In the Spring of 2001, the “race disturbances” broke out in downtown Cincinnati. The event was sparked by the shooting of Timothy Thomas in an alley off Republic Street.

Republic Street starts and stops suddenly. It’s easy to overlook and it’s not a main road to anywhere. When people learn how to get around downtown, learn the streets, they learn that Vine is next to Race. But north of 12th, that’s not the case, Republic is tucked in between.

I vaguely remember being told near the time of the shooting that a shrine had popped up in the alley where Thomas was killed. I went looking for it on the day this photo was made. I thought there still might be some spray paint on the walls or something. I didn’t find anything, but it seems to be that a lot of buildings along Republic Street have been torn down, and several alleys were fenced off like the one below.

There are few things I regret in life. I’m living my dream of being a professional journalist. I work with new media and a big part of my job is taking pictures. I work in a cool place with cool people. But there is a larger than healthy part of me that really, really wish I had learned how to dance.

My girlfriend and her sister are both dancers. My mom danced. I love to dance socially, and I actually like watching dance… if it’s good. The main problem, the stuff really holding back is my complete lack of athleticism, the fact that I never really studied dance and the small issue of me being a fat ass.

Dance is a lot like photojournalism. You heard me. Just follow me for a second. Both dance and photojournalism attempt to tell a story or convey and emotion in a universal way. That way is visual. Paint and sculpture also have this potential, but they don’t necessarily depend on people. Dance and photojournalism do. Poetry, literature, most music, acting, all of those art forms depend on language, which as you know is not universal.

Alright, done waxing philosophically. In my defense, my girlfriend did talk me into taking six weeks of ballet, which I was horrible at. Saying she talked me into it might be an overstatement… in fact, I might have in suggested it, I don’t remember. By the way, this photo was taken at the Cincinnati Ballet during rehearsal. They rock!

This shot was made in front of Coffee Emporium on Central Parkway downtown. I don’t want to be one of those people who likes animals more than my fellow humans, but it’s true that they are superior to us in some ways.

I recently listened to an interview with Dr. Temple Grandin. She’s sort of my hero. She revolutionized the way that cattle are processed. She insisted that treating animals humanely was not only morally right, but also more efficient. She has a very unique view of the animals’ role in our lives.

On top of being an engineering and behavior studies genius, she has autism and speaks about it in a way that makes me really understand it. I’ve reported on autism before (you can see that in the projects section of this site), but Temple Grandin brought the whole spectrum into perspective. Check out her story, or watch the recent movie that was made about her life. She’s incredible.

Yeah, yeah, bikes are cool. But why in the hell are they so expensive? Let’s compare it to current technology in early 2000, a gigabyte of memory cost roughly $16. Now it is reasonable to buy memory for 16 cents a gig. That’s a ten year period.

In 1870, a state-of-the-art bike cost $300. Taking inflation into account, that’s $5000. Given that the bicycle has had more than 140 years to come down in price, my estimates put the price at under a dollar. Seriously people, what the hell is going on? I bought my bike used, and it’s probably over 15 years old, and it still cost over $100 and required some serious work. I should be able to buy a great road bike for $300 instead, for $300, I get something from Wal-Mart that will fall apart after you put a couple hundred miles on it. Not cool.

Bike companies get your act together. We don’t want biking to be an elitist activity. Basketball is cool because all you need is a ball and access to a court. We’ve got roads, not make a bike that people can freakin’ afford. You’ll make you’re money back when people actually start caring about something because they can now get involved in it.

I have spent a LOT of time in hospitals, not as much as Jen, but still quite a bit. The Cleveland Clinic is probably one of the coolest hospitals ever. The rooms are great. Most of the staff that we’ve dealt with has also been great. But aside from personal experiences, they actually approach medicine differently than most institutions.

Most doctors are paid per procedure, especially interventionist doctors like surgeons. So when the economy turns and their reimbursements go down due to budget cuts, they need to do more procedures to make the same amount of money. But the Cleveland Clinic pays their doctors on salary, which changes a lot of things. I don’t want to get too deep into the heated arena that is our current political climate, but I’ll just say that British and Canadian doctors are also paid on salary.

Jen and I are basically big children. A few weeks ago we went to see How To Train Your Dragon in 3D at Newport on the Levee. (Sidenote: It was first 3D movie I had seen, and it was freakin’ awesome.) We’ve seen several other kids’ flicks together.

While we’re in Cleveland, we decided to spend Monday doing to typically tourist stuff. We went to the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame was cool, but where we really had fun and spent the most time was in the interactive exhibits at the Science Center. It was full of all of these giant fun toys. The had a huge bubble making contraption and and big thing that make smoke signals. This photo was taken at this big gear wall they had.

Given that we weren’t really in a public place, and it wasn’t that busy, I approached the parents of this little girl before taking her photo. They were a little weirded out, but they agreed. People are super vigilant these days about weirdo and pedophiles, which I suppose is good, but it does make my job harder.

Anyway, in conclusion, Jen and I are big nerdy children.