Health fair

On Thursday the Jasper County Hospital and Saint Joseph's College had a health fair at Halleck Center. Going in people could not miss the Marine Corp exhibit, which may not have been part of the health fair. The three marines were challenging the college men to see how many pull-ups they could do and the college women to see how long they could keep their chin above the bar.

 Inside the ballroom there were many exhibits, most giving out information (and freebies). There were also stations to have your blood pressure read, your blood tested for sugar, cholesterol, and oxygen, and your BMI bone density measured,

 On the way home from SJC I passed through Potawatomie Park to see how preparations were going for the volunteer day on Friday to plant a swale with rain garden plants. If you wondering what will be planted, you can check out the work from 10:00 till 1:00. My guess is that the plants will be similar to those planted in the rain garden at the water treatment plant (see here and here).

Odds and Ends, September 16, 2014

On Sunday the Friends of the Library sponsored a free music program at the Rensselaer Library. What was supposed to be the Hip Harp Trio became the Hip Harp Duo because one of the members of the trio could not make it.

 The two played a wide variety of music. The harpist teaches music at one of the Indianapolis high schools, and when she was younger spent a year as a musician on a cruise ship, an experience she seemed not to ever want to repeat. There was a respectable turnout for the performance of between 40 and 50 people.

Before I left town a few days ago, someone asked me what the big roll of tubing near the intersection of College and Grace was for. I still do not know.

 At SJC a new entrance to Raleigh Hall is almost finished.

 The city is still working on storm sewer connections on the intersection of Scott and Vine. At the substation on North Melville, workers from NIPSCO were connecting wires. The very long utility pole that I noticed more than a week ago really is quite a bit taller than its neighbors.

 We are headed for fall--or maybe we are already in fall. Some of the corn is almost mature.

I noticed a large preying mantis in my garden. He was wondering what I was doing when I pushed my camera in his face.

It is still over a month until Halloween, but on the east side of Rensselaer one house has decorations out.

Meeting odds and ends (updated)

The Commissioners held their monthly meeting on Tuesday--delayed a day because of the holiday. Most of the meeting was taken up with routine matters. (I have attended enough of these meetings so that almost all of the meeting seems like routine matters.)

A representative from WorkingWell gave the commissioners information about their services and prices. She also said that they would be adding express urgent car starting October 6. Franciscan was not intending to offer express care so soon, but there was a demand for it.

The commissioners approved the purchase of a backhoe by the highway department for $93,700. It will indirectly replace a backhoe that the surveyor's office was using and that burned this past spring.

The commissioners will schedule a public hearing in an upcoming meeting to vacate 1000 N between 300E and 400E. (My map of Jasper County does not show a road there.) This bit of road is entirely within the Jasper-Pulaski Reserve, is not included on the county's inventory of roads, and gets no maintenance from the county. It is also almost impassible at one end.

The county now owns the old Johnny Rusk building between the court house and the post office. The commissioners asked the county engineer to solicit bids for its demolition, which cannot take place for at lest 60 days because a tenant needs to vacate the property. The county engineer wondered if the county could do the demolition in house.

At 9:30 bids were opened for restoration work on the exterior of the court house. There were three bids, and in addition to a base bid, they also were supposed to bid on five options. After they were opened, the commissioners asked their consultant on the project to review the bids. Near the end of the meeting he returned, and after discussion, the commissioners accepted the bid form Midwest, which is based in Paris, Illinois. They agreed to the base plus options 1, 3, and 5 for a total cost of $297,535. (I do not know what options 1, 3, and 5 are, so do not ask me.)

The commissions also approved a switch in the company handling inmate health care at the jail, from Advanced Correctional Care to Quality Correctional Care. The price was about the same, but the new company offers some mental health services.

In the afternoon the Drainage Board met and the crowd of people filled almost every seat in the room. The reason for the interest was that there were public hearings about two ditches, the Nagel Ditch east of Rensselaer and the Lawton Ditch in Kankakee Township, near Teft. The discussion of the Nagel Ditch was fairly short and was continued to the December meeting because one of the landowners said that the tiles in his field ran not to the Nagel Ditch but to the Mary Dunn Ditch. the surveyor said that after the harvest, he would check this out, and if it was true, then he would have to reconfigure the assessments. The typological map indicated that the surface drainage of the land should be to the Nagel Ditch.

There was a vigorous discussion of the Lawton Ditch. Several people said that they spent money keeping their portion of the ditch clean and they though it was unfair that they should pay as much for cleaning the ditch as those who had done nothing at all. The commissioners were sympathetic, but implied that trying to charge by who cleaned their ditch and who did not would be impossible. The commissions pointed out that the only reason this was on the agenda is because the landowners had petitioned it to be on the agenda, and that with some ditches the landowners involved found ways to agree to clean the ditch without involving the county surveyor. They were invited to try to resolve the matter among themselves. However, because the town of Teft was included in the proposal, and because Teft now drains into a different ditch, this discussion was also continued to the December meeting.

