collisionbend.com

Found in an interesting site for all you golf lovers out there: www.golfflyover.com.

Now before you head over there to be amazed, be advised: don’t bother. One silly fact: these guys are so paranoid about people stealing their stuff that you can only view one or two courses at a time!

Beyond that, don’t go to one course and then another and then back to the first one, because they won’t let you. I had to email them to let them know that I was having difficulty, and their response was polite enough, but I can’t recommend that anyone actually use their site until they get real.

Their reply:

…Several people have tried unsuccessfully to scan our website and download all our data.

OK, so if they tried, then you’ve looked at your server logs, no? Why not just ban the IP? It’s not all that hard… Beyond that, there’s all sorts of tricks you can play with the .htaccess file to prevent mass downloads as well — and they all work for the most part.

No, they want to make it hard on the end user — and that is what borks this site, not the application itself. Yeah, I could say a lot about inaccessible HTML, invalid markup & CSS and all, but it’s not worth it.

Then he gave me a link — and it didn’t work. I had to manipulate Google Earth to get me there (I was looking at Powderhorn in Madison; I wanted to look at Thunder Hill as well, but no dice), and it took some wrangling.

Seriously: if you and a friend are perusing courses, trying to decide what course you’d like to play, see the challenges that each course provides, then make a decision, you’re strictly S.O.L. — in the sincerest form of that term. And that’s too bad: this site has a nice potential.

There’s reasonable fear, then there’s unreasonable paranoia, and these guys crossed that line years ago.

But for the way it is right now, you’re better off with the golf course’s brochure — this site isn’t ready for prime time yet.

I’ve been lamenting the closing of Shinano’s Restaurant in South Euclid, of late. Open in the same place with the same crew (save for two people) since 1991, Shinano’s had just about the best sushi on the upper East Side of Cleveland.

Word is that they are looking for new digs, perhaps near Solon, which doesn’t do me a whole bunch of good: I don’t want to drive 25 miles for sushi — if I’m going to drive that far for sushi, I’ll go a few more and head to Ohashi’s in North Olmsted, which is probably (perhaps easily) the best sushi restaurant in town.

So what’s a guy like me to do? Suffer?

Not quite. Enter Young Lee, the former sushi chef at Lure Bistro in downtown Willoughby. Lee and his wife have recently opened Young’s Sushi on Clark Avenue in downtown Willoughby (old Willoughby). Clark Street runs parallel to Erie Street one block West of Erie.

OK, so I’m not exactly convinced by the location — I think I’d rather be right on Erie Street, but then again, the rent is higher there. Young’s location has its own parking lot, which helps out: parking in Willoughby can be a nightmare, especially during the car show.

Walking in, I was a little amazed at the decor; get this: black and white linoleum tile floor, a pale ash green wainscot-type bottom half and deep purple top half paint scheme on the walls, cantina-style tables with metal-framed plastic chairs, and (oh, wow!) country music playing in the kitchen.

I had my doubts…

…and was well rewarded for my open-mindedness. The sushi was outstanding: their white tuna is on a par with Ohashi’s any day of the week. I had the Fire Bird Roll, which has tuna, salmon, red snapper, white tuna, crab, avocado and cucumber; the Love Roll, which has white tuna, snow crab and avocado; and two pieces of white tuna nigiri. My bride had the Mexican roll (!), which has shrimp, avocado and cucumber; the snow crab roll, which has snow crab, avocado, and cucumber, and another which I can’t remember.

We both also had the Miso Soup and the house salad with ginger dressing. Both of these were excellent. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that both exceed any we’ve had yet (in Cleveland).

But the sushi was, as I said, outstanding: the fish was absolutely fresh, the rice perfectly cooked, the seaweed not too chewy, and the vegetables crisp and flavorful. And the ginger was so fresh it almost burned my tongue!

At first, I was going say that the wasabi was a little weak, but that would be wrong: it’s not weak at all — it’s what you would refer to as a “sleeper”: you get some flavor, but little heat… so you take a little more… then, all of a sudden…

WHAM! Your sinuses are under assault, your eyes can’t hold their water, and your mouth is going hooo-HAH! The wasabi is truly excellent.

