Dunes Blog

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I was very impressed with the coverage on NWI.com of the recent flooding in the area. With no truly local TV station able to provide round the clock coverage, The Times stepped in and provided that coverage.

Their site was continually updated all throughout the recent crisis with the latest information. You could tell their writers were putting in overtime. They literally filled the site with content about the flooding, all the while continuing regular news coverage. It became a place to find out about the latest road and school closings. The kind of invaluable resource we need in this area.

One thing I and many others wanted to see was pictures. NWI.com became a central place where people could submit and view photos of the destruction in the area. It was fantastic. I literally went through hundreds of pictures and personal accounts.

NWI.com is truly becoming an online portal for Northwest Indiana. The design of their site is clean and efficient, it’s easy to navigate around and it loads quickly. Kudos goes out the the team managing the The Time web operations, they’re doing a fantastic job. I’ve managed content myself, but not on this scale, so I know the kind of work these guys do.

As someone who works doing SEO and Social Media, their site is doing a fantastic job taking advantage of these new technologies. The site has video, RSS Feeds, user comments (though I don’t recommend reading them, your I.Q. will go down) and ways to share content on other social networking sites.

I was surprised to see them stream the Gubernatorial debate live last night. This was an awesome thing to do since there really isn’t a way to air that stuff locally on TV (though I don’t know if the local PBS aired it, probably not).

NWI is undeserved by the major media networks because we are crammed between South Bend and Chicago and thus get the TV networks in both cities. Because of this, coverage on the Chicago and South Bend Networks about Northwest Indiana is sparse, to say the least. The Times is filling that void by using the internet to create a portal for NWI as well as it’s own de facto media network, as we’ve seen with them streaming live events.

Let’s hope they keep it up. I’d like to see a web based video network dedicated to NWI and maybe radio feeds or podcasts. I would also like to see them embrace blogs more and maybe create a directory/agrigator of local blogs.

Speaking of blogs. I was disappointed with NWI Bloggers during the flooding. This is probably the worst disaster to hit the area in a long time and many local blogs were silent (though a couple did blog). Keeping in mind that these blogs are run by people and they were probably dealing with the affects of the disaster. But Blogging provides a unique way to citizens to share their experiences and pictures. Granted, I didn’t write much about it myself because Valpo was spared the worst of the floods and I pretty much stayed in to avoid the chaos.

If you wrote about the floods, please send me links to your entries. I’d like to aggregate the links onto one page so that people can see what other people had to say about this terrible disaster.

According to the Times today, the Valparaiso to Chicago shuttle bus has been finalized. They’ve set a launch date of October 6th and they’re calling it the ChicaGo Dash.

Two buses will depart from Valparaiso at Franklin House at 5:45 am and 6:15 am. The fares have been set at $7.50 each way, which isn’t that much more than a train fare from Dune Park or Ogden Dunes. You must reserve your seat in advance, no standing room only like on the South Shore.

Return trips will leave from Michigan and Randolph downtown at 4:35 and 5:20. You’ll be home around 6:15 and 7. Not bad, if you ask me. You’ll still have most of the evening left and be home in time for prime time TV.

The buses sound pretty luxurious. They will have free WiFi internet access, satellite TV, bike racks, bathrooms and plugs for laptops. So, it will be perfect for people who need to get work done during their commute or just want to screw off on the internet.

I think this is a great development for Valparaiso. I hope that it’s popular so that the numbers justify more buses with more flexible schedules. If the numbers are high enough, eventually the ridership will already exist for the planned Valparaiso South Shore extension.

I have no plans personally to use the bus, I don’t work in Chicago and don’t plan to again. Been there done that. But it’s great for the existing commuters and anyone considering moving to the area. Where else can you live so cheaply and still get paid the big Chicago bucks (honestly, that’s a slight misconception, I make more here…)?

Old growth tree in Valpo that was felled in the storm.

Northwest Indiana was hit by some nasty storms on Tuesday night. At one point there was a tornado in Griffith, Indiana that did a ton of damage.

We were under a tornado warning for a while. Hearing the sirens so loud and clear was chilling. My wife and I took refuge in the basement with all the cats and listened and watched as the storm rolled in.

The lights went off a few times. The thunder and lightning was loud and amazing. It was also rather pleasant, sitting in the basement, in the back corner with my lovely wife with the cats nervous and playing around us. We were holed up for about an hour and I didn’t really care. It was nice.

Storms should come around more often.

Thankfully we didn’t get hit by a tornado but it was still exciting. Some people were not so lucky.

The storms were not over, however.

What followed was probably the worst storm I’d ever experienced in my life, and I grew up in Tornado Alley in Texas. It stormed all night. Literally ALL NIGHT. There was non-stop thunder and lightning. It was crazy. Every time I’d doze off to sleep, there’d be a huge crack of the lightning striking and it’d wake my wife and I up. The cats were freaked.

No one in my household got any sleep that night. It was awful. Lighting strike after lightning strike. Our street flooded under several feet of water.

Yesterday, I saw the aftermath on my way to and from work. Downed trees everywhere. Water extraction trucks every where. It was insane the amount of damage in Valparaiso and we didn’t even have the tornado!

The remnants of the local Jimmy’s John’s in Valparaiso.

Thankfully, we didn’t have any damage to our house or property. Some people weren’t so unfortunate. Our thoughts are with them.

They’ve been re-doing the bridge on Calumet in Liberty Township all summer. They worked pretty fast and now it’s all done. That was two weeks ago. The road has been sitting there done, still closed. What gives?

I’m tired of wasting gas taking the annoying detour.

I read in the paper this morning that Porter County Fair attendance was down this year. It’s being blamed on the tough economy.

This does not surprise me. There was no one there when my wife and I went (last Friday night), which was actually nice.

One of the things we were looking forward to before we moved back to Valpo from Chicago was the Porter County Fair. Lame, I know. But we always have a good time and enjoy hometown feel. The hometown feel is one of the reasons we moved back to Valparaiso from Chicago. We were almost not able to go (being poor and all - tough times will be over soon), but we scraped together the cash and were able to go.

We had a smashing time, but it cost an arm and a leg.

Attendance was down because it’s $7 per person to get in, then you have to eat. My wife and I went with $40 thinking that would be plenty to have fun.

By the time we ate (yummy burgers and fries and elephant ears), we were out of money. We were not able to ride any rides, play any of the games (which are a scam anyway) or buy anything from the shady dealers.

Since when did two people need $100 bucks to have a good time at the fair? Hell, we could have went to Kelsey’s and had steak for dinner for $40.

We had a great time anyway. The food was fantastic, the free entertainment was fun. We also enjoyed going through the animal sheds and seeing all the local businesses in the Porter County Expo Center (the Lego’s in the 4-H were impressive). Got a free map from the Porter County Democrats table (can’t pass up a free road map). We also ended up seeing all the friendly horses then watching some of the girls perform with their horses.

We also greatly enjoyed the quality time we spent together, even if we didn’t have money to do anything else at the fair, at least we were with each other. Check out my NWI photoblog for some of the pictures I took.

If the fair organizers are so worried about dropping attendance, maybe they should rethink what they charge for admission. After all the place is plastered with sponsor after sponsor.

I can’t wait until next year and I hope we have that $100 to have a little extra fun.