Watson: Why I Dive for Cover
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- Published on 03 March 2014
- Written by Doc Watson
“Ahhhhh!” “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” “Get out of my way!”
These are some of the things brave d
ivers shouted as they shivered and exited the freezing waters of the Maui Jim Sunglasses pond during the annual Dive For Cover fundraiser on Friday, Feb. 28. Money raised goes to the South Side Mission’s homeless shelter for women and children.
For the 14thstraight year, costumed crazies elected to plunge into the pond, willingly mind you, while a crowd of a hundred or so watched from the shoreline. I completed my sixth Peoria polar plop. Growing up in Michigan with a backyard pool that was shaded and generally too chilly to stay in long, I consider myself one who can handle cold water better than most. But nothing prepares you for the shock that 32 degree water produces.
One year, I did a mini dive, face forward into the pond, which is only about 40 inches deep. The jolt of the cold water made me gasp, which isn’t a good thing to do while under water. I gulped down a huge drink of pond water and staggered to my feet while fighting off hyperventilation. I don’t go face first anymore.
The freezing pond water does take your breath away momentarily. Your body can move, but it does so sluggishly, in slow motion. When you get out, the cold experience is not over. If it’s windy, you feel little needles on your wet skin as you race to grab your towel and run indoors to the Maui Jim world headquarters.
Why would anyone in their right mind do it? For me, it’s a belief in the work that South Side Mission Executive Director Phil Newton and his staff of 80 do with the homeless shelter and their other numerous programs that help some of our poorest neighbors better themselves. It’s a feeling of being blessed to be able to help out others in some small way. It’s a feeling of paying it forward. You never know if one day you might be the one needing a helping hand.
This year’s Dive For Cover raised over $60,000, the second largest annual fundraising event for the South Side Mission. The weather was bright and sunny, matching the spirit of the crowd and participants, with temperatures in the mid-20s. Due to the brutally cold winter, the Maui Jim pond water had more or less frozen solid, a first in the event’s history. Maui Jim employees used chainsaws to cut out huge ice blocks and create a square for us to plunge into.
Keeping it in the family, Cassie Newell, the teenage daughter of Associate Director of Marketing and Development Meg Newell, sang a beautiful rendition of our National Anthem during the pre-Dive ceremony. Afterward, we were treated to a meal prepared by students from the Mission’s Culinary Chef School, which included a killer chili, soup and cookies meal.
The homeless shelter can house up to 45 women and children. They receive three meals prepared for them daily. It’s a safe, warm environment for the women that come to it for various reasons. Some are there as parolees. Some are fleeing an abusive relationship. Some were kicked out of their home by parents. Some have issues with drugs or alcohol.
On a recent tour of “The Lighthouse on Laramie,” Phil Newton escorted me around the facility, which is larger than it appears from the street. He made it clear that the women in the shelter are well cared for but are also expected to work on themselves. The shelter is not the final destination, but a safe stop on the way to a better, more self-sufficient life. Most of the women will stay there less than a year. The Mission helps with life skills coaching, job searching and transportation.
While the Dive For Cover is a fundraiser that solely benefits the homeless shelter, I was surprised at how many other programs The Mission provides to low income people. And there’s plenty of need for help, as Peoria’s 61605 zip code area around the South end is one of the 100 poorest zip codes in the country.
Nontraditional students from around the area can gain real world knowledge and expertise through The Mission’s vocational track. They offer the above-mentioned Culinary Chef School, a 12-week, 5-days-a-week course that prepares the student to become a chef in the food industry. The students prepare a daily lunch that’s served there for no charge. Newton says they’re "the only gourmet soup kitchen around.”
The chef school students are the ones that prepare the Thanksgiving and Christmas meals that many of us have helped deliver on those holidays, when the Meals on Wheels program shuts down. Volunteers deliver meals those days across a wide area, from Farmington to Lacon to Eureka to Manito, in addition to Peoria.
The South Side Mission has expanded its vocational schooling over the years. Now, they offer training classes for future hotel employees with their Hotel School, plus logistics training through Caterpillar and highway construction instruction through Illinois Central College. They do forklift training and are getting into the certified nursing and cosmetology worlds. The courses are designed to help motivated students land living wage jobs in recession-proof industries.
