Odds and ends, 8/13/07

I love bridges, so this caught my eye:

POMEROY - Already one year past its initial completion date and nearly $20 million over the initial estimate, the construction of the new Pomeroy Mason Bridge has been its own tale of reality being stranger than fiction.

There was the slip on the Ohio side, the bad concrete on the West Virginia tower which ultimately had to be dismantled and poured again, additional excavation work at the Ohio approach and unforeseen equipment delays that resulted in no work being done on the span for nine months. Then, there was the incident last month where a young man died after driving his vehicle off the unfinished Ohio ramp that authorities investigated as a possible suicide.

All of these incidents coupled with the existing bridge's age and the looming memory of the Silver Bridge Disaster have created an air of controversial folklore swirling around the new bridge.

My son and I were heading home from Athens, Ohio, recently, so we stopped in Pomeroy to look at the new bridge. It will be impressive when it's finished, although I have to admit it looks like too much for what will be needed.

I'll try to post a photo tomorrow.

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I could have saved CBS a few million dollars a year ago. When CBS went looking for an anchor for its evening newscast, I thought it should have gone after Today's Ann Curry. Last week, I spent part of an evening watching both the CBS and NBC evening newscasts. I switched back and forth. I thought Curry, who was filling in for Brian Williams, was far better than Couric in the anchor chair. I even thought she was better than Williams.

But what do I know? I'm not one of the geniuses at CBS who threw millions to buy the Couric brand and drive the network's news deeper into third place.

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With the latest problems with the shuttle, isn't it about time to scrap the program and go back to disposable rockets, at least until we can develop a system for re-usable rockets that doesn't require the use of all those fragile tiles? And that doesn't require the astronauts to ride into space right next to potentially the biggest chemical bomb ever assembled?

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Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record last week, and I don't care, because:

1. Bonds is not the warm and fuzzy, rags to riches guy we like to wrap our arms around.
2. Aaron set his record in my lifetime. Been there, done that.
3. Who really cares about baseball?
4. When did baseball care about the rest of us?
5. He did it in a Giants uniform.
6. He once wore a Pirates uniform.
7. I have more important things in my life to think about.

I could probably come up with three more reasons, but I don't want to. It's just not important enough for me to spend more than three minutes thinking about.