Can we use technology to help save Lorain?

[rnojonson]

We could use technology to begin to save ourselves in Lorain. We should push for a virtually connected city, using computers and the internet we already have to improve the flow of information.

1. a city or county database where we residents could post our resumes. It would be a first place to look for area businesses and give a picture of what talents are in the area.

2. businesses should use the Lorain web sites to advertise, announce and offer their printable coupons. They could do business beyond Lorain via the internet. eLorain instead of ebay? Localize, pool resources, then expand out.

3. residents should use Lorain's web sites to "talk it up" about everything happening or could happen in Lorain. Our leadership should hear us talk and have virtual town meetings, podcast, web cast or any other avenue to engage us in the process. We do have wi-fi in Lorain. We have cable. We have broadband.

4. Do we need our own broadcast center? An internet radio station, regular web cast station or public TV channel? Should have speakers forum, the library could do it, subject matter could be by patron request, then web casted for all to download and watch. Paid for by various organizations and groups, of course.

5. We have diverse cultures but no cultural center to trade experiences, tell stories, trade recipes. If we can't have a brick and mortar building, we could use the Lorain internet sites.

We should do this stuff because gas is expensive, we can't always be there and we need to use things most of us have access to. We should talk it up until we get a picture of who we are as a city. We should not sit back and wait for stuff to happen (usually negative). Once we begin to exercise, our circulation gets better, we begin to see and know our potential. We have confidence to take a crack at a future.

What do you folks think?

[rnojonson]

Some more ideas. We have at the IX center the Home and Garden show every year. Every year they have model homes. They seem to get greener as the years pass. The governor has this green initiative and there are Ohio firms producing green products. Well, the home and garden show goes away, people forget until next year. Why not build a few green homes in the middle of Lorain using green technologies and green products. A couple of new homes and a number of green home conversions could be done. Real Lorain folks could live in them and report in the media (news paper column, web casts, blogs) what it's like living in a green home. We could look at the energy use and determine if it's something we all could use. The surrounding schools and local builders could all take part. We could test off grid and on grid energy systems, wind, solar and others.

[jf261398]

Great idea! We need to create a positive image of our community and a "GREEN" building initiative might be a way to reconstruct our deteriorating housing base and also lure new ideas into our community.

[rnojonson]

I am thinking a few years back Cleveland had a plan for an "eco-village". The concept was to develop a green zone as a sustainable neighborhood. Sort of a proving ground and learning environment all in one. When I lived in Oakwood Village, Ohio the closest we got to this was a landscaped bike trail from one end of Oakwood to the other. But I believe it helped to bring attention to the old housing stock in the area. Builders went wild to bring in new housing. But to insist on "green" technologies is a twist. Some how you got to get the cost of being green down to where is near equal with what we are paying now. Popular wisdom says that the more you use it, the more reasonable the cost becomes. I know folks are trying to legislate new codes and regulations so that it is legal to do green stuff, but I don't know what we as citizens are allowed to do. There must be standards and someone to enforce and inspect, that's life.

[rnojonson]

Sometimes I feel I am just speaking into the wind, no one but me hears my voice, but I am just echoing what is happening elsewhere. Hard times are all around while we wait for rescue by some gov intervention, business venture or the other shoe to drop. People are leaving the city to look elsewhere to make it. Many of us can't move, won't move and are wondering if this election will produce a savior. I found a web site that shows people in north east Ohio working to save themselves, not waiting for big business or gov intervention. It is REALNEO (http://www.realneo.us/interests-for-a-sustainable-neo/technology-and-infrastructure-0). This site shows how people are reclaiming neighborhoods, growing food for needy folks on vacant land and applying green tech so that common folk are not over burdened by institutions who can't seem to lower the cost of living. Us folks in Lorain need to talk about these things. These things we can do without huge amounts of cash and since we are a small city it is easier for us to do these things than places that are built up and declining. It is more practical to do stuff now, grow into the future than plan and maneuver until no one cares anymore.