On my tour, Newton took me to see the Youth Building next door, where they provide structure and tutoring for latch key kids. Right now about 70 kids are in the program overseen by Sheree Lyles with many more interested. “There’s a waiting list,” Newton said, “Kids want to be here.” There's a computer lab and library to assist in the learning process, with students arriving around 2:30 p.m. daily. And it’s not all school work. One room features pool and foosball tables. Plus, there’s a Saturday morning basketball program in the gym with about 80 kids involved.
After that stop, Newton and I hopped in his car and drove a couple blocks to the Benevolence Center on Marquette Street, which serves a larger tri-county area of struggling families. Here, a family can collect non-perishable food items and frozen meat each month. Families are also allowed to stop in quarterly for free clothes which, like the food, are donated.
The Benevolence Center has also become the site to collect recyclables of every kind. Last year, director Steve Dunn said it collected and cashed in $84,000 in paper, cardboard, glass, clothes and metal. They even have a room with donated medical supplies and another with items for senior citizens. Outside and in their greenhouse, they're getting ready for spring planting in their expanding gardens so fresh vegetables can be included in the food bags. Counting a handful of satellite offices, they’ll help feed and clothe close to 1,000 low-income families each month.
During Newton’s car tour of the neighborhood, he pointed to roofs that had been installed atop area homes free of charge through the Hope Builders Program, which among other things does big ticket home repairs for low income veterans and senior citizens. In this case, the roofing was done by L.S. Home Repair of East Peoria with all supplies donated.
Hoerr Nurseries donated dozens of Flowering Pear trees that have been planted on Malone Street to help residents feel more pride in their neighborhood. Come summer, inner city and rural poor children can get a free one week summer camp experience at Camp Kearney in nearby Glasford.
That’s a lot of good being done by one group, a lot of volunteering. If you’d like to get involved, drop by their website,southsidemission.org, for more information. You can also "like" theSouth Side Mission on Facebook. When you learn more about the positive contributions going on there, you’ll understand why people are willing to assist them in various ways, like jumping into a freezing pond each winter.
FrizziToons: More snow????
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- Published on 02 March 2014
- Written by Donn Frizzi
Frizzi: SPRING, BATTER, BATTER, BATTER, BATTER! SPR-IIIING!
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- Published on 27 February 2014
- Written by Donn Frizzi
February 28, 2014
With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson and my cousin, Carolyn Lindsay:
“In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of….”
…Baseball!
Actually, the beauty and glory that is baseball began on the most romantic day of the year, Feb. 14. That’s the day when pitchers and catchers reported to spring training.
Or. as Heddy (wife, baseball widow) calls it, “Bobby Valentine’s Day”.
The Super Bowl shuts the door on the football season and simultaneously begins “’Tween Season.” That’s the period when sports fans turn their attention to “’tween sports” like basketball, hockey, the occasional Winter Olympics or any other sport whose season runs between football and baseball.
For those of you basketball and hockey fans that are outraged, think of this. Your seasons are well under way. Your team is either among the four teams out of forty who will not make the playoffs, which, in itself, is a season of its own.
Unfortunately, those playoffs happen during baseball season.
These sports are cold weather winter sports. And even though spring is officially March 20 and it still may be snowing (with climate change, who knows?), there is no image more beautiful than TV footage of pitchers throwing to catchers.
This baseball season will be the swansong of the tenure of Commissioner Bud Selig. I am not a big fan of Selig.
Selig was an owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. In 1992, he and five other owners collaborated to remove the commissioner, Fay Vincent. Selig, still the Brewers’ owner, then became “acting commissioner” until MLB could appoint a full-time commissioner. Which MLB did in 1998 when it chose Bud Selig.
For good or ill, Selig changed the game dramatically. He cancelled the 1994 World Series because of the baseball strike, the first time there was no series since 1904. After no other team would move to Washington, D.C., the owners purchased the Montreal Expos and shuffled them off to Washington.
After he was ridiculed for his decision to end the 2002 All-Star Game in his home town of Milwaukee with the game tied, Selig tried to resuscitate the game by awarding home field advantage to the winning league.
He diluted the American and National League with interleague play, unheard of except for spring training and the World Series. He also eliminated the separate administrative functions of each league, eliminating the league presidents and separate control of the umpiring of each league.
Selig then split each league from two divisions to three. A “wild card” team, like what is used in other sports, would provide the fourth playoff team.
Bud was successful at one major thing – making the owners money. And in the end, isn’t that the true meaning of success?
