Oct 30

So you want to be scared?

Posted on Friday, October 30, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


October 18, 2020: On guard in Knoxville.

The obvious tactic to strike fear in your heart right now is the easiest: the phrase “269-269”.

(I don’t need to do horror movies. I pay attention to current events, I follow Iowa State sports, and as far as I’m concerned the scariest movie of the 21st century is Gone Girl. )

However, there is something even scarier out there — another unraveling thread in the American cultural fabric. From NBC:

Fans of the classic “Peanuts” comic-strip are expressing outrage over the fact that the quintessential animated holiday specials based on the series have moved to the Apple TV+ streaming service instead of airing on network television.

The linked story, like pretty much everything written about streaming video, pays minimal lip service to/completely ignores the fact that millions of American cannot obtain high-quality-livestream-capable Internet access at any price. The best many more can get is to huddle around an iPhone eating into a data plan on an Apple TV+ subscription costing $5 a month. There are DVDs available, but it’s getting harder to get a DVD player.

Whether 10, 25, or 50 years hence, families will not be gathering around any sort of device to watch a classic YouTube unboxing video or whatever. (And certainly not Quibi. What is Quibi, you ask? Exactly.)

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Oct 29

Ride the wind

Posted on Thursday, October 29, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


October 21, 2020

If you can’t read the sign, it says: “2020 Derecho Scarecrow. Ride the wind and Wind up in Traer.” Traer was the only community in Tama County that had electricity the night of August 10.

In other recent Traer news, the grocery store has new owners, which is good because it means the grocery store is still here.

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Oct 28

Welcome to Etherville

Posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Typos are nasty things. I should know, since my job involves trying to find them. (Glass house alert!) One should try to nudge the writer discreetly. Pointing at the New York Times, which to my knowledge doesn’t have a copy desk anymore, though…

etherville

You may not know this, but Etherville is the vacation home of the Ether Bunny. (The Monday article in question is bylined from Donnellson, in the opposite corner of the state.)

But let’s ask the Associated Press…

In northern Iowa, the town of Ocheyendan saw more than 6 inches (15.24 centimeters), and the communities of Swea City, Esterville and Ringsted saw about 5 inches (12.7 centimeters).

Always be on your toes, lest you get a snarky post from some blogger. Estherville is a very nice town and deserves love and having its name spelled correctly by major media organizations.

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Oct 26

Nora Springs bridge to be replaced

Posted on Monday, October 26, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


August 4, 2015: The old US 18 bridge on the west side of Nora Springs.

The century-old bridge across the Shell Rock River in Nora Springs will be replaced next year, KIMT reports. The bridge was a showcase piece in the January-March 1917 Iowa Highway Commission Service Bulletin, but as you can see, its grandeur has taken a few hits. The story says the new bridge will cost $1 million and “is going to have some similarities to the old bridge.”

(h/t Dan Drackley)

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Oct 23

Iowa’s new election gender imbalance

Posted on Friday, October 23, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

After years and years of Iowa getting tsk-tsked for never electing a woman to Congress (I went into some reasoning for this in 2012), we shouldn’t let this year go by without pointing something out: Seven of the 10 major-party candidates running for Iowa’s five federal seats this election cycle are women. Iowa’s delegation will be either 3-3 or 4-2 women depending on the 3rd District race.

If Joni Ernst loses to Theresa Greenfield, she will become the third woman ever to lose a Senate seat to a woman (behind Elizabeth Dole in NC and Kelly Ayotte in NH)*. She would be Iowa’s first one-term senator since 1984 — but Iowa’s only HAD three senators since 1984, when Tom Harkin’s win was the third of three in a row ousting one-term incumbents. If Ernst wins, she’ll still be Iowa’s first female U.S. senator.

There’s a more personal milestone here, too: The 1st Congressional District race is the first one where both candidates are younger than I am. I didn’t** hold that against them. (Annoying my phone on a college football Saturday, on the other hand…)

For locality reasons, I’ll also point out that Christina Blackcloud, the Democratic candidate for Tama County’s Iowa House district, would be the first Native American in the Legislature if she unseats multi-term incumbent Dean Fisher. Jane Svoboda is the only woman who has represented Tama County in the Legislature (1987-90).

* UPDATE 10/27: Maine’s Susan Collins is in the same boat.
** Yes, past tense. Had to break with tradition for a couple reasons.

Posted in Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Iowa’s new election gender imbalance
Oct 21

Updated spreadsheet: ISU vs. AP Top 25

Posted on Wednesday, October 21, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

This is a plug for a page I’ve had around but, since it doesn’t fit in the highway-related stuff, just kind of floats. I set up a sortable HTML table of Iowa State football’s record both against teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 and as a team ranked in the Associated Press Top 25. It now goes through the end of the 2019 season.

A couple notes with the update:

  • Wins against Oklahoma State and West Virginia in 2018 made for the second time in ISU history that the Cyclones defeated ranked teams in consecutive weeks.
  • Similarly, 2018 tied five other years for beating two ranked opponents in a regular season. The 2017 Liberty Bowl defeat of Memphis is the only way to get to three in a year.
  • College Poll Archive is an indispensable resource, and I used its data to flesh out the BCS and College Football Playoff ranking situations when ISU was in there but not AP.
  • It takes talent to drop out of the poll in an idle week, but ISU figured out how to do it last year. But see the next item!
  • In October 2020, ISU had some of its best poll vaults: Four spots with a home win against Texas Tech (24 to 20) and three spots (20 to 17) without playing anybody.
    • The best jump is five (20 to 15) after a home win against Kansas State in 1972
    • ISU rose four spots in 2002 after beating Nebraska at home and then four more in an off week. Cumulatively, that’s eight spots in two weeks, seconded only by the seven in 2020, also involving an off week.
    • ISU also rose three spots (20 to 17) after a road win against Iowa in 1978.