[rnojonson]

I was thinking of Hale Farm and Village but instead of an isolated park for stepping into the past, have a "green block" in the middle of the city for stepping into the future. We could have a working, living, learning environment where actual residents and students prove green stuff by doing it and using it. We could grow food, manage energy, try building techniques and explore both retrofit tech and full-blown green systems, on grid and off. Once people understand what green is, green will take off. Right now the only green jobs around here are for planners and dreamers and lawyers. If all you county and city groups really want to do something in and for the city, to encourage us all, it has to be practical enough to see and get involved in. Too much is behind closed doors, under the rug or appears on the ballot without our say. You got to do it on the ground where we live.

[rnojonson]

Wait and see, wait and see, wait and see and while we are waiting and seeing, harp and complain. Nothing is happening here, so let's move to Cleveland maybe it's better there. More harping and complaining because they have problems too. OK, you resolve to stay here, slug it out, things will get better in time. Mean while some are actually trying to make it better. Are you going to wait and see followed by harping and complaining? The best all can do is talk about what they would like to see in Lorain. This beats complaining about what is. Lorain needs jobs, what kind of jobs? Will any old company be put here and business as usual continue? Green resources, energy and technology is an idea that can transform Lorain into something we all live with.
There's talk of putting a few wind turbines in this area, also for making blades and other parts for the green energy commitment in this country. We should look into what other green products we can make and use here to help stem the use of fossil fuels and global warming whether or not you think it's fact or theory. The issue is can we use the green idea to make up for what the oil based economy has not provided? We've got that big ugly steel complex, we could be recycling metals, making windmill towers, parts and pieces for framing and mounting solar stuff. An affordable electric or flex-fuel hybrid vehicle could be made here. There is obvious need and opportunity staring at us and we of Lorain should not ignore it. We have lots of green waste here, instead of paying and feeding BFI we should have a gasification center where the green waste are processed into bio-diesel. To wean ourselves from the trucking industry's plight we should buy or make things as close to home as possible. Somebody please design a hybrid truck, trains have been diesel-electric for years and no one's thought of this yet? Since most of us live in already built homes that need upgrading, we should develop concise info on how to retrofit greenness for fun and profit and or savings. Before oil and coal the whole US was green, now we have new technologies and materials that improve that greenness to where it's not so labor intensive. It's not just about being cost competitive, but also about wars over oil resources and global catastrophes not in our control. We should make the effort to change our own destiny here where we live, other cities are doing the same.

[admin]

rnojonson, I am a Lorain.com administrator. I would like to invite you to start a Blog on Lorain.com. A blog is a great way to write on a topic and allow people to comment. You can incorporate links, photos, YouTube videos, etc. The blogs also rotate on our Lorain.com Blogs news section. Any member can create a blog for FREE on Lorain.com. After reading your threads in the Forum, I think a Blog would be perfect for you.

Thanks,
Lorain.c:cool:m

[rnojonson]

Thanks for the blog invite but I have only so much bandwidth for continuous content.

Technology saving Lorain requires insights many are not willing to consider. Changes in ordinances, life styles and political will are huge. We are more concerned about maintaining and restoring the present, but if there is a chance to make it better with something new, we should explore it.

We purify all our water to drinking standards and flush a good part of that away. We could capture grey water and rain water to flush. The home system would not have to be very big and a city wide water reuse program could save lots water processing cost.

Our coal fired power plants should be upgraded to bio-mass plants. And while more wind turbines are wonderful, little is being done on the energy demand side. There might be an energy credit program for trading older appliances in for newer energy efficient appliances. We spend the most on heating and cooling, there needs to be better info on what home owners can do to improve comfort at less cost. Oberlin has that green energy student house, we need to designate a few homes as an energy village to do real-time data and research, test products, techniques, systems, things that real Lorain residents can do.