I saved the white tuna nigiri for last — white tuna sashimi is one of my all-time favorite foods — and I was not disappointed in the least: it tasted almost like butter, and it melted away on my tongue slowly and evenly — and not a single hint of a sour note, which can happen easily with less-tan-Grade-A white tuna. My only regret here was not ordering two orders of white tuna nigiri (or maybe three — what the hell: when it comes to sushi, what can I say? I’m a pig… <grin>…)

All of this from what you would never think of when you think of a sushi restaurant. I only had one negative to the whole experience: the chop sticks were oval, and were difficult for me to handle. That is something I can definitely get used to, with practice.

I have to wonder about their timing, since opening a restaurant is never easy, especially in bad economic times, but if Young can develop and keep a loyal clientele (and with food like his, I see no reason he can’t do it), you’re going to be hearing a lot about this restaurant in the future.

The hours are 11-9 daily, and 1-8 Sundays; the restaurant is located at 4082 Clark Avenue in downtown Willoughby, about two blocks from the Willoughby Brewing Company (the other side of Erie Street), right next to the convenience store.

If you’re out and about on the East side, and you have a taste for sushi, try this place — you’ll be glad you did.

Cleveland, you gotta’ be kiddin’ me.

I pass this amazing piece of crap twice a day, every morning and every evening, and I’m always amazed that it exists.

How long are you going to sit passively in your cars and pass this wretched hulk day after day? Take a good look, Cleveland, because this is the real face of our city:

A real beauty, right?

The city could probably take this building by Eminent Domain, and for a song. The only problem is that this hulk has been sitting on this spot, just like this, for years: open, broken windows, open doors — the works. It’s probably going to cost a fortune to clean the hazardous waste out of this building.

What? Hazardous waste? What hazardous waste? In an empty building?

You bet: just about every bird living within 10 miles of the city has to know that this nice, little shelter is here waiting for them in bad weather. Just about every rat the size of Shamu does, too. And every stray dog, too. What about snakes? We have them in this region of Ohio. And I’ll bet there’s more bird shit and rat shit in there than Exxon has oil.

THAT hazardous waste. (It’s time to call in Mike Rowe for another episode of “Dirty Jobs.”)

The land could be worth a fortune — if it were habitable, which it’s not. Not by a long shot. You could build something very nice here: a housing complex, perhaps, or an aquarium, maybe, or an office building, possibly. Gee: maybe even — dare I say it — a casino? Not that I’m for having one in Cleveland, but if we did have one, this would be an excellent location…

The possibilities are endless for a property with an outstanding lake view like this.

But instead, we have this hulk just sitting here, taking up space, rotting from the inside out and the outside in, housing all sorts of vermin, rodentia, and the like. Just a thought: if mosquitoes are breeding there, and they are breeding in water polluted with rabid or diseased animal waste, you have to wonder what kind of diseases they carry with them — and what they can infect us with.

Our priorities are elsewhere: a convention center, a medical mart… not that these things are unimportant — they certainly are important — but you can’t forget about severe rot like this. Not in an area so visible.

So, Cleveland, there you have it: your fair city. This is the face of Cleveland, Ohio, like it or not: this is what every visitor to this city sees every time they go down to Progressive Field, or Cleveland Browns Stadium, or the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame, or one of those supposed conventions our politicians want so badly that we never seem to be able to attract.

They blame the lack of hotel space (ironically — and laughably — this is an abandoned Howard Johnson Hotel!) for the lack of conventions here. Yeah, right. If you were hosting a convention, and you had a choice between just about any other American city — and this dung heap — what would you choose?

I’ve been meaning to get down there with my real camera and take some better photos; I just might tomorrow morning, if the weather holds. I will post more photos here as I take them, believe me.

All day Tuesday, April 22nd, the good folks over at TCP in Aurora, Ohio will be celebrating Earth Day with IllumiNation, a special Earth Day webcast about conservation, recycling, and ways you can help conserve our planet’s environment and natural resources.

Tune your browser to www.tcpi.com/earthday for more information.

While you’re at it, check out Help Our World to learn more ways to help the environment.

Ed Hammer, known as the “Father of Fluorescent Signature Analysis,” invented the Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL) for General Electric in 1976. Ed eventually won the IEEE Edison Medal for his pioneering work in the lighting industry.

Ed currently serves up podcasts about his experiences in the business, and (pardon the pun) sheds some light on the true nature of fluorescent lighting from the first days to recent developments in the industry — including advances that help eliminate the introduction of mercury into the environment.

You can check out his weekly podcasts at www.drop-the-hammer.com.

I can tell you that we here at the Bend have changed about 3/4 of our light bulbs over to nVision CFLs in the last year, and we’re seeing a significant savings in our electric bill.

