Another in our series of Ohio's covered bridges, the Lynchburg bridge is preserved in the city park in Lynchburg, Highland County, southwestern Ohio. The bridgewas built in 1870 in the long, or 'X' truss style.

The Blue Hole in Castalia was once a major tourist attraction in Ohio. Sadly, times changed and now the "spring without a bottom" serves only to hatch cold-water fish for the state's stocking program.

The Blue Hole is located about five miles southwest of Sandusky and Lake Erie, in the limestone strata that cover this part of the state. The Hole itself is about the size of a farm pond, with cold (48 degree) water that wells up at over 7,500 gallons per minute. It is the source of Cold Creek, one of the few streams in Ohio in which cold water fish such as trout can live. The spring was so noteworthy the nearby town was named Castalia, after the Fons Catalius Fountain near Delphi, Greece.

Because of the lack of oxygen, the water harbors no life and therefore is so clear viewers can see 50-60 feet down. Legend holds that divers have attempted to but never reached its bottom.

The first recorded visit by the new Americans was made by Major Robert Rogers of Rogers Rangers, who came to fame for his role in the French and Indian War. He visited this site in 1761.

The Castalia fish hatchery was added to the ODNR facilities in 1997, when the site was purchased from private owners. The hatchery uses water from the blue hole aquifer, but because it has no oxygen and a great deal of nitrogen, it is treated before being used. The cold water is used to raise steelhead and rainbow trout for stocking in Ohio's lakes. The state holds a lottery occasionally for the right to fish for trout in Cold Creek.

Tracey Chapman's socially relevant tunes have struck a chord with the American audience. She was born in Cleveland, moving on to Tufts Unversity before making her mark in the music scene. Here's a video of her song Crossroads from the 1989 of the same name.

Every Ohio politician makes job creation part of his platform, so he might be tempted to celebrate the Timken Company's plans to invest $60 milllion to expand their Canton steel plant.

Until they read that it will create 30 jobs.

in the 1980's, Timken, long the lifeblood of Stark County, built a state-of-the-art facility to make specialty steel. At the time, they were one of the largest employers of members of the United Steelworkers of America.

The new mill mechanized many jobs so that it could operate with a vastly reduced work force. Timken has apparently fine-tuned that process now to a proportion of one job for every $2 million.

This is great for shareholders, who not only make more money from the increased sales, but also own the capital, the robots making the steel. But it does little for the unemployed in Stark County. At one time, tens of thousands of Ohioans worked for Timken in Canton, Columbus and elsewhere. The number now is a small fraction of that.

The same holds true for employers such as Honda of America. Increased mechanization reduces costs, but as the requirement for manpower decreases, where shall Ohioans turn to earn the money to buy the products? Fast food restaurants?

Full disclosure: Both my father and I worked for Timken. Neither of us do now, and neither of us wishes we did.

Karen Wynn Fonstad, author of The Atlas of Middle-Earth, has created a wonderful web page on which she breaks down, day by day, the first leg of Frodo's journey in Lord of the Rings, from Hobbiton to Rivendell. To get a better perspective on his journey, I've overlaid these distances on a walk across Ohio.

I started in the hills north of Oxford, because the terrain seems perfect for hobbit holes. Zoar Village stands in for Rivendell, for convenience, not appearance. After all, what could stand in for Rivendell?

To make sense of this, you'll need an Ohio map and access to Fonstad's web page, along with a working knowledge of LOTR.

Start:
Assumptions: I multiplied as-the-crow-flies mileage x .7 to compensate for foot travel.

• Day 1- 18 miles
• Fairhaven to woods near Gratis (Preble Co.)
• Day 2- 28 miles
• Near Colonial Vineyards, Ridgeville
• Day 3- 27 miles
• Ridgeville to King's Mill
• (Cross Little Miami River, think of Buckleberry Ferry)
• Day 4- 25 miles
• King's Mill to Marathon
• Day 5- Rest day
• Day 6- 17 miles
• Marathon to Bethel

This shot was taken by TheeErin. I think I've already spent my eternity, in line at the BMV.