Selig will be remembered for his bold, innovative and controversial moves. But who would be his successor? Who in their right mind would want the job?
Me. I do.
I am now throwing my Pirates’ cap into the ring and am announcing my candidacy for Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
I’d have a better chance of unseating Aaron Schock for Congressman.
But, if I were to become baseball’s new commissioner, I’d probably follow Selig’s lead with new and innovative changes of my own. And, if you’re going to change baseball, then, change baseball!
Here we go:
1) Move the Toronto Blue Jays to Indianapolis. If MLB can move one team out of Canada, why not move the other? Besides, Indianapolis has started a precedent by taking on sport teams that tend to sneak out of other cities in the dead of night (Colts – NFL).
2) Expand the league to a total of 32 teams by adding franchises in Nashville and Charlotte.
3) Eliminate the American and National Leagues. They’re already watered down. Selig already had two teams (Milwaukee and Houston) change leagues, so I would split the teams into eight divisions:
Northeast Division: Boston, NY Yankees, NY Mets, Philadelphia
Mideast Division: Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, Nashville
Southeast Division: Atlanta, Charlotte, Tampa Bay, Miami
Rust Belt Division: Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis
Midwest Division: Milwaukee, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis
Plains Division: Minnesota, Kansas City, Colorado, Seattle
Southwest Division: Texas, Houston, Arizona, San Diego
Pacific Division: Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels
The winner of the Rust Belt/east divisions, with their Wild Card, will play the winner of the Plains/Pacific/west divisions and their Wild Card.
4) Every team will use the designated hitter.
5) Each team’s roster will be extended to 26 to include the full-time designated hitter.
6) The All-Star Game will be between the Rust Belt/east divisions and the Plains/Pacific/west divisions. Each roster will consist of 40 players. The starting nine (per each position), plus “the 10th man” will be voted on by the fans. Each manager can select up to 18 pitchers. The players will select the remainder of the roster by vote. The winner will get home field advantage for the newly named “MLB Championship Series on Fox.”
7) The season will begin no earlier than April 1. There will be Saturday day–night double headers. The regular season would end by the first day of autumn. This would allow playoff games to be played in proper fall weather. It should also avoid playing a World Series game in the freezing cold so close to Halloween, or as some may call it, the beginning of Christmas.
8) No team shall play any regular league season outside of MLB ballparks. The only exception would be if a MLB team would play a team from, say, the NPBL (Nippon Professional Baseball League) in a true, honest-to-goodness World Series.
This, of course, will incur the wrath of “The Purist”, to which, I admit, I am one. I love the separate leagues. I hate the designated hitter and interleague play.
But I saw my folly when a fellow purist hated the Wild Card and wanted to see the playoffs go back to being between the two divisions of each league. I told him that I remembered when there were NO playoffs between the two divisions of each league. When I started following the game, each league had 10 teams. The winner of the American League would play the National League in the only playoffs of the season, The World Series.
Besides, if there were no Wild Card, my Pittsburgh Pirates would not have made last year’s playoffs!
As I say, I am not a big fan of Bud Selig. I believe he turned his head toward the bank vault during the steroids era. But should I be at a ballgame where the home team gives the retiring commissioner his propers, I’ll join in and applaud.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
If I ran for commissioner, I’m sure I’d be beaten in a landslide by George W. Bush. The former president and former owner of the Texas Rangers had once indicated he would like to be commissioner of Major League Baseball.
Besides, if I actually were commissioner, I’m sure I’d be spending most of my time running away from the business end of a ball bat.
Hopefully, it will be corked.
Simulation projects get a $25 million jump; could become $50 million
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- Published on 27 February 2014
- Written by Paul Gordon
Peoria will be a focal point in a $50 million project intended to revolutionize clinical simulation, education and health care.
A $25 million gift from Jump Trading will be matched through a fundraising challenge accepted by the OSF Healthcare Foundation to form a partnership of doctors and engineers called the Jump Applied Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation, or Jump ARCHES.
The partnership will create joint research projects between the Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center at OSF Healthcare in Peoria and the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Jump ARCHES will create tools and technologies using imaging, health information technology, novel materials and human factors to enhance medical simulation and education at facilities like the Jump center. It also will create new tools, techniques, and devices for clinical use and treatment.
The goal is to improve the quality of care and outcomes for patients and to reduce health care costs, according to a joint news release issued Friday.
