An Interview with Athens’ only Brewmaster Brad Clark

By Charlotte O’Malley

There are 22 bars in the uptown area of Athens, but Jackie O’s is the only brewery pub, and Brad Clark the only Brewmaster.

At 27 years old, Ohio University alumnus Brad Clark has an atypical job compared to his fellow graduates, and he spends the majority of his time in a bar as opposed to an office.

When Clark graduated from Ohio University, he studied creative writing and earned a degree, but instead of making his way out into the job market, he opted to stay in Athens after graduation and become Jackie O’s standing Brewmaster.

Ironically, Clark is still actively attending classes, while other young professionals who entered the more formal work force are still settling in their jobs. His craft requires for him to constantly be learning new things about the brewing process, and he values his further education.

The struggling economy lends way to worries about long-term job stability and benefits, but this does not faze Clark. His choice of occupation seems risky, especially due to the fact he has no health care, but his love for his hobby and job masks any concern the state of the economy could bring him.

Below you can watch an interview with Clark in which he details how he came to be the Brewmaster, the advantages of his job, and the passion with which he brews beer.

"Why everyone loves Tumblr"

When you reach the homepage of www.tumblr.com, visitors who have not yet signed up are greeted with a big box waiting for their email/password information and a custom url for their new blog. Above the box is a link that says "see 30 reasons why you'll love Tumblr". This bandwagon "everybody's doing it" technique for getting more members on websites is something that bothers me immensely, but there is something to be said about making a good point.

As a freshman, I was advised to start a blog here on blogger. While I enjoyed doing this, i did not find myself able to keep up with it. There was an obligation I felt to posting that took away from the enjoyment and purpose of the entire blog. This said, the blog died. Late last year, I signed up for an account with Tumblr, began posting photos and re-blogging post from other people's Tumblrs. It was easy, aesthetically chic, and I wanted to keep coming back. But what made Tumblr a different experience from Blogger?

My conclusion is that Tumblr is the Twitter of blogging sites. It's fast, easy, and mobile-friendly. Yet the upside of the ease of posting is that the site still looks chic and has the option of using features that can heavily customize a user's account. It is compatible with Google Analytics so users can track the number of hits their page receives, users can create their own layout themes. post sets of photos and make slideshows directly on the site, versus having to use an outside server like Picasa when blogging on Blogger.

Books aren't only for reading

"Sweet Station" is my favorite blog, which features experts, artists and topics in the areas of paintings, illustrating, advertising, photography, product design, architecture, installation design and the graphic arts.

Today while browsing, I saw a post about Jacqueline Lee Rush, an artist and book sculptor, who creates her own interesting type of narrative out of old novels and reference books.

"For almost a decade I have found myself drawn to the intimate, tactile, and symbolic qualities of used books. I am interested in how these recycled books come with their own histories of use and meaning and how they serve as potent vehicles of expression. With the idea of working with them as my canvas or building block, I transform the books into sculptures that explore and redefine the book as familiar object, medium, and archetypal form. By scrambling the formal arrangement of the book and transposing its material and conceptual qualities, I aim to create evocative art forms that suggest an alternative narrative. ” - Jacqueline Lee Rush

Slideshow: How to use a Hookah

Smoking a Hookah, a water pipe used to smoke flavored tobacco, has become a popular social activity on Ohio University’s campus, and many students have begun investing in their own.

While The Athens Pyramids is the only Hookah bar in Athens that’s venue features belly dancers, live music, and a relaxed social scene, many students have invested in their own hookahs as a way to unwind and relax in their homes among friends.
OU Junior Ross Brinkerhoff has had his Petra-brand hookah for two years and uses it regularly.

“I find myself putting the Hookah together multiple times during the week when my friends come by,” Brinkerhoff said. “It doesn’t take much time to put together this kind of smoking device, but a lot of people are intimidated and don’t want to buy their own.”
Originating from India, a Hookah can have single or multi-stemmed pipes allowing for multiple people to be able to smoke at once.

“Mine is small and single stemmed which makes it pretty convenient to put together in a short amount of time,” Brinkerhoff said. “All I really have to do is put the bowl, hose, plate and water chamber together, then pack tobacco in the bowl, cover it with foil and allow my friends to enjoy.”

Following the link below, you can see the process of putting together a hookah step-by-step.

City makes changes to avoid Halloween mischief

Last Halloween, the Athens Police Department reported 75 arrests and was tasked with maintaining crowd control without riot gear when a fight involving 11 people broke out in a rowdy crowd on Court Street.