A lot of what needs to happen here is to change the psychology in Lorain to oppose the mentality of decline. The "I do what I want" attitude quickly changes to "I worry about my kids living here". Responsibility is to live today for the next generation. Is it really up to people like myself to give pep talks to Lorain? Every positive organization in Lorain should have one person on their staff who is eager to promote Lorain in blogs, forums, news articles, podcasts, looking beyond the mess of politics. It is the idea of Lorain that has taken the hit. Once a viable "industrial" city, have we been taken off the map? Even that city that is home to Polaroid film and cameras had to redefine itself because of digital advancements. We don't even approach the headaches Detroit is having with auto makers.

I am just saying we have to means to slosh around ideas and deepen the well of possibilities, broaden the sky of dreams, hopes. Politics are always messy because money, power and egos are involved, but the table should be open so that when stuff is put on it folks can see it.

Missing pieces I see? Lorain needs to better celebrate the arts & crafts and have rec centers where families can swim and workout.

Keep working on it folks!!

[rnojonson]

The "I can't feel the green tech effect" is plaguing me. I flip the switch and I can't know what percentage of my electricity is wind turbine made. I would have used the free energy from the wind turbines to power a wind turbine factory to make more wind turbines. Rube Goldberg would be proud. Lorain can't feel the green tech effect because we tacked the pin-wheel to the grid. It is like spitting in the lake and calling it a wave machine.

I would have told Lorain we are going to institute a "Green Village". Take a number of homes or a block of homes and split their electric systems into two. Leave the energy hogs on the grid (heating, air conditioning, cooking, laundry). Put the low power stuff on a separate localized off-grid system. Now the low power system can be supplied by solar arrays (roof mounted and/or yard mounted) and wind turbines (various vertical wind turbines in yards or scattered within the block) and the giant pin-wheels. Batteries or other storage in the homes help but the point is not to try to supply ALL of a homes needs by wind and solar.

To help us feel the green tech effect, first get rid of those mercury bulbs, get GE (local company) to push the new OLED lighting. OLED or Organic Light Emitting Diode lighting is well suited for wind energy. Our entertainments and communications and computing can also be put on this low power system. Our AC adapters will become antiques. In this light, the major things we use daily will be under the green tech effect and we will feel it. Hey this feels fine, I will support it. All or nothing solutions are making us do "nothing much". And I can't feel it.

[rnojonson]

How can I, a typical home owner, feel the green, energy consumption is a boon-doggle. I have been hammered with concerns I can't do much about. The urgency is wasted on me. My lot in life has been to flip the switch and pay the bill. Global warming, I can't help that, I have little but opinions on that subject. I can't stop using energy. I got to get away, retreat to my RV (I don't really have one) and park in the woods, I can live OK off-grid for a while.

What if RV type energy consumption systems were put in the typical home. Lighting, fans, communication, entertainments, quite a bit is low powered battery/generator dependent. Hey, some solar and some wind and some batteries and most of my needs can be met, except for those high energy needy times for which I still have a grid connection. We can call it personal or community green energy with grid assist. RV systems have been being perfected for years, look at the space station (that is really off-grid). Most of Lorain's homes are small to medium, not huge energy consumers.

The grid is a way of making us all pay for energy we personally don't use. We pay to maintain the system. The grid is not green because of the economics of coal and oil and AC transmission are engrained in the system. We have perfected the means to extract energy from these sources. So other sources will always be required to match cost and performance, wither they damage the environment or not. Such damage or not, has been reduced to a perception so that profits from investments can be calculated and collected before the effects of disaster can be felt. To do pre-emptive green stuff is not a money maker with this kind of thinking.

Green doesn't just mean producing energy without fossil fuels. Green also means better ways of utilizing the energy. We are often told we give up the abundance and availability for flexibility and freedom. Actually we become less dependent on utility companies as well as coal and oil resources. Green means that the people who use energy are as responsible to the environment as the people who make the energy.