Check it out — and save a few trees.

UPDATE — You can also digg this at:
http://digg.com/environment/illumiNation_An_Earth_Day_Event_Brought_To_You_By_TCP

…and it has been rough, let me tell you. I got a lot done, though, but if you look at the SPAM emails I received in the last 24 hours, you’d think I haven’t done enough.

To wit:

“Tracey Teague” thinks I am in search of a university diploma. I am not, thank you very much. I have more of a college education that she’ll ever have — and probably more than most people. Try me on this one…

“Monty Shaffer” says I can increase my… erm… you-know-what size by 3″ by using his patented technique. You really sure I’m that self-conscious about how big I am down there? In a day and age where people use plastic surgery, pills, and just about anything else to enhance their looks, you might think I might be interested. But I’m afraid not, pally: I’m fine just as I am, no more, no less. In fact, I’m probably better endowed than you are.

That’s not saying much, I know, as I’m not all that big (it’s pretty dinky, if you ask me — with the emphasis on “pretty”), but when you get into the territory that these guys are talking about, there’s only one way a guy goes, and I don’t go that route: uh uh, sorry Jack. Even a less-experienced woman knows that it ain’t the size of the gun, it’s the motion of the ocean. The only people who care about the size of that body part are guys that are… well… “a wee bit lavender,” (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) if you know what I mean…

“Euro Software” thinks I can speak German… ‘fraid not, pal, sorry.

“Stuart Page” wants to sell me a watch. Well, maybe not a real watch, but a “repl1ca w4tch.” I guess it’s a real replica of a replica watch. Something. I really don’t know, but I really don’t care, either; I no longer wear a watch: I can’t, as it prevents me from reaching all of the keys on my computer keyboard, which is essential to any Web-based job…

So, now, “Stuart” didn’t get the gist of my non-reply, so “Howie” thought he’d try as well. Sorry, still not biting…

Now here’s something I can really use: “Sylvester Walden” wants to sell me Viagra for US$1.41/pill, or Cialis for US$2.22/pill. Hmmm… that’s only slightly more expensive than my insurance company can get me those same pills, and I can get that prescription from my doctor with a simple phone call and have that prescription filled within an hour — let’s face it: at my “advanced” age, we’ve discussed it. I’m OK so far, so I think I’ll pass… for now…

“Hazel Dernovsek” wants to sell me bling. Not just any bling, mind you, but “fantastic bling of all sorts.” God knows I haven’t enough bling, so I gotta buy more, right? It’s really too bad I’m not into bling of any sort, let alone fantastic bling…

“Lori Hunter” just wants to say ‘Hi!’ I wonder what she wants… maybe I could take my accounts offline and open the email just to take a peek. It’s probably a call to another Web site that is going to either fill my screen with porn, or try to reset my Internet Explorer settings so that all I can ever see is their porn site.

It’s really too bad I use a Mac, isn’t it? Assholes.

Now “Lavern Guy” wants to sell me “waterproof replica watches,” as if I still hadn’t quite made up my mind. Hate to tell him (maybe it’s a “her”?) what I didn’t tell the other guy…

And then there are those idiots that send email in foreign languages, using Cyrillic or Asian typefaces. Sorry, but I am at a loss with this one. I’m an American. My family has been in this country for almost 400 years. REPEAT: 400 YEARS. English is my primary language, even though I have a German last name.

I sport the “Standard Midwestern American English Accent” so treasured by US broadcasters that in college I was trained in public speaking without my consent (I have a good speaking voice, so they made it an educational requirement by decree — they could do those things back in the 70s), so that I might have a future as a broadcaster one day. Little did they (or I) know at the time… ;-)

But, I digress.

So why send me a sales message in a language I can neither understand nor comprehend, let alone read? Cheap broadcast is one thing, but Common Sense is another.

But… wait a minute… we’re talking about spammers here… Common Sense is certainly NOT one of a spammer’s essential core qualities…

Silly me.

Whoa, relief…

I was just able to relieve myself from a difficult client’s expectations and go to another project at work this week. The initial client is a bit, shall we say, persnickety; everything has to be absolute letter-perfect, pixel-perfect, etc., all the way down the line.

Print stylesheets? Perfection need only apply. (What? We have lousy print CSS support across browsers? The Hell, you say!)

We have a bug tracker, of course, and I have been free for a couple of days now — that is, of course, if you ignore the client’s bug reports issued today, which were really a series of change requests…

All that aside, it was a pleasure for me to move from one challenging site to another, internal, site that is probably more like moving from the frying pan into the fire than it is moving from one difficult situation to an easier one.

