Hands Across The Merrimack Bridge

For a long time I have been telling my Manchester friends that good cities utilize their waterfront/riverfront setting by building around it and Manchester is not doing it enough. All of the cities I enjoy going to have a vibrant waterfront area that usually has lots of people walking, running, roller blading or biking and lots of other life and nature around it. It’s good for the residents of the city and it helps the city have more appeal as a destination city. With that said, I was glad to see construction had finally begun the other day on the Hands Across The Merrimack (aka Singer Family Crossing), a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Merrimack River .

Work to begin on pedestrian bridge over river in Manchester

Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta says something very similar to what I think I have said 100 times since I have lived in this area.

Citing successful waterfront development in Boston, Portland, Providence and Portsmouth, the mayor said Manchester has hurt itself by treating the Merrimack River as an afterthought.

The bridge will link walking paths and trails on both sides of the river. This should encourage people to utilize the trails more now that more routes will be possible. I was happy when Manchester created a Riverwalk a few years ago, but it is usually a ghost town when I am there (except during New Hampshire Fisher Cat’s games).

Hopefully at some point it will even be possible to make a loop around the river, without using the streets, much like one can do around the Charles River in Boston. This would require a trail/path on the west side and a little extension on the east side.

I am pretty amazed and happy to see some infrastructure being added that has nothing to do with automobiles. The bridge which had been in the fund raising and planning stage for the last 5 years was spearheaded by Manchester citizen Helen Closson. A HUGE kudos to her for making it happen. Manchester needs more people like her.

Below is picture of before and a drawing of after:

The old railroad trestle which will be replaced:

A promotional drawing of the new bridge:

HTML killed the Flash star

Not that I would link to or visit MTV.com that often, but their recent website redesign is very noteworthy my opinion, because it departed from the bells and whistles of a flash site and was changed to a pure XHTML/CSS site. With my design philosophy and for the type of site I like to read (one where I don’t wince upon arrival), I give MTV a BIG kudos for this. I really enjoy seeing a huge usability improvement like this on such a high profile site and on one of the sites I would have least expected it from.

Here is some of what they said on MTV Labs:

…about nine months ago, we went all Flash with our Web site. It was a technical marvel and it was indeed flashy. But, it was also something of a headache for a lot of users, so we were told.

Luckily, we’re also good listeners, and that’s why a few months ago we started toying with a new and improved HTML version of the MTV site. Anyone watching the live beta site has been witness to substantial evolution, from the overall look of the pages to simplified navigation, a new video player and a vastly improved internal search mechanism.

The site still has some pizazz though, thanks to the MTV HATS project. The HATS (Header Art Treatments) show a random, artistic background each time you visit the site (just refresh your browser repeatedly to see all the different HATS). These backgrounds are appropriate for the MTV audience, but at the same time the content presentation stays consistent, loads fast and is very readable.

I am impressed MTV. Maybe I’ll actually be back for another visit.

Links: 4-11-07

• Microsoft is Dead
  If I used tags on this site like you would on del.icio.us or flickr, the tags for this one might be something like: microsoft irrelevancy brokenness how_to_suck limp oblivious coffin old_news google
• Do The Right Thing.com
  Like Digg, but and instead of voting or “digging” the story you can rate the social impact of a company’s actions.
• White Mountain Art and Artists
  I don’t know how I managed to never come across this site, but it is excellent. Lots of White Mountains of NH art and history.
• The Bicycle Commuter Act
  This would provide a tax benefit to employers who offer cash reimbursements to employees who ride to work in order to help defray their commuting costs. Seems like a good idea, now more than ever.

2007

I am beginning to wonder if I can go all of 2007 without a post on the ol’ blog. Oh well, guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore! Above is a picture I took recently up in the White Mountains. Hiking up there is one thing that has kept me pretty busy this winter. I really like this shot as it almost looks like it was black and white, but it was really just the way the once bright sun was being overtaken by the clouds. This shot is of Mt. Washington as we came down Mt. Eisenhower.

Movable Type to Wordpress

After using Movable Type for the past 4 years, I switched the blog part of this site to Wordpress. I’ve been wanting to change it for a while, but I haven’t had the time. It’s not that Movable Type is bad, but I’ve set up WordPress for a few other sites and I have found it to be really flexible and easier to customize. I also like that it’s open source, has nice options for URL rewriting (good for SEO) and is PHP based, where MT was Perl. If anyone notices any problems or bad links, drop me a line.

Lincoln Trail on Mt. Kearsarge

One of my favorite trails in Southern NH is the Lincoln Trail on Mt. Kearsarge. I think some might consider it to be long and boring, but I find it has a lot to offer in subtle ways. It’s not as nearly as rocky as some of the trails in the White Mountains so it’s good for a casual stroll though the woods or a trail run. You also pass through a nice variety of different forests and if you go all the way to the top you have a great wide open summit with 360 degree views. The trail never seems to be used that much so peace and solitude is almost always assured. This is probably because there are a couple of other much easier routes to the summit and for a similar effort most people would go for the big kahunas up in the Whites. During the last 2 hikes I did on it I took some pics while everything had some good fall color.

View Mt. Kearsarge Photos

Links: 10-8-06

• Mexico’s remote Isla Holbox
  I love the way this sounds - I think I found my next vacation…”In Mexico’s remote Isla Holbox, hours are measured by shadows shifting across agave leaves. Minutes have no meaning. You don’t know what time it is, what day it is. This place is a psychiatrist. It takes away worry or stress.”
• Do Newspapers Have a Future?
  “Newspapers on paper are on the way out” this article says. I’m not so sure. While I do think newspapers have to adapt to the new world order for information, it’s hard to spend hours comfortably reading a screen the way you can with a newspaper. And although content is free on the web it is can be cluttered while newspapers collect and organize information and present it to readers in a way that is easier to swallow.
• NH Congressional Candidate Carol Shea Porter on You Tube
  Shea Porter may be a long shot, but good move putting something on YouTube.
• Beware of Pirates
  This is why I probably won’t be going any bigger than 600 pixels wide in my photo gallery photos.

World Cup at City Hall

Above is a panorama I took at Boston City Hall today. I was there to watch the World Cup championship between Italy and France. The panorama is not 100% perfect, but I didn’t have the time to mess around with it too much. You can find some ghosts in it, but it basically captures the day pretty well. Click on the image to see a larger view.

As for the viewing of the game at City Hall, there was a really good turnout and it was a lot of fun. It was good to see that soccer could draw a big crowd, although the interest was somewhat increased because of Boston’s Italian population. Kudos to Boston Mayor Tom Menino (an Italian-American) for making it happen. I hope Boston will try it again in 2010 even if it’s Ghana vs Brazil!

New York Pictures

I posted some pictures from a recent long weekend in New York where I did a little World Cup viewing and chowing of some quality food among other things. The pictures are from all over Manhattan and a few from Brooklyn. Stops included the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Heights, Washington Heights, various soccer bars and a few places inbetween.

View New York pictures

checkout.google.com

The PayPal killer is here. Google’s payment service has arrived in the form of Google Checkout. I had previously heard it called Google Wallet, GPay and GBuy. It will be nice to have a legitimate alternative to Paypal. Not that I personally have had any major problems with them, but there have been times when I used Paypal just because there was no other option. Hopefully this will have a ripple effect and help shape up the overall online payment arena. Google should bring some integrity to a segment of the web that I have long felt was relly lacking.