[rnojonson]

Every time I go to Lake Erie's edge there is that sign "swim at your own risk!". This is not just for chemical or bacteria levels but also the turbulence. The undertows of Lake Erie's currents have claimed many lives. If Lake Erie's currents are powerful enough to drag a body, why can't we harness that power to generate power? I know there are devices out in the world that do just that. How come those devices haven't made their way to Lake Erie. The lake is shallow so the thermo shifts and the wind across the surface makes for all kinds of strong movement.

I am thinking we on the north coast have got to learn from the west coast but not try to be like the west coast, it's a whole different environment. We need to flood this area with our own images of green technology. Windmills and water wheels are a part of Ohio history. We have it to harness the forces of nature to help us do our work. I think it is very cool to use modern technology to update the ways and means of doing useful work.

[rnojonson]

We are presented with a number of green choices that are to us typical home owners not all that green. For instance if you recycle, you only pre-sort stuff, put it on the curb and have no awareness what happens to it after it is taken. The same with green energy, they can even contract so you can pay for green energy elsewhere, supporting the green energy effort in a global sense, not locally. The energy that comes into your house is the same old coal/nuke fired stuff you have always gotten (you don't care, you just expect it to be there when you flick the switch). Now if you do care and could do something about it, there are solutions if your pockets are of great depth. The cost of securing solar/wind to meet all of your home energy needs is prohibitive. And that cost recouping over years is meaningless because up front cost are set so high. Sunshine and wind are free effort, extracting energy from them is costly for average individuals. This is why the grid is mentioned first, then some sort of community plan and if you have deep pockets you can get your picture in a magazine to drive the rest of us mad with envy.

I purpose community green power mini-grids and/or a low power secondary system to be put in homes. Still the cost would be a factor but it would be a start. Here is a further push, ONE GREEN ROOM in each home. Let's say your living room is the target. All the lights, fans, entertainment, computing, whatever, could be green powered in that room. Power supplied by a small solar array and battery combo. You might even get a single grid converter so that grid backup is still available just in case. One green room in each Lorain home is not hard to achieve and would serve to educate about green power and give experience with living in the green mode. And folks will devise more ways to use green energy because it's hands on. Then you could go into any home in Lorain and the owner will say this is my green room, powered by the sun/wind. You can't develop a technology if no one can afford to use it. Partial and a little is better than cost prohibitive do it all solutions.

If we continue to develop a green version of the present energy grid, it will take forever. We need to off load the grid. You have to HELP END USERS to sip energy instead of guzzle. We have to do the same work/play with lower energy usage. So forget the fancy gardens and sun rooms at the Home and Flower show. We need to work on a Green Room. Every piece of equipment that plugs into the wall outlet and has step-down transformers and power regulators and AC adapters can be off loaded to a low power system. Maybe start a One Green Room at a time magazine (DIY, how-to, bragging rights, show-n-tell, etc.).

To add to this train of thought. Cars change as evident by the move to new technologies, our homes on the other hand are untouched for the most part. Can a home also be flex-fueled, or multi-source energy fed, or be a hybrid house, or have both grid and off-grid technology. Must we have centralized regulation and distribution of energy as we do now? Should we keep making products that attach to the grid (via ac wall plug)? Will the gov bail out the home owner with a cash for energy guzzler appliance program?

[rnojonson]

alien green spam, no I'm not mispronouncing the former financial honcho's name, I'm talking about the energy war. We just got First Energy's offer of two swirly top florescent light bulbs for every customer. OK, but it is not free, in fact they will charge us on our bill several times what we could buy the same bulbs at Home Depot. Then I heard these bulbs are not the made in America bulbs with the 7 year track record, but the made in China lucky to get 9 months ones now on the shelves. You design a good product have it made in China, they figure out how to make it cheaper quality, pay their folks less and sell the stuff here for less than stuff made here.

So lets add up the savings. Bulbs made in China of inferior quality and unregulated materials, behind the scenes contracts for large quantities and no worries about the company's recouping cost, because it is minimal (the customer wants to go green and the minute addition to their bill is painless). If the bulbs were of identical materials and quality as the original design, they would cost near the same as the original bulbs, might as well make them here (jobs!).

