David Runneals put together a nice map with lots of info about the flooding in Ames, IA.
I managed to take quite a few photos around Ames and Nevada, you can find them in this set on Flickr. There are currently four panoramas that do a pretty good job of showing how much water there was on the East side of Ames.
The Ames Tribune has a PDF with some really cool aerial shots, it’s worth checking out.
Sorry for the lack of posting lately. We started moving our office over the weekend. Being the tech guy I had a ton of work to doy. So, I spent basically the entire weekend getting all setup in the new office.
We’re moved in now and are still getting situated. I’ve got a few pictures I’ll post when the whole thing is complete. I ducked out a little bit early today just because I got the chance to do so. Don’t expect many posts for the rest of the week unless I see something at night that really deserves attention.
The last few weeks there’s been many commercials airing, urging voters to turn down a proposed city-owned telecom bill. I was all for it, being that we don’t have many good options for internet service here in Iowa. This should provide some more options eventually for Iowans.
Voters in 17 Iowa cities voted for the proposal, allowing cities to build their own telecommunications companies. This will really piss off Mediacom.
DES MOINES, Iowa — Voters in 17 cities are giving their local governments the right to form their own telecommunications company.
Supporters went to the polls Tuesday night and sent a message to companies like Mediacom and Qwest, which helped fund a $1 million campaign blitz against the measure.
Cities such as Dubuque, Mason City and Waterloo can now start their own cable, telephone and Internet systems and potentially charge less than other companies.
On the other hand, 15 cities voted against the the proposal. One of those cities being Nevada, where I usually reside. Nevada is currently served by Iowa Telecom for phone service, they’re our only option for non-voip phone service. Mediacom is the only cable provider. Both companies offer broadband, but Iowa Telecom’s is piss slow and Mediacom offers basically no upload speeds.
Residents of 32 Iowa communities delivered a split verdict Tuesday on whether their cities should seek a role offering cable television, Internet and other telecommunications services.
Totals showed 17 communities passed the measures to form communications utilities and 15 defeated them. In the Des Moines metro area, proposals failed in Altoona, Carlisle, Norwalk and Windsor Heights.
…
The proposal was defeated in Nevada and six other communities served by telephone company Iowa Telecom. “I think it shows that (voters) just took the time to research the issue,” company spokesman Dan Eness said. “They realized a municipally owned telecommunications utility was not in the best interest for them.”
OK Dan, you wouldn’t just say that simply because you’re an Iowa Telecom employee would you? Of course not. I should thank the Des Moines Register for getting thoughts from mostly Mediacom or Iowa Telecom employees, that’s super!
Google is finally indexing the longren.org domain. I think it took right about 6 months for longren.org to start showing up in regular Google search results. Now maybe I’ll get more referrals from people searching google rather than just people searching google blogsearch.
The longren.org domain has a pagerank of 5. When I was at my old URL I had a PR of 3 I believe.
I had a lot more to do this weekend than I originally thought. After we got back from Cedar Rapids on Saturday, I came into work for about 3 hours. Then Ashley and I went to see The Nadas at Peoples Bar in Ames. Amber, Ashleys sister wanted to take her to that as a little birthday gift. Katie, one of their friends ended up getting an OWI, went to jail and doesn’t have a license anymore. I kinda felt bad, but not really.
And most of yesterday was spent playing Tiger Woods 2006. It’s wicked fun, my favorite one of em all so far. JV bought it Friday and brought it over yesterday. Now that I think about it, he may have forgotten it in my Xbox, so I may have something to look forward to when I get home this evening.
