Spring brings the orange barrels and road construction projects to Evansville. If you drive the Lloyd everyday like me, you’ve probably experienced the fun that is in front of the Red Cross. Workers are adding a second left-turn lane from the Lloyd onto Stockwell Road. Traffic was restricted to two lanes and involved some not-so-obvious shifts in traffic that were causing my fellow drivers a bit too much trouble.

The construction on the Stockwell-Lloyd job is supposed to wrap up October 19. I’ll be avoiding that area for a while.

I also ran into the fun on Lincoln Avenue where a portion of the road was closed off as part of the storm-drainage project. A slight detour solved that traffic issue, so no harm or foul. The Lincoln project should hopefully be wrapped up in a few days.

And my favorite road construction related story comes from our friends in Kentucky. They have come up with a solution for the twin bridge repairs. They will be shrinking the lanes on the southbound bridge so that there are three 10ft lanes of traffic. One lane will remain open on the northbound bridge while construction is underway on this two-year project.

Have fun bump drafting with those 18-wheelers on the bridge.

photo courtesy of Carol Esther

According to statistics, half of you reading this site are overweight. That’s because half of Hoosiers are overweight and are deemed the 8th fattest state in the nation. That’s not a good thing. As part of Healthier Evansville week, Welborn Clinic is hosting a week of walks downtown. The walks are designed for people of all fitness levels, so take some time out of your day to start your exercise program.

If you are interested in walking, meet at the intersection of 4th and Main St at 11:15 or 12:15 from today until May 4. There won’t be a 12:15 walk on May 4, so make sure you head to the early one. If you can’t make it to the Welborn hosted walks, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get out maybe after work or on one of your breaks and go for a walk or run. Find a time that fits your schedule and make exercise an appointment in your daily routine.

As part of Healthier Evansville week, we will be posting at least one story a day that highlights health issues in our city.

photo courtesy of kk+

The weather is supposed to be great all week, so instead of staying cramped up in the house all week, get out and see what Evansville has to offer.

If you’re looking for live music tonight, you’ve got John Hussman at Chilly Willy’s. If you are looking for poker or Karaoke, go pretty much anywhere else in town.

Tuesday night Jay Johnson is performing at Joey’s starting at 10PM.

Wednesday is packed with things to do. Cynthia McDonald is playing live jazz at Firefly at 6PM. Dead Weight is playing at Deerhead starting at 8PM. Ri Ra has live acoustic music at 9:30 and Fool Hardy is playing Lamasco’s at 10.

Thursday continues the weeklong celebration of Cinco De Mayo. Get to your favorite local Mexican restaurant and celebrate! If you’re not into margaritas, Great Blu is playing at Penny Lane starting at 8PM. You could also check out Pieces of the Day at Smittys at 9:30. Local favorite Lindsey Williams will be at Fox & Hound starting at 10PM.

photo courtesy of gusdrinks

It’s Healthier Evansville week, so get out and do something healthy. You will find me running down at the Riverfront around 5 or 5:30 today.

• Indiana state lawmakers passed a $26 billion state budget that funds Interstate 69 construction and $550 million in property tax relief. Governor Daniels still has to approve it.
• Motorcycles are still dangerous. A local woman was killed when she was ejected from her bike on the Lloyd near Weinbach.
• Ivy Tech dedicated a new extension to their First Avenue campus.
• A followup to the story about USI Professor James McGarrah’s dismissal. Protesters met with Ray Hoops, USI president on Friday to voice their concerns.
• A second area of Goosetown is slated to be declared a redevelopment section for Front Door Pride.

photo courtesy of SUPERBANANABOMB!

Looking to catch up on all that happened this week on It’s Evansville, here’s some of the highlights.

• Play Golf America announced Fendrich would be it’s host course May 5.
• A USI professor’s dismisal sparked outrage from his students.
• Karl Rove decided he didn’t want to visit us.
• Gordon Wayne Wright got Evansville national attention with his nude flyers on the front lawns of several West siders.
• We got our stickers in. Get some!

We’re always interested in unique things going on in Evansville. Something that’s beyond the normal cover band, karaoke or thong contest at your favorite local establishments. If you’re like us, you’ll probably want to head down to Ri Ra in the District Sunday afternoon from 2-5 for their monthly jam session.

