton Street will no longer be available.

This detail from the article is what caught my eye: "To accomplish the expansion, Mr. O'Connell said, CSX is looking to assemble 11 parcels of privately owned commercial properties near the existing freight yard, as well as acquire portions of public streets."

But it also says that "...no land will be taken through eminent domain..."

Here's a photo of the map.

And here's another photo listing details, the very last detail of which, under "benefits" says, "...reduces traffic congestion."

This will, most assuredly, not reduce any traffic congestion for the public. So, they must be talking about their own "traffic" inside the rail yard, and the truck "traffic" in and out of the rail yard.

I would at first assume that the only public street that they'd definitely want to acquire would be Barbara Ave. But since the article says "portions of public streets" in the plural, I'm wondering if they also want to take out that chunk of Franklin Street between the current land and the proposed land.

Because, if that's what they want to do, I would suggest that the location of the new fire station would bring public safety concerns to the fore. In addition, the closing of that section of Franklin would re-distribute a significant volume of traffic to both Grafton Street and Shrewsbury Street during the morning and afternoon rush hours. Grafton Street traffic, in particular, is already up to a volume level that creates gridlock at Billings Square and Posner Square nearly every day, especially in the morning.

Traffic patterns always adjust over time, whenever a commonly used route is eliminated the way this one would if they take that section of Franklin Street. And the habits of commuters eventually change to put the load onto other streets, as they figure out other ways to make the same commute every day.

I'm certainly not opposed to that change.

But it does look to me like the prospect of closing off Franklin at that spot might produce some very problematic, unintended consequences.

Toxic Players in Worcester - episode 7

The lawsuit filed by Donna C. Byrnes against the city, et al, for singling her out as the only person in the entire Worcester Public School system to have supposedly done anything wrong... has been amended.

The story began here and continued here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

CitySquare

I wonder if this has any connection to the as yet unannounced new developer for CitySquare?

More Orange Trucks

I spotted these guys on Moreland Street this morning, just after eight o'clock.

These are not orange Thiro trucks, though.

These are orange Asplundh trucks.

The Asplundh Tree Experts about page leads me to believe that they do a lot of work for electric companies, clearing tree branches from interfering with overhead wires.

Is it possible that National Grid will only hire subcontractors with orange trucks?

Dirty Snow

I wanted to get a picture of dirty snow today, so here it is...

Yesterday, I picked up an elderly lady who said she hadn't been out of the house sinced it had last snowed.

"Oh, just look at that!" she said. "The snow is dirty already!"

Pre-dawn on Pilgrim Ave

I took this picture at 6:30 this morning.

Dawn is coming earlier and earlier, bit by bit, but the sun still isn't up yet when I leave the house.

In three short weeks, however, we'll be turning the clocks ahead one hour.

Daylight Savings Time... meh... thanks to our pecker-headed congress, we now "spring ahead" before Spring even begins.

The Pirated Version

Heh.

Tea Party Hijackers

The Republican hijackers keep coming out of their closets. Count Karl Rove in, now, since he's obviously got it all figured out as to where the Tea Party should go from here...

Heh. If anyone suckered into the Tea Party movement thinks that it won't ultimately be nothing more than a usurped tool of the neocons, then they've got another think coming.

The Police State

If anybody thinks we're now living in some kind of police state, where law enforcement can run roughshod over the rights of citizens, then read this article today in the T&G.

What it says to me is that, even in the face of having discovered overwhelming evidence that the accused is one extremely dangerous muthafukka, since the police didn't achieve absolute perfection for due process requirements in obtaining that evidence... then it doesn't stick in court.

It's kinda scary to think that the local police didn't have the drill down pat in this particular case, that they messed up to such an extent that the court threw all that evidence out. It can even lend credence to the T&G's never ending series of articles and columns and op-eds that slant towards making the whole police department look bad in this town.

But no matter how human and fallible the police can be made to look over the long term, it's the quality of the relationship between the community and the police that determines how well or how badly any local police department fulfills its purpose.

Other Taxis

Y'never know when you'll see a taxi sitting somewhere...

We're all out there competing against each other.

And there's pretty slim pickins these days.