The industrial revolution took us off the fields into the factory, then science and technology improved industry so that less workers are needed. Now how do we sustain our selves if there are not enough jobs to go around? No salary for leisure time. Our financial commitments are from 18 till death, our working life is 50 years at best. Our financial commitments are sealed by legal binds, our work life is iffy and the older we get is precarious. How we can let China pimp us at our expense is not funny. The energy war is real and I feel like a hostage.

I pity the modern household, two kids, two lamps, they meet the lamp looses. There on the floor an environmental catastrophe, you forgot to buy a haz-mat suit so you breakout your vacuum cleaner which has no bags, man, have to go low tech. You break out the broom and dust pan to sweep up. Take little sweeps not to spread the stuff. Then you put it all in a plastic bag, broom (after you saw short the handle so it will fit), dustpan, rags, rubber gloves and face mask. Take kids to doctor to monitor mercury level just because you are worried and buy a testing kit to make sure all traces of mercury are gone.

Yes it is a war, keep others from making nukes for any purpose, promising clean coal (some day), while moving to green so slowly that the grid monarchs aren't winching in pain while they figure new ways to keep us under their domination. I got a "bright idea", lets get them all lower powered lights says the power company. Talk about conflict of interest!! You never, never buy the weapons of the war you are waging from your competitor/enemy. First Energy should have invested those bucks in OLED lighting systems, you know the panels that light your laptops, if they really want us to be green. Imagine an array of laptop panels lighting your ceiling. Low power, no mercury, no haz-mat suit and can be made in many shapes and sizes to fit anywhere. But that would be a kink for them because these lights will run at battery levels and it would not be in the power company's best economic interest.

I have two lamps in my house that are always on, the kitchen fan lights and the dining room chandelier. I have yet to see a swirly florescent lamp to fit those 25watt fixtures and boy would they look..............

[rnojonson]

Did you all see the Saturday morning Plain Dealer front page for October 24, 2009. The article says "Green idea for Oberlin: a sustainable arts district. Please rip out this article, make copies and use this for a catalyst to take real action toward green in Ohio. It is about what I have been saying to you. Cities in Lorain county can do this, take one block within a city and turn it green. It doesn't matter new construction or retro-fit onto existing buildings. The idea is to practically apply green technology on a level real people can live with. I have written about a "green village", a "green block", the DAV (Digital Arts Village) and now it dawns on someone to make it happen. This is more wonderful than you can imagine.

This guy is David Orr and the area is Oberlin College. Think about this: colleges and industries all across the country are trying to invent technology which is fine, but who is practically applying it. Who is using it. When you can see it in your neighborhood, on and in your your home, green technology becomes real. When green living begins to change your living habits, effects your buying habits, how you use, reuse and dispose, etc, etc, etc,.......then there is a larger effect. This larger effect is what we should be after. It is very much like interest in a bank. What you save earns more money. The accumulated effects of greening the living of real people (habits and environments) has a global outcome. Another angle on this is that green technology and living is an economic engine all by it self. There is a great potential that is there but not there if things remain the same.

Mr. Orr is promoting a sustainable arts district, what is that? It is because arts people are eager and accepting of new ideas and directions. Arts is also easy to be a seed for other businesses. You have fine arts, and technical arts like architecture and engineering, industrial design and other disciplines and businesses that makes products. You have a need, design the products, make the products, sale the products, and use the products. Gee, that sounds like an economy. There are other aspects and considerations, but if you detail it too much from the get, you will never get started. First, swallow the idea that it can be done, then take a step in that direction. Build and change while moving forward or you will take too many shortcuts, like buying inferior green stuff from China. Please, lets make our own green stuff so we don't have to clean up one environmental mess after another, created by someone else. It is a money making distraction like buying snake oil instead of paying a real doctor and learning about healthy living. They get the money, we get the placebo. Over time the green becomes brown and we never reached our intent.