Iowa State is 2-2 all-time against Oklahoma State when the Cowboys are ranked in the top 10. You might have heard about one of those.

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Oct 19

Another matter of perspective

Posted on Monday, October 19, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The new exit for IA 141 from northbound I-35/80, along with a half-diamond to the south at Meredith Drive, opened Friday. The Register had a preview earlier in the week. Presumably, northbound/eastbound, the Meredith exit will be 127A, and the 141 ramp will be 127B, as it splits right as the interstate goes under Meredith.

Here is a comparison of the area, 35 years apart (1984 and 2019), via Iowa Orthographic Server. You can also see the later additions of the 86th and 100th Street exits. Development along 141 outpaced state planning so it would not be easy to block off intersections and turn it controlled-access to the IA 44 exit.

rider_corner_1984

 

rider_corner_2019

The 2020 design takes out the inner loops at the curve, and those loops had been redone with the extension of Urbandale Drive.

The Register story links to an earlier one about the explosion of growth in Grimes, including the potential for THREE Hy-Vee stores. Meanwhile, Jewell and Edgewood had to resort to community efforts to stop their grocery stores from closing, and there is only one left in all of Calhoun County (Lake City Foods) because Manson and Rockwell City each lost theirs.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous, Iowa Miscellaneous | Comments Off on Another matter of perspective
Oct 16

Football seasons ending and starting

Posted on Friday, October 16, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The topsy-turvy churn otherwise known as 2020 in sports continues with both ends and starts.

High school football playoffs begin tonight. This year, they’re built in a different way. Much like postseasons in basketball and baseball, every team is in and the best teams get byes. Those teams in Class A, in order of pod number, are Grundy Center (who gave up 14 points the entire season), St. Ansgar (the team North Tama was going to play but didn’t), Edgewood-Colesburg, Iowa City Regina (of course), and Logan-Magnolia. Here are the Class A pairings (PDF).

North Tama (2-5, 2-2), will host Maquoketa Valley of Delhi (1-6, 1-3), in their first-ever meeting. The other side of the pod is North Cedar at Lisbon. The 16 pod winners will be seeded into new pods, and then the four semifinalists will be seeded. So IF I reverse engineer brackets, I’ll start at 16.

I found the team records via MaxPreps, because the IHSAA’s website is [expletive deleted]ING USELESS. I tried to search for district standings, which for 20-plus years had been on static pages, and should be able to be reached from here, but there’s only 404s as far as the eye can see.

As for the football beginnings, some minor college conferences begin playing over the next few weeks.

Posted in Sports, Tama County | Comments Off on Football seasons ending and starting
Oct 14

North Dakota Highway 91

Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

ND 91 is really short, reports KFYR-TV in Bismarck. (Video un-embeddable.) The route in Harvey, along US 52 between Jamestown and Minot, is signed at 0.28 miles. That is just a hair longer than IA 405 was signed 1980-2003. I found this story because of this last sentence, which has issues:

According to a 2014 report from the Iowa Department of Transportation, U.S. Highway 77 travels over the Missouri River into South Dakota at .31 miles long. That means Harvey’s Highway 91 could be the shortest highway in the United States.

First, US 77 travels over the Missouri River into Iowa at that distance, NOT South Dakota. Second, US 77 is overall an extremely LONG highway, ending all the way down in Brownsville, Texas. The state-specific mileage is irrelevant when considering the total distance of a highway.

Correction-worthy nitpicking aside, it’s neat that there’s a story about North Dakota’s shortest highway, and that the town would like to publicize it.

Posted in Highway Miscellaneous | Comments Off on North Dakota Highway 91
Oct 12

Notes for October 2020 letting

Posted on Monday, October 12, 2020, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Things I noticed about the October 2020 DOT bid letting, scheduled for next week:

  • One sign project is concentrated in two areas: Cedar Rapids and Jones County. The former is replacing a lot of gore signs (the “EXIT” where you take the offramp, now formatted to include a large exit number), plus signs on the lower deck of the 5-in-1 bridge. Many BGSs whose poles snapped during the derecho (as they were designed to do) remain bent over today. I don’t know if they can be restored to their upright and locked position. The latter focuses on US 151 exits.
  • Another is a mass replacement of roadside signs along many highways in southwest Iowa.
  • A stoplight is going in on US 69 at NE 118th Avenue (Polk County name)/NE 54th Street (Ankeny name). You could call this a “pro-active” or “pre-emptive” stoplight because the sprawl has not reached this intersection…yet. This is just a mile south of the junction with former IA 87, the road to Elkhart, and 3 miles north of 1st Street and the pre-1970 extent of Ankeny.
    • Mostly unrelated but not quite: I salute Mr. Daddy Won’t Sell the Farm at the northeast corner of US 69 and IA 160 (Ankeny Boulevard and Oralabor Road) on the other side of Ankeny. A Kwik Star just ate up the east half of the plot — part of that chain’s push into the Des Moines metro — and there’s a Fareway and Pizza Ranch across the street, but that little house and block of timber are there until the very end.
Posted in Construction | Comments Off on Notes for October 2020 letting