Asimo, the human-shaped robot built by Honda, normally moves with grace and eerily human-like movement. Unfortunately, in this clip his strides are more like mine, and I have a reputation for falling over gnats.

Franklin the basset hound was a fixture in Matt Schwendiman's barber shop in Canal Fulton. Until the Man threw him out.

The Man (I have no idea if it was a man or woman, actually), in this case was an inspector from the Ohio State Barber Board. In reviewing the state laws covering barber shops (most of which deal with all the ways the state can charge the shop owners) I don't see dogs addressed. I presume Matt's Barber Shop must have been dinged for Franklin under the clause "Sanitize and maintain in a sanitary condition, all instruments and supplies."

Frankly, I'd much rather climb into a chair recently abandoned by a dog that some of the characters I've met in barbershops.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that Franklin has been given clearance to return to his post after almost a year of exile. Apparently, the board adopted a new rule allowing one dog per shop, provided the mutt has a vet's clean bill of health and the owner carries liability insurance.

I'm comforted to learn that the state is looking out for my tonsorial safety.

Some things I don't want to know too much about, including (in Twain's words) the making of law and sausages. However, if you are curious about the sanitation in your favorite dining establishment, the Columbus Board of Health inspection reports can give you the down and dirty.

The department is about start a new program in which restaurants will be required to color-coded signs indicating the findings of the most recent inspection. Green will indicate a clean slate, yellow for corrections needed, white for probation and red for restaurants shut down for violations. A blue sign indicates a place that has had no problems for at least a year.

I checked a few local restaurants at random, to get a sense of what the inspectors look for and how strictly they inspect. I was impressed by the detail of their work, and pleased with the results of their inspections.

For an example, I looked at a few recent inspections, (and understand these are not worse-cases; they are simply random choices, and all of the have satisfied these Health Department's concerns). Their reports:

The Cheesecake Factory: mid-priced casual dining at Easton Mall.
Soda guns soiled with mold inside. Cook used bare hands to put cheese on pasta. Garlic and oil at 65F, should be 41F or below.

Waffle House, Dublin-Granville Road: You know Waffle House!
Cook changed gloves without washing hands. Raw beef stored above sliced ham and cream in fridge. Can opener and prep sink dirty.

Pizza House, E. Lincoln Ave. Both carryout and in-house dining.
Raw eggs stored above soda in fridge, cheese stored too warm, lack of date-marking of sliced ham, food surfaces dirty, employees drinking from unlidded containers in kitchen, cook did not know proper way to cool foods, raw chicken and beef stored above bread, food prep with bare hands, salad stored in garbage can, dirty can opener, ice machine drainage improperly air gapped.

M- Perhaps the most upscale restaurant in town.
Partially eaten apple on cold prep table. Chef assembled mini-burger with bare hands. Mashed potatoes held for hours were not time-dated. Waiter didn't properly warn patron of the danger of under-cooked meat. Ice machine was soiled.

I am reassured both by the detailed inspection and the fairly mundane violations found.

Ohio has been a hotbed for SF/F writers from the days of Roger Zelazny and Harlan Ellison through recent masters such as Lois McMaster Bujold.

The next generation is now making its mark on the field. One of the most prominent is Blog-O's own Tobias Buckell. His first novel, Crystal Rain, has been nominated for the Nebula, the field's most prestigious award. It also was selected as a Reviewer's Choice by Romantic Times, and chosen to be crafted into an upcoming graphic novel by the Dabel Brothers. Crystal Rain will soon be out in paperback, and the sequel, Ragamuffin, will be on the shelves early this summer.

John Scalzi, who made his bones as a blogger before breaking into fiction, won the Campbell award for Best New Writer for his novel 'Old Man's War', which was also nominated for a Hugo award for best novel. He too was on the Romantic Times list. His latest, The Last Colony, is due to release in April.

One of our newest Blog-O writers, Chris Barzak, landed on the Nebula long list with his novelette "The Language of Moths." His first novel, One For Sorrow, from Bantam Spectra, will appear this fall.

