9/3 -
Urban Pioneer
Having been an urban pioneer, I have a soft spot for the personality type. It means re-jiggering your center of gravity as you walk against the tides that might sweep you and children out into the provincial suburbs. Which is, by the way, where we ended up. After years of gutting it out, organizing to get our alley repaved so our kids could ride bikes free of drive-by shootings, for instance, I finally hit my limit. One summer day, I was walking with my toddler in hand and cradling my newborn when I stumbled into a drug deal. What followed, Quentin Tarantino couldn’t make up. My son would later write an award-winning short story about it in college. The recent article in the New York Times by Roberta Brandes Gratz, whom I very much dig by the way, makes the case for organic diversity. You’ve seen it--when gritty artists and enthusiastic urbanists stake their claim to bedraggled, dangerous neighborhoods and remake them. Humanely, I’ll add. When developers move in, you get something very different. Expensive, sterile and unremarkable. As Labor Day nears, I toast the power of creative people to make a world we all want to live in.
9/3 -
First Friday Lunch Review: ingredient restaurant
The cup says it all: "Personalized entrees with your choice of over 75 fresh ingredients." Photo by Danny Schreiber.
As today is the day we set out for our third First Friday Lunch (place: TBD), it's about time that I post the review from our second outing, which was to ingredient restaurant located at 32nd & Farnam.
The lunch crew: the BrightMix team (Kevin Zink, Tony Noecker, and intern Rick Knudtson) and the Omaha Silicon Prairie News team (Dusty Davidson, Jeff Slobotski, and myself), as well as Marlina Davidson (Dusty's wife).
The line was pretty long but moved pretty quickly. Photo by Danny Schreiber.
A shot of the table just after our order arrived. Photo by Danny Schreiber.
Here are our reviews (out of four stars), this time with what we ordered:
Tony (Sausage Grinder Sandwich): 2 – Look man, keep the tapioca out of the pasta.
Kevin (Peppercorn Steak Sandwich): 2 – My meat sandwich needed more meat and less bread.
Marlina (Salmon BST Sandwich): 3 – Very fresh ingredients but I would've chosen a different bread for my sandwich.
Dusty (Mahi Tacos): 3 – Any restaurant that serves DMD (Diet Mountain Dew) on tap is a winner in my book.
Andrea (Mahi Tacos): 2 – Mahi mahi tacos needed a little more ingredient, it was a little bland.
Rick (Tuscan Chicken Sandwich): 2 – Seriously though, what's is the pasta?
Danny (me) (West Coast Veggie Burger): 2 – The veggie burger was way above average but the pasta salad really sunk my lunch ship.
Overall: 2.3/4
A closeup of the pasta salad in question. Photo by Danny Schreiber.
And if you're craving another ingredient restaurant review, check out Nichole Aksamit's review in the Omaha World-Herald: Choice is key at Ingredient.
Tune in to this blog, Little Office on the Prairie, each month for more First Friday Lunch reviews. And if you have an ingredient restaurant review or your own or a suggestion for our next outing (today!), please leave it in a comment below.
9/3 -
Mapping Troubled Housing Markets
On Tuesday, The Daily Beast ran my new Housing-Mortgage Stress Index. While the U.S. housing market saw a sharp drop in July and millions of homeowners remain underwater, housing market troubles vary significantly by metro region.
The Housing-Mortgage Stress Index shows the U.S. metros whose housing markets — and homeowners — face the highest levels of stress and danger of foreclosure and falling prices. The index, developed with my collaborator Charlotta Mellander, is based on three variables:
- Negative equity — percent of mortgages where owners owe more than their homes are worth.
- Loan-to-value ratio — total Mortgage Debt Outstanding divided by Total Property Value — both from Core Logic.
- Monthly mortgage cost-to-income ratio from the U.S. Census American Community Survey.
The index weights all three variables equally and covers 142 U.S. metros.
The first map above, prepared by Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute based on data from Core Logic, shows the percentages of mortgages that are underwater across U.S. metros. Las Vegas tops the list with nearly three-quarters of all mortgages underwater. More than half of all mortgages are underwater in Stockton, Modesto, Vallejo-Fairfield, Bakersfield, and Riverside, California; Port St. Lucie, Orlando, Cape Coral, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Phoenix, and Reno. In Miami, Tampa, and Detroit, more than 45 percent of all mortgages are underwater.
The second map shows the performance of U.S. metros on the overall Housing-Mortgage Stress Index. The most troubled metros are located primarily in California, Florida, and Nevada. Nine of the top 20 troubled metros – including all five of the top five – are located in California (Stockton, Modesto, Vallejo-Fairfield, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Bakersfield-Delano, along with Fresno, Visalia-Porterville, Sacramento, and Salinas). The six Florida metros on the list are Miami, Orlando, Port St. Lucie, Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Lakeland-Winter Haven, and Palm Bay-Melbourne. Rounding out the top 20 metros are Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada; Phoenix; Provo, Utah; and Greely, Colorado.
Among large metros — those with more than 1 million people — Tampa, Detroit, Atlanta, San Diego, Jacksonville, Washington, D.C., Virginia Beach, Chicago, and L.A. show high levels of housing-mortgage stress, along with the five noted above — Riverside, Las Vegas, Orlando, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Miami.
There is still a great deal of localized stress in the U.S. housing market, and recovery is likely to take a lot longer than most people anticipate.
9/3 -
Weekly Wrap Up: Meet the new co-host, Analog the Prairie Dog
Mentioned this week
9/3 -
MedLetters aims to improve patient-physician communication
MedLetters, a new interactive and convenient tool for physicians, is about to become available online. The company was created to help physicians more effectively communicate with patients about their health care, medication usage, and explanations about illnesses in a quick and convenient fashion.
Dr. Doug Morin, medical director of MedLetters, founded MedLetters after years as a Catholic priest. He left the priesthood and taught English at Metropolitan Community College and then attended medical school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. His new business combines all three of these chapters in his life.
MedLetters had its beginning in 2009, after Morin's stepson was hospitalized due to an accident and was treated for a lengthy hospital stay. During that time, Morin wrote a blog for family members to udpate them on his stepson's progress and to break down the medical side of it by making it less technical and easier to understand. The positive feedback led Morin and his wife to start MedLetters. Morin and his wife paid for the fees for the business and took out loans to cover the difference. About seven months later, MedLetters launched. They don't have outside funding yet, but are hoping to receive funding in the future.
"There is a huge need for communication with patients to get them in the loop," Morin said. "Right now, in this particular period of history, there's a huge need for this type of communication."
When doctors sign up and use MedLetters, they log into the site, type the patient's name, click the illnesses, medications and other things the patient should know and an automated letter explaining all of the above is instantly provided to the physician and patient (left, image from medletters.com). The work is already done and only a few clicks leads to one of these useful letters.
The timing of MedLetter's launch is ideal because of the continuing trend for the medical industry to move to electronic systems and the changing laws in the health care system. Morin sent out nearly 400 postcards with information about the roles and functions of MedLetters.
These promotional postcards broke down the business into the following areas:
- MedLetters is a tool for physicians allowing them to communicate with patients quickly, easily, and with top software.
- These letters explain the condition, medications (with dosage), recommendations, and signs of things to look for.
- The purpose is to be so fast, the doctor can have a printed letter before the patient leaves the office.
- The descriptions of medical treatments are broken down into "plain English."
Morin believes all these points are attractive for physicians because most patients respond well to this type of communication.
"I estimate it's going to take about 20 to 30 seconds to generate a letter," Morin said. "This helps build a more personal relationship between the doctor and patient."
"The patient is the real beneficiary and hopefully