The virtual tour of our house, for sale near Irvington, is online!
Sitting here at the Blog Indiana conference on IUPUI’s campus, in their new student center (nice!)
Also set up a Twitter account. Like I was with blogging, I’m very skeptical of Twitter and its uses. There’s no way I’ll be fanatical like many Twitter users who update about everything they do (”I’m in the restroom right now!”), but it might be a fun, free tool to work with.
I had the good fortune to work on two stories — one podcast, one print/online — for the first Angie’s List magazine pet-themed issue, which is out now. The first story, “No-Kill shelters spur controversy”, was written by Amy Mastin (moving to South Carolina soon — I wish her the best of luck!) with some reporting by me, and is all about the debate between traditional and no-kill shelters. (Admittedly, “no-kill” shelters are a bit of a misnomer, as vicious or terminally ill animals are euthanized. But no matter what true no-kill shelters call themselves, the terminology is besides the point: they simply use “no kill” as words to define the movement to stop killing as a form of population control for adoptable pets.) Some heavyweights in the animal welfare industry were interviewed for the story, including Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, Ed Sayres, president of the ASPCA, and Nathan Winograd, director of the No Kill Advocacy Center.
The debate is quite the controversial topic, but it was a fun story to report on.
Also, I had the pleasure of visiting PAWS Chicago, a no-kill shelter in — you guessed it — downtown Chicago. Executive director Rochelle Michalek took Jay, a local photographer, and myself on a tour of both the Lurie Family Spay/Neuter Clinic, and the Pippen Fasseas Adoption Center in trendy Lincoln Park (also the happy home of a Goose Island brewpub.)
The arrangement PAWS (which stands for “Pets Are Worth Saving”) has set up is quite amazing, and they’re on track to save a lot more animals this year than last. Check out the video of the visit on the Angie’s List podcast site — as you’ll see, there are definitely some super-cute animals for adoption!
PAWS Chicago takes its animals from the city of Chicago’s Animal Care and Control division, which I didn’t have the chance to visit. But by comparing my day’s worth of filming at PAWS Chicago and a half-day’s worth of shadowing a tech (thanks, Sara!) at Indianapolis Animal Care and Control I recently did, I can tell you the differences between traditional animal shelters and proper “no kill” are stark. IACC is located on Harding Street in a heavily industrial area of Indianapolis, which often stinks and is an area far from pleasant to visit. PAWS’ adoption center, on the other hand, is located in a heavily trafficked (car, bike and foot) area, with big, attractive windows used to showcase the animals. I strongly believe IACC should spend just a little cash (they might even be able to do this for free) and rent out a small retail space in a place like Mass Ave., Broad Ripple or the Carmel Arts District (which would be especially effective for IACC, since it has no presence on the north side, save for stops at PetSmart) to feature some of their adoptable animals — especially the older ones, or those who’ve been available for adoption for a long time but are at risk of being killed for space.
Walking into the IACC kennels is almost like looking back in time at an older way of thinking, with the rows of stereotypical dog-pound steel-barred cages filled with oft-scared, barking dogs or timid, meowing cats. Walking into the kennels at PAWS, however, is more like walking into a spa: many of the rooms look posh enough to relax in and maybe even have a massage. They feature their own air systems, relaxing music, elevated beds, and no bars, only glass doors. And plenty of natural light, as well — much more pleasant than the typical harsh fluorescent bulbs.
I could go on about the differences, but comparing a traditional animal control agency with a progressive no-kill one is kind of like comparing apples and oranges: they seem to have the same basic structure or purpose, but have some major differences as well. And honestly, it’s not quite fair to say PAWS is better than animal control — after all, in Chicago, they’re working together, which is great. And PAWS doesn’t have to take in all of the city’s tens of thousands of strays, as animal control does in Chicago, Indy, and most other cities. However, I think the most important fact about places like PAWS is that they offer a hopeful future: if more animal shelters and control agencies took some cues from places like PAWS, they could be well on their way to saving thousands more dog and cat lives annually, and would also be well on their way to saving thousands more dollars and bringing thousands more in. Saving lives not only saves money, but also generates goodwill from the public, who are more than willing to donate their hard-earned cash towards agencies they see as doing good for animals.
It’s getting late, I’m tired, and I could write plenty more about this subject. But instead, I’ll let Bob Barker’s words — which hit at the heart of one of the most important elements in animal welfare in America today — sign off for me in the same way they did every episode of The Price is Right:
“Help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered.”
Update 8/7/08: I forgot to mention a resource for those looking to adopt. This page on Angie’s List magazine’s site lists a variety of terrific sources for animal adoption. If you’re looking for a purebred, please remember that roughly 1/4 of all dogs in animal shelters are purebred, and there are plenty of breed rescue organizations in the United States who would surely be glad to help you find your perfect pet!
