We're about to start prepping and painting lots of plaster walls and protecting lots of wood trim, windows, doors and floors, inside and out. As we are bringing the property to its most natural state possible, removing most paint, varnish, and wallpaper, we are working from very raw materials, and feel that is good. How do we now keep our house as natural as possible, as we finish it up?

Last week this suction dredge was pumping  into a dike on the north side of the center section of Burke LakeFront Airport.  Why is the dredge deepening the water in this area?

Cleveland State U's Rooftop Windmills: U.S. House Panel OKs Seed Money

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Cleveland, announced the influential House panel's decision to support the windspires, which are souped up breeze-powered machines without the huge spinning blades typical of windmills. Rashidi wants to set build test devices to see how effectively they function.

Tubbs Jones said the project is an investment in retooling the state's economy and portrayed it as critical to efforts to get Ohio growing again.

Hunt Construction of Indiana builds in Cleveland:
2000 Mayor's Office of Equal Opportunity Contract Compliance Certification of Approval City of Cleveland

   Riverview Baptist Church from Franklin, Ohio (south of Dayton, Oh.)  in cooperation with Fresh Coat Cleveland spent a week providing their earnest and good spirited (the job site near E55th and Superior was a upbeat place to be) volunteer labor in Cleveland painting houses. 

I found this old article Construction Trades Muscle Pols On Convention Center by Roldo Bartimole while searching for the history of the convention center biznas in CC. 

 

Rush hours are abhorrent everywhere (forget inconvenience to us humans - the exhaust is killing the globe), from Boston's SouthEast"Expressway" to the Cleveland Inner Belt and "dead man's curve" (which ODOT will "fix" - right?) to the interstate 5 in LA

But here is a view of a rush hour in Cleveland that is really exhilarating. 

From the Washington Post article below "Through much of the 20th century, lead in
U.S. paint and gasoline fumes poisoned toddlers as they put contaminated hands in their mouths. The consequences on crime, Nevin found, occurred when poisoning victims became adolescents. Nevin does not say that lead is the only factor behind crime, but he says it is the biggest factor."

Now this down to earth engineering plan to rectify the natural state of the Cuyahoga River is an operation I could get behind long before I could support Bill Mason's wind turbines "about 3 miles out on Lake Erie".

The following log entry was placed by Brian Wroblewski on his Buffalo, N.Y. Great Lakes and Seaway shipping blog

Here's the photo of the Breuer Building which respectfully reflects the Breuer neighboring buildings.    Where has the Cleveland Foundation been during the discussion of the removal of the Marcel Breuer Building out of downtown Cleveland, Ohio? 

The CF hasn't been shy about lobbying for wind energy, for which the Foundation is to be applauded.   And the wind energy issue certainly has a political side – the other side from the republican oil and gas industry.  Why doesn't the CF jump in on this historic preservation issue?

 

Beauty inside the mind of the beholder? sure, but education from our peers who know the difference helps get us up the ladder of appreciation.  Here's a shot from the plebian street...GOT UGLY?  Marcel Breuer – do you get it?

photo by U NO HU

Today Jeff Buster and I attended the free public day of the American Solar Energy Society Conference at the Cleveland Convention Center. It was a fascinating array of gadgets and applications of solar and wind, batteries, generators, inverters, batteries, reflectors and pumps -- even the County energy efficiency guy was there and a representative of the electrician's union who said Cleveland area electricians are keen on seeing incentives drive solar and wind installations in the region. The best news though was heard as we left at the end of the day; Green Energy Ohio's indefatigable Fletcher Miller (on right hand in photo above) was speaking with a (the big) guy from Palo Alto California who had asked why the conference was in Cleveland. Fletcher replied that it was the excitement on the ground and noted that Ohio has more members of ASES than any other state and that the on-the-ground excitement caused the choice of our fair city. It paid off. Fletcher said that the conference had already doubled the number of attendees over last year's conference in Denver--Denver 1,600/Cleveland 3,200. Fletcher also applauded John Funk's coverage in the PD such as Ohio needs an advanced energy policy, Forecast: sun, wind at downtown events and Energy answers in the wind, sun "These two trends, climate destabilization and oil depletion, are matters of science, not conjecture."Bradley Collins,the executive director of the American Solar Energy Society. So here's a shout out to Cleveland and Cuyahoga County and the rest of the state -- let's get busy and get wind and solar going -- the problem was pointed up by a lawyer from the London office of Squire Sanders who specializes in wind turbine installation -- the hold up in Ohio -- no Renewable Portfolio Standard.

I took this photo in June of 2003 along the Doan Brook above MLK in Cleveland, Ohio.  Very inspired palette

 
Water current  - in rivers and streams, and wave action - on the sea shore,  classify grains of earth by their surface area and their mass.  Similar sized grains of sand of similar mass are found next to one another.  Dissolved clay is suspended in the Cuyahoga current and washed out into Lake Erie where it settles to the bottom as the current subsides. Geologic strata develop.  Cargill mines below Lake Erie the salt strata laid down eons ago.   The big massive rocks of the Cleveland  breakwater stay in place for years – only budging to pack ice and hurtling storm waves.   You “pan” for heavy gold flakes with a swirling action washing the lighter sands over the rim while the heavier metals of the periodic table remain on the bottom. 

My sister and her husband just returned from an arts residency at Masereel Centrum.  This is a photo of the lovely courtyard and living quarters provided to the artists.  The deadline to apply for next year is August 1st, 2007.  Art residencies...hmmm...what an idea???  Where do artists want to live while they are in Cleveland??