The Banks Blog

Brianne and Suzanne from Live Green Cincinnati have started up a new blog to track action on the construction of The Banks.

Ground has officially been "broken" but they are keeping track of real construction-like activities, and it appears things really are happening down there. They have a link to a live webcam of the site and as I type this, there is actually a machine moving earth. Progress!

Stay tuned to www.thebanksblog.com to stay up to date on how things are going on what most people agree is the most important project underway in the city right now.

CiN Stage lineup for Taste of Cincinnati announced

The rest of the entertainment hasn't been announced on the Taste of Cincinnati site yet, but CiN Weekly released the details for the CiN stage:

May 24
6 to 7 p.m. - The Lions Rampant
7 to 8 p.m. - DJ set by Mista Rare Groove
8 to 9 p.m. - Bad Veins
9 to 10 p.m. - Mista Rare Groove
10 to 11 p.m. - Turnbull ACs

May 25
6 to 7 p.m. - The Seedy Seeds
7 to 8 p.m. - DJ set by Evan Scott Sharfe
8 to 9 p.m. - The Chocolate Horse
9 to 10 p.m. - Evan Scott Sharfe
10 to 11 p.m. - Alone at 3am
(Cincypunk pick!)
May 26
5 to 6 p.m. - Ian Ross Organ Trio
7 to 8 p.m. - Pete Dressman and the Soul Unified Nation

It looks like a great lineup to me.

Mark Bradford at the Cincinnati Art Museum

This exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum looks awesome:



Who knew the CAM had it's own YouTube channel?

Thanks to the always top-notch Cincinnati Revisited for the heads up.

Two reasons to go to Arnold's Thursday, March 20th

I don't know if this was done on purpose or not, but this month's Green Drinks Cincy coincides with the Inaugural Tapping of Christian Moerlein's new Barbarossa Double Dark Lager.



The tapping will be of a new year-round beer, "a Munich style beer with a lower alcohol content than the company's recent seasonal beers. The name is a tribute to the first beer marketed by the German immigrant founder of the original Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. in the 1850s." I hope to get a signed copy of the poster to go with my signed copy of the Emancipator poster.

Green Drinks Cincy speaker this month is Heather Mayfield from the ORSANCO Education Foundation.

• The tapping on zipscene.com, on upcoming.org.


• Green Drinks Cincy - March on upcoming.org

Cincinnati metro bus route to get free Wi-Fi

Via MuniWireless:

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority will launch a three-month pilot program providing free Wi-Fi service to commuters aboard the Kings Island Express, one of the busiest suburban bus routes from Cincinnati’s northernmost suburbs to the city’s downtown. According to a news release issued today, neither taxpayer funds nor bus fares are being used to finance the program. Details will be released at a media event planned for Wednesday. Expect this program to be funded, at least in part, by advertisers and commercial sponsors, the finance mechanism that the city’s Project Lilypad has used to initiate free hot spot service in commercial areas around the city. --direct link to Business Courier article

It says this is a three-month pilot project, but it doesn't say whether that means they would roll it out to other routes if successful.

Route 71X schedule and map, other routes

If I were designing the network, I'd examine the possibility of using a mesh-network like the one Robin Chase talks about in this video from TED.

Mt. Adams

03082008197.jpg, originally uploaded by Pez King.

Now in Beta Testing: www.cincinnatiparking.info

Last Spring I had an idea to make a website for finding a monthly parking garage downtown. I started working on it last Spring, but then kinda slacked off for a while.

Recently I've been going back in and tweaking some of the things and trying to get it ready to "show off".

The URL is http://www.cincinnatiparking.info/



Pretty much all the ideas I originally had are there. Now, I'm just trying to figure out how to make it better.

#1 - The data is published as a PDF by DCI and so I basically have to manually update the garages. And it only comes out quarterly. I'm trying to think of a way to make this more efficient and more accurate. Ideas here would range from getting the data in a better format directly from DCI or embedding my map directly into their site (by selling it to them), to getting "users" to somehow submit up-to-date data whether "users" means garage owners or parkers or volunteers.

#2 - It is not pretty. I have been learning the ins and outs of CSS and have got it into a basically usable style, but it could be better. Also, I have not tested it on a huge range of browsers and screen resolutions.

#3 - The main feature is the map. The other feature is the "Search" table. Maybe it would be nice to build other ways of querying the database, like search by distance or price range, etc.

Check it out and tell me what you think. I am open to any suggestions and I need new ideas to work on.

Thanks.