Last week while I was preparing to write a press release, I somehow came across a terrific website, Free Web P.R., run by fellow IU School of Informatics New Media alum and Hoosier media arts guru Neal Moore. Having grown up in central Indiana, I often saw him on Indianapolis CBS affiliate WISH-TV, my family’s go-to station for local news when I was younger. Growing up, I trusted what I saw on the station, and now as a discerning adult, I’m pleased to see that Moore’s still a positive influence in Indiana, and I was happy to discover the wealth of business-related resources on Moore’s site.
I checked out some of his posts and recommendations regarding public relations, writing, and media in general, and was fortunate enough to meet Neal (pleasantly, no “Mr.” required) at an alumni event a few days after I discovered the site. If you’re a student, starting a business, looking to improve your media-related skills, or even if you want to make it big in the music industry, you should check out the site.
I know we haven’t been in our house for very long, but April and I are moving to Broad Ripple soon. So we’re putting our beautiful beloved bungalow up for sale.
The house is at 122 Wallace Ave., close to Irvington and Ellenberger Park. The home features: updated large kitchen and bathrooms with tile floors; full hardwood floors and beautiful original wood molding and doors throughout the rest of the home; basement which could be used as 3rd bedroom or office; newer 2-car garage with lots of room for workshop, motorcycles or storage; security system and multi-line phone system; newer aluminum siding; native-plant landscaping; full privacy fence; new high-efficiency furnace in ‘07 and AC in ‘08 installed by Northern Heating and Cooling; and much, much more! For only $109,900, you can live close to historic Irvington, Ellenberger Park, and downtown Indianapolis! Contact me for more information.
UPDATE
Our home’s now officially listed as “For Sale.” Go to http://mibor.com/resources/search.asp, and enter the MLS # 2842446 at the bottom. You can view all the details and some pictures here, and our agent’s contact is as follows if you’d like to set up a showing:
Sycamore Group
Thomas Williams
815 E 63rd Place
Indianapolis, IN, 46220
Phone: 317-722-4350
Agent E-mail: tom@LiveInIndy.com
Could plastic be the worst kind of petroleum-related disaster, even worse than the oil spills we’ve all grown to know and love?
Take a trip with VBS.tv in the video above to visit the North Pacific Gyre, an area bigger than Texas where much of our trash ends up floating around, where it kills wildlife and likely makes its way back to us. Nothing like a little Bisphenol A in our systems!
As the administrator of a handful of websites, I’m often learning new techniques about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Basically, SEO is all about using web-savvy techniques to move your site’s ranking up in search engines like Google. So, for example, if I was starting a company to sell widgets (which I’m not, because - face it - who needs widgets?), but there were already 10 widget-selling companies on the first page of Google when you search for “widgets,” it would take an awful lot of work (and good content on my website) for my new widget company to even show up in a Google search result. So SEO is basically a mysterious set of quasi-scientific methods designed to help people find your site more easily by increasing the likelihood that it’s seen in a prominent space on a search engine.
Some say SEO is dead or dying, which likely enrages many who’ve built careers on it. This belief is built on the premise that Google, Yahoo et al are becoming better and better at filtering out worthless content and finding what’s truly good, whether it’s optimized for search engines or not.
At any rate, I have a proposition for those looking for more SEO techniques in the wake of Google’s continual evolution: name your kid something unique! Seriously: “Tristan Schmid” isn’t the most difficult search engine term to get a high ranking for (of course, now that I say that, people will probably try to knock me out of relevant searches just for kicks), and if I were to create a company called “Tristan Schmid Widgets Inc.”, all it would take would be some simple traditional marketing, and people could find my company online. Or not, since my name doesn’t have the additional T on the end that so many people would likely type.
Anyway, people like Lindsay Lohan’s mom have been cultivating their children to make them money for quite awhile, so it’s inevitable that someone follows my advice and names their kid Buydietpills.com Jones. Or not.
I’ve got yet another new project: Indy Animal Media. Check out the website and its first podcast at indyanimalmedia.org.
Though AdoptAnAnimal.org is still in its infancy, my calendar is gradually filling up with related happenings, and I’m realizing that this non-job is a lot of work!
On Saturday, my wife and I attended the North Shore Animal League’s “Tour for Life” at the Indianapolis Animal Care and Control center. (Before I forget, check out Shakie to the right, one of the adoptable dogs at IACC. He looks very similar to my dogs Aja and Diva, and it’s so tempting to rescue him… but I can’t, so maybe you should! Click his pic to go to his Petfinder page, or visit IACC to see him and take him for a walk.)(Updated on 4/29/08: Shakie is no longer available: he was adopted!) NSAL purports to be the world’s largest no-kill shelter. I don’t know if this is true, but either way, I didn’t find out at Saturday’s event. It was great to see a lot of no-kill animal rescue organizations represented at the event, but besides a small hand-written poster board and an NSAL pamphlet at one of the booths, I didn’t see any presence of the League at all (and their blog currently doesn’t have an Indy entry, so perhaps something happened and they couldn’t show up.)
