Monday, April 20, 2009
Greeter added to BHS entrance: security risks a reminder
Bridgeport High School principle talks about their new entrance "greeter" in order to keep the school organized and safe. The greeter was added in March.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Testing, testing, 1,2,3...
Here is my audio test clip for our audio based assignment. I hope it works!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Blustery days could save energy
Monday Feb. 9, 2009
BRIDGEPORT, Michigan—Saving energy and money in Bridgeport Township may be a little easier if a wind energy initiative project is approved and put into motion. “What the township’s trying to do right now is take a pro-active approach to allowing development of not only wind energy but solar applications as well,” Zoning and Codes Administrator Bruce Palmer said.
“On October 6, 2008, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed into law Public Act 286 which included legislation called the ‘renewable portfolio standard,’” Palmer said. This requires that 10 percent of Michigan’s annual energy needs are produced by renewable resources, such as wind and solar energy, by 2015.
“Townships are being asked also to create zoning language that basically allows and controls development of wind projects in their areas,” Palmer said. A sub-committee has been formed to look at the draft wind energy ordinance. So far, the draft ordinance for the wind energy project has been reviewed by the sub-committee, and should be reviewed by the full planning commission within the next three months.
“We’re also going to have a series of different public hearings and things like that,” Palmer said. The next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. “We have a speaker coming in from Oliver Township and that’s the site of the Harvest Wind Farm,” Palmer said. The speaker will talk about issues Oliver Township faced while developing their ordinance language for their wind farm.
“I feel wind power would be awesome for Bridgeport Charter Township,” Township Manager Rose Licht said.
“Bruce has been researching and doing a lot of work investigating everything pertaining to wind power,” she said.
Right now, the township is looking for open spaces of land that won’t interfere with agriculture, the availability of transmission lines in the area and the availability of wind in the area. “Saginaw County, according to the recent wind maps, indicate that they’re somewhere between 15.8 and 16.7 mph and that’s pretty much in the area where these wind farms operate,” Palmer said.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Martha Sageman, vice president of the Bridgeport Board of Education and a Bridgeport resident said. “I’d like to see one of them in my back yard.”
“People have electric and gas bills right now, if they don’t support it they’re crazy,” Sageman said.
The township is looking at two wind energy systems. “The larger ones we look at in a utility scale. They’ll tie into the grid to sell power to utilities,” Palmer said. “These are private investors that come in, like John Deer and Mobile and those type of people, that develop these things that, in the end, sell the power to the utilities. “
The second wind energy system is an on-site system. “They can actually supplement their electrical bills through what they call ‘net metering.’ You’re not going to make money by selling energy to the utility, what your doing is cutting your energy cost down,” Palmer said. “The task of formulating zoning language to allow for large wind energy facilities and private on-site small wind energy systems within Bridgeport Township began in earnest, in August.”
Solar energy is done on a person-by-person basis. “That’s not really being controlled in Zoning and Ordinance, that’s more of a building permit issue to make sure it’s structurally feasible. Anyone can do solar,” Palmer said.
Wind energy does have its downfalls, and Palmer said he’s run into two major issues. One is the sound produced by the wind turbines and another is known as “shadow flicker.” As the sun moves behind the turbine blades, light flickers past the blades. “It would be an annoying thing if it was constantly showing through your window,” Palmer said.
“We addressed those two items also in the draft ordinance, there’s ways to mitigate those things with proper siting,” Palmer said. “The newer ones spin much slower and they all have internal gearing and there’s a separation between the towers so you don’t get all of the sound building up in unison from the multiple towers. “
“Last year we went out to California and when we drove back home there were miles and miles of those things and it didn’t bother you at all to drive through them,” Sageman said, commenting on the noise.
“If everything were to go right, it would all depend on not only the willingness of the land owners to lease their land out but the developers to turn around and say, ‘hey we want to develop here, close, nearby,’” Palmer said. Bridgeport wouldn’t be alone in the initiative, either. “We’d have to look at partnering with other townships to make it happen.”