Seriously.

But what I was able to do, this week, was to leverage some recent learning into the internal client’s site that saved me time, countless hours figuring out stuff, and plenty of headaches.

I used jQuery, my new heartthrob.

My superiors are impressed, and so am I — and the best is yet to come, as I have more wrinkles to expose in this project: the sky is my limit!

So I just got home, after numerous hours at the agency this week, slaving away, and I come home feeling… well… tired, yes, but…

…damned good.

It’s a feeling of accomplishment, but better: it’s knowing that I stretched myself to create something that should be; something that belongs where it is as it is. It’s a feeling that I created something that simply deserves to be. Something right.

It’s rare, because it’s a feeling that I did it.

It’s a good feeling, too: and I want more.

By now, I can assume that you have been able to dig yourselves out of the snow and actually get around our fair city.

For some of us, that process took longer than others.

I got home Friday night around 7:30, and it was just in time: I took my lunch leftovers and the daily mail inside, dropped it on the kitchen counter, then slid into the bathroom to do something… well, if you can imagine that it took me almost 90 minutes to drive home, you can imagine what I had to do in there.

Afterward, I went outside to have a cigarette, and I saw the first of what was to become a long list of cars to get stuck in front of my home over the weekend. I lost count around 18 or 20, most of which were 4-wheel drive trucks with snow plows, or Jeeps, but there were a couple of cars and minivans — and one of the latter got stuck right at the end of my driveway sometime late Saturday morning.

By that time, we had at least 16 inches of snow in the street, and it was still coming down — hard. (When all was said and done, we ended up with 28 - 30 inches of snow in the street, drifting to 4 or 5 feet in some places just off-road.)

The lady who owned the minivan abandoned her vehicle with the intent of returning to get it out. She tried later, only to get her Jeep stuck before she arrived at her minivan.

What really got to me was what happened Sunday morning: a city snow plow, trying to get around Ms. Had-no-business-being-out-in-the-worst-snowstorm-in-Cleveland-history’s minivan, got stuck in the very same place many other vehicles found them selves in the hours earlier.

I woke up just in time to take these videos (I apologize for the sharpness — I woke up just seconds before, grabbed the camera, and began shooting; the fuzziness is the window screen):

Turn the volume up and you can hear my bride and I talking about what a good job these guys were (and have been) doing — and they have.

I mean, let’s face it: the heavy snow wasn’t hardly their fault. Nor was the fact that their jobs were made infinitely more difficult by the bozos who felt that they were such good drivers, and their cars were so great in the snow, that they could get through anything.

For that, the proof is in the pudding, as they say:

In this second video, you can hear me say, “oh, please hit that minivan — please hit that minivan!” I was saying this because the person that left their minivan there had absolutely no business being on the road on Saturday — for whatever reason. And their lack of consideration for themselves or others resulted in many more individuals getting stuck in the same place — and to preventing the plows from cleaning our street when all of the others in the neighborhood had been cleared at least twice.

We were stuck in our house until 5:00 p.m. Sunday, unable to go for groceries or other goods when others had been out for hours — thanks to this person’s stupidity.

I took the video because you never see snow plows getting stuck — or pulled out of such a situation; I posted the videos because people need to see what a lack of thought and consideration can do to inconvenience others (and I’m not just talking about me).

Next time they say to stay off the roads unless it’s an absolute emergency — stay off the roads.

UPDATE — My video has been picked up by The News-Herald.

“Stormageddon” strikes the city mid-day. We had plenty of warning, so why was there 5 inches of snow on the Eastbound Shoreway at rush hour?

Seriously. The National Weather Service issued advisories, watches, and warnings for the last three days. We knew it was coming.

Jeff Tanchak on Channel 19 hasn’t worn a jacket for a week now, and his sleeves have been rolled up so long his arms are frostbitten. We knew it was coming.

They can track these storms and predict right down to the hour when they will enter our area — so we knew we would get it mid-day today.

The highways in our area tonight were a total mess at 6:00 p.m., some 8 hours after the storm started. It took me 90 minutes to get home tonight, from Independence to Euclid, white knuckle all the way. Go figure.

Not too long ago, we had another mid-day storm that we knew for two days was coming mid-day, and evening rush hour traffic was again a mess — snow crews hadn’t gone out to plow during the day; they waited until rush hour was over to go salt and clear snow, and by then the highways were a total mess.

