Iowa State beat Kansas State in back to back games in the two years before Snyder the Grey departed. Iowa State has never defeated Snyder the White. As of now, Manhattan is the site of ISU’s longest conference road win drought, but we’ll have to wait until next year to avenge that.
If Iowa State loses this game, the all-time ISU-KSU series will be tied. The Cyclones are 45-26-4 against everyone else…but 4-22 against the Snydercats.
(We shall not pass? Then David Montgomery shall run instead.)
Right?
May 8, 2007: The now-departed Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, seen in a trip to Winnipeg and the Upper Midwest that incidentally included domed stadiums in four states.
Haven’t done one of these in a while, but I saw HHH on a semi and it gave me a theme. It’s a combination that resonates more north of the border, or for fans of “professional” “wrestling”.
September 29, 2015: Downtown Dolliver, in the middle of a weekday. The post office is the white-and-blue building on the right.
The post office in tiny Dolliver closes today, according to a Des Moines Register story citing a USPS press release. The town, population 66, is three miles south of the Minnesota border in Emmet County. The story does not say the post office is permanently closed, but the landlord “has not complied with requests to address concerns,” the press release says.
I had worries about the USPS’ plan to close dozens of post offices across Iowa, but this situation gives me pause. How effective or efficient is it, really, to have an open facility in a place where I felt like the only soul in town when I passed through? The building itself has empty lots on either side, and they aren’t the only ones.
I don’t think I can fault the USPS too much for threatening to close a post office if the owner of its building won’t keep up with repairs. This is not an uncommon thing, as it’s happened in Hillsboro and Scranton this year. The question is, what power does a community have to demand a private owner maintain a facility for a post office?
If the USPS made a blanket policy that it would permanently close post offices in buildings it considered unsafe, it could be beneficial in that the more important post offices would get needed repairs while lesser-used ones would be lost through attrition.
A certain team that thinks it rules its empire likes dressing up as stormtroopers, so…
(This one’s in Austin. Allegedly. If a game airs on the Longhorn Network, does it really happen?)
July 15, 2008: Dedication plaque at one of the many Memorial Stadiums of the Midwest. The stadium was undergoing a massive expansion at the time of this photo. Unfortunately, not even Lovie Smith’s beard has enough magic to make the Illini a good team in the 2010s.
The Iowa Hawkeyes look destined to repeat the familiarity, the humility, the tragedy of yet another eight-win football season. (Eventually, there will be enough people who don’t remember the ’60s and ’70s to declare this isn’t good enough.) Their last two games will be against the bottom-feeders of the Big Ten West, Illinois and Nebraska.*
When Iowa goes to Champaign this weekend, it will be the 100th time the Hawkeyes have played a football game in the Land of Lincoln.
Close behind is Indiana (40-54-4). Iowa played its 97th and 98th games in the state this year, but that’s an aberration. Purdue is in the West but Indiana isn’t, so there will not be a trip to the state every year. Third place, for now, is Michigan (57, 18-35-4), but it will lose that position in 2024 when Iowa plays at Minnesota.
*Remember, Nebraska fans: You asked for this. You begged for this. You demanded this.
Rather than write out “US 30/US 218 interchange” when I discuss the new exit being built in Benton County, I think I’ll invoke a throwback to the area’s auto history. That history is being preserved and amplified in the construction: The Youngville Cafe will remain in place (with access coming via 218 instead), and the embankments for the overpass will have a Lincoln Highway theme. KCRG reports that construction will continue over the winter months.
(Did I get stuck behind a truck on 30 between Youngville and Tama? Is that really a necessary question, especially during harvest time?)
Blain’s Farm & Fleet was one of the first retail developments at the corner of IA 58 and Viking Road, opening in 1999. Beside it sprung up a Wal-Mart. Then, about a decade or so ago, the retail boom there crushed College Square and made the Viking Road intersection one of the most congested in the state.
While Blain’s may be a one-stop-shop for the rural life (and…toys?), there’s an equally strong and almost equally named competitor, Mills Fleet Farm. And in the near future, there’s going to be a Mills Fleet Farm on IA 58, just to the south, at Ridgeway Avenue.
What I’m trying to say is, confusion ahoy! Farm and Fleet, or Fleet Farm?
The more interesting issue at hand is Cedar Falls giving a go-ahead for construction at the 58/Ridgeway intersection when that is going to be an issue if the state ever tries to fix the woefully underpowered diamond interchange with US 20 just to the south. The Avenue of the Saints has been a massive success, but 58 and 20 is the one place you have to make a left turn. The Courier story says right-of-way will be preserved for an interchange, but the Ridgeway intersection is another issue.
But it’s the last sentence of the story, and a line in the P&Z agenda, that drops the really big news: Cedar Falls is getting a Raising Cane’s!
Enough cheese for every man, woman, and child in town. Probably.
March 10, 2011: Mural at Memory Hall, Liberty Memorial, Kansas City — a highly recommended visit.
It’s the 100th anniversary of the end of the War to End All Wars, that didn’t end all wars. The peace that followed would not last, and the repercussions of redrawing the world’s map last to this day. It would take five more years to carve up the Ottoman Empire — which means it was part of the 20th Century longer than the United States of America has, so far, been part of the 21st.
Many towns have markers or monuments to their soldiers who died in the “Great War” and, while some modern veterans’ memorials have all-encompassing lists, the smaller ones are a reminder of how even this now-often-overlooked conflict still touched every part of the country.
