yours and mine -- procrastination rules!

11.22.2006

i love my mother

look what she found this morning while i was snoozing in bed. it's ANOTHER OLD FIREHOUSE! i know the picture sucks, but i didn't take it. you'll have to blame the assessor's office for that. if you can't read the stone on the front, it's says "house no. 3." it's owned by the firefighters' union, and is located on the corner of w. indiana and 4th ave.

mom was showing a house today and as she was leaving she noticed it as she was driving down indiana. she didn't even get too annoyed that after she told me about it, i insisted on finding it on the assessor's page before we could go grocery shopping. dad, who was with her when she found it, says it's in really good shape, better than the bad picture shows.

there's a sad bit coming here, though. if you haven't hunted up a map and don't have one in your head, i'll give you a hint as to where it is. the assessor's site lists the address as being on pennsylvania, the road that runs behind the building. or it would run behind it, if pennsylvania hadn't been replaced by the loyyd back in the 80's. and it's a short block from fulton, which mean that when they widen the expressway and/or put in on/off ramps, whatever it is they're planning, house no. 3 is most likely going to be torn down.

in other firehouse news, #5 is for sale again. the interior pictures from the flyer look a lot less gaudy than i remember it looking last time. some really cool elements in fact, but not at all what i had planned for it. on the other hand, the price jumped up 25 grand, and it doesn't even come with a trashy rental house this time.

okay, barring any more unexpected discoveries, the next post about cool buildings will be about the other kind of building i'd like to live in. as far as i know, there aren't any cool ones in town that aren't being used for their intended purpose, but i did find a couple of nice ones for sale up in northern indiana. of course, while i'm not totally opposed to moving out of our crappy city, fort wayne is just not cool enough to make me leave my family and friends. chicago or st. louis maybe, somewhere big enough to have good public transit and things to do at night, but not fort wayne.

in news that relates in no way to cool buildings, i think i might own a chihuahua. chris has still never taken frankie back to his house, and the adorable little hairball really likes me. speaking of dogs, if i bought a pattern and yarn, does anyone have the skill to knit a hooded dog sweater? the bittums has cold ears.

Labels:

11.10.2006

because i have the pictures


oh, how the mighty have fallen. well, not actually fallen, but been neglected and are looking pretty bad. this is hose house #15 on the corner of grand and washington, from the grand side. the photo is thanks to my wonderful badger friend. you may contrast it to the top picture from my last post about old buildings and be saddened. the staining on the stone is bad, but the condition of the tile roof alarms me.

speaking of it being #15, since i now know the numbers of all the old firehouses, i find this to be the easiest way of refering to them, but i know it might be confusing for those who don't. so, i shall now teach you all. as i've already said, this is #15. the one on saint joseph is #5, and the one on first avenue is #12. the one on columbia that's kind of run-down and looks similar to the saint joe one but with a gable roof is #10. the other one on columbia, which was the first picture on the original firehouse post, is #8.
if you zoom that picture and try to read it, it looks like a 9, but this is a picture i found of hosehouse #9. i have no idea were it was, when it was torn down, or what the building actually looked like. all i know is that this was taken around 1910, and has something to do with "black hoosier heritage," as that was the name of the article where i found it.

i also have to bitch about something, i have found several references to old hose house #4, including in the list of registered historic buildings. the only problem is, when i searched for it on the assessor's website, i found a parking lot. sometimes the assessor has issues with addresses being a little off, but there isn't an old firehouse on the 600 block of ingle, and there was a building of appropriate description where that parking lot is until the mid 1990's. so, i'm guessing the address is right, but what's wrong is that some ass torn the damned thing down.

i was going to put in a picture of #5 before it lost its belltower, because i found one in color, but blogger is being difficult and won't let me, so here's a link instead. see the headquaters next to it? it's a parking lot now, too. well, maybe a parking garage because i don't know exactly which corner of that intersection it was on.

