Aug 16

This was required for Valley to join the SEC

Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2012, at 10:32 AM by Jeff

West Des Moines beats Cedar Rapids to the punch with the second standalone Chick-fil-A in Iowa.

Yes, I know the Chick-fil-A is technically in the Waukee district, not WDM. Details, details.
Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on This was required for Valley to join the SEC
Aug 15

Pull out the rabbit ears

Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2012, at 11:51 AM by Jeff

Sinclair Broadcasting is about to yank its TV stations off a cable/satellite lineup again. This time, it’s Dish Network.

It’s been five years since Mediacom actually lost the channels for a month, and that was from the middle of the BCS games to just before the Super Bowl. With football season ramping up again, how long might the standoff be this time?

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Pull out the rabbit ears
Aug 14

Preston Station sale

Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2012, at 12:41 PM by Jeff

 November 29, 2002

When I was taking pictures of the George Preston Station in Belle Plaine in late 2002, George’s son Ron happened to be there. I hadn’t expected that, but I explained that I was taking pictures of the station for a photo project about the Lincoln Highway. We talked for a while. He let me inside and showed me some of the accumulated memorabilia. Finally, he graciously allowed to let me take a couple pictures of him in front of his dad’s famous landmark.

Ron died last year. Last week, that memorabilia was sold off.

Other roadtrip gallery links are here (and sorely need to be added to).

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Preston Station sale
Aug 13

We might have seen one or two of them

Posted on Monday, August 13, 2012, at 1:53 PM by Jeff

Iowa TV markets rank Nos. 4, 6, and 7 for political ad saturation.

On a semi-related note, President Obama’s cross-state trip this week will get him coverage in four of Iowa’s seven media markets (five if KTVO covers him in Oskaloosa).

Posted in Maps | Comments Off on We might have seen one or two of them
Aug 09

College conferences and House apportionment

Posted on Thursday, August 9, 2012, at 3:00 PM by Jeff
(This is long and deals with the intersection of geography and football. You have been warned.)

When Iowa State was on the verge of falling into athletics oblivion a year ago (again), I wrote in The Des Moines Register about external factors working against the teams, the university, and the state as a whole: population shifts and media markets. I’m going to expound more on that here. See also Andy Staples’ article earlier this week about TV and college football.

There’s a reason besides those six consecutive crystal footballs that the SEC can look at everyone else and say, “Scoreboard.” Its teams aren’t only winning with skill, its states are winning with numbers. (Well, skill and the Big 12 circular firing squad.)

(Additional census information here [Flash] and here [text].)

This analysis starts with the U.S. House congressional apportionment from the 1970s. It’s a good place to start, as it’s just after the Texas national championship of 1969 — the last won by an all-white football team — and the 1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma Game of the Century. It concentrates on the predecessor and existing versions of the top four football conferences in the country. Continue reading →

Posted in Maps, Sports | Comments Off on College conferences and House apportionment
Aug 08

Aren’t you just the cutest little pirate

Posted on Wednesday, August 8, 2012, at 3:23 PM by Jeff

 Polly wants a cracker — or Polly will use his hook!

The Hudson school district has RSS and Twitter feeds. (Technically, the Twitter feed is the superintendent’s.)

That’s one of many school districts that redirect from or don’t use the standard “.k12.ia.us” Web address, more than even a few years ago.

Posted in Schools | Comments Off on Aren’t you just the cutest little pirate
Aug 07

Brie? Gouda? Wensleydale?

Posted on Tuesday, August 7, 2012, at 8:44 PM by Jeff

The Des Moines Register looks around a really big Hy-Vee:

The combined food store, restaurant, coffee shop, sushi bar, health store, take-out food department, cooking education station and cheese shop is housed in more than 95,000 square feet. It’s the grocery store chain’s newest concept store, and it’s likely to wow and overwhelm shoppers all at once.

No word on Venezuelan Beaver Cheese.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Brie? Gouda? Wensleydale?
Aug 07

How television ate college football

Posted on Tuesday, August 7, 2012, at 12:13 PM by Jeff

Andy Staples has an excellent long piece at SI.com. A key passage about the most recent events:

Later, when it came time to add a 14th school, SEC leaders took Missouri. Clemson or Florida State might have made more geographic sense, but they wouldn’t have opened any new television markets for the league. Missouri did. The SEC couldn’t tear up its contracts with ESPN and CBS, but adding so much earning power did give the league leverage to renegotiate.

The middle of the afternoon on Sept. 8, 2012, will have the following available on basic cable in Iowa. Most of these are nonconference and so fall under the home team’s contract:

  • ABC/ESPN2 reverse mirror: Michigan-Air Force and USC-Syracuse
  • NBC: Notre Dame-Purdue
  • ESPN: Texas A&M-Florida
  • Fox Sports: Kansas-Rice
  • FX: Oregon State-Wisconsin
  • Big Ten Network: Iowa-Iowa State
  • NBC Sports (formerly Versus): Delaware-Delaware State
  • ESPNU, which is not on expanded basic, has Central Michigan-Michigan State.

CBS won’t be showing football (probably golf) since it’s early in the season. I picked an early date because those TV times have been set. Later, when Notre Dame has afternoon home games, all three networks and all those flavors of ESPN and Fox will have games going on.

That is a lot of football. To get that, though, we’re all paying a price: cable/satellite subscriptions, football ticket price increases, athletics facilities arms races, and most visibly, ends to hundred-year-old series. Let’s hope that we don’t lose the things that make college football special — or at least not lose any more.

Posted in Sports | Comments Off on How television ate college football
Aug 06

Everything except Business 20

Posted on Monday, August 6, 2012, at 9:28 AM by Jeff

July 25, 2012: The westernmost part of Business 20 through Fort Dodge now goes west a short bit on what was D26 before turning due south to immediately meet new 20. D36 is the designation for old 20 through Moorland to Rockwell City.

While crews did a great job of signing all the county roads involved in this intersection, no Business 20 signs got in on any direction here or at the interchange.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Everything except Business 20
Aug 05

No construction on IA 330

Posted on Sunday, August 5, 2012, at 12:07 PM by Jeff

Planned work to build shoulders on the road south of Albion has been scrapped. (Marshalltown Times-Republican)

Something was going to have to give, since the houses in the former village of Marietta are so close to the road. The road wasn’t a state highway until the end of 1989.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off on No construction on IA 330