These sessions are stylized after a typical Sunday experience at any Pub in Ireland where the patrons will come in with whatever musical instrument they have handy: a bodhran, guitar, tin whistle, flute, etc and just play together. One will usually start off playing a traditional melody and then the others join in here and there. Want another excuse? Guinness is only $3.50. Get drunk and be Irish!

photo courtesy of iwonakellie_

Ladies, Leif Garrett is in town.

Friday

• Leif will be performing along with the Bay City Rollers and The Cowsills at Hoosier’s Lounge. The whole event is being hosted by Greg Brady. The party starts at 7pm or 10pm depending on which show you want to attend.
• Looking for something a little bit more hardcore than 70’s dreamboats? Wired has This Autumn Night, Prevent this Tragedy, Tripwire and more starting at 7PM.
• Personally, I will be out at USI to see a screening of Notre Musique followed by Baba King. Film starts at 7:30 at Forum One on USI’s Campus.
• At 9PM The Jungle has Matt Clark on Jazz Piano.
• Fast Eddy’s has Louisville natives BSR performing at 10PM.
• At 10:30PM, Rich Hardesty will be playing at Ri Ra’s down in the district.

Saturday

Saturday is all about national acts coming to town.

• Leif Garrett and crew are still in town with two shows at Hoosier’s Lounge. First show is at 7:30PM followed by 10PM.
• 1123 has Cakecore 5 starting at 8PM. Can you guys not get into a fight this week? Thanks.
• If you’re wanting some country music and have a few bucks to spare, head to The Centre to see Vince Gill at 8PM.
• If you want to put on something nice and be cultural, the EPO is performing at Victory Theater starting at 8PM
• Lt. Dan’s New Legs will be playing at Eddy’s starting at 10PM. Best name for a cover band ever!

Anything we missed? Tell us in the comments!

• John Matthew Stephenson, who is on death row for killing 3 people in Warrick County, had his appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court rejected. He has a year to appeal to file a federal appeal. In other news, why do serial killers always include their middle name?
• Rather than speeding up service at your local post office, the USPS has opted to remove all clocks from post offices around the country.
• One man died and three were injured in a house fire near the intersection of the Lloyd and Vann Avenue.

photo courtesy of djh644

Want to help promote It’s Evansville around town? Why not get some of our stickers. We’ll be out around town over the next few weeks passing them out to spread the word, but we’re more than happy to mail a few to you as well. Our stickers are completely multifunctional. You can stick them on your car, your person, your binders or your Powerbooks.

If you’d like a few stickers, just send an email to justin@itsevansville.com with the address you want to send them to. You can also leave a comment on this post if you want to, but I doubt you really want everyone to know where you live.

While I was sitting at home yesterday trying to recover from this nasty flu bug going around town, I was watching a lot of Daytime TV. For about two hours of my day I watched Regis’ return from his bypass surgery followed by The View. During both of these shows there were several spots run previewing a story on the ABC25 news at 5 about lock bumping. For the uninformed, lock bumping is when a criminal has a special key made that he can just jam into a lock to open it. It should be noted that there have been absolutely no lock bumping cases reported in the tri-state area. Let’s see how many are reported in the next few months.

There’s nothing wrong with reporting on this type of story. My problem was with the teasers that ABC25 kept putting on the air with the ominous music and fear mongering dialog. In my opinion, the spots were preying on the fear of the viewer: if you don’t tune into our news, you might be a victim. What’s worse, there have been no reports of bumping in town, but the teases didn’t offer that up. They played out as if it was something that was happening frequently in the area.

This isn’t just a local thing. It has been happening with local news outlets all over the country. Opie & Anthony have a recurring bit on their morning radio show that highlights some of the worst of these news teases. Previous show favorites include teases that warn viewers that frequent hiccups could be a sign of cancer, how a law could _shut down religion, or city officials wanting to pack all it’s sex offenders into a single city block (it could be in your neighborhood!). If I had a VCR, I would have recorded this clip and sent it in. This is fear mongering at its greatest.

Am I the only one that is frustrated with what mainstream news has become in the past 10 years?

photo courtesy of dewitt