Labels:

11.09.2006

election thoughts

as you may have guessed, i am happy, happy, giddy-like-a-schoolgirl (well maybe not like a schoolgirl, but damned happy) about the election results. mostly i am massively happy that john hostettler had his ass handed to him. for a county by county breakdown of the beating he took go here. let's be honest, i didn't really vote for brad ellsworth, though he seems a nice enough guy, i voted against hostettler. i have every chance i got since i was old enough to vote, and i wanted to before that. i have giggled and cackled and clapped my hands (even made a chihuahua dance) at the thought of finally being rid of him. today, i was driving down the street (okay, my dad was driving, i was riding) and saw a big hostettler sign and i just pointed and laughed.

also a plus, over in the 9th district baron hill won. this makes me happy because before i found out exactly what race that was, i kept seeing ads on the tv for it. i'd see all these attack ads against hill and was like, "damn, i wanna vote for him." because i'm all for a candidate who voted to fund research for an abortion pill (the morning after pill i'm guessing), and doesn't support the ban on flag burning, and doesn't support the banning of gay marriage. really, i don't get this ban on gay marriage thing. recently, indiana decided to ban gay marriage despite the fact that before that gay marriage was not legal. i mean, even if you don't support gay marriage, how fucking insecure do you have to be to ban something that is already not legal? isn't it bad enough that the only things we seem to be known for besides corn are dan quayle and woody from cheers, now we have to start making things double illegal?

11.05.2006

about the fat thing

so, someone got me thinking about my being a tubby ass. up until the 2nd grade i was really thin. i mean, really thin. i didn't look funny or anything because i have a tiny bone structure, but i was very slim. then i started to hit puberty. i didn't get my period for another 4 years, but i started gaining weight, mostly in the chest and hips. in 3rd grade i wore normal size clothes for the first time (instead of slims) and by 4th grade i was wearing girls plus sizes. i wasn't fat yet at that point but i thought i was because i had to wear plus sizes. by the summer between elementary and middle schools i started getting stretch marks, on my thighs and chest. i still wasn't fat (a rapid enough increase in size to get stretch marks but i started out so thin), but i really felt i was at the time.

by the time i started high school, i was getting kind of big, but i don't know that i would say looking back that i was really 'fat'. my doctor still swore i was within the normal range (although i don't know if that range was based on age or height, and if it was age it wasn't fair because i might have been 5', maybe). by the time i graduated high school and was starting college, my doctor expressed alarm at my weight and recommended testing for tyroid disorder. since then i have gained at least 20 pounds and 2 pants sizes.

there is a number i've come up with as my ideal weight based on the weight of people i've known who weren't too much taller than me and built about like i feel like i should be for my bone structure (a size 3-5) plus 10-20 pounds for extra chest and ass (because no matter how much weight i lost, they would always be bigger than is proportional). i have now exceeded twice that weight, plus a little more. the stretch marks on my legs now reach half way down my calves. i've got some on my arms down to about half way between my elbow and wrist, a few on my lower stomach, sides and outside hip. on my chest they've all run together into just thin skin, and it only shows around the edges where they turn back into stretch marks. i measured my thigh a while back out of curiousity, and it's bigger than some of my friends waists.

i know why normal sized girls complain about being too fat, because chicks on tv and in movies are abnormally small, and if you ever see a famous chick who isn't then people talk about how big she is. and plus size models are smaller than i was when my doctor swore i wasn't too heavy, but they're at least 8 or 9 inches taller. i know it must make them feel bad, but when i hear friends of mine talk about how they're getting so fat and i know i was in middle school when i was that size, and i outweigh them by the size of some people, it's frustrating. i really want to be understanding, but instead it makes me angry or want to cry. i'm not saying that i want people to stop talking about these things around me, and i don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. but think about how it would feel to not always fit in chairs, or to not be able to ride some amusement park rides that you used to love, to have to worry if you want to take a plane ride if the seat will be wide enough. maybe saying goodbye to 2 piece bathing suits isn't so bad.

how i die

laurie wilke: At age 57 you will participate in the newest reality game show. Contestants battle each other in an arena with swords and spears. You will have a good run (12+ victories) but eventually be killed, much to the audience's dismay.

how will you die?

Labels: