Fair warning: Life at ground level will move

It's just been reorganization after reorganization here, but we're going to be moving everything to joshshear.com (no /groundlevel) in the coming weeks. There's not going to be a transition. One day, you're going to come to this page and it won't be here anymore. Or maybe I'll remember to throw a redirect up, but who knows?

Addendum: Maybe. We might re-launch at joshshear.com and leave this where it is...we'll see...

Welcome Dylan Rhys Roberts

Born to my colleague Gareth Roberts and his wife, Jenny.



More photos.

Getting people to Syracuse

Syracuse's population is falling off again, and people are wondering – how do we draw more people to town?

I'm thinking, though, that maybe this is starting a step ahead of where we need to start. Before we start drawing new people in, we have to figure out how to retain what we have. While new blood is great, we need people with history, background, etc., to be here as well.

For those who are already here, we know we need to start getting new blood in public office – the current crop of leaders is nearing retirement (from U.S. representatives to mayors to school boards), and who better than those of us in our 20s and 30s to kick some life into CNY? The good folks at 40 Below Civic Engagement are doing a Running For Office 101 on July 16 at OHM in Armory Square, starting at 5:30.

It seems like now is the right time to start some revitalization. If you're like me and going out of your way to try to find gas at $4.19 a gallon or less, you're one of the people who are out on the streets more – you're walking to the convenience store, you're biking to the bank. Plus, as Ellen notes, you're bumping into other people, and maybe you're even talking, having conversations. Novel concept.

Centro says they've seen an increase in public transit ridership, but they still haven't increased routes and schedules to the point where I can reasonably take the bus to work (how does an hour and 10 minutes for six miles of travel, plus showing up to work 15 minutes late, sound?).

The newspaper has appointed reporter Greg Munno to the post of Civic Engagement Editor, and with it, they're launching a new blog called CNY Speaks, which solicits opinions and blog posts from the public, as well as having Greg facilitate conversations.

One cool thing my employer is doing is user-generated video. Unlike YouTube, which is giant and requires a lot of searching, this is kind of a localized deal. The Flash transcoding is a little rough, but I think that's OK – it means that whether you take with an HD camera or with your cell phone, you'll get about the same quality. And we're finding out it's more about the content of the video than the quality of it.

Another cool thing they're doing is getting into Facebook; there's now an app with which you can subscribe to RSS feeds from within your Facebook profile.

Anyway, I hope to be back doing this more often. I had a real hard time with Andrea's passing, but Zach's return after a years-long absence is spurring me on.

Learning to be a runner, weeks 2-3

Week 2 was a bit of a setback – with a chest cold, I couldn't get my lungs to carry me past three-quarters of a mile.

But this week so far is much better. I eked out a mile and a quarter last Friday, but yesterday I did 1.56 miles (that's half of a 5K; it's not just some weird number I picked), and today was the first day I tried to run two days in a row. I extended another tenth of a mile, for no good reason, really.

I'm mixing the running in with other physical activity, for several reasons.

» The easiest reason is I play tennis and softball in organized leagues, and I frequently ride my bike to get places. I'm not going to plan my life around running a couple of miles, making myself drive five blocks to the grocery store if I got on the treadmill at lunch.

» I want my body to understand running as part of group of exercises. If I was going to the gym to do some cardio, I'd hit three, four, five machines, but not the treadmill. Right now, I'm hitting the treadmill, and then doing a sprint on a bike (I've got five miles down to about 11 minutes on about 40% tension over a given pre-programmed course).

» I don't want to get bored, which I do pretty easily.

The local Corporate Challenge is June 24 this year, and I'm hoping to be able to handle it without (a) walking any of it, or (b) having to crawl into the office the next morning.

Great Lakes Wiki

I don't really think of myself as a member of a Great Lakes community – at least not until winter rolls around and we hear the dreaded works "lake effect" every 10 minutes.

OK, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration. My favorite public radio station does the weather every 20 minutes.

But apparently, folks on the other side of Lake Ontario do have a community, and an important one.

They've created Great Lakes Wiki, a place for citizen journalism on the Great Lakes.

Awesome.

Via NewAssignment.net.

Learning to be a runner, week 1

OK...I successfully did one mile, three times, and feel OK about it. Pretty good about it, actually. It turns out if you listen to songs that are about 5 minutes long, you can warm up and then run a mile over the course of three songs. That seems to make it not bad at all – run for two songs and then you're done.

I've got a bit of a cold right now, but I'm getting on a train shortly, and headed for a few days off in the great state Commonwealth of Massachusetts (we need a word that rhymes well with commonwealth).

If the lungs hold up through the sniffling, I think we're going to up it to a mile and half Saturday, and see how we feel Sunday.

We'll let you know how that goes.

Learning to be a runner, Day 1

On Thursday of last week, I took advantage of the lovely weather to wander over to Fleet Feet, the local running shop.