[rnojonson]

Hi folks, it's a new year, new decade and I know most are tired of the pronouncements promised at the end of the last decade. Will greenness really come to Lorain or will we have to wait for St. Patties and dye the Black River.........green? Not being an insider, I only catch what's in the air and often it is just a thought.

There are some still grieving the state of the steel mill. Will it, won't it and if not what? Hey folks, do something there. Steel, if you can't make it, melt it or smelt it. What would it take to turn junk into ingots? Industry process materials can be just as viable as manufacturing. Just think, Africa's main problem is not manufacturing, it's materials ready to process. They have resources but no processing plants. We have idle processing plants even though the manufacturing plants have left the continent.

A couple of times a week I go across the bridge to Colorado street, is that a gypsum plant over there? and is that idle? Gypsum is used to make drywall in a process that requires a lot of energy. I ran across a web site about "Ecorock" at http://www.seriousmaterials.com
It's a organic drywall that requires 80% less energy to make, low power. It is more mold resistant, etc; etc; etc; you must read the brochure. It's so green I hear birds chirping. Look, I know we took a hit when asbestos was outlawed, now gypsum? If you are going to be green, be green, not a wimpy gray! Put up a new cluster of wind machines and use that power to make Ecorock.

If we can't make the products themselves at least we can transform raw stuffs into usable materials and recycle old materials into new raw materials. Some require lots of energy, some not so much but if we can create a material flow we also create a revenue stream to and from Lorain. Come on Lorain, if a dummy like me can glean thoughts in the air, imagine what you folks who have a grip on the resources and ability to do it, can do.

[rnojonson]

I have spent my entire life looking at possibilities. The main problem is that I have gotten good at seeing past the raw materials, but conveying that finished product to you who refuse to look past the raw materials and the present use is a trial by fire.

The first hurdle is traditional and conservative and honoring by preserving the past and antiques and the farm mystique (even in the city), etc; (this is Ohio). We can't fathom being able to keep our home spun values if we spin off into the future. It is as if the pot belly stove is kept to remind us of better states of mind. We have even tried to upgrade by buying an Amish made modern room heater, using the "built by Amish folk" as a way to keep the pure values intact. So we have to admit our resistance to progress is mostly because we fear losing our link to the past. Come on, in some Ohio towns the cars pull up to parking spaces that have horse hitching rails!

I cross the railroad tracks almost everyday, the trains go by, sometimes the endless string of boxcars puts me to sleep. Steel boxes, and they are movable from ship deck to railbed to truckbed to warehouse and back. I've seen stacks and rows and I wonder if.........man could live in them. I Googled, Yahooed and Binged, cargo container homes, and shipping container homes, while thinking "boxcar Annie" and "hobo Jimmy"?! I saw a raw shipping container home with the graffiti still on it and I saw a futuristic polished piece of architecture that made the International Space-station look like a billion dollar por-ta-potty. I even saw a Bob Vila video on how to convert shipping containers into homes, wow!! The pieces were 8' wide x 9.6' tall x 10' or 20' or 40' long. They are crush proof, rust proof, Corten steel boxes with wood floors. You stack them and snuggle them and remove sides and cut holes for windows and doors, insulate and cover (if you want) and waalah! What I've seen on the net is way way better and more spacious and more economical (cheaper) than the poor quality cramped structures in Lorain that we call apartments. You can even dress them with facades so that they look like what we are use to, "Colonial". It is recycling shipping containers that otherwise sit idle in shipyard for eons.

I am designing a container home for my property (it will probably never happen) just for the fun of it. I am incorporating quonset hut parts also to add some curves (I don't like cubicle living). Here is a spacey idea for Lorain. We have a large ring of container cottages that from the outside looks like a ring of train cars. On the inside of the ring, the side of the cars fold down with a tent like structure. Inside each car the packed equipment slides out into the covered space. In the center of the ring, a pond, gardens, sculptures, decks and walkways. Sprinkle on some solar and wind for power.
Now double the containers and stack them and the ring becomes a tower with decks.