In addition to regularly implemented policies in preparation for the Halloween block party, the Athens Police Department and Athens Service Safety Director have both devised new ways to ensure that safety and order can be maintained in the midst of large crowds.

“Last year we didn’t have any place to store our riot gear that was convenient to Court Street," APD Lt. Ralph Harvey said. “Being stored at the station is not ideal in the event of an outbreak of crowd violence.”

This year, the riot gear will be stored in a mobile van that will travel up and down court street to one of four designated “rally points” in case of an emergency so that officers can quickly have access to riot gear.

There are 40 bags filled with riot gear that include chest and leg padding, a baton, shield mask, gas mask, and tear gas. These are available for the 27 APD officers on foot and 4 mounted on horses, with overflow for some of the officers coming in from other towns.

30 footed and 30 mounted officers are paid $150 to help aid the APD and Ohio University police throughout the night, but they do not necessarily have riot gear.

“We are able to handle riot situations through our own training, so it’s not necessary for outside city officers to be equipped with riot gear and trained in riot behavior,” Harvey said. “In the event of a riot, we will put our own officers in the riot lane and have out of town officers follow up behind to make arrests.”

The city has also decided to make changes to their regular street pattern this Halloween, making Mill Street one-way eastbound towards Elliot Street starting Friday at 3 p.m. and ending Sunday morning.

“Mill is becoming more of a party area each Halloween, creating a lot of pedestrian traffic,” Assistant Service Safety Director Rob Lucas said. “Making the road one-way in the direction away from Court Street will lower the amount of people in the area as well as lowering the chance of people getting hit by car traffic."

This setup will also allow for the flow of traffic to be away from Court Street, which the city hopes will aid in crowd dispersion.

“We’ve set up bandstands at the North and South ends of Court Street the past few years and placed dumpsters and portable toilets intermittently, all in mind of crowd compaction,” Lucas said. “When crowds stop moving, that’s when trouble arises.”

Despite mass preparation for a worst-case scenario crowd uprising, the most common charges on Halloween according to APD are for public urination or carrying an open container.

“The most important thing to us is that safety and the law are maintained,” Harvey said.

Alongside help from outside officers and OUPD, OU will also help the APD maintain order with their standard 100 “Green Jacket Volunteers” strolling campus property with walkie-talkies to police from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

“The student fests the past two years especially demonstrate the potential for disaster when crowds congregate, and any time you take a community this size and have a huge influx of people flock to it, you must plan,” Associate Director for Residential Education Judy Piercy said. “Halloween in Athens is a huge event, and it’s just about negating the risks of crowd behavior.”

Slideshows in media outlets

In the "ONLINE ONLY" section of The New Yorker magazine today, I saw this slideshow that made me think of my looming slideshow project due for this class. Granted, this slideshow is a review of an art exhibit of the Guggenheim and not photographs, but the concept of using a slideshow with featured paintings in the exhibit then an experienced curator making his own commentary is an interesting one. Slideshows with pictures never used to be common in magazine media, and The New Yorker goes one step further by making the piece a feature on a concentrated topic of art. I definitely feel as if I am seeing more slideshows across the board from news/magazine sources online.

Click the link for the slideshow below:

AUDIO SLIDE SHOW

Monsters and Shy Beauties

OCTOBER 25, 2010

This week in the magazine, Peter Schjeldahl reviews “Chaos and Classicism,” at the Guggenheim. Schjeldahl takes a close look at reactions to war and dictatorships in European art from 1918 to 1936, including Otto Dix’s gruesome sketches, Pablo Picasso’s neoclassical detour from surrealism, and Mario Sironi’s use of classical statuary.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2010/10/25/101025_audioslideshow_classicism#ixzz12pluOv4n

Proposed ordinance could save Athens $400,000

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An ordinance introduced at last night’s City Council meeting could save the city an estimated $400,000 over 15 years in energy costs if passed on Nov. 1.

Environmental Chairman Elahu Gosney proposed the plan to enter a contract with Perfection Group, Inc., a business based in Cincinatti, Ohio that helps cities, counties and corporations find financially feasible options for reducing energy costs.

Perfection Group, Inc.’s plan would cost the city $417,000 to outfit four city buildings with more energy efficient heating/cooling systems or new windows and light fixtures.

“We’ll be borrowing about $300,000 from a local bank in terms of a short term loan,” Gosney said. “The remaining $117,000 will come from city funds designated for this type of infrastructure.”

The Athens Community Center located on East State Street, the City Code building located on Curran Drive and the City Hall building and public parking garage on Washington Street are the four buildings designated for updating.