Central Ohio writer Paul Melko is also on a tear. His first novel, Singularity's Ring, from Tor, will appear on the shelves this fall, and his novella "The Walls of the Universe" is on the 2007 Nebula long list.

If you get the chance, check out the work of our home boys. You won't be disappointed.

Ever fantasize about what you would do with a lottery fortune? Me too. Even though I don't buy lottery tickets.

I would sign up with Netjets, a cool Columbus-based company offering fractional jet ownership. Now Netjets is even more appealing, having just doubled their order of new jets from Raytheon Aircraft.

Netjets fractional jet ownership is similar in some respect with the more familiar time-share condo concept. Lottery winners and businesses buy into the program, sharing ownership of a huge fleet of jets. They can then arrange private jet transportation for their travel, leaving and arriving at the time of their choosing from and to where they choose.

Along the way, the level of service is similarly better. The jet is stocked with the owner's favorite newspapers, foods, including gourmet meals should they so choose. Ground transportation and other concierge services are also provided.

Netjets claims its fleet of 650 private jets is the largest in the world. This allows owners to arrange flights as little as four hours beforehand.

Of course, I could always choose to save my money and continue to fly commercial, enjoying a few nights sleep on the floor of the Denver airport and cavity searches at the security gate. Not.

Yes, if I were rich, Netjets would be my first call. Maybe they even have internet, allowing me to blog from the air!

The Cincinnati-based (what a surprise) group Citizens for Community Values has proposed a law to the newly forming General Assembly that would ban lap dances in Ohio's titillation clubs. The dances, in which comely (or at least willing) women gyrate on 'gentlemen's' clothed laps in order to pleasure them, would no longer be possible if the law's proposed six-foot buffer zone between dancers and patrons is passed. (In this day of Ohio obesity and lack of fitness, can we really afford to legislate against ANY form of exercise?)

The law would also mandate a midnight closing time for all sexually-oriented businesses.

The proposal, which they call the Community Defense Act, moves forward as an initiated statute on the basis of the 200,000 signators on the petition. It attempts to add into law these measures which were not included, to their dismay, in House Bill 23 which was passed in 2005. HB 23 set some restrictions on the sex trade, but not enough, in the CCV's opinion.

Citizens for Community Values were also leaders in the movement to pass the recently approved gay marriage ban in Ohio.

They have not yet indicated their next step in stripping Ohioans of their personal freedoms. Perhaps public stocks and burkas.

According to the Arbor Day organization, which created the well-known Hardiness Zone Map for trees that divides the country into ten climate zones, the changes in our climate are shifting the areas in which weather-sensitive plants thrive.

In 1990, most of Ohio north of US 70 was in their zone five. Now, they have redrawn their map such that the entire state (and the lower half of Michigan) is in the more temperate zone six.

The transition does not move our climate over a tipping point at which some varieties of our common trees are threatened, but it does move us closer to the day when heat-intolerant species could fail. I'd suggest, if you're looking to plant a 100-year tree, picking one that can deal with a warming atmosphere. Perhaps the Al Gore Oak. (Joke)

On tonight's episode of ABC's hit show Wife Swap, Upper Sandusky housewife and body builder Melissa Johnson moves to the state up north for two weeks to take over the household of diminutive Diane Allemon.

Johnson runs her own household like you might expect a devoted fitness buff to: work, exercise, and fun plugged into a strict schedule. The entire family is devoted to going the extra mile to maximize their potential.

Following the tradition of this show, the Allemon family is very different. Here rules give way to congeniality, discipline to free choice, work to relaxation.

The rules of the show required each wife to follow the customs of the host family for the first week, then demands the family follow the new wife's dictates the second.

Johnson claimed that her family suffered more by being deprived of their activities than the Allemon's did from their enforced labors.

I suspect the episode will end where most of them do, with both families better appreciating the home lives they currently have.

If you've never heard and seen this, or even if you have; Martin Luther King's speech "I Have a Dream" is arguably the most important speech of the 20th century. It stills brings goosebumps whenever I hear it.