The Red Brick Times

Peeper patrol! The spring peepers are roaring their libidinous lures in the low, wet areas. Reminds me of earlier springs, when this young man's fancy turned to mush. I still get urges to garden, but resist them by thinking of weeding. Hosta and evergreens seem to fill the need while they take care of themselves.
Posted 7:25 AM by Andy (0) comments

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I took a quick peek at our photo gallery this morning (it's been awhile) to see if there were any new pics (nope) and discovered that a spammer had added hundreds of spam comments. It was probably done through use of a bot. I figured out a way to get rid of them in mass but the few legitimate comments were deleted too. It was unavoidable. I'm pretty sure I plugged the hole that allowed them to do this but we'll have to wait and see to be sure.

I don't keep track of how often the gallery feature is used but my suspicion is that except for when it was new not much (if at all). I don't want to spend time supporting it if it's not something RBT'ers want to have so please let me know your thoughts on keeping it.
Posted 7:15 AM by whatley (1) comments

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Maybe not individual account albums, but a group space to post the occasional graphic. Would that be less overhead?

# posted by  Andy : March 26, 2007 6:41 AM
 
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We heard a speaker from the Lorain County Joint Vocational School (JVS) yesterday evening. Jill Pettiti has been there for 20 years, and is head of the Special Needs team at the JVS. The school currently serves 1700 students, 1100 of them under the 10-acre roof of the facility at Routes 20 and 58 South of Oberlin. The remaining 600 are taught at their "home schools" (in their home districts, like Amherst, Lorain, Elyria) by teachers from the JVS. In addition to the traditional "hands on" trades, they have programs in IT, Electronics, Business, and Culinary education. Their culinary program is nationally known. One of their graduates recently became the head Chef for all of the top-echelon brass at the Pentagon. They have achieved a placement rate of 94% percent within seven months of graduation. They have a student-staffed venue, The Buckeye Room Restaurant that serves lunch Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Reservations are not just suggested, they are required if you hope to get a seat.

The JVS has a renewal levy on the upcoming ballot. Now the astounding thing about this levy is that, since the school was first built in 1970, they have been able to operate on exactly the same levy amount that was originally passed thirty-seven years ago! The JVS has been existing, and thriving, on the same 3/4 of one mil ($1.89 per month for a $100K home) for thirty seven years!

With my recent experience touring the Elyria High School structures, I asked Jill about building condtion and maintenance of the JVS over 35 years. I was amazed to learn that they practice what they teach. Preventative maintenance (PM is the industry buzz-phrase) is a way of life. They replace carpeting before it becomes a ragged safety and trip hazard by scheduling a section each year, in order of oldest first. Likewise with the 10-acres of roof - a section to resurface at a time on a rotating basis. Likewise the parking lot - Jill said they paved the back lot area over last summer when fewer cars were around. Same for painting, electrical, computer upgrades, HVAC (they did rooftop units last year) and industrial equipment.

All in all, this is the secret to how they have been able to maintain currency and good repair on an unchanging 3/4 of one mil levy over the past 35 years. That plus the increase in residences built over that time (as Cuyahoga County residents "discover" Lorain County) have kept the JVS afloat, solvent and in good repair.

How can one argue with success? I feel that they have been good stewards of their resources, and have followed their own teachings about the best ways to run a business. Good work, and rare to find.
Posted 2:36 PM by Andy (2) comments

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This would make a great "letter to the editor", especially timely considering the Elyria School Board's incredible fiscal malfeasance over the years and their new demands for yet more money.

You should send it to the CT!

# posted by  whatley : March 17, 2007 6:30 AM
 
Good idea. I think I will.

# posted by  Andy : March 17, 2007 7:06 AM
 
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Back home at last. I was released from EMH last night after an eight day stay. To make a long story short I waited too long (over a week) before seeking treatment for what I thought was just a horrible flu. Nope. Acute Atypical Pneumonia, and by then I was a very very sick puppy. My lungs are still trying to recover and I have to be on oxygen pretty much 24/7 for awhile.

I don't know how to properly thank those who went so far out of their way for me through this. Ralph and Andy especially have been unbelievably generous with their time. Vera, the head of Oasis Animal Shelter, took Niki into her own home for the duration. Without them and a few others....
Posted 10:07 AM by whatley (4) comments

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Glad to hear you are home. Pneumonia is an insidous thing. Bad news is you will never forget the feeling. Good news is you will never forget the feeling. Don't do that again!
Take your meds, stay hydrated. I hope you have a humidifier on your O2. If not ask for one. Also, ask for a tiny Asian woman to do chest percussion for you, twice a day.
Oh, and Murphy says hello to Niki

# posted by  Terri S : March 13, 2007 9:51 PM
 
Aw shucks, m'aam. T'wernt nothin'.

# posted by  Andy : March 14, 2007 5:58 AM
 
Glad your Back. Be well. Maybe you need some hyper-oxygenated ocean air. The room's always available.

# posted by  A. O. : March 14, 2007 2:42 PM
 
Nice to know. When the bills start coming in fleeing the state might start looking pretty good.

# posted by  whatley : March 15, 2007 10:15 AM
 
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Russ W. hasn't been feeling too well of late, trouble breathing, easily winded, and such. After consulting with a doctor he decided it was time to try the hospital and there I took him Monday morning. They admitted him and he now can be found in Room 1009 Bed 1 of Elyria Memorial Hospital (EMH Regional Medical Center). Atypical Pneumonia. He's breathing much better and feeling a bit better. The hospital's phone number is 440-329-7500 (main switchboard, from there ask for the room and bed number). He'll be there for at least a few more days and he does not have internet access.
Posted 6:19 PM by ralph (4) comments

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Who's watching Niki?