I'd been there before, and been very impressed. They come over to you, they introduce themselves, they measure your feet, they put you on a treadmill and videotape you running so they'll know what to do in terms of shoes.

Outstanding, right?

Yeah.

That was a little over two years ago. I decided I was going to learn how to run.

I kept at it for a month or two, and did pretty well – I had my 5K time down to about 26 minutes, after never having done anything like running before.

I realize now that I was setting the wrong goal. I had wanted to learn how to run – and I accomplished that.

I was doing 26-minute 5Ks (that's about 3.12 miles those of you who can't convert in your head – what's wrong with you!?), but I was doing 26-minute 5Ks while being bored and sore and hating every minute of it.

I didn't do any running last summer.

So this year, I've decided to set myself a new goal: rather than learning to run, I want to learn to be a runner. Someone who likes running. Someone who can be sitting around in a strange city feeling like a vegetable and decide to go for a run, because it's good exercise, and it's good for the spirit.

So I took my-20-pounds-lighter-than-last-time-self over to Fleet Feet, and they looked me up in the computer. The shoes are a half-size smaller, and two widths narrower than two years ago. My landing doesn't correct as much as it used to, so the shoes are a little more padded on the outside.

And I just went over to the gym and did a mile on the treadmill (I walked a quarter-mile first, then ran a mile; I was almost ready to give up after 3/4 of a mile of running, but I said, hey, what the heck, one more time around the track).

Two years ago, I would have made it another mile, but instead, I did a mile, then climbed on a bike (where I'm much more comfortable) for 10 minutes.

I'm quite sure my quads haven't hurt this much in a really long time. I can't even really feel anything below my quads. OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration (maybe).

But rather than take that pain and say, "crap, if it's gonna hurt, I might as well hate this for another mile," I've decided to take the pain and say, "OK, now I know what to expect."

So tomorrow, when I jump on the treadmill to do another mile, I'll know what's going to feel like what, and that I shouldn't try to climb stairs right after it.

And maybe, just maybe, given a month or two, I'll be running 26-minute 5Ks and enjoying it.

Stay tuned.

The jealousies of pi

March 14 was, of course, Pi Day (hint: the number starts 3.14).

Harvard had its annual celebration, and this year, BC senior James Niles-Joyal recited the first 3,141 digits (hint: the number starts 3.141).

My favorite part, though, is the way the Harvard kids rag on him (listen to the last clip on the page).

Apparently, memorizing the first 3,141 digits of pi isn't an entirely useless exercise, but it is an insult to people who care about the number.

Uh-huh.

Here are the first 10,000 digits, on the off chance you're interested.

Oh, I may owe you a pi story. Here goes. I first learned about pi in sixth grade. My math teacher told us pi could be represented as a fraction as "22/7." She also told us that no one had ever found a pattern in pi.

So I did what any reasonable sixth-grade wiseass would do: I divided 22 by seven and got 3.142857142857142857... I couldn't believe people were looking for patterns in this number and hadn't taken it far enough to pick up a six-numeral pattern.

On passing her in the hall I had mentioned I had found the pattern people were looking for in pi, and she asked to see my work the next day.

The work, of course, was correct. It was the fractional representation that, it turns out, was an approximation. Sigh.

40 years and still wandering the desert

Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed 40 years ago today. He was 39 when he died, so he has now been dead longer than he lived. I don't know if that has any extra significance.

What would King think of America in 2008?

I guess it depends on how he got here – I'm sure if he'd seen the pace of progress since then, he'd be disappointed, but if he just showed up after a 40-year absence, maybe not as much.

But then again...we're kind of straddling a divide, aren't we? I'm sure King would be pleased as punch we have a black man running for president. And maybe even that the world's best golfer is also a black man.

But from Jena to Syracuse, nooses are back en vogue. The verb "lynch" is getting people fired from high-profile journalism jobs (great that they're getting fired; why are they still using it?). And Don Imus is back on the air.

I don't know. What does progress look like?

Yeah, "ask"

In case law enforcement ever tells you to delete a photo from your digital camera – or demands that you hand over your film in the name of security – here's what you're allowed to do.

If you are in a publicly accessible place – a sidewalk outside a stadium, for example – you're allowed to photograph anything you can see with reasonable equipment (that said, don't set up a giant telescope in the middle of the street and try it), and use it for informational/reportorial purposes (you may or may not be allowed to sell such a photo to a non-news organization; that's very much up to interpretation).

You will need to understand what is a publicly accessible place. If you're going to the ballpark, you are no longer in a publicly accessible place once you step onto ballpark grounds (including a parking lot).

A street is a public place, unless it is a private way.

Even municipally owned spaces might be subject to private rules if they are being rented out, or if they charge admission.

So be aware of what's going on around you, but don't cave in to people being jackasses for the sake of being jackasses.