This Norwood (Ohio) Middle School Choir fundraiser has upset me

Thursday, September 3, the teachers and parents connected with the Norwood (Ohio) Middle School Choir made me feel bad and I don’t like it.

A student, whom I don’t know, knocked on my door and asked for $15 to buy a cup as a fundraiser for the Middle School Choir. But he wanted the $15 now for a cup to be delivered later. This put me in a bad position: If my cup didn’t show up, how would I find him again? I really didn’t want to ask him his name and address as that didn’t seem appropriate. So I explained to him that I wouldn’t pay without a cup and that wasn’t an option for him. I had to say, “Sorry” and he went on to the next person. I noticed that he hadn’t sold any cups. After he left, I felt terrible for turning him down, especially if he lives just down the street from me.

But it irritates me that the teachers and parents created this situation in the first place. When the Norwood Marching Band went door to door, they often went in uniform and in groups of three or four. There was an adult nearby who could vouch for them. I had no problem giving them $20 (which helped with their band camp fees). (Full disclosure: My son was in the band and I was a band parent.)

I know that learning how to sell and dealing with the inevitable rejection is a good learning experience, but this goes too far.

If I gave this student $15, how much would go to the choir? $3? $4? I’ll make the Choir a deal: If a teacher or parent contacts me by Friday, September 11, I’ll write a check for $15 for the Choir and they don’t have to provide me a with a cup. If there is a contest to see who sells the most cups, I’ll try to identify the student so he gets credit for a cup sold. I'll update this post next weekend with the outcome of this.

Update September 20: It's been over two weeks since I made this post and I didn't hear anything from the Middle School Choir about their fundraiser.

(Note: I posted this on Nextdoor for the Norwood neighborhood (my mistake; just one of three Norwood neighborhoods) about 12:45 a.m. and only got one "Thank" through 6 p.m. I'm thinking that this isn't resonating with anyone. I've deleted that post.)

Google News has flaws

Google News, viewed with Google Chrome on my Apple iPhone 4S, has five flaws. When I view Google News, I am signed on to my Google account. This customizes the news for me.

First, look at these screen shots, taken today, one at 8:30 a.m. EDT (United States) and one at 8:32 p.m. Do you see any difference with the news? Nope, neither do I. The thing that bothers me the most is the age of the stories. In the a.m. version, the China story is supposedly one hour old. Shouldn't it be 13 hours ago 12 hours later? How do I get new stories? Eventually (overnight), they will be updated but during the day I have to manually refresh the display. Even after I manually refresh, it still tends to revert to the early-morning version.

Second, as you know. Major League Baseball games are played in a series of two or more games (up to five when the Chicago Cubs played the Cincinnati Reds recently). Google News has no concept of separate games, completely mixing up the stories about the games in the series. I would prefer that each game in the series be listed separately with the pregame and postgame stories shown together.

Third, Google News does not evaluate the quality of the news sources but figures that the last news source is the best. This results in the main story being from a dodgy source (like a site that scrapes stories from other sites) or an Associated Press story instead of the breaking story from the local news media. Take the first story above. The main source is a newspaper in Nigeria. Nigeria? Clicking on "More sources" gives you stories from Sydney Morning Herald (yes, Sydney as in Australia) and Daily News & Analysis. If I click on "all 397 news articles," I get a list of articles about sending advisers to Iraq and not a peep about China (this normally doesn't happen; it's just a glitch). Normally, I get the better stories only if I click through.

I recently wanted to read about an incident in Miami, Florida. The first story was an AP story in the Seattle (Washington) Post-Intelligencer. I had to dig to get an actual story from a television station in Miami. I miss the days when there was only one copy of Associated Press stories. Now there are dozens of them, all repeated ad nauseam as if they were unique.

Fourth, I have local news sections for two cities (Norwood, Ohio, where I live and Brookville, Ohio, where I work some of the time). These sections were rarely updated, although that may be fixed once I complained. Here is an example from April 1 (no fooling):

So which is it? A delay or an approval? If you look closely, the first story is dated March 18 and the second April 1. In those days, a story could stick for a month or more even though there's always new news to replace it. I had a disgusting Brookville child molestation story stuck on there for so long (over a month) that I finally flamed Google and it was fixed within hours. (There is an option to provide feedback about News separately from feedback about Chrome.)

Finally, on my iPhone the page takes at least 15 seconds to load (Aug. 13: 29 seconds). To load Google News on my MacBook Pro, using the same wireless Internet connection, takes three seconds. I suspect the problem is with either DNS lookup or SSL negotiation. Update Aug. 24: The problem is a Chrome problem that affects other sites as well. I have filed a report with Google but no fix yet.

I will still use Google News but I am still frustrated with its limitations. Thanks, Google, for letting me vent about this on Blogger, operated by Google. I will update this post as the situation improves.

Updated Aug. 13: Added/changed load times.

150+ OUPS utility poles in Norwood, Ohio?

On Williams Ave. at
Hazel Ave., Norwood

Duke Energy has been aggressively replacing old utility poles in Norwood, Ohio with new ones. In many cases, the old pole has other utilities attached, typically Cincinnati Bell phone lines or Time Warner Cable cable lines. Duke's contractor cuts the top of the old pole off, leaving the other utility lines attached, and may mark "OUPS" on the old pole with white spray paint (see picture). OUPS stands for Ohio Utilities Protection Service and it means, in this case, that the pole is slated to be removed.

The other utilities move their lines to the new pole and then the old pole is removed. That's the plan, at least, and many times it works well. But here in Norwood it hasn't. I estimate that there are over 150 old, OUPS utility poles lining our streets.

I have embarked on a project to document these poles and report them to city officials so that they can take action. I have a lot on my plate right now and this is a low priority so it will likely take me at least a year to do this. I'm hoping that some of these poles will be removed before I finish my project. As I do, I will publish the results here; there is no reason not to make them public.

At the same time, I have noticed a set of steel utility poles on Montgomery Road that are rusting and need to be scraped and painted. Some are currently being used but many no longer have a use. As a related project, I'm going to document these and see if someone (the City of Norwood or Duke Energy) can repair or remove these eyesores.

It's all about improving the city that I live in.

Composting 2013

The good news: Composting kitchen waste is going well. The bad news: Composting yard waste just takes too long, especially for the gum balls. We have a sweet gum tree which produces a lot of gum balls every year and they take several years to break down.

What you're seeing in this picture, from left to right: A pile of leaves from this year which I will probably use to cover the gum balls with. Next is a composting bin we bought from Lowe's (but I don't think they sell them any more). The composting bin contains yard waste but it's mostly gum balls and soil at this point as the leaves and branches have broken down. There is a pile of gum balls between the composting bins. These aren't even this year's crop yet but from previous years. Like I said, it takes at least four years for them to decompose. The compost bin to the right is an Earth Machine that we bought from the Hamilton County Recycling and Solid Waste District several years ago. Finally, there are two bags mostly containing branches ready to go to the community compost pile.

I live in the City of Norwood, Ohio and homeowners receive 10 composting bags "free" from the city. The two bags you see here are the final two of this year's allotment, meaning that eight bags have gone out for composting already. So, in my small yard, I can only handle a limited amount of yard waste.

I have thought about getting a chipper/shredder but I'm wary of using energy for this process. It would have to be electric (not easy to find) as my wife and I have given up on gasoline-powered yard equipment.

Note: This is update from a post from October 2012, "Clearing the peony bed."