Not so helpful statistics

Sorry for the watermark - source

WLWT.com published an article last week (I'll link, but I warn you that there's an auto-playing video with an advertisement right at the beginning) reporting that Fairfield City Schools has to hire 79 new teachers, 13% of their district staff; and Hamilton City Schools has to hire 40 new teachers, 6% of their district staff.

The entirety of the context given for those numbers is this quote, "[b]oth districts said that's a jump over previous years."

The article also says that Ross Schools has to hire 12 new teachers, 8% of their district staff, which is, "fewer new faces than the last two years."

No hard numbers from previous years...no comparative numbers from other districts...no state-wide averages for districts of similar sizes (or even of not-so-similar sizes.)

From second-hand information, I've heard that Princeton City Schools have hired 58 new teachers district-wide this summer, about 18% of our district teaching staff (plus another seven administrators). Anecdotally it seems higher than in previous years, but I don't have any hard evidence to prove that.

Numbers without context aren't useful.

In this case, they're just evidence of lazy reporting.

Lonnieburger Baskets: Smashburger BWF

In general we're kinda done with the whole burger review thing. Every now and again, though, something might come up that clear necessitates a return to the Lonnieburger Basket world.

Calen has mentioned that her family enjoys a burger from the Bridgewater Falls SmashBurger, and The Best Man and his wife mentioned the same thing. When we checked out SmashBurger, we'd gone to the one on Cox Road and found it a little greasy. At the recommendations of our friends, though, we gave SmashBurger another try...but at a different location.

Did things come out any differently? Let's see...

Burger

• Last time I commented that the burger was a loose-meat style burger reminiscent of a thicker Steak 'n' Shake burger. The Cox Rd SmashBurger burger was more well crusted than this BWF burger, Neither was spiced to my preference, but they had gotten at least a bit of salt and pepper on the patty. The meat is too fatty for my tastes. I don't know whether this is a product of the cut of meat that the chain chooses to use or if it's a product of their cooking method - too much oil on the griddle, perhaps? - but we've seen it on all four of our burgers now, so I'm thinking it's not a fluke. This is a plain, decent, but greasy burger. Burger - 6 

Toppings

• It went for the standard mustard, ketchup, pickle, fresh onions, bacon, and cheddar with the addition of haystack onions. The girl went for the same thing. The mustard, lettuce, onion, and ketchup were nothing of note. The tomato was nicely fresh, particularly for early winter/late fall. The haystack onions were outstanding, nicely seasoned and peppery, crisp and good. The bacon was crisp and decently flavorful. The cheese was melted nicely. Toppings - 7 

Fries 

• The fries are thinner than I would care for them to be, and they're not as dark as I would like. That being said, they were served hot and crisp, clearly freshly cooked to order. Again I went with Smashfries which include olive oil, garlic, and rosemary. The garlic taste was thinner than I would have liked it, but I'm the guy who eats the garlic out of the bottom of the garlic fries at Great American Ballpark. The rosemary was tasty and a strong flavor. The olive oil is a little over-applied and left a puddle at the bottom of the wrapper/metal container. I still haven't tried their plain fries or the sweet potato fries, either. Fries - 6 

Ambiance 

• The Bridgewater Falls SmashBurger is pretty solidly identical to the Cox Rd location: white walls with black, industrial, exposed ceiling. The restaurant has red accents and a mix of appreciably private booths and open tables. The one attractive accent is a wall of iridescent tiles behind the ordering counter. Ambiance - 6 

Cost 

• My bacon, bbq, and cheddar (bbq held) was $5.99 (the Big Smach would've been an extra buck). The fries were $1.99 - the same cost whether you went for garlic and rosemary or not. Sweet potato fries would be an extra quarter and a nickel. The coke - serve your own - is $1.89. That's a total of $9.89 plus tax. That's average as far as I'm concerned. Cost - 5

Other stuff 

• SmashBurger now offers an option of a pretzel bun for no extra charge. The Girl went for the pretzel bun and reported that it was tasty, fresh, and sturdy. +1
• Seriously, the greasy feeling on my hands and in my mouth from the burger and fries was gross. -1
• The burger and fries are served on an open piece of paper - butcher-ish paper, I guess - on top of an open-mesh metal tray. The fries in a paper in a metal cone/bowl. Both left the food touching the metal which The Girl and I found a little displeasant. -1

Overall point values...

• 1 -1 -1 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 7 + 6 = 29...not bad but in a very crowded part of the world...