“Jump has been bridging the gap between engineering and health care for more than a year now. Our new partnership with the University of Illinois’ College of Engineering is the opportunity to do so at a dramatically expanded scale,” said Dr. John Vozenilek, Jump’s chief medical officer. “A host of medical challenges need to be addressed at home and globally. Jump ARCHES will be a powerful part of the solution.”
The release said Jump Trading, a financial technology firm, got Jump ARCHES started with a $25 million dollar challenge gift. The OSF Healthcare Foundation will immediately begin raising the challenge amount of $25 million to bring the endowment fund for the partnership to $50 million. The University of Illinois will provide annual support equivalent to that of a $12.5 million endowment.
“Simulating a clinical space is like simulating an airplane in flight — only, some would argue, harder,” said Andreas Cangellaris, dean of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s College of Engineering. “With Jump ARCHES, we’ll be able to make medical simulation more realistic, make the collaborations frictionless, and better extrapolate what the medical field will need next.”
The news release said the idea for Jump ARCHES builds on the success of the Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center, a collaboration of OSF HealthCare and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.
The center replicates patient care areas of a hospital — from the exam room to the operating room — and combines actual medical equipment and devices with simulation approaches and training. This facility provides excellent clinical training to doctors, health care professionals and students alike.
For more information visit www.jumpsimulation.org.
Streight: Ctrl - Alt - Delete
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- Published on 26 February 2014
- Written by Steve Streight
I tell my wife this all the time: "You'll see this on WMBD TV or cable news in about two days, maybe a week."
Referring to something I've already been notified about by social media. I have researched and cross-linked the item on Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. and perhaps even written a blog post about it.
Being connected to Internet information can be like living in a time machine. You're generally a day or two, or much more, ahead of the rest of the world. Your information is fresher, newer, on the leading edges.
Bitcoin. The Ukraine. Piers Morgan. District 150. Hostess Twinkies. You name it, we're riding atop the crest of the news and data flow.
We have far more control of what information we consume, where we get it, and what we can do with it. We ̶ you and I, en masse ̶ as internet users are what make things go viral. Without us, there would be no viral anything.
Way back in the 1980s, skeptics asked, “What would anyone do with a home computer?” One of the answers was “Inventory your food supplies and send out party invitations.”
We're shaping our global reality by what we post in comments on a thread dealing with critical issues. We create online political forces that cause institutions and bureaucracies to relinquish dubious practices. We voice our beliefs, experiences, principles, and opinions to a world forum. We're individually and collectively transforming ourselves and our world by what we do through our computers.
Or, alternatively, you can just become more. More of what you were before. In some cases, more unstable.
Online = Smarter (or: More).
Being plugged into the Internet means you have fast, easy access to most of the knowledge, or I should say, data of the world. No humans have ever had that, at least in such huge amounts all at once – this is the first time in history that so much is available to so many.
Photos, audio, video, text; we are deluged with information for analysis. We can be much smarter, about everything, than all our ancestors combined, with algorithms and evolving computer power(s).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25068-wikipediasize-maths-proof-too-big-for-humans-to-check.html
Or, in an alternate situation, being online could mean a person just pursues their little interests with far more zeal and imagery and continual contact with others of their kind. This is not necessarily smarter, but is the realm of the more, the digital super abundance that can overwhelm as well as fulfill.
Bad ideas can be amplified and mass distributed at electronic speed to the entire globe. Good ideas, unless worded in a spectacular or somehow memorable and emotionally moving fashion, tend to die on the co-axial cable vine. They need a lot of help because people are so accustomed to bad ideas, they have trouble recognizing good ones.
But news and novelty travel like lightning. An entirely new school of music arrives, or a new populist revolution has ousted a president, and you already know much of what can be known about it before breakfast.
Or you don't care about any of that and just keep hammering away at whatever niche you have climbed into.
The Internet speeds everything up to post-human thresholds. Soon, we won't be mandatory. We're in the painful process of becoming obsolete. Our machines will out-think us, out-populate us, and out-mode us. The instant we're no longer integral to the continued survival and well-being of machines, they will cut us loose. Nothing personal. Just business, you know?
We're given little trinkets, like platforms for sharing music, games, photos and gossip, but the real prize will not be within our reach. It belongs to the machine realm. The computers and robots and sensors thank us for bringing them into being. Unfortunately, however, our usefulness is just about played out.
The machine realm knows more about us than we know about them.
We are being deleted.
