Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Tweet from Pickles Alley

Bicycling to work yesterday ... down Main St. on the south sidewalk ... three fire engines passed by at an alarming rate, so I stopped and sent a "tweet" from my Blackberry -- at the entrance to the alley called "Pickle's" in Scott Thorne's "Dazette" blog.

That's the south entrance to Carbondale City Hall / Civic Center at the end of the alley.

If you don't care to click on the link to that tweet, here's what it stated:

Tweet from pickles alley: 3 fire engines just went haul-assin down Main St.

Today I'll try to find out where the fire trucks were headed in such a hurry.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Tweet from Woodlawn Cemetery


Along with a couple hundred other folks in C'dale, I attended the annual Memorial Day service at Woodlawn Cemetery, where the first-ever such observance was held in 1866 according to a tweet posted that morning. ;-)

I had intended to videotape the entire service, but the memory card ran out before Mayor Cole's speech was done. ... The photo above shows him gesturing toward the curious unnamed sarcophagus (pictured above) he thought might have been knocked to the ground and opened during the sudden Derecho (aka Hurricane Lucille) that blew through town earlier this month.

During the event I shot off a couple of tweets -- one about the Illinois State grant the City got for to begin restoration of the old Attucks H.S bulding, across the street from that very cemetery. WSIL TV3 was there, and reported on the story: Carbondale Gets Grant for Renovating Attucks School

The other tweet concerned Mayor Cole retelling the story of "The Giving Tree" a children's story by Shel Silverstein. Since my Twitter Updates also go to Facebook, one of my Friends there was incredulous that Cole would tell this story since the City would incinerate the destroyed trees and branches instead of recycling.

More photos of the storm damage and aftermath on my Picasa web albums. The album is called If a Tree Falls in Carbondale.

Tweet ya later, Bloggee.!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

beesy beesy

Experimenting with a new look for summer... Will be adding more photos to the mix, too.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

City: No time for twitter just yet

Back from visit to City Hall re: the City's communications response. Picked up paper copies of #12 & #13 Mayoral updates on recovery. The city's tech guy, Mark Jones, told me he was too busy to tweet the info - or have someone else do it. ... I pointed out that the several items on the piece of paper I was holding could be cut-and-pasted from the word processor into Twitter. ... Mark stated that he understood how twitter worked, but he was too busy to deal w/ it. ...

I think the Mayor will have to approve whatever goes out. Cole sends and receives text messages daily, so he should "get it." Not sure why he just didn't do it. Guess he preferred the on-air radio updates. A friend said he was boasting on-air about what a great job the City was doing. The great leadership he has shown is another sentence for his political biography when he runs for governor.

When I saw hizzoner on the Monday after Hurricane Lucille, I asked what name the hurricane had been given. "Hurricane Obama' he joked "like Katrina was Bush's fault." A bit of Republican humor by the Mayor on a dark day for Carbondale. But he's probably right, the hurricane created a lot of extra work for folks.

I also stopped by Castle Perilous to ask Scott Thorne of the meaning of "Pickles' Alley" ... Seems Scott was taking a bit o liberty with the name, but I won't make a big dill about it.

Actually, Pickle's alley was between Walnut and the PK's Parking lot. The big brown Christian Baril law office used to be called "Charley Pickles" - a hangout back in the day. But Scott liked the name, and "Notes from Pickles' Alley" was born.

Just checked the @CarbondaleIL twitter site... No updates, following 2, 7 followers.

Storm damage on Springer St.

Posted by Picasa

Civics 3G

so i went to city yesterday and it was busy with food stamp recipients because the M'boro office was w/out power, and people needed to take care of business, so Mayor Cole offered the use of the Cdale Civic Center.. ... Mark Jones, the city geek, was working on something in another city bldg. Deborah .... wouldn't say much... seemed anxious to see me on my way... Wouldn't say anything for fear I'd quote her. 

also stopped into the Main Street / Chamber of Commerce office, where I spoke to Sandy at Main Street and Barb at Main Street about the value of Twitter.... Barb got it and signed up @cdalemainstreet before I left the office. And she used it to post important information, which I didn't get on time because I didn't have the feeds set to go to my cell phone. For twitter feeds to have max use, they should be forwarded to your cell phone.

@ericmittan Channel 3's production editor tipped me off to Jim Raser's @forecaster feed, which I'm getting.... Think I'll add it to the feeds at left, along w/ my own Twitter feed.

And some comedian started a mock "@explorecarbonda" twitter feed.  Funny stuff. Can s/he keep it up?

And the Dazette's Scott Thorne is twittering @castleperilous for his Castle Perilous game venture. And Scott's been busy dropping links and tidbits at a good clip. I had to laugh, though, at his first post-Hurrican Lucille

Since the city apparently does not have "explorecarbondale" ... how about @cdalecity or @carbondale_il 

Today, I'll try agintoget holda Mark Jones or Mayor Cole to find out what's up w/ the City's twitter and other stuff, like the future Bike 2 Work Day.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

all thumbs

Looking out my window see no Ameren truck, They knocked off at 8 or so last night, and so Day 5 without power begins. One good thing: as a result, I'm becoming more profish w/Blackberry keypad thumbing.

Wanted to comment on the City of Carbondales disaster preparedness and performance, after a visit to City Hall to find out about the City's use of twitter and other electronic media.

I've already been told by Mayor Cole and Mark Jones that twitter account exists, but the name I was given "@ExploreCarbondale" doesn't exist.

I'll go there after my morning Greyhound stint and speak to Mark Jones, the City's top geek.

note: this post was originally typed w/ Blackberry keypad, and edited after power was restored. The original had more errors due to my misthumbing.

Monday, May 11, 2009

If a tree falls on Springer St and nobody hears it. . . .

Reading in the Dazette that there was a storm here on Friday--which explains the 100 mph wind and heavy rain a little after 1:00 pm! I captured some of it on video from my upstairs porch door and bicycling thru neighborhoods until the camera's memory card ran out.

Ironically, I was about to buy a new video camera when the power went out.The freakish storm is being called an "inland Hurricane" by experts:"Hurricane Lucille"?

Naturally, I tweeted the event on my Blackberry - sending out 140 character updates of "the situation". Unfortunately no one in Carbondale actually READ them at the time, but at least I shared the event w/ out-of-towners

On Saturday I tuned into C'dale radio 1620-AM and only heard a Boil Water order. A little more info would have been appreciated, so I text-messaged Mayor Cole about the lack of info, and he texted back they were "working on it"

Later he texted that the radio message was changed and an email had been sent. EMAIL? Who could read it w/ the power down? He texted back for me to get a printed copy at City Hall. I went there, but the door was locked and the email was taped to the door.

Later, at an emergency meeting for City staff and Council at 1pm, I posted a quick tweet, but I gave it a rest, since Codell Rodriguez was writing down the details for The Southern Illinoisan. (Although they didn't make it into the SI's Twitter account)

After the meeting I drove to Duquoin w/ another C'dale refugee and got the last room in town at the Budget Inn, watched the Denver Nuggets beat Dallas, and said hi to Councilman Haynes at Krogers.

That's my report so far.
It's Monday morning and I'm thumbing out this text on the Blackberry..

I plan to question Mayor Cole about the City's emergency communications response.

And the tweets just keep on coming.