(no subject)

[which_chick]

Yesterday I went to State College for a training thing on the Cultural Data Project. It's a data aggregation and tracking tool being used by (a) nonprofits for the arts and (b) those who give money to nonprofits for the arts. As I am sort of the chief grant writer for a nonprofit for the arts, I went to learn how to do this because the CDP sent us a letter saying that if we didn't do it, there would be no more money. (I don't talk about being chief grant writer because I only grant-wrote one time. It worked. They've changed the dates and names and other variable information and otherwise followed the model every year since. It keeps working. I haven't DONE any grant writing since the first time and it's been years. It's not like I grant-write every day or anything.) That was pretty fun, really, and looks like it might be one of the nicest pieces of software I've had the opportunity to play with in a while.



In driving up to State College, I note with interest that I-99 is still broken. It kind of stops, abruptly, in the middle of nowhere, north of Tyrone, and becomes a dipshit two-lane road that goes around and under massive, very impressive bridge-overpass things and huge amounts of dirt that have been moved around. (Pictures here) The road construction, which has been going on more-or-less forever was halted in 2004 due to acid drainage from exposed rock or something and it sort of just *sat* for quite a while. Now they're constructing again, I think -- I saw people in bright lime Highway Worker vests, holding flagging signs. There were dumptrucks and large yellow things of earthworking type. Maybe one day it'll get finished.

I also met up with Heather and Co. for lunch at Chili's in Altoona. Actually, I was calling for directions to the bookstore but they happened to be in Altoona to and looking for a late lunch, so I ate with them. Chili's still gives you way too much food. It was really good, but it was too much food and I ate too much of it. I wish they'd give us more normal portion sizes.

Also, while in Altoona, I scoped out where the riding lesson lady is. The directions to there work fine and it takes about forty minutes for me to get from Bedford to Altoona. (There's a lot of one-lane road on I-99 on the way from Bedford to Altoona due to construction stuff -- despite being not-very-old, the completed part of I-99 is in a near-constant state of being-worked-on. I'm not sure why.)

Comments

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

I always got the impression that the Bedford-to-Altoona stretch was thirty years old, and suffering from the usual issues of anything built in the Seventies. Oddly enough, the Ebensburg-Altoona stretch of Rt 22 is about the same age, but it's in much better shape.

The pyritic rock problem with the Tyrone-State College construction was quite unfortunately monumental. They had to divert a lot of resources to stabilizing & sealing off the hole they tore in the seam, if they were going to avoid the sterilization of one of Pennsylvania's great trout creeks. (The runoff went into Spring Creek via its tributary Buffalo Run.) It was a big honking issue in the last few local elections, sort of a Centre County answer to "who lost China" - "who missed the pyritic rock seam?"

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

"Who missed the pyritic rock seam" sounds like a much better question to be asking ourselves than a lot of others showing up lately in national politics.