Mar 09

US 151 Fairfax construction starts today

Posted on Monday, March 9, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Construction season is getting an early start this year, as US 151 is closed through Fairfax starting today.

An article from KHAK radio says the closure is related to the railroad bridge. This is, in turn, related to a planned rebuild of 151 through Fairfax. At the end of it, there will be a major change. The city of Cedar Rapids is the lead agency on a roundabout at 151 (Williams Boulevard) and Dean Avenue, even though, strictly speaking, this puts a city in charge of a project on a state-maintained road on county land. It will be the first roundabout on 151.


Detail from Linn County GIS site. It’s worth noting that the development between Williams Boulevard and Beverly Road to the south is part of neither Fairfax nor Cedar Rapids.

The US 151 detour will be on US 30, I-380, and E70 (PDF map).

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Mar 06

Historic downtown Hamburg buildings to be demolished

Posted on Friday, March 6, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

🙁

WOWT: Hamburg’s Main Street set for major demolition

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Mar 05

Iowa Trivia Challenge, you say?

Posted on Thursday, March 5, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Challenge accepted.

“Learning these facts has been my job for over half my life. Much to my family’s dismay, I never missed a historic marker,” said Rundlett.

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Mar 04

Southwest Arterial’s new goal: Labor Day

Posted on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Heavy rain last year prevented Dubuque’s Southwest Arterial from being completed. A story last week from KWWL (which I can’t embed) gives an update on the plans for this spring and summer. The concrete got laid, but completion will be ongoing until around Labor Day, the story says.

The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald had a story on the arterial last month, but I saw the hard copy and the online version is unavailable.

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Mar 03

Black Hawk County joins Historic 20 project

Posted on Tuesday, March 3, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 3, 2014: First Street in Cedar Falls, presently IA 57, is the original route of US 20 through that city. This is at the intersection with Franklin/Center streets, old US 218.

I have plugged Bryan Farr’s work to promote the original route of US 20 occasionally for the last few years (wait, is five and a half still “a few”?). He has had great success in getting city and county governments to sign on with his vision, occasional state-level kiboshes notwithstanding.

Last week, the Black Hawk County supervisors unanimously voted to support Farr’s efforts and mark the original route of 20 through the county. That route is the one shown on my Waterloo-Cedar Falls Highway Chronology page, although there will be at least one minor deviance to account for the present day.

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Mar 02

Movie highlights six-on-six basketball

Posted on Monday, March 2, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

IF
July 7, 2015: The New Providence “Roundhouse” gym.

A fictionalized take of a six-on-six girls’ basketball team in the final year of that sport’s existence in Iowa has been turned into a film.

The Des Moines Register says the film is called “New Providence” and the filmmaker was involved in using the school when it was closed.

Notice the word “fictionalized” up there, because there’s a significant change for the film: New Providence hasn’t existed as its own school district since 1980, when it merged with Eldora. In 1993, the school was being used as Eldora-New Providence Middle School. The gym is authentically 1930s, but the school building in front of it was torn down in 2012.

The actual Eldora-New Providence girls’ basketball team lost in the postseason to eventual state champion Hubbard-Radcliffe. The Register says Lisa Brinkmeyer, who played on that Hubbard-Radcliffe team, then at Drake, and later worked for the IGHSAU will be in this movie as a coach.

That said, and this being girls’ state basketball week, this is still a cool concept for a movie. (It’s not Robert John Ford’s musical take, which is fun in its own way.)

Posted in Sports | Comments Off on Movie highlights six-on-six basketball
Feb 28

You say you want a revolution

Posted on Friday, February 28, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

On my Mediacom bill:

Programming expenses, including sports and local broadcast stations like ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC are our fastest growing wholesale cost and have increased again for 2020. Because of this, the following monthly rates have been adjusted on your bill. The Local Broadcast Station Surcharge increased $1.72 and the Regional Sports Surcharge increased $0.07 per month. Digital Adaptors increased by $2.01. Family TV and Prime TV each increased by $4.50.

Beginning March 1, 2020 the Marquee Sports network featuring Chicago Cubs baseball will be added to our line-up. At this time the Regional Sports Surcharge will increase $2.05.

The “Local Broadcast Station Surcharge” added eight cents to the franchise fee, two cents to the local sales tax, a penny to the sales tax on the franchise fee, and 11 cents to the state sales tax, for a separate addition of 21 cents. Then expanded basic gets a bigger bill for ONE team of ONE sport.

It’s funny how the presidential candidates never talk about how Americans are being surcharged, service charged, fee’d, baggage fee’d, and convenience fee’d to no end.

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Feb 27

Boxed Out (or, Going Topless)

Posted on Thursday, February 27, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

IF

Reminder: Dig up all those Casey’s pizza box tops you can find, because this weekend they’re going away forever. (Story: KCCI.) Here’s my collection, which also shows a clip of the multiple changes in boxes over the past five years or so. Notice the stamps on the back, a security device to stop you from just slapping a copy of the front on a piece of cardboard.

We all know that giving our information to Casey’s (and Kum & Go, and Kwik Star/Kwik Trip) is just a scheme to harvest our data and garner customer loyalty through targeted advertising, right?

[/enters phone number at checkout anyway]

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register says Casey’s has extended its box-top cash-in program until the end of June.

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Feb 26

Wall Lake losing its school

Posted on Wednesday, February 26, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


June 24, 2017: The Wall Lake school complex embodies the structure repeated in so many towns in Iowa in the 20th century: A pre-Depression symmetrical brick structure (seen above), a gymnasium (1952), and an addition built in the 1960s.

This is, perhaps, the first time I’ve found out about a school closure via tweet.

After some pondering, I figured out the location in question: Wall Lake in western Iowa. This story from KCIM-AM confirms it.

The East Sac school district will be closing two buildings in the next two years. The K-4 building in Wall Lake is one. The middle school in Sac City, the original Sac City High School, is the other. From the Feb. 10 school board minutes:

Supt. Kruse recommended that in order to get to a two building configuration of PK-6 at SES and 7-12 at the high school as approved last month, that the Wall Lake elementary close June 30, 2020 and the middle school close June 30, 2021 pending completion of necessary construction. Wilhelm moved to approve the recommendation as presented, Jansma seconded. Mahler-aye, Kluver-aye, Stoltenberg-nay, Jansma-aye, Wilhelm-aye. Motion carried 4-1.

Sac City will continue to have a school, the newer one on the edge of town on M54. (And by “newer” I mean “the one built in the 1980s”.) But the building in the middle of town, currently in use as East Sac County Middle School, will close after the school year after this one.

Sac City is one of four county seats that does not have a high school. The other three are Dakota City, Toledo, and Allison, but those first two border another city (Humboldt/Tama) that has the high school.

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Feb 25

A coordinated effort?

Posted on Tuesday, February 25, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Look at what WHO’s Erin Kiernan was wearing Monday.

Now look at what KCRG’s Beth Malicki was wearing Monday. Unfortunately, I can’t embed this one.

No criticism here at all, just noticing an amazing coincidence.

(Yes, I routinely watch two different streams of the news. I am aware this might not be good for my mental health.)

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