“What you have to look at is not so much if as when. If they run out of room and you’re sitting there and you have available land and you have the wind resource it’s just a matter of when, but there’s no guarantees in this,” Palmer said. “But, to do nothing, is to achieve nothing.”
A closer look:
• www.glrea.org
• www.awea.org
• www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro
BRIDGEPORT, Michigan—Saving energy and money in Bridgeport Township may be a little easier if a wind energy initiative project is approved and put into motion. “What the township’s trying to do right now is take a pro-active approach to allowing development of not only wind energy but solar applications as well,” Zoning and Codes Administrator Bruce Palmer said.
“On October 6, 2008, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed into law Public Act 286 which included legislation called the ‘renewable portfolio standard,’” Palmer said. This requires that 10 percent of Michigan’s annual energy needs are produced by renewable resources, such as wind and solar energy, by 2015.
“Townships are being asked also to create zoning language that basically allows and controls development of wind projects in their areas,” Palmer said. A sub-committee has been formed to look at the draft wind energy ordinance. So far, the draft ordinance for the wind energy project has been reviewed by the sub-committee, and should be reviewed by the full planning commission within the next three months.
“We’re also going to have a series of different public hearings and things like that,” Palmer said. The next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. “We have a speaker coming in from Oliver Township and that’s the site of the Harvest Wind Farm,” Palmer said. The speaker will talk about issues Oliver Township faced while developing their ordinance language for their wind farm.
“I feel wind power would be awesome for Bridgeport Charter Township,” Township Manager Rose Licht said.
“Bruce has been researching and doing a lot of work investigating everything pertaining to wind power,” she said.
Right now, the township is looking for open spaces of land that won’t interfere with agriculture, the availability of transmission lines in the area and the availability of wind in the area. “Saginaw County, according to the recent wind maps, indicate that they’re somewhere between 15.8 and 16.7 mph and that’s pretty much in the area where these wind farms operate,” Palmer said.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Martha Sageman, vice president of the Bridgeport Board of Education and a Bridgeport resident said. “I’d like to see one of them in my back yard.”
“People have electric and gas bills right now, if they don’t support it they’re crazy,” Sageman said.
The township is looking at two wind energy systems. “The larger ones we look at in a utility scale. They’ll tie into the grid to sell power to utilities,” Palmer said. “These are private investors that come in, like John Deer and Mobile and those type of people, that develop these things that, in the end, sell the power to the utilities. “
The second wind energy system is an on-site system. “They can actually supplement their electrical bills through what they call ‘net metering.’ You’re not going to make money by selling energy to the utility, what your doing is cutting your energy cost down,” Palmer said. “The task of formulating zoning language to allow for large wind energy facilities and private on-site small wind energy systems within Bridgeport Township began in earnest, in August.”
Solar energy is done on a person-by-person basis. “That’s not really being controlled in Zoning and Ordinance, that’s more of a building permit issue to make sure it’s structurally feasible. Anyone can do solar,” Palmer said.
Wind energy does have its downfalls, and Palmer said he’s run into two major issues. One is the sound produced by the wind turbines and another is known as “shadow flicker.” As the sun moves behind the turbine blades, light flickers past the blades. “It would be an annoying thing if it was constantly showing through your window,” Palmer said.
“We addressed those two items also in the draft ordinance, there’s ways to mitigate those things with proper siting,” Palmer said. “The newer ones spin much slower and they all have internal gearing and there’s a separation between the towers so you don’t get all of the sound building up in unison from the multiple towers. “
“Last year we went out to California and when we drove back home there were miles and miles of those things and it didn’t bother you at all to drive through them,” Sageman said, commenting on the noise.
“If everything were to go right, it would all depend on not only the willingness of the land owners to lease their land out but the developers to turn around and say, ‘hey we want to develop here, close, nearby,’” Palmer said. Bridgeport wouldn’t be alone in the initiative, either. “We’d have to look at partnering with other townships to make it happen.”