Why do they wait? Why don’t they get out there at a proper time and treat the roads so that they don’t accumulate so much snow and cause so many problems? Are they in cahoots with the body shops or something?

(It’s not the guys on the line, in my opinion. I think it’s just a simple case of poor management.)

Oh, by the way, the answer to the question is an ODOT truck. Or, if you’re a Hitchhiker fan, they sleep 42.

And… punt.

Here’s a second interesting piece of trivia: what do all of the following actors and actresses have in common (hint: read the title of this post):

• Martin Landau
• Ida Lupino
• Martin Balsam
• Gig Young
• Joe Flynn
• Jack Warden
• Ted Knight
• Jean Marsh
• Burgess Meredith
• James Franciscus
• Ross Martin
• Inger Stevens
• Dick York
• Jeff Morrow
• Vera Miles
• Martin Milner
• Roddy McDowell
• Ivan Dixon
• Sebastian Cabot
• Jack Klugman
• Orson Bean
• Anne Francis
• Keenan Wynn
• Donna Douglas
• William Shatner
• Patricia Breslin
• Art Carney
• Arte Johnson
• Agnes Moorehead
• Jonathan Harris
• Don Rickles
• Buddy Ebsen
• Bill Mumy
• Cliff Robertson
• Dennis Weaver
• Charles Bronson
• Elizabeth Montgomery
• Jonathan Winters
• Peter Falk
• Lee Marvin
• Lee Van Cleef
• Cloris Leachman
• Buster Keaton
• William Windom
• Dean Stockwell
• Leonard Nimoy
• Robert Redford
• Frank Sutton
• Carol Burnett
• Donald Pleasence
• Bill Bixby
• James Doohan
• Ann Jillian
• Robert Duvall
• William Sargent
• Julie Newmar
• James Broderick
• Joyce Van Patten
• Burt Reynolds
• Mickey Rooney
• Telly Savalas
• James Coburn
• Sir Cedric Hardwicke
• Richard Basehart
• Greg Morris
• Robert Lansing
• Mariette Hartley
• Wally Cox
• William Demarest
• Alan Sues
• Jackie Cooper
• George Takei

All of the actors and actresses listed above starred in the original run of the TV series The Twilight Zone in the early-1960s.

While writing about the Outer Limits TV show, and after Joel Libava’s comment, I thought I’d do the other show.

Remember this?

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space… and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition… and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call… The Twilight Zone.”

You couldn’t make a TV show today with all of those people in it — there’s too many of them.

From this morning’s Plain Dealer Monday Moaning (the fourth paragraph after the ad dead-center in the article). Euclid Police, please take note:

“My moan is about idiotic drivers who do not know how to use a ‘left-turn-only’ lane. They either sit in the through lane holding up traffic, or they angle the front end of their car into the turn-lane leaving the rest of the car in the through lane still blocking traffic. If you’re too stupid to drive it, then park it.” — Euclid

I would have taken my neighbor’s argument a bit further (no, I didn’t call this in, but wish I had; it was a fellow Euclidian): I think these people should lose their drivers’ licenses.

Seriously. They congest traffic, cause accidents, and angrify other drivers — as if we didn’t have enough “road rage.” To make matters worse, they don’t care.

It’s part of what I’ve said before: we’re becoming more rude and inconsiderate of others every day.

Now, there’s one intersection in Euclid where I can predict with absolute certainty that this will happen: Westbound Lake Shore Boulevard at East 260th Street. No one — absolutely no one — who enters the left turn lane, preparing to turn Southbound on E. 260th, ever lines up in the turning lane properly.

And if they somehow do, by some shadow of luck, pull fully into the left turn lane, I guarantee you that they will fade severely to the right — well into the next lane of traffic — before actually making the turn.

Along the north side of Lake Shore Boulevard at the intersection are three driveways, four telephone poles and a fire hydrant. Someday, someone is quite unexpectantly going to forcibly meet one of those poles, the hydrant, or a car in one of those driveways after being forced over to the right by some idiot who can’t drive.

And someone — perhaps a pedestrian on the sidewalk a mere two feet from the street — will get hurt.

It’s one of the most dangerous intersections in Cuyahoga County, even if it hasn’t been identified as such by any planning commission or traffic survey. It scares the crap out of me every time I drive through it — in either direction — sometimes four times a day, sometimes many more.

Euclid Police should pay closer attention to this intersection — before someone dies.