At one point the building I live in worked out a deal with what was then StarPower for cable service. They pretty much had a monopoly on the building and, if you wanted cable, you also had to switch your phone service to them; same for internet service. Well, as you might expect, if one went out, everything went out ... which once left a neighbor sick at home with no phone, no internet - so she couldn't work from home - and no TV for entertainment.

Then there's the name change to Xfinity, which reminds me a lot of when the Atlanta city council changed Stewart Avenue to Metropolitan Parkway, because Stewart Avenue had become associated with prostitution. Apparently the idea was that the hookers would see the Metropolitan street signs, become confused and go elsewhere.

I've seen that episode of Big Bang Theory. As I recall, it doesn't work.

I just got back from a day in Johnstown. I saw some history museums, and I rode the Inclined Plane, and I saw the valley that used to be the lake that caused the flood. The clubhouse for the fishing club is still there, but I was getting tired and decided not to see it this time.

Johnstown itself was pretty run-down -- the economy was almost entirely dependent on Cambria Steel, and the city hasn't really recovered from the steel plants closing.

I'm sad to hear that Johnstown isn't doing well. A book about the flood was on our bookshelf when I was growing up so I always assumed most people knew about the disaster but it seems like just the opposite is true.

On the other hand, funicular railways rule!

I learned at the museum that, on the day of the flood, the storm had already knocked down the telegraph lines and the train tracks were flooded, so there way no way to get any sort of messages in or out of the city for a day or two, and the first sign the outside world got that something had happened was when debris showed up downriver in Pittsburgh. Also, the bodies got so tossed around that some of them weren't found for years, and one washed down the river and ended up in Cincinnati. There are a few places around the city where there are markers showing where the water line was, and it was over twenty feet in some places.

In the acting class I took in college, the teacher had us improv the breaking of the Johnstown dam. It got really weird really quick.

Oh, and the history museum also has a children's museum, with a bunch of different exhibits where kids can build things and invent things and put stuff together. One room was a bunch of different water things, with a sign on the wall about how water is useful, but Johnstown knows that water is also powerful and you shouldn't underestimate the power of water, and one of the things for kids to play with is a model of the area with a place to build a dam, and then you press a button to make the area behind the dam fill up with water and see if your dam holds or if the water goes crashing down into the city.

then you press a button to make the area behind the dam fill up with water and see if your dam holds or if the water goes crashing down into the city.

I just killed 2,200 people. Oops.

I just killed 2,200 people. Oops.

Better find out in a simulation.

I'm making airline reservations for Mal to fly by himself(!!!) to visit his grandfather. Onerous task day for me!

Floods have continued to be a concern for Johnstown. Johnstown has experienced additional major flooding in subsequent years, including 1894, 1907, and 1924. The most significant flood of the first half of the 20th century was the St. Patrick's Day Flood of March 1936, which also reached Pittsburgh and became known as the Great Pittsburgh Flood of 1936.

More recently, on the night of July 19, 1977, a relentless storm reminiscent of 1889 bombarded the watershed above the city and the rivers began to rise. By dawn, the city was under water that reached as high as 8 feet (2.4 m). The seven counties disaster area suffered $200 million in property damage and 80 lost lives, 40 of which were caused by the Laurel Run Dam failure. Another 50,000 were rendered homeless as a result of the "100 year flood". Markers on one corner of City Hall at 401 Main Street show the height of the crests of the 1889, 1936, and 1977 floods.

At what point do you say "maybe this isn't the greatest spot to put a town"?