I spent last night at the Stately Raven book store in Findlay Ohio. The store is an independent bookstore which opened up in a converted church building and recently won an award for the “Best Bookstore in Ohio”. The store has a really cool science fiction room which, unlike most other local places, is actually stocked with the sci fi writers I read!

Last nite I met up with Tobias Buckell, aka Toby, and Gregory Frost, as well as a few other science fiction aficionados from the surrounding area. After picking up a copy of Frost’s Shadowbridge and John Scalzi’s The Last Colony we made our way to a local restaurant for some food and drinks. I had a good time and look forward to digging in to Shadowbridge this week.

It was really exciting to meet another author, as I already know Toby. I hope that the Stately Raven pulls in some other local authors. I also need to get myself up to Penguicon next May to bask in the presence of Sci Fi authors and geeks!

Our first task will be to get in line for the Maverick, Cedar Points new Thrill Coaster.  More than likely we will wait  2 and a half to 3 hours to ride the 2.5 minute coaster.  I can’t wait to give it a go and then go freeley ride the Magnum, Millennium Force, Raptor etc, while the line grows for the Maverick.

You can check out a POV animation of the maverick in action courtesy Cedar Point

I mentioned this last year but I would love to get an Ohio bloggers day at Cedar Point.  Sometime in Early August.  Anyone else get excited about this?

I believe the schools can also use the system to get in touch with parents for other necessary mass announcements which could come up. The Schooldelay site also shows school statistics for each school in your area making it a good resource for determining a school or school district to move into.

Schooldelay.com also features an online store which offers some great toys for younger children and Stikfas action figures for older kids like me. They offer an option to set up a spirit store to the schools which will let them receive a portion of proceeds for their use. If you want to pick up a cool Christmas present the owner has provided this code for free shipping: R01K-9517-Q4V2 which is good until December 20th. I recommend the Stikfas or the Automoblox Cars but those are just for the kid in me. There are also educational toys as well as toys for children of all ages.

Finally after talking to the owner and to my Mom(who is a teacher) the price for a school to use SchoolDelay.com is more affordable than similar offerings. You can use a form on thier site to request that yoru school start using the service as well.

Disclaimer: I know the owner of this awesome product.

The closest I have come is to find the Hancock County Board of Elections site which lists the individuals who are running however a separate Google search is needed to find the candidate’s homepage. After the search results turn up a homepage it is still just loads of BS and not direct contact with the candidates.

I want to know what these candidates want to do to make school affordable, truly affordable not just affordable to 5 people in the state. I want to know how you plan on bringing jobs to Ohio for people with college degrees. Factory jobs are good and needed but I can’t open the local paper and find One not ONE job which is suitable for someone with a college degree. How can graduates be expected to pay back loans which are astronomical nowadays.

I also want to know how the Ohio Senators and Members of the house feel about fair use, are you simply an industry puppet or do you care about my fair use right. Crack down on timesharing, that’s fine but don’t tell me what I can and cannot do with media I pay for. This includes, movies, TV, music, the bird I hear chirping on the street. You can’t copyright the world and you can’t legislate a business model. You want the young vote? Be part of the solution not the problem.

It should not be this hard to make contact with the individuals who claim to represent me.

Anyone running for office? Want to answer these questions, leave a comment. Or you could simply forget about the young voters like you do every year.

And to MTV et. al. quit this rock the vote BS, give the young people the tools, ask the hard questions of the politicians. It is not enough to encourage the vote. Get the answers young voters need to make an informed choice.

End Rant

Tomorrow, September 30th is Free Museum Day, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute.

The following Ohio Museums are participating:

Archives of the History of American Psychology
Akron

Children’s Museum of the Valley
Youngstown

National Inventors Hall of Fame
Akron

Oberlin Heritage Center
Oberlin

The Dayton Art Institute
Dayton

Check out all the info including free admission card(printable) and location information on Free Museum Day.