At any rate, I met some great people representing some worthwhile animal activism groups, adoption shelters and rescue organizations. I talked to Warren Patitz, president and founder of Move to Act, which has been one of the Humane Society of Indianapolis’s most vocal critics (though critics of HSI aren’t hard to find, especially after their decision to stop taking in stray animals - read this Nuvo article for the full story.) He told me some more about an upcoming No Kill seminar with author/activist Nathan Winograd, which should be quite interesting (I listened to Winograd’s podcast, based on this blog post today; it definitely makes me rethink the comment I left on Nuvo’s site in which I mentioned that even if HSI is making a mistake by not taking strays, at least their end goal of finding homes for pets is a noble one. I hope they’re doing all they can to adopt out every animal.)
So in addition to the Tour for Life and the No Kill seminar, I’ll also be attending the HSI Mutt Strut this Sunday with Aja, Diva, Pixie (my dogs), my wife and my parents (and their dog.) I’m sure my dogs don’t really care what HSI is doing as long as they get to be around hundreds of other excited, panting dogs.
Speaking of dogs, I found it interesting that, at the NSAL event this past Saturday, my wife wanted to take home the smallest dog, Honeybunch (a beautiful little boxer-type mix from Rescue Farm), and I wanted to take home the largest (Titan, a gorgeous malamute from Indy Homes for Huskies, who arguably had the liveliest bunch of dogs available for adoption.) If only we had acres and acres of farmland so we could take in more dogs…
When asked why he spent so much time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men, George Angell (founder of the Massachusetts SPCA in 1868) replied, “I am working at the roots. When human beings finally learn to honor the spirit of all beings most of the world’s problems will be solved.”
<<UPDATE :: 4/17/08 :: I’ve just uploaded a slightly more refined version of the MP3 I put up yesterday. I added some compression to help the overall volume levels and adjusted the EQ so it doesn’t sound so muffled. Hopefully it’s more listenable.>>
Seattle band Minus the Bear played a concert on their Spring 2008 tour at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana last night. They put on a solid show, which you can listen to above or download (sound quality is so-so. Listenable, though.) They started their set with one of my favorite tracks, “Knights”, and played a lot of songs off their latest (and in my opinion, greatest) album, Planet of Ice. If you haven’t heard of Minus the Bear, this is definitely the album to start with. And if you have a set list from last night’s show, let us know!
I’ve only been listening to Minus the Bear for the past year or so and don’t know much about the band, but with their collared dress shirts, they fit in with the IU college crowd quite well and looked like they could be teaching assistants for an IU business school stats class. Musicianship and vocals sounded great, though I haven’t listened to the recording yet (and sorry for not naming the MtB guys - go to Wikipedia or leave a comment below if you want to name them). The drummer kept a terrific pace most of the night with a bin full of spare sticks to replenish those that accidentally flew loose during rapid-fire snare hits, and the lead guitarist had some kind of motion-sensor effects pedal(s) (Korg Kaoss pad, perhaps? I couldn’t see it) that mimicked Planet of Ice’s strange guitar effects perfectly as he spazzed out to some of the songs, moving at times like one of the drunken, screaming sorority girls at the front of the stage. The vocalist/guitarist sounded good but a bit drowned out by everything else, and the bassist kept terrific lock-step with the drummer and keyboardist/programmer (who used a MacBook Pro in addition to other hardware.)
Openers Portugal the Man and Brooklyn’s Big Sleep set a decent stage. Portugal the Man were a brilliant surprise: I’d never heard them, and though their name leaves much to be desired (sounds like a little kid’s’ interpretation of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man … or something), they let loose with a riff-heavy set that at many times echoed Black Sabbath, the Mars Volta, and… um… Wolfmother? (who at many times echo Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, etc. Sorry if this sounds like an insult if you’re reading this, PtM guys, but it’s meant to be a compliment.)
Anyway, Portugal the Man played like Led Zeppelin at their best compared to the next group, the Big Sleep, who made me want to take a big sleep. The trio for the most part sounded like a beginning band at practice, except for the drummer, who did a good job at keeping the guitarist/vocalist and keyboardist/bassist?/vocalist in line. I haven’t heard any of the band’s recorded stuff, but my wife said she felt like she was in high school again listening to a friend’s band play a basement party. I felt like I was in high school again trying to navigate my way through the slew of teen-angst-grunge bands riding the Nirvana/Soundgarden/Seattle wave. Thanks for coming to the wonderful corn-fed state of Indiana, guys, but really, Brooklyn’s probably a much cooler place to learn how to play guitar.
And thank you, Minus the Bear (please don’t sue me for recording your concert and putting it online — I swear it’s a simple act of spreading the good word about you to those who haven’t heard!) for visiting the land of corn and Colts. And ditto to Portugal the Man: though your EP was sold out by the time my wife went to grab a copy, you’ve definitely earned yourselves a few new fans, so please swing back through Indiana again soon - and be sure to bring more copies of your albums.
I’m looking for photos from the show to post with this, so if you have some (or better yet, video!), let me know, and enjoy the show!