The Athens Community Center will have new heating/cooling system controls installed, as well as improved water pumps, high-efficiency double pane windows and upgraded exterior lighting, costing $358, 780 of the allocated cost of the energy saving project in the ordinance.

“The recreation center will have the most work done because it costs the city the most money and is very large,” Council member Jim Sands said. “With just changing lighting in and outside of the community center, the electric bill for the building will go from about $100,000 a year to about $60,000.”

It will take an estimated eight years to see the savings equal the project’s $417,000 bill.

“It will take time, but it isn’t bad when you consider we will be seeing changes in bills for all four buildings as soon as everything is installed,” Gosney said. “These are only small projects on the scale of what our city could be doing to save energy costs.”

The project included in the ordinance is only one of many presented to the city in Perfection Group, Inc.’s evaluation package.

“The Fire Department’s station and Athens Police Department building were also presented to have energy savings possible,” Athens Mayor Paul Wiehle said. “We just need to handle one ordinance and project at a time for now, budget-wise.”

The ordinance will be read again twice at City Council and then voted on Nov. 1, but there is little doubt that it won’t be passed.

“I have no concerns it won’t pass,” Wiehle said. “ It’s impossible for the city to not save money here, which is extremely important considering our need to cut the budget.”

This is my cat, Eliot.

Meow.

Noise ordinance can't dull Court Street's roar

The stricter enforcement policy of the noise ordinance has silenced the west side of town, but it hasn’t crashed Court Street’s party.

Captain of the Athens City Police Department Tom Pyle decided to be more proactive in enforcing the current noise ordinance after a controversial amendment to the law with stricter penalties was tabled last spring.

With the proactive approach, officers can warn or cite noisy households or businesses on an on-view basis, instead of waiting for a complaint to be called in. After 10 p.m. weekdays and midnight on weekends, if an officer judges that noise from a household or business can be heard 50 feet away or past the property line, they can take action in form of a warning or citation.

Capt. Pyle hopes the changes in enforcement will lower noise levels so that no stricter ordinance would be necessary, but residents and businesses on Court Street haven’t been affected or seen change.

“It’s impossible to get work done in my apartment during the weekends because I can hear people walking home at all hours during the night after the bars close,” Ohio University senior and Court Street resident Bart Rennels said. “The noise from that is a nuisance but it can’t compare to the noise I hear living above a bar.”

Conversely, Mill Street Resident and OU junior William Bracken has been asked five times the past school year to turn off music at his house and send people home for being too loud.

“It’s inevitable that this town is going to be loud on the weekends, and it doesn’t seem fair that I can get a warning so quickly but someone in an apartment on Court doesn’t have to worry about being too noisy,” Bracken said. “They can’t control the noise uptown, so why are they focusing so much on trying to crash our parties on streets like Mill that can hear all the bar crowds anyway?”

When it comes to bar noise, Capt. Pyle maintains that the only way a bar may get a citation for noise is if tenants living above called it in. However, since the department’s focus right now is maintaining silence in possibly residential areas, bar noise isn’t a top priority.

Manager of Broney’s Alumni Bar Kyle Paradise wasn’t even aware that Court Street and bars fell under the noise ordinance’s jurisdiction.

“We’ve never had issue with the police, or people complaining about noise coming from us,” Paradise said. “I think it would be near impossible for police to ever be able to control the volume of Court when the bars close at 2 a.m., there are just way too many people.”

Chairman of Athens Safety Committee Sherry Coon said that there may be another committee formed regarding noise within the uptown area in the future.

“I view Court Street as a different problem, since we receive complaints about noise from residents living in streets a fair distance from the bar area,” Coon said. “Because of the geography of Athens, the noise reverberates off the mountains and lands somewhere else. We didn’t even discuss uptown when we considered the new ordinance, because it’s seems like a problem above us. ”

For students living on Court Street trying to get work accomplished during the weekend, Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl didn’t offer much sympathy when asked what could be done for uptown residents upset by noise.

“Court Street is the heart of this town on the weekends, and any student that’s been here for a week knows that,” Wiehl said. “It’s a give and take situation if you’re going to live there and that is why the police are taking the action in more residential areas, in hopes of regulating areas where it is actually possible to regulate.”

Even with blaring music, sirens, traffic and drunk banter at all hours in the morning, some students love living on Court Street and are not disheartened by the lack of enforcement of the noise ordinance.

