Oct 15

Sub-$3 gas back in Iowa

Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at 3:09 PM by Jeff

Wooo. (WQAD) Even if my road tripping is limited right now, gas below $3 is a good thing.

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Oct 15

US 20 figures into governor debate

Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at 10:06 AM by Jeff

Story from Sioux City Journal. This version online puts the four-laning of US 20, and the closely related gas tax issue, as the centerpiece of the debate.

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Oct 14

US 63 closed in Waterloo for construction

Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2014, at 10:11 AM by Jeff

This month’s closure of US 63 north of downtown Waterloo involves new pavement around the railroad crossing. News release from the DOT’s website. It is supposed to be closed for the next three weeks or so.

This is a timed post.
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Oct 13

License Plate Letters — CPT, CSM, CXB

Posted on Monday, October 13, 2014, at 11:13 AM by Jeff

We’re jumping through the C’s rather quickly now, so the question of “Will Iowa’s cycle include D as a first letter this time?” will likely be answered sometime early next year if not sooner. The 1997 issuing cycle jumped from CZ to EA very late in alphabetical order in the counties (which didn’t get enough to begin with), and once supplies were exhausted the late E’s came into play.

The 1997 series used CQ’s, CU’s, and CV’s, but I have yet to see the latter in the wild.

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Oct 10

Lincoln Highway meeting in Tama

Posted on Friday, October 10, 2014, at 3:17 PM by Jeff

Maybe I missed a memo on this. (The website itself still says TBA, and the information is only on Facebook. This does not change my anti-Facebook stance.) Copied from that link:

Iowa Lincoln Highway Association
September 26
The next meeting of the Iowa Lincoln Highway Association will be held in Tama, Iowa:

October 11, 2014
at the Tama Civic Center (203 Seigel St.)
9am Refreshments
9:30am Meeting Starts
12pm Lincoln Hot Dogs with all the fixings, salad, drinks and dessert.

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Oct 10

Unique Homecoming at ISU

Posted on Friday, October 10, 2014, at 10:05 AM by Jeff

Because of some creative scheduling for TV contracts, Iowa State will be playing a non-conference game for Homecoming this year. According to the ISU media guide, Toledo is only the second non-conference Homecoming opponent in nearly a century and sixth since the first Homecoming in 1912.

In 1986, Wyoming was the opponent, but it was the fourth game of the year and third home game in an 11-game schedule. Otherwise, the last non-conference Homecoming opponent was Iowa in 1920, and that was the last game of the season, possibly due to Nebraska technically being an independent that year. Iowa was also a non-conference Homecoming game in 1912 (the first), ’14, and ’16, all three times the second-to-last game of the year in November.

UPDATE: They’re wearing what?!?

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Oct 09

Remsen won’t give up high school easily

Posted on Thursday, October 9, 2014, at 10:30 AM by Jeff

Remsen, population 1663, is at risk of becoming one of the largest towns in Iowa to lose its (public) high school in recent decades. A proposal has been made for whole-grade sharing with Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn with the high school in Marcus.

Remsen residents are now circulating a petition to keep the high school, arguing (in the petition) that whole-grade sharing isn’t needed or (in the article) Remsen would be the better town for the high school. Aerial photos show the school had major additions in 2002-04.

It is clearly understandable why the fight must be fought. It is much less clear how successful it will be in either the short or long term.

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Oct 08

New I-29 bridge ramp opening in Council Bluffs

Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2014, at 10:54 AM by Jeff

There’s a major advancement in the Council Bluffs Interstate Project happening this weekend. The flyover ramp for southbound I-29 to eastbound I-80 will open on Friday. This is a big move away from the directional-T-like interchange original to the 1960s. Now I-29 traffic will merge with I-80 on the right side.

In addition, the eastbound 24th Street exit will temporarily become the first exit on I-80 in Iowa, as it will go from a diamond to a really long almost-frontage road that will also have an exit from I-29 merge into it. That is to say, traffic from southbound I-29 going to 24th Street will leave I-29 before I-29 joins I-80.

Here’s a map of the changes.

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Oct 07

‘College GameDay’ in Mississippi

Posted on Tuesday, October 7, 2014, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Last week, ESPN’s “College GameDay” went to the Grove in Oxford, Miss., for the first time ever — and was there for Ole Miss to beat Alabama. This week, GameDay is staying in-state and going to Starkville for Mississippi State vs. Auburn. This will complete the cycle for GameDay visits to SEC campuses, although the visit to Missouri was during the Big 12 era.

These visits remove two names from a sad list: Power-conference teams that have neither hosted GameDay nor been an opponent at one of those games. Who’s on this list? Iowa State, of course. Also Baylor, Duke, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Rutgers, and Wake Forest. (While Baylor is good right now, the Big 12’s Fox contract works against it.)

Of those, Baylor, Duke, Indiana, and Maryland have hosted a basketball GameDay. With ISU-Kansas stuck dead in the middle of January this year, the outlook is cloudy for that. (And make no mistake — that game would be the only time GameDay would think about coming to Hilton.)

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Oct 06

NYT college football map

Posted on Monday, October 6, 2014, at 10:51 AM by Jeff

Western Iowa and Lansing, we need to have a talk about state loyalties…

I continue to have concerns about treating Facebook like it’s a statistically valid population sample, but the New York Times is doing it anyway again. After mapping out pro baseball loyalties by ZIP Code, it’s done the same for Division I-A college football.

The surprise here is that despite all that talk about Iowa State being more visible in the past decade, the Cyclones get absolutely crushed in the state of Iowa. The only place in Iowa that the Hawkeyes fail to get at least 40% of “the vote” is in southwest Iowa, where the pull of Nebraska is too great.

It’s especially bad for Iowa State in the eastern third, delineated by about US 63/218, as shown in this composite for Traer and Clutier:

ISUZIP_50675
Tama County overall: 57-21-2. HUSKER FANS WALK AMONG US.

The sea of Hawkeye gold is broken up only by a rising island centered around Story City, where the split starts around 40-40. That roughly consists of eastern Greene, Boone, Story, western Marshall, southwest Hardin, Hamilton, and southeast Webster counties.

Iowa seals off the southern and northwestern state lines, and even makes inroads into Illinois and Minnesota, but for Lansing in the far northeast, Wisconsin edges out Iowa and ISU by a score of 37-32-6.

It’s maps like these that show the utter futility of thinking the Big Ten would have any interest in Iowa State whatsoever. Second fiddle in your own media market, and occasionally third fiddle in your own state, is not the stuff conference realignment dreams are made of.

Here’s the Times article itself, which helpfully and not-incorrectly labels South Dakota as Also Nebraska.

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