Exciting news! I’m now blogging for Visit Indiana, the official Indiana tourist office!
I’ll be posting regularly on their very successful blog. That means that a lot of stuff I would write about here I will now write about @ Visit Indiana.
Exciting news! I’m now blogging for Visit Indiana, the official Indiana tourist office!
I’ll be posting regularly on their very successful blog. That means that a lot of stuff I would write about here I will now write about @ Visit Indiana.
LIFE Magazine and Google recently teamed up to create an archive of every LIFE magazine picture from their archives. You can view the pictures and order your own prints.
I did a search for the Dunes and found a ton of really cool pictures that provide a unique window into the [...]
The last time I took pictures of the World’s Fair Homes was last spring. Much has changed since then. I was unable to do the tour of the homes this year, but I drove by last weekend and took some pics to update people interested to know how the restoration [...]
After several days of testing and working out the bugs, my latest web project, Webinar Central has gone live today.
Webinar Central will become the web’s best destination to find out about the latest free webinars taking place anywhere on the web. It’s the ultimate webinar directory. At Webinar [...]
Valparaiso has a problem and that problem is trains.
Now, let me preface this by saying that I love trains. I think they provide excellent economic value and are generally better for the environment. I also support the South Shore Expansion to Valparaiso and Lowell. I grew up being inconvenienced by [...]
My employer, Livemercial, had infomercial legend Billy Mays come to town a few weeks ago to make this hilarious ‘Office’ Parody for the ERA Convention in Las Vegas.
The video is great and Jim Barnthouse and the team did a great job putting it together. It was a big [...]
Pete Visclosky wrote me back today in response to the letter I wrote him yesterday. I was very pleased to get his response so quickly. Not only that, but it was personalized and he is on the same page as me and a lot of people I know.
I’m glad to [...]
I know I’ve made it very clear in the past that I want to keep politics off of this blog, but with the recent upheaval in the financial markets and political wrangling that has followed, I thought I’d share the letter I wrote to Pete Visclosky today.
I’ve written him in [...]
My wife and I have heard nothing but bad things since the County Line Orchard was been bought out by the Luke Oil Company. Last year we didn’t go (we had moved to Chicago), so this year, conscious of the problems we heard about, we decided to [...]
The fall is by far my favorite time of the year. I love the cool weather, the changing leaves and the general feeling of the season. I also happened to have gotten married in October so it has that bit of special meaning. As we prepare to bundle up for [...]
I was very impressed with the coverage on NWI.com of the recent flooding in the area. With no truly local TV station able to provide round the clock coverage, The Times stepped in and provided that coverage.
Their site was continually updated all throughout the recent crisis with the latest [...]
Been meaning to upload these pictures I took at the Popcorn Festival last week. The parade and the festival are always great fun!
Here’s a link to the Flickr stream of my 2008 Valparaiso Popcorn Festival Pictures.
Related Posts
We’ve been hit by some amazing rainstorms. The type of rainstorms you only get every hundred years. Everything has just been inundated with water. The last remnants of Hurricane Ike swept through the area today and left streets flooded, rivers overflowing. Overall making life in NWI miserable.
It proved impossible to [...]
To those interested in touring the Beverly Shores World’s Fair Homes when they are open to the public next, I was able to get the information from the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana.
Tours of the Century of Progress Homes will be held on October 11th and 12th. Tickets and advance [...]
Quick post to let everyone know that I’m doing a series of NWI Sunset Pictures this week.
I’ll be out of town later this week so things will be running on autopilot from Wednesday.
Jon’s NWI Photoblog.
Related Posts
Introduction
This is an article I’ve been meaning to write for a while. It was actually the inspiration to start this blog in the first place.
This past spring, my wife and I went for a bike ride through Beverly Shores. I was armed with my shiny new camera [...]
Just walked in the door from the long car trip back to Valparaiso. It went by quickly. Had lots of great conversation with Nichole. Had an awesome time with my peeps from Livemercial.
The panel at BlogIndiana after lunch was pretty cool. They talked about building communities around blogs, [...]
It took forever to get here this morning. Our hotel was on the west side of Indy and there was a triathalon today that was pretty mug impossible to get around. It took forever to find a way to IUPUI, especially since neither of us know the area very well.
The [...]
Empty Campus. Bet it will be  crazy busy in two weeks.
View towards the Hospital
The swanky networking event after the conference. Cash bar, booh!!!
The Blogging and Elections Panel.
Cool class curtain wall [...]
After lunch we attended the “Blogging and Elections” discussion. It was very interesting and I was really interested to hear what the Obama rep had to say. She came a long way and is really busy, so it was really nice that she was able to make it. I only [...]
Right now I’m eating lunch at blogindiana. Didn’t really care for the sandwiches, so I ate lunch consisting of delicious cookies.
The first morning session was about Legal Issues in Blogging. It was very informative and I learned a lot of principles to apply to my blogs. The presenter was pretty [...]
Woke up around 7:30. Entirely to early for a Saturday if you ask me. Body clock is slightly off because of the time difference. My body wants to know why I’m up at 6:30.