# posted by  A. O. : March 08, 2007 4:11 PM
 
A woman named Vera has her. I guess she helped care for her before Russ.

# posted by  ralph : March 08, 2007 4:53 PM
 
We tried the hospital WiFi on Tuesday morning. There were four hot-spots, but none returned an internet connection. I went to the basement and worked my way up to the head IT guy, and hit the policy stone wall "No connections unless you are an employee." Period. Russ called around and got the same wall. So not only do they hold you prisoner with a dripping needle in your arm, they hold you incommunicado as well. I am taking him reams of paper so he can fold a ladder and make his escape. Just need a long oxygen hose...

# posted by  Andy : March 08, 2007 9:50 PM
 
The obvious solution might serve several needs. Russ should apply for a job with EMH. Might even get an employee discount for room fees.
EMH does have an e-card service, though. I sent one to Russ wondering about the contradiction in that offering. I suppose the card is printed and delivered with morning meds.

# posted by  Terri S : March 11, 2007 11:06 AM
 
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We threw a pancake breakfast this morning to raise funds for our Kiwanis club. Funds will go to Elyria Health Department programs for infants and babies and to the local 4-H kids (who helped us serve and clean up).

Tried something new this time - chocolate chip pancakes. One of the members loves them. Put the blob of batter on the grill, and sprinkle a few choc chips atop the batter. They were popular with the customers.

Well, the people who have been flipping the pancakes for years complained about them. They left melted chocolate on the grill. They left melted chocolate on the spatulas. They were messy. They were not "normal". Who ever heard of choclolate for breakfast? I heard about this after the fact, and observed that they could have used a side of the grill just for the choc-chip cakes, and used a separate spatula. Betsy said that they tried to do that, but that they kept changing the implementation constantly, making no decisions that stuck. I guess when you have a volunteer team of retired insurance sales people, and real-estate people, and accountants trying to implement a production scheme, things go their own way.
The customers were happy anyway.

We had the event in the Elyria High School cafeteria. The high school custodial staff was giving guided tours of the entire school campus, including boiler house and steam tunnels. There were many areas throughout the several buildings where the outside brick fascias were pulling free of the structure. Anchor plates held by bolts drilled through the walls have had to be installed to keep the walls from falling down.
The walls of the auditorium, on the stage, have big cracks from top to bottom right through the structural concrete block and visible inside. Big multi-story I-beams have been required outside the stage walls to keep them standing.
There was a new series of cracks in one of the walls of the choir room that they just discovered last Thursday.
The brick facing on the outside of the building in the hallway past the chemistry labs (outside the old elevator near the back stairs) actually fell away onto the roof over the athletic department hallway below.

Water leaking past the central stairwell skylight in the oldest Washington Building (on the Register of Historic Places) forced them to build a big "dog-house" cap on the roof to shed weather. Other places have needed sheltering structures on the roof to keep water out of ventilating shafts, roof access hatches and walls. Water from the third floor roof has found its way all the way down to the girls locker room off of the old gym (formerly the "girls' gym) and has destroyed walls and fittings there.

In the tunnels, there is one area, where the floor is awash in water, where the solid concrete wall is bowed like a rubber sheet from the pressure of the water behind it that is leaking in. A now fenced-off section of the parking area adjacent to the boiler house has been reinforced from below with steel jack posts to keep the concrete beams from falling in, and the entire ceiling area there has mesh screening installed to keep chunks from falling on the custodians' heads.

The boiler house, built in 1921, has had to have the entire roof area on the East end covered with welded steel plate to keep the many cracks in the ceiling concrete from separating and allowing the whole East end of the building to fall away. There are three old gas-fired steam boilers in the boiler house. They try to rotate them to keep one off-line as backup, or for repairs.

I give the maintenance staff credit. All operating equipment is in the absolute best condition that age and hard use will allow. The boiler house is cleaner and better organized than any of the industrial equivalents I ever saw in the automotive industry. It is just that everything is so blamed OLD and WEARING OUT.

All of you would recognize the cafeteria kitchen. The huge industrial steam kettles and ovens are still there, still in place and operational. Everything was built like you would build a steamship, strong and indominable. But I do not know of many steamships from 1894 (Washington Building) or 1905 (the Lincoln Building) or 1913 (The Vocational Building ) or even 1956 (the Gym/Auditorium Building) that are still plying the seas providing a supposedly up-to-date service. Think of the plumbing. Think of the wiring.

Actually, while in the tunnels, I stuck my nose into a few corners where old, unused stairwells are filled with crumbled plaster, peeling and cracked walls, and rotting floors. I don't think that these areas have seen the light of day or human use for at least half a century. As a construction-savvy person, my opinion is that the best thing to be done to rehab these structures is to erase them and begin again with better planning and a cogent long-term use plan. They never suspected the changes that technology and society would bring when these buildings were first constructed. At least today, we suspect that the future will bring stuff that we can't even dream about, and can use some forethought and flexibility.

And for the sake of all that's sensible, DO NOT use flat roofs in this climate. What is saved at the time of construction will be paid out several thousandfold in maintenance and leak damage costs over the long run.
Posted 4:54 PM by Andy (1) comments

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My dad tells me that there was an old grade school building at the West Avenue end of the block between 5th and 6th Streets that was torn down to make room for the Gym/Auditorium building in 1956. He speculates that over the past half century, the fill has compacted enough to contribute to the problem. I also found out from one of the custodians that when the sandstone Washington Building was constructed in 1894, it had no basement. It was built above ground on foundation piers or posts. It wasn't until around 1926 that they dug and installed the current basement level under the building. How does one hold up a three-story sandstone building while inserting a foundation? Whew!

# posted by  Andy : March 08, 2007 10:00 PM
 
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