“I can go on my fire escape and people-watch Court Street while looking at the mountains simultaneously,” junior Katelyn Sierzputowski said. “This is the only opportunity I’ll have to be a resident in a city area where the residents are preponderantly my age. Yes it’s obnoxiously loud, but it’s an experience, and I’d prefer it stay the way it is than be quiet.”

Students flock to Court Street when the weekend rolls around or big news hits.

Clouds loom over renewable energy project

By early November, solar-powered parking canopies at the Athens Community Center will be completed and reaping rewards for the city of Athens---hopefully.

The structure on East State Street is being built partially from a $631,637 grant of stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The remaining 60 percent of the $1.5 million bill will be footed by Solar Vision LLC, a company based in Westerville, Ohio.

Solar Vision declined to comment on the monetary differences in average electricity bill cost for the community center after the solar installation is active, but it is clear that the array won’t create enough energy to power the entire recreation center by itself.

“It will only cover about 25 percent of the center’s electricity, but we’ve been trying to deflate the cost of the community center and this will be extremely helpful,” Director of Athens Community Center Richard Campitelli said.

Through the process of a third-party ownership agreement, the city of Athens will be billed for electricity by Solar Vision at a discounted rate instead of American Electric Power. Solar Vision will also own and maintain the structure after construction is complete.

The solar panels won't be open for rays until electrical work is finished.

“We’ll be buying electricity at a consistent rate now, which should save us money in the long run,” Environmental Chair of Athens City Council Elahu Gosney said.

Fellow Athens council member Nancy Bain voted against approval of the solar energy project when Gosney introduced it in 2009.

“Because the solar industry is so new, there’s no way we can tell whether the outcome in 15 to 20 years will be an economically good one for the city,” Bain said.

“I’m in favor of solar power and have panels on my house, but I don’t think it was a good use of city land and the benefits aren’t endless,” Bain continued. “Using tax money to produce something that isn’t guaranteed to create a profit or jobs seems pointless.”

Funds granted under the ARRA are intended to rebuild the economy from within communities with special projects and to create new jobs for community members. However, according to Eric Kadon, Dovetail Solar & Wind’s project manager, only 10 to 12 jobs were created through the project, many of which required an electrician’s license.

For a project deemed “risk-free” by Gosney, the absence of figures provided by Solar Vision that would demonstrate a balance between cost and benefit is disconcerting.

Solar Vision wouldn't answer when asked about the rate of savings and earnings Athens would experience in years following the installment. When the city council member backing the entire project was asked, he couldn’t.

The solar array is located in the center's parking lot off of East State Street.

“I don’t have an answer to that question really,” Gosney said. “Since the system will be separate from city billing and financed under Solar Vision, we’re not really privy to the financial details.”

“Time will tell whether this was a good choice,” Bain concluded. “It may have been more beneficial for the city to build and own an array instead of having a third party in control.”

After the panels are installed and soaking up sun for renewable energy, the city plans on monitoring data as much as possible to show the Athens community concrete statistics on the project’s progress.

“The city plans to demonstrate the energy saving to the community via a kiosk that will be placed in the lobby of the recreation center,” Gosney said. “It will document how much power the panels are generating and all the energy savings over time, which will hopefully make people feel confident that this decision was a beneficial one.”

Young Democrats: Another passing fad?

The following article posted by the New York Times presents the reality check discovered by youth in the midst of our recession. As long as I have been alive, MTV has been a blatantly liberal-leaning station, shoving the democratic candidate down the throats of viewers waiting for the #1 video on the Billboard countdown. The first time I became aware of this was during the Bush/Kerry Election in 2004. Puff Daddy/P.Diddy/Puffy/Sean Combs introduced the main theme for the election: "VOTE OR DIE", for the democratic candidate.

Fewer Young Voters See Themselves as Democrat

By KIRK JOHNSON

Published: September 2, 2010

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Barack Obama.

Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18- to 29-year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008For decades in politics, Republican and Democratic strategists have put their faith in the so-called rule of three, which says that patterns in youth, once established by votes in three consecutive elections, become habit and identity.Self-identification figures for Democrats — in national polls asking young people what party they lean more toward — peaked at 62 percent in July 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. By late last year, the number had dropped eight percentage points, to 54 percent, though researchers saw an uptick earlier this year, back to 57 percent. Republican gains roughly mirrored Democratic losses.Some academics who study voting patterns say that the rule of three is too simplistic, and that lots of factors combine to determine a person’s place on the political spectrum. Individual votes, said Donald P. Green, a professor of political science at Yale who studies voter behavior, matter less than the social fabric that people grow into — in jobs, social life, community and values.