• Terry's Turf Club - 45
• Cafe de Wheels - 44
• Senate - 43 
• City View Tavern - 40 (scaled from 32/40)
• Stuffed on Vine - 38
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries - 36 
• Roxy's - 36 
• FlipDaddy's - 35.5
• Sonny's Three Meat Burgers - 35 
• VanZandt - 34
• Gabby's - 34 
• Oakley Pub & Grill - 34 
• Gordo's (Norwood) - 33
• Quatman's - 32 / 34.5
• Troy's - 32 
• By Golly's - 32
• Wildflower Cafe - 31.25 (scaled from 26/40) 
• Sidetracks - 31 
• Zola's - 30
• Trinity Pub - 29.5
• SmashBurger (BWF) - 29
• Virgil's Cafe - 28 
• Tank's Bar & Grill - 28
• The Pub at Rookwood Mews - 28
• Smashburger (Cox Rd) - 28
• Habits Cafe - 28
• Graffiti Burger - 27
• Arthur's - 26
• Sammy's - 25 
• Skinny Legs - 25
• Zip's Cafe - 24
• Gordo's (Fairfield) - 20

Congrats to the West Siders

Looks like the Hamilton West Side American Little League (a mouthful of a name) team will be heading back to the Little League World Series.

Their pitcher on Saturday threw a complete game, one hit shutout and went 3 for 3 with a 1st inning home run.  Don't know if he's that good or just had that good of a night.  Either way, good luck to the Blue.

One Step at a Time

A few years back, The Girl thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, setting out from Springer Mountain, GA in March of 2002 and stepping foot atop Mt Kathadin a few days before Labor Day that same summer.  In five and a half months - five months of hiking, two weeks of resting along the trail - she walked the 2100+ miles of the Appalachian Trail.

Well, almost all of them.

She did get horrible blisters and systemic poison ivy - which got nasty enough to turn into cellulitis - after her first week out and had to lay off a week then grab a ride to catch up to her group, so she technically has about eighty miles still to hike, but who's quibbling?

She speaks of the journey as one of the happiest times of her life, a time when she had no responsibilities other than to put one foot in front of the other and make sure she made it to her self-assigned checkpoint each night.

She wasn't totally alone on the Trail at all times, though.  The AT creates an informal community of hikers each summer, a community that communicates with itself via hiking log books and messages passed by way of hikers along the trail.  Initially, she set out with a group of three other women, none of whom she had ever met in person before the hike and three of whom actually finished the journey - though only two of them did so at the same pace.  Each night, she was expected by her hiking companions, and had she not shown up, they would have hunted her down - or at least I hope they would have.

I mention all of this because I read a story in the Hamilton Journal News - the local paper - about Jerrod Bley who thru-hiked the AT this past summer, summitting Kathadin a scant four days before they close the Trail's northern terminus for the winter season.  Along the way, he tried to fundraise in honor of his father who passed away from heart disease after suffering from kidney diseases all his life.

He and his hiking companion - who wasn't as successful in his trek - set up a website to track their progress and to which they planned to blog each week or so.  They weren't as successful in the blogging bit, but they're close to being totally successful in their fundraising, so I'm going to drop a few bucks their way.

If you have a chance and a few spares in your pocket, do the same.

So...um...

I know the man in this article. He's not a close friend - not a friend at all, really. He's a guy who's at the same party I go to two or three times a year. He's one of the judges of The Amazing Race in Hamilton, which I think I've mentioned. He's also got a really annoying voice which I know I've mentioned, and I didn't like the guy - or his twin brother.

I never would have suspected these charges to be levied against him. They're a pretty damning list involving drug trafficking (writing unauthorized prescriptions), child corruption, sexual contact with a child, and many others.

I recognize that a list of accusations - charges at this point - is far from a list of crimes, and I certainly hope that this doctor is innocent - both for his sake and for the sake of whoever the victim happens to be. If the charges turn out to baseless, the mere stink of the charges will stain him for a long time. If, instead, they turn out to be true, then I won't be seeing him for a very long time.

I haven't the foggiest idea how to deal with this information. I'm tempted to call our mutual friend through whom I met the Dr., but I don't know what I would say.

Don't know where I'm going with this post. Just wanted to say that the story, the reporting creeps me out here.

I think this might work...maybe

Sheriff Jones has done a number of things that seem pretty radical and have gotten him some negative press, but his newest idea looks frighteningly reasonable.

He's aiming to take the county dog warden under his office's purview and institute a number of new programs. The one that caught my eye was this one:

One such program that could start within a month would involve bringing animals into the jail for the inmates to care for, which Jones said is done in other states.

"They groom the dog, they work with the dog and they get the dog used to people," Jones said. "And then the dog goes back to the humane society for adoption."

"It has the potential to be a really good thing," said Dog Warden Julie Holmes

I can see that this could give some great benefit to both the prisoners and the animals. Most animals in the various sheltes I've known certainly could use a little love and companionship, even if that meant a little time behind bars.