Queen City Underground

I took a little stroll around Over-the-Rhine today



There was a friendly guide to show the way



This used to be a 1,000 seat theater back in the late 1800's. Now it's the Lackman bar and apartments.



The second floor of what used to be The Warehouse, it was once a grand beer hall known as "The Cosmopolitan"



George "Boss" Cox once ruled the city from here. One of his cronies, August Herrman, is known as the Father of the World Series. The idea was born right here.



The facade on what used to be the Kauffman Brewery. Those are hops, you can't have beer without hops.



The tunnels; they were blocked off in 1919 when the Kauffman Brewery closed because of Prohibition. They were a connection from the lager cellar to the brew house.







St. Francis Serpah



Underneath the old church is a crypt with 63 graves.







Next Saturday is the last tour of the year. If you can make it, do it! The history is fascinating.

Steve Driehaus

Ok listen up...

I don't care what side of the health care brouhaha you fall on. For it, against it, indifferent, it doesn't matter. But you are flat out WRONG if you are advocating violence or making threats against Steve Driehaus and his family in any way, shape or form.

YOU ARE WRONG. It's that simple. You are wrong.

I read this morning where a blog published Steve Driehaus's home address and encouraged people to show up there - now his wife, Denise, is afraid to let their kids out of the house; she fears for their safety. Can you blame her? In the just the past few days, there have been death threats toward members of congress, windows broken, and obscene phone calls to Driehaus' office. The Cincinnati Democratic party had a brick thrown through its window!

Another blog, this one a Catholic voice, is calling for Driehaus to be excommunicated from the Catholic church. John Boehner called out Driehaus, saying he "may be a dead man" and "can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati because the Catholics will run him out of town." Seriously? That's a fantastic idea... let's show God's love by kicking out someone who we don't agree with. That's exactly what Jesus would have done. With all the other problems the Catholic church is facing, Driehaus is the least of their issues.

I don't have an answer to all of this, but I know it's not violence or kicking a man and his family out of their church. And Steve, if you get wind of this post, I know you'd be welcomed at my church, Vineyard Westside, the church where Love Wins.

Snow Day Part Duex

Here's the view looking up my street. That's my truck on the right

Todd, Bruce, and I decided to walk over to Kroger to pick up a few things. I needed stuff to make chili, and Todd had a couple items he wanted. Bruce came along because he was wanting to get out of his house for a bit

Kroger was packed! The lot was full, and people were in a full shopping frenzy inside.

The road crews were out in full force - this was one of three snowplows in a row that went by. I don't like the dirty, nasty, slushy stuff. Say what you want about it, there's few things prettier than a fresh blanket of white snow

Here's my truck, he's a little cold. I'll have to clear him soon, it's supposed to get down to 13 tonight, so that nice snow covering is going to be rock-hard tomorrow morning.

One last look up the street. It really is quite pretty, and it's going to be around for a while

The walk was good, I'm going to call it 3 activity points since it was a little tough walking through all the snow for 1/2 mile round trip. But it was worth more, since I got to chat with Todd and Bruce on the way.

Catching snowflakes...

on my tounge.

It's snowing pretty hard here, a blizzard warning was just issued. I haven't been in a blizzard since I left North Dakota in 1981. This could be interesting, especially with how everyone here panics when there's even a hint of snow.

I hate to see what Kroger looks like right now