The T&G's Anti-Cop Agenda

Here are the simple facts: Someone made a complaint to the WPD about a school bus cutting them off. The WPD responded by sending a squad car out, and they pulled the bus over. The officer, while questioning the driver, was told by the driver that he had a prescription for oxycontin. The officer made a judgment call, had the driver relieved, and filed a report to the Registry of Motor Vehicles to have the driver's license taken away.

Personally, I would not want to have my kids being driven to and from school by a driver who's been taking a prescription for oxycontin for the past ten years. How about you?...

Oxycontin is a time-release formula for oxycodone. It's high on the list of prescription drugs that find their way into illegal drug activity. One street name for oxycontin is "Hillbilly Heroin"...

Did the Worcester police officer do the right thing? You betcha!

But Dianne Williamson doesn't think so. Her Valentine to the WPD spun the whole thing around to describe what it's like for the poor bus driver. And today, she's decided that being "fair and balanced" about this story requires yet another shot to the groin.

I'll be the last one to deny a sympathetic shoulder for the bus driver who, apparently, has chronic pain and to all appearances has a legal prescription for the pain killer. Lots of people do. They can lead normal lives as a result.

But driving a school bus? Let's not mince words here... Ten years of taking oxycontin does not a safe school bus driver make.

But this isn't really about the bus driver at all. It's about the T&G's longstanding agenda to make the Worcester Police Department look as bad as possible, every chance they get.

And to Worcester Police Officer Russ Veroneau: Thank you for doing your job.

Woo Tube 101

As I said on Tuesday, the rule change may be a starting point for another story.

Post Office Time

I forgot to stop off at the Post Office earlier today.

There are certain times of day when I can be in and out without any waiting, but right around the time I get out of work isn't one of them.

Nonetheless, I really wanted to get a DVD into the mail today for Mike Benedetti.

When I came around the corner (inside the main PO on East Central), my shoulders slumped at the sight of that line...

[Immediate digression: Does East Central Street begin at Summer Street? Or is it still Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard?... (otherwise known as "MLK Blvd") Really, this is the kind of sequence I often go through when I type in some minor detail like a street name. Especially a street name... Honestly, being a cab driver doesn't mean I can always remember these things. Okay. I just checked Google maps, it shows East Central beginning at Summer Street. My Arrow Street Guide says it starts there, too.]

I was so slump shouldered that it took almost a minute for it to occur to me that I might take out my cellphone camera and snap a picture of that line. I'm not surprised that it came out blurry...

I felt blurry at the time. I mean, the beginning of a wait in line is the worst part of it, since I have no slightest indication of how fast anything might be progressing in front of me.

Before I put the cellphone back in my pocket, I checked to see what time it was.

The line didn't seem to be moving very fast at all. With a dozen people in front of me, though, it turned out that they averaged less than a minute each before I had my turn and was walking back out, ten minutes later.

If I do this exercise, checking exactly how long it takes for me to get through a line, it usually surprises me that it didn't take longer. There's just something about waiting in line, whether it's on foot or in traffic... it always seems to take so much longer while I'm right there in the middle of that wait...

But then, when it's over, it's hard to remember just how impatient I felt while I was waiting.

I really think there are at least two different planes of existence with respect to time. There's "wait time" and then there's all other time.

Actually, there may be a separate category for Post Office time, too.

Bad Right Turn, cont'd

On my way home this afternoon, I took a picture of the spot where the trailer truck took a bad right turn yesterday.

The pedestrian light has been replaced. (It's right next to the barrel.)

Although the cellphone picture doesn't really show it, the pedestrian light pole looks brand new.

That was pretty fast work on the part of the DPW, I have to say... especially, considering that most of the pedestrians I see crossing at this spot never wait for that light.

When I took that picture, I also noticed that there was chunk taken out of the arch.

Will the insurance money be used to restore it to its previous luster?

18 Plus

I spotted this sign on the fence at the corner of Hermon and Southbridge Streets this afternoon.

The strip club there has "18 plus" every night?

Is that what that Miller Lite sign means?

Or does it mean that the strippers are all "18 plus"?

Are they talking about dress size?

Heh... I got nearly a half a million hits on a Google search for "18 plus" just now.

Fenderbergs and Car Turds

This is a picture of a fenderberg.

When it falls off, though, it becomes a car turd.

The snowy and slushy road conditions that we had yesterday and today produced a very noticable amount of droppage around the city.