Now ask me what you can do with that old steel plant and the other manufacturing facilities. All the small towns in Lorain county and Ohio needs make over, how do we continue to look to the east and west coast for innovation while we in Ohio remain a quaint reminder of the past? As I said before we have Hale farm, where is our Green Future Tech farm?

[rnojonson]

Shipping containers converted into homes seems odd, but just think of it as a steel building block. All you hard working steel workers might find work in steel fabricating, cutting and welding. Carpenters doing rough and finish work and folks who recycle scrap into green building materials could really innovate. Architects and building engineers would be flush with work. But I think the idea would work better if the shipping containers were pulled into a factory setting and altered on a line. Why fabricate structures? Have you drove around Lorain, off the main streets and through the neighborhoods surrounding the downtown area and behind the Main Library? Not only we need jobs, investment, the whole area is unattractively beyond repair.

Maybe we need a new design aesthetic, something more modern, and fitting to the idea of moving forward. What would a Lorain city house look like? What green stuff could be done and how to do these things and not push out folks who already live there? Hey, a design competition to design a city house for downtown Lorain. I am so surprised the "revitalization" word has not been used to target Lorain on the west side of Broadway. I think the city planners are so conventional in preserving the past, and small town mystique, they can't possibly think beyond history (I could be wrong!) or maybe that area is so poor nothing practical can be done.

I am saying Lorain needs some unique furnishings in places where residents can access in their neighborhoods, not just visitor attractions. I don't know if large scale manufacturing will come here, we got to create an economic tension where resources flow in and stuff flows out, but we got to realize it can't be stuff you can get at Walmart, Sears or Toyota. We buy the stuff in shipping containers and stack the containers on the dock and they come through Lorain on the train everyday. Alter the steel boxes at the steel plant, put them back on the train, sell them to places to be utilized and save some for us. Tell those young engineers training at LCCC to exercise on this project, How can a shipping container create revenue streams in Lorain?

[rnojonson]

What's the old joke about a guy being seen with the same wheel-barrel of dirt, everybody thought he was stealing dirt, actually it was the wheel-barrels. Shipping containers are the wheel-barrels. What is the Lorain connection? Lorain used to have a steel industry, we made ships, pipes, trucks, etc all out of steel. We have welders and cutters and fabricators. I think it's time for a transference of skills to a new product, hybrid steel buildings. Then a convergence of other skills are in order to pull in carpenters and others all orchestrated by forward thinking architects and engineers.

You must realize I am not talking about turning Lorain into a Chicago or a Cleveland. We need to design to our own scale and get over our Western Reserve aesthetic and colonial look and feel. Everything from a bus stop to a huge office complex can be built with shipping containers and they don't have to look like a shipyard unless that is what you want. I would like to have a home with a flat roof so that I could have a container garden or a private outdoor "yard" or green-roof in the space my house takes up, more useful than an attic, most folks use garages for storage anyway. We need to create new spaces and think differently and live differently. We still have faith in the "Little Boxes made of Ticky-Tack" song.

We should do things in twos, tear down an old house, recycle the materials and build a new house, at the same time. I am just spitting out ideas, and not new ideas, just ones not applied in Lorain, that could be. I have have time to think while looking for work and the exercise keeps me sane. I feel if enough ideas are flashed in front of your eyes, one might be what your are thinking. You might jump into action and say "let's do that!!