“What you have to look at is not so much if as when. If they run out of room and you’re sitting there and you have available land and you have the wind resource it’s just a matter of when, but there’s no guarantees in this,” Palmer said. “But, to do nothing, is to achieve nothing.”
A closer look:
• www.glrea.org
• www.awea.org
• www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Extra credit exercise.
1. The consultant was given $125,000 on Feb. 7, 1980 in Austin, Texas.
2. The temperature fell to minus 14 after a blizzard struck Denver, Colo. in Dec. 1982.
3. Tom Becker, a black man born in the South during the 1930s, was elected mayor of the city.
4. A senior who will graduate next spring said, "History and English are my favorite subjects."
5. The girl's elbow was injured when she fell 12 ft. at noon yesterday in Lincoln Park.
6. Susan Majorce, 7, is five ft. tall and weighs 87 lbs.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Editing jobs plentiful, newspapers need fresh look
When I think of my future career in journalism, I usually think of an uphill struggle. I hear how newspaper readership is declining and viewers don't trust local news stations. It appears that jobs in journalism are few and far between, but according to "The Art of Editing" by Brian S. Brooks and James L. Pinson, "Editing jobs are so plentiful, in fact, that companies are often willing to pay editors a higher salary than writers." I was under the impression that if a reporting job is hard to come by, so is an editing job. However, since media is converging it only makes sense that new jobs are being created for editors. "Convergence is creating a demand for a new type of editor, one as capable of handling a magazine or newspaper story as editing video and the words that accompany it," said Brooks and Pinson.
I agree with the idea that the younger generation is bored by newspapers and needs a fresh way of learning information. Brooks and Pinson describe a University of Missouri research project where a student says, "It can't be way cool. It's a newspaper." Children today are more keen to watch television and play video games than read a book or play outside. Similarly, they will want to gather news in the same way. I think it's quite sad that newspaper sales are declining. I'd rather get my information from print media than the Internet. Digital newspapers may be the print newspapers of tomorrow, and those in the media industry have no choice but to keep up with the trends.
I agree with the idea that the younger generation is bored by newspapers and needs a fresh way of learning information. Brooks and Pinson describe a University of Missouri research project where a student says, "It can't be way cool. It's a newspaper." Children today are more keen to watch television and play video games than read a book or play outside. Similarly, they will want to gather news in the same way. I think it's quite sad that newspaper sales are declining. I'd rather get my information from print media than the Internet. Digital newspapers may be the print newspapers of tomorrow, and those in the media industry have no choice but to keep up with the trends.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Journalism student to learn editing skills
My name is Jennifer Profitt and I'm a journalism/political science double major. I've been working for the University of Michigan-Flint's campus newspaper, The Michigan Times, for roughly one year. When I first started writing for the M-Times I wasn't interested in hard news stories or politics. I wanted to cover campus theater and music. Eventually, my ambitions changed and I began covering the Student Government Council. I've been on the SGC beat for one semester so far, and it's proved to be a good place to find stories, though they're not always earth-shattering.
My path to journalism wasn't what one might call traditional. I've always loved the English language. I wrote essays with ease and rarely made grammar mistakes. I also have a passion for theater and performing which, unfortunately, doesn't lead to much of a career. I combined my love of English and performing and voila! Before long, I changed my major to journalism and I'm now an aspiring television reporter. I've taken several journalism classes and worked for the M-Times but I haven't had a solid chance to try my hand at editing. It intrigues me, and the more I look into working at the M-Times as an editor, the more I like the idea. I can't imagine a class that could prepare me more for such an opportunity as this class.
I'm looking forward to learning the other side of working for a newspaper. It's one thing to write a piece but quite another to edit that same piece. I've had limited experience editing newspaper material or laying out newspaper designs, but I'd love to learn exactly how it's done. I'm not at all familiar with editing/design programs, so this should be an excellent opportunity to expand my knowledge.
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