Almost everyone left. The board then heard requests from two people to consider cleaning the lower Ryan Ditch and the Frances Fleet Lakin Ditch. The Board approved the drainage plan for the Davis Veterinary Clinic, and the meeting was finished.

While on the topic of water, the water level in the quarry is rising very slowly. I compared this picture taken today with a picture I took two weeks ago and there was very little difference. Today, however, there was a nice reflection of the cliffs in the water.

 There is still a lot of equipment down in the pit. However, the water will probably not threaten it for several more months.

 You do not need to go west to see badlands. We have some by the quarry, though they are not as colorful as those you find in the west.

 SJC must be worried about water because they were beginning to install some drainage tile north of the softball field.

 Workers were also working on the roof of Bennett Hall.

Update: It appears that the drainage at St. Joseph's College is for Halleck Center, which had water problems a year or two ago.

Odds and Ends for Labor Day 2014

The mosquitoes in my back yard are horrible--they swarm me when I go outside. Are they as bad everywhere in Rensselaer, or is my backyard unusually bad?

There are lots of little things happening. The scaffolding on the bell tower at SJC is gone. Fair Oaks Farms is working on a water feature, has started erecting steel for the Pork Education Center, and is finishing up their bakery and market. South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority will be working with Newton County to help them promote tourism. MacAllister Equipment has not yet started moving dirt. I saw corn being harvested on Bunkum Road--I think it was seed corn because the field is owned by one of the seed corn companies. Despite the heat, we know that summer is fading away because twilight arrives a lot earlier now than it did a month ago.

There are some changes downtown. The small building between H&R Block and the beauty salon is being refurbished. I saw the people who were working on it and asked what they were doing. It will be a beauty salon that is presently in the office building south of the old Hoover House. That building is for sale by the owner. Since the only beauty salon on the sign board is Short Cuts by Kim, I assume that is the business that is moving.

 Down the block, the carpeting and flooring are finished in the new Rensselaer branch of Demotte Carpet.

 Further down Washington, the office of First Source Asset Advisors is now empty. Ms Beier has moved to 5/3 Bank. The information on the reception desk hints that 1st Source may be trying to find a replacement. When I deposited a check last week at 5/3, I noted a big beam down the center of the office. I asked and was told it was not remodeling but repair--they have had some roof problems.

At the intersection of Grace and College, the Fase-Kaluf building looks much better with its new exterior.

Across the street GRG Auto Repair has been repainted.

GRG Auto Repair is in an building originally built as a gas station. The Marathon Station by the railroad had a customer appreciation day a week ago and lowered gas prices about 15 cents. They were very busy, pumping almost 3000 gallons of gas in three hours.

The Taco Bell by the Interstate now looks like a Taco Bell. The building looks finished but the parking lot needs an inch or two of asphalt. Its opening will be a bit later than the planned August opening, but it should be very soon.

The RCHS Building Trades class has been finishing the house on Vine Street that was not finished last semester.

And on Scott Street south of Harrison, work has started for this year's Building Trade House. The School Corporation owns two adjacent lots there.

Do you read the City of Rensselaer Municipal Power News? The last issue, Vo 20 Issue 2, had a summary of new and proposed regulations from the EPA. After describing the proposed standards for new power plants, the column concluded, " Since carbon capture and sequestration has not been adequately demonstrated on a commercial scale, implementing the technology is cost prohibitive, effectively eliminating a utility's ability to construct future coal-fired generating units." My guess is that the EPA sees that as a feature, not a bug.

BTN at SJC

For some reason the Purdue football team was practicing at Saint Joe today. They were accompanied by a small fleet of Big Ten Network vehicles and personnel.

 There were also four buses that transported the football team behind the fieldhouse.


I was impressed with the stage they set up, complete with lights and two television cameras.

A closer look at the set. This will at some point appear on the Big Ten Network.

There were players scrimmaging or running plays. In the middle of the field was a man holding something on a pole. A camera? A microphone? What do you think was up there?

There are more pictures from the Twitter feed of the Big Ten Network, including a picture of the players talking to some little kids, who may have come over from the Jasper County youth center on Sparling Ave.

I asked serveral people why Purdue was at SJC and did not get a good answer. Apparently this was a closed practice (or at least one of the SJC people told me that after I was done taking pictures) and he said that there would be a scrimmage open to the public this afternoon. But who knows? There may be more info on the SJC Facebook page.