[rnojonson]

Hi folks, It's been a little while, science is trying like mad to put the brakes on a free spinning globe. Our friends at BP have created an underwater oil volcano. It's been sealed for eons until they stuck a straw in it. When I was a kid I wanted to see the insides of a golf ball. I cut off the covering, unraveled a mile of rubber bands and came to the core. I took a nail and drove it into the core and the white stuff under pressure squirted out, all over everything. BP stuck a straw in the earth and oil gushed out. Where is the super plumber when you need him? They told us it was safe, then a great learning experience. It is the same with coal, they keep digging and gas keeps killing. "Oh we can clean it!" We, the whole public are watching and waiting as bucks are spent on the journey to the center of the earth resource search and subsequent constant worker rescue. We call the victims of disaster heroes. They wanted a pay check, not to sacrifice themselves unwillingly. It was not their choice to die on energy user's behalf. Sometimes the risk it too high, poor judgment on the surface can ruin it for families depending on that paycheck.

In a right world, instead of digging deeper to find gold in the same hole, thus releasing the past to destroy the future, we should be using what we have presently to build infrastructure for the future. We got oil and coal today, use it toward not using it in the future. So where are America's solar cell factories and wind turbine factories and fuel-cell factories and energy efficient electric motor factories, green materials factories, green lighting technologies, etc. Our problem is not just dependence on "foreign oil", it dependence on "oil". To use less oil is unthinkable especially to the oil industry. But if we kill the earth, we are dead too. If we take our world killing ways to another planet, we will kill there also. Since we are stuck here we should sustain here. Again I say we use our fossil fuels to build a self sustaining green infrastructure, weaning ourselves off from fossil fuels. By greening as much as possible, there would be no need to do extra digging and drilling. I think the demand for energy is partly hype to drive the speculative markets. If all the old homes in my hood were occupied and restored there would be more demand. If they were refitted with green energy hardware there might be less demand for grid energy but the green energy market would boom. I think the old homes need torn down and new efficient homes in their place. That would be attractive to new peoples here. The energy wars is more about the shift of bucks and new markets than anything else. The electric companies won't sell solar cells, so that new product competes with the grid. They will insist you need so much solar so that you can sell back through their meter to the grid. If you buy just what you need, you only deal with the solar cell company, the grid guys will have to find new customers. "It ain't easy being green!" is a truism.

We flaunt our abilities to produce leaders, even in schools we stress leadership. But our idea of leadership is to take over and dominate after someone else has done the work. This is why we have to retrofit technology to fit us. If we designed it ourselves for ourselves in the first place, we wouldn't have to buy it from others and fix it for us. Forget leadership as a title, we need expertise on the ground levels doing the actual work. Over the last ten years managers were the most sought for, the most hired and the most laid off. Ten people climbing the ladder and one holding it, when they get axed, the one holding the ladder doesn't have to hold it any more, gets axed also.

High school is general, first two years of college more focused, the next two more so, then beyond. Two years of real college should be the new baseline, not high school. In those two years you should get foot in the door training for medical or trades or whatever. Internships and apprenticeships should be the norm, union or not, for any profession that requires certification, period. Don't take off the pressure for education, make it more applicable and useful for people who must go through it. The farm or factory education for everyone is not working. When I graduated from high school, I was qualified for neither farm work nor factory work, yet I was expected to find a job, raise a family and stay out of prison. When I got the chance to go to college I started to think about my extended life. I was so unprepared for college and after.

Let the earth spin, it will regulate itself, but you must accept the consequences of the stuff you add into it. This includes flack from fellow humans if you put their lives in jeopardy by your additions. If your gain messes it up for others, you are going to hear about it. With all the media, you can't do much in secret and not be found out.

I am reflecting on the Gulf happenings while looking at Lorain. What's going to happen around here? I hear complaints but not much constructive talk. On the positive, Hawthorne school looks wonderful in my hood. I hope more money of some kind can be dumped into Lorain. I still think we should rally the artist, they have a resourceful way of transforming and re-purposing a town, in spite of the mess they make. There is no transformation without pain, pushing the limits, crossing boundaries and even rediscovering what already exists. Talk is cheap, so we need to talk, then share resources, plan projects to show there is action going on. Give people the idea that Lorain is moving and that there are avenues for their participation. All this is in addition to getting jobs here.

[toto]

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