Columbus Connects

There is a new Face Book page that is highlighting things going on in our fair city

Columbus Connects - if you are a business or organization that wants to get word out send "whoever" a message and they will put it up.
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It's Customer Appreciation week at the Columbus Antique Mall!  Did you know that of the 1000 people that visit the mall each week, less then 10% are from Columbus?   
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I hear people complaining about all the empty store fronts downtown.  Guess how many are empty. I'll have the answer later.
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I've read perhaps 8 books and on small town Urbanolgy and the latest one lists Waterloo as one of the top 397 Agurb* towns in the U.S.  A town that embraces the 7 1/2 keys to success and quality of life.      

Agurb = a prospering rural town with a tie to agriculture and a location outside of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).  They have experienced growth in population and employment and have a per-capita income growing at more the 2% 

I have no idea how to pronounce that word

Waterloo is out gaining Columbus in population % in the last 12 years but not by much.  Waterloo grows at 1.94% a year while Columbus grows at 1.85% a year. Of course there is Sun Prairie where I hear people complaining about roads and tax's (I believe 95% of the U.S. population complain about roads and tax's) is growing at something like 4.1% a year which is too fast.

But I digress 

Did you know Columbus is 48.8% males and 51.2% females?  And the average age is 38.8 compared to the Wisconsin median age of 44.3?  We're actually a young town.

The median house or condo is $159,529 and the Wisconsin average is $166,700.

Our crime rate is at historic highs (well, for the last 12 years at least) for Columbus as of 2012 but still way way way below larger towns and not a worry in my book.

A fun toy I was playing with is a cost of living calculator.  If I made $50,000 and moved to Madison I would have to make $51,882 to have the same quality of life. $51,373 for Sun Prairie, $84,777 for New York. 

Looking at all sorts of towns, the smaller the community the less you have to make . . . .except Beaver Dam.  

I have no idea how this calculator works but it was fun until I got bored.  
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We all know I'm a chart and numbers geek and this one was interesting.  The average work week for a manufacturing job is 42 hours now.   This chart shows average work week length in manufacturing and what it was when "we" went into a recession. 

Does not look like we will be recessioning for a while. 

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How many empty store fronts?   Unofficially we have 50 stores that are occupied and 13 empty.  What we need is to occupy those 13 stores with something that draws people down town.

Have a great day

Rod

If Jerry Jones owned the Badgers, and What Is Up With Pluto

If Jerry Jones owned the Badgers what would he say about the outcome of the game Saturday night?

"It was a moral victory".  As promised, I told ya the Badgers would cover the spread!  Piece of cake!

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This blog will get a tad more boring now that I'm officially an unofficial official. I can no longer take jib jabs at people and speak my mind with no filter like the old days. I'm putting on my filter cap and will keep things pent up inside my brain now.

No one has been contacted in anyway about the election so no one actually knows if anyone has won,  but I'm assuming that the 16 absentee ballots have been counted and tallied with no major surprises.

I was at Enerpac Friday and be warned, back into their stalls. It's a safety thing. Talk about an international feel to a place.  I was only allowed into the public area but was really impressed with the look at feel of the place.  Can't wait for tour.  I don't think most people really understand how big this company is in world wide operations.  

I think something I'm going to try to do is perhaps have an article in the newspaper spotlighting all of the larger (and smaller for that matter) businesses in Columbus, maybe once a month or something.  Might have to cut back on photos of people giving big checks to other people.


I mean I bet most people don't even know what American Packaging does which is really outstanding. 
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What could possibly go wrong. 

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The jobs report came in Friday for the U.S. and it was interesting as the economy added 192,000 jobs in March, the 42nd consecutive month of growth.  However, total payroll is still 400,000 below what it was way back on January 2008 which is mostly state and local government employees. 

The problem is the U.S. has grown by 14,000,000 people.

The 192,000 is pretty consistent with how things have been growing at a slow but steady pace but previous months have all be revised up a little.  Slow and steady.

Last (or the month before last month)  month wages ticked up 9 cents which on one hand seems good but on the other have increased that inflation worry.  In March we ticked down a penny so it is easing the worry about inflation and in the last 12 months wages are still up 2.1%.

The number of Americans WITH jobs grew 500,000 but unemployment held steady.  The number of unemployed workers grew which is actually a good sign as it shows that people are actually starting to look for jobs again (sounds like spin but it's not).  The number of “discouraged workers”is down 13% this last 12 months.

Gotta love numbers! 
 
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In case you missed it, Pluto is no longer a planet.  So take your kids science books out and make the correction.  It's a DWARF Planet now.  I mean come on. Pluto is smaller then our moon and our moon has FIVE TIMES THE MASS of Pluto.   Pluto is half ice, if we move Pluto closer to earth IT WOULD MELT  . . . AND . . . . . grow a tail.   Planets do not grow tails!  Pluto is basically a comet because comets have tails.  Pluto is just sitting around so no tail.  It's a lazy icy comet.  

Make the corrections in the school books and move on.

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I walked around taking photos of Downtown for an application the town is applying for and I've only looked at like 5 of the photos so far here is a cool one.

see ya later

Rod

Random thoughts from a random brain in random order of importance

Where is a good place to get Columbus  sweatshirts!  I have nothing red in my closet - go figure.  Badgers and Cardinals are my teams and no red.   I also have no Green and Gold, what is up with that!!!    

I never had any Black Hawk colors either (Fort Atkinson).  And I call myself a sports dude?  I do have Brewer Blue though!  I need to get Crawfish apparel also.  I think they are also red.

Speaking of sports, I have to look into what is happening with disc golf in Columbus. I love that sport, but I think I need to get in better shape.  I went for my 2 mile walk yesterday and got shin splints!  What s up with that!  
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Big big weekend coming up . . . . no, not just Bucky but Game of Thrones AND Turn, America's first spy ring on AMC premiers Sunday with everything else.  Glad I can record like 50 things at once.

I had to get my 3 months of HBO again and no can continue to watch Broadwalk Empire.
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I gotta stop making jokes about me and Columbus now that I'm official, I just get in trouble. Lesson learned. Have to put on my serious face.

     
Sort of reminds me of this one from a few years ago.

Brewers - according to FiveThirtyEight the Brewers are #3 when it comes to no one knowing how they will do.  Taking all the talking heads and forecasters into consideration they are  the 3rd biggest unknown.  They are pretty sure to win between 60 to 86 games!  Count on it!

For my Phillie friends - 62 to 85!  It's on buddy, you think you are superior? It's on! :-)

And speaking of MLB umpires and technology. They have tracked every ball and strikecall for 3 years in MLB,  over 1,000,000 pitches and researchers have found that the strike zone expands in three-ball counts and shrinks in two-strike counts. It also shrinks again when the preceding pitch in the at-bat was a called strike. To put it another way, on close calls, umpires are unlikely to call a fourth ball, a third strike, or a second strike in a row.

I have to think it is an unconscious thing that happens and I have no problem with this. Calling balls and strike would be a horrible job and I like that it's not perfect. I have a video game,  MLB The Show and the umpires are actually in the game with ratings and attributes so forth.  I'm not a thumb jocky though.  Any computer game I play is a strategy game, not a thumb twitch exercise game.

I love looking deep into numbers to see what is really happening.  I can't wait for budget time in Columbus.  Why does the Udey Dam keep costing Columbus more and more every year!  Enquiring  minds want to know.

Have a great weekend - GO BUCKY.  GO  JOHN SNOW!! 

rod