More Info on Door to Door Magazine Sales:

http://www.travelingsalescrews.info/

]]> http://www.imjosh.com/2006/07/12/door-to-door-magazine-sales-scam/feed/ 105 http://www.imjosh.com/2006/06/10/watch-cedar-point-from-your-desk/ http://www.imjosh.com/2006/06/10/watch-cedar-point-from-your-desk/#comments Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:54:57 +0000 Josh http://www.imjosh.com/?p=352 If like me you are longing for a chance to ride the roller coasters at America’s Rocking RollerCoast, then head on over and check out two webcams of Cedar Point. One of the webcams is place on the midway giving some fun shots of the skyride,where you can watch for rambunctious teenagers throwing nickels over the edge of buckets. The second webcam offers a view of SkyHawk Cedar Point’s newest thrill ride. The ride is basically a swing, one that takes you 12 stories high that is. Amber and I will be going to Cedar Point later this summer and I can hardly wait.

Cam 1:

Cam 2:

Anyone interested in having an Ohio Blogger’s Day at Cedar Point? If any other Ohioans are interested let me know and we can try to hammer out some details and publicize it. Tickets for Cedar Point have dropped this year and with the aid of a Pepsi can, AAA membership, or credit union membership you can get a ticket for just north of $30. Enjoy the rest of your day at America’s Rocking Roller Blog.

Cedar Point Webcams

[tags]Cedar Point, Ohio, Summer Fun, Rocking ROllercoast, Rollercoaster, Midway, SkyHawk[/tags]

Sweatin to the oldies til corporate decides to fix the AC.

PS how pissed do I have to be to be awake at 5AM, hint I hate mornings and mornings are defined as before 11 AM.

]]> http://www.imjosh.com/2006/05/28/apartments-and-air-conditioners/feed/ 0 http://www.imjosh.com/2006/05/25/sex-in-public-libraries-ban-them/ http://www.imjosh.com/2006/05/25/sex-in-public-libraries-ban-them/#comments Thu, 25 May 2006 21:00:07 +0000 Josh http://www.imjosh.com/?p=345 I found this article on Deadspin.com, WCKY out of Cleveland Ohio did an investigative report on pornography at the local library. The results are frightening in a sense if you are a parent but otherwise hilarious. What boggles my mind is that Mike who was caught pleasuring himself in the public library had been previously caught doing the same thing a few years previous. Carl Monday, is that his real name, has a blog located here that talks of some more problems facing the Cleveland area libraries.

It cracks me up because all the time I see investigative reports about Myspace and other online portals where so and so is pissed because child predators are out there. Guess what they are at the library you drop your children off at unattended, the Wal-Mart toy section you leave them in, and just about everywhere you leave a kid unattended. I definitely do not think libraries should have funding cut or be closed down but it is the knee jerk reaction of some people when they find out some public space is not a good babysitter.

Since I can’t embed Youtube video in WordPress the video is available at Deadspin with some more great commentary.

[tags]Ohio, libraries, sex, Cleveland, Ohio State Fan[/tags]

Lakeside daisy

The Lakeside daisy thrives in the harsh environment of the Marblehead quarry. It shares this rough quarry with several other hardy species including blue eyed grass and red cedar trees. The daisy only grows in two other locations according to the Toledo Blade, those being rocky Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island in Canada. The article also mentions that some of the Lakeside daisies bloom in Mackinaw County on the Upper Peninsula. It is believed that the daisy made its way to the Upper Peninsula through shipments of limestone that originated from the Marblehead quarry. The quarry is currently a 19 acre preserve which is open to the public. Lafarge Corp which bought the previous owner of the quarry sold the quarry to Ohio and continues mining operations across the road in a much deeper quarry.

One of the things that surprise me every year in Ohio is the number of little festivals which take place all through the state of Ohio. One of my favorites is the Bratwurst festival in Bucyrus which I will update you on as it approaches. If you are in charge of a festival in Ohio, particularly northwest Ohio drop me a line and I will try to make it to your festival and ad a note on imjosh.com announcing it.

More about the Lakeside Daisy at the Toledo Blade

Photo Credit Amy Voigt