I slept pretty good. Hotel bed was very comfy and cozy. Turned in pretty early. Without a [...]
According to the Times today, the Valparaiso to Chicago shuttle bus has been finalized. They’ve set a launch date of October 6th and they’re calling it the ChicaGo Dash.
Two buses will depart from Valparaiso at Franklin House at 5:45 am and 6:15 am. The fares have been set at $7.50 [...]
I will be at Blogging Indiana this weekend. My company is sending me and several colleagues. We are really looking forward to it.
It should be a fun and enlightening time. Indy is always fun. Haven’t been there in a few years so I’m looking forward to visiting it.
Since I’ll be [...]
Northwest Indiana is lucky that it has two well developed daily newspapers. We have the Gary Post-Tribune and Northwest Indiana Times. Both are pretty decent papers, but which one is better if you live in Valparaiso?
The Post-Tribune is and always will be a Lake County paper, it has a long [...]
I read in the paper this morning that the City of Valparaiso is going to fast track reconfiguring the intersection at Indiana 2 and the Easport Industrial Park.
Thank God.
As someone who uses this entrance four times a day, this can’t come soon enough. There is a lot of traffic through [...]
Old growth tree in Valpo that was felled in the storm.
Northwest Indiana was hit by some nasty storms on Tuesday night. At one point there was a tornado in Griffith, Indiana that did a ton of damage.
We were under a tornado warning for a while. Hearing [...]
Well, it’s been almost two months since the transition of First National Bank of Valparaiso customers to 1st Source Bank. For me and many other customers it’s been an unmitigated disaster.
I won’t recount the horror story we’ve already experienced. You can read about my FNBV Disaster here. But I [...]
They’ve been re-doing the bridge on Calumet in Liberty Township all summer. They worked pretty fast and now it’s all done. That was two weeks ago. The road has been sitting there done, still closed. What gives?
I’m tired of wasting gas taking the annoying detour.
I read in the paper this morning that Porter County Fair attendance was down this year. It’s being blamed on the tough economy.
This does not surprise me. There was no one there when my wife and I went (last Friday night), which was actually nice.
One of the things we were [...]
Lunacy.
That’s one word describes the plan. I’m an not in support of the closure of the Miller South Shore stop at all. I think it will be a terrible mistake that will hurt commuters and damage long term growth on the South Shore line. If anything the South Shore needs [...]
Again, sorry for the long absence folks. My wife and I have finished our headache inducing move back to Valparaiso and are loving being back home.
Now that things have settled down, I can get back into the blogging habits I’ve let lapse. There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on and I [...]
I was dismayed last week to read in The Times that the City of  Valparaiso is going to start a free Movie on the Square program later in the summer. I love movies as much as the next guy but I think this is a horrible idea for one simple [...]
Another one bites the dust.
A couple of weeks the Union Tank Car company was in the news, they’re closing the plant in East Chicago and shifting production elsewhere. While this is a sad event for the employees, this is not a new type of event. It is indicative of the [...]
Sorry for the lack of posts lately, folks. Things are really hectec on my end. My wife had some health problems recently and we’ve had to take care of that. I also recently started a new job and I’m in the process of moving to a new house in Valparaiso. [...]
What I said last week:
“I have to hand it to 1st Source Bank though, they seem to be on the ball. The absorption of FNBV accounts seems to have been planned out with military precision.”
I spoke too soon.
Friday, June 6th was just like any other day. I was breathing a [...]
It is very rare that people love their bank. But I must admit that I love my bank, First National Bank of Valparaiso. I came to FNBV after being chewed up and spit out by Chase Bank, whose lack of customer service and general disdain for the consumer banker, [...]
Well, get on with it guys.
That’s what I have to say to those pushing to build an extension of the South Shore Line. This is something that I wholeheartedly support. The plan on the table it to extend the South Shore Line to run south through Lake County and terminating [...]
I was never really sold on the idea of the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center. Seemed to me like an incredible waste of money considering that it’s not really by the expressway and cost a ton of money to build. Surely people could rely on the similar money pit that is [...]
Trains are a way of life in Northwest Indiana. Because of our location at the bottom tip of Lake Michigan and the fact that we are as central as in gets in the US, NWI is bisected by many major freight and passenger rails lines. It is, to say the [...]
This past weekend, Indiana’s venerable Senator Lugar, reaffirmed his undying support for Gary International Airport, the unwanted stepchild of the Chicago Aviation industry.
He talked up his continued committement to airport expansion and getting the federal funding neccessary to faciliate it (also known as pork barrel spending).
Every year, and this [...]
I heard on the new wires today that Valpo’s Mayor, Jon Costas, is running for Indiana state attorney general and has been endorsed by Governor Mitch Daniels.
I wish Mayor Costas the best of luck. He may need the endorsement to succeed in getting elected, but I would have avoided being [...]
Plans are afoot to bring two brand new hospitals to Valparaiso. One to replace the current Porter hospital, poorly located in downtown Valparaiso and relocate it further north towards Chesterton. The second one will be a private hospital located in a new business park north of Valpo.
Well, the question needs [...]
