Construction update Nov 13, 2013 (Updated)

A construction project that I noticed a couple of days ago is an addition to the back of the GMD building on East Drexel Parkway. GMD stands for Genuine Machine Design. The sign in front says "Innovative Filter Production Machinery." I do not know anything about this company.

 There is a large dumpster in front of the Administration Building of the Rensselaer School Corporation. Renovation?

 Slow progress continues at the Melville substation. A couple of weeks ago a new concrete pad had been poured.

 What appears to be a new garage is rising near Columbia Park. The picture was taken about a week ago.

 On the corner of Scott and Washington a small house has been gutted.

 Only the studs are left inside. My guess is that they will rehabilitate it, but maybe it is being torn down in a way that will preserve the lumber. Time will tell.

 Work on the Steinke parking lot continues. I recall reading that it is supposed to hold 55 cars.

 This morning a truck carried away the bulldozer. Grading of the parking lot suggests that it will be paved very soon. There is a funeral later this week, that of my former colleague David Chesek who taught physics at SJC for many years.

 The floor is carpeted, equipment is being installed, and some window signage has been painted fpr what will be 24/7 Club Fit in downtown Rensselaer.

A while back I read that the ceremonial groundbreaking for a new restaurant at Fair Oaks Farms had taken place. Now their Facebook page says that actual groundbreaking is underway. (Click the link to see the picture.)

Update: This morning Town and Country Paving was busy working on the Steinke Funeral Home parking lot.

The Gale of Creative Destruction bypasses Rensselaer for now

When I saw that Blockbuster was closing its remaining stores, I wondered what that meant for Rensselaer's Blockbuster. I discovered that it would mean nothing. The local Blockbuster is not company owned but one of the few franchised stores.

There are about fifty franchised stores nationwide that will remain open. Six of them are in Indiana. I asked the person in the Blockbuster store if the closure of the company would hurt their ability to get titles. She said it would not because they did not get their titles from Blockbuster but from other vendors. The only thing they have that is Blockbuster is the name and logo on the store.

The late great economist Joseph Schumpeter said that the most important characteristic of capitalism was that it generated a "gale of creative destruction." Innovation upsets old ways of doing things and brings into being new ways of doing things. Sometimes the process takes time and sometimes it is quite rapid. The rise and fall of movie rentals is one of those cases in which the process has been very rapid. When VCRs became common in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rensselaer saw a bunch of stores pop up renting movies on VCR. There were several and I do not remember much about them, though I do recall one in the back of the Donnelly building just north of Pizza Hut. (Does anyone remember more of them?) A grocery store or two also got into the business. The small stores were wiped out when Blockbuster arrived. At its peak, it had over 5000 stores nationwide. The development of the DVD wiped out the VCR industry but helped the movie rental business. Technology marches on and Netflix, Redbox, and especially on-demand video have eroded the market for the retail movie rental businesses. Industries and businesses were born, thrived, and died in less than forty years. However, in Rensselaer we will preserve for now a bit of that past because we will have one of about 50 of the remaining Blockbuster stores in the United States.

Morning update: It's beginning to look a lot like winter.

Update two: Is it fall or winter?

A grand tour (updated)

The nice weekend weather encouraged me to get outside and do some yard work. I still found time to visit the various art shows on Saturday. The big one was at the Fendig Gallery where the Prairie Arts people were selling many different things. I was impressed at how much was on display.

On Sunday the Saint Joseph's College Choir held its Italy Tour Kickoff Concert. The choir is leaving today (Monday) for a nine day tour. They will sing at masses almost every day, and they will not sing just one mass by one composer, but at least five masses by five composers, including Mozart, Haydn, and Schubert. They will visit Florence, Sienna, Rome, and Pompeii. It should be the highlight of the academic year for the roughly seventy members of the choir.

 For the concert the choir sang mostly religious music, most of it in Latin. The big exception was a homage to John Williams, which told about Star Wars using movie music that Williams has composed for Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and others.

The weather forecast is for a hard freeze tonight--time to get the last frost hardy veggies out of the garden. There are not a lot leaves left on the trees and some of them are dropping fast. A maple in Weston Cemetery was shedding last week, creating a pool of gold beneath it.

 The ash trees in the cemetery are bare. Are you ready for winter?

Addendum: What happened on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month?

Update: I watched the two buses getting ready to depart SJC this morning. One was headed for the Lufthansa terminal, the other for British Airways. The group will be on two separate flights on two different airlines. Not all of the choir members are going, only 52 or 53 of them. However, some parents and others are going, and the SJC group will join up with a group from a parish in Chicago to make a grand total of about 200 people. When they deplane in Italy, they will be on three different buses. Can you imagine the logistics of arranging all of this?

Filling the pond

I needed to talk to someone at SJC today and while I was there I swung by the chapel to see how work was going. The  tuck pointing of much of the front of the chapel appears to be mostly completed.

 The Jasper County Historical Society put some good pictures of the project along with information on its Facebook page here and here.

At the right angle, you can hardly see the tower for all the scaffolding.

 Work on the reflecting pond must be finished because it was being filled with water.

 I do not remember ever noticing before that some of the trees around the pond have memorial plaques. I remember several of the people who have plaques. There is a more impressive memorial to Diane elsewhere on campus.

Bleak

While I was running chores this morning, I was struck by how bleak everything looked. It was dark and raining. A lot of trees had lost all or most of their leaves, though there were still some maples and tulip trees that were bright yellow or gold. The day shouted that winter is on the way.

The cold of winter does not bother me much because I can dress for it. I do not not like icy roads, but usually there are not too many days that have that problem. The thing I like least about winter is the shortness of the days. It is depressing that now the light is fading by 4:30.

I noticed some signs this morning. The old Murray Department Store building is announcing that 24/7 Fitness is coming soon.

 Who says that you cannot dine on weird and exotic fare in Rensselaer? If you want frog legs or alligator, head over to Sprigz.

A couple of weeks ago the Steinke Funeral Home put up its new sign. After a few days, they covered it up, and then a week ago they uncovered it.

 For the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot of work on what will be Steinke's new parking lot. There will also be a building, perhaps a garage, at the back of the lot. The number of big earth moving equipment could lead people to believe that more than just a parking lot is being built.

Gardening is winding down. I have only a few things left in my backyard garden. On Monday night the Community Garden had an end-of-season celebration/dinner. Thirteen different families had plots in the garden, and there were also plots used by the Crisis Center and the Food Pantry. 670 pounds of produce was produced for the food pantry. There are plans to do it all again next year and I will probably be there again.


This year was good for tomatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, and peas. I also had great rutabagas even though I did not mean to plant them--the seed was mixed in with the peas I planted. Beans and okra were mediocre and squash was very disappointing. I did grow the biggest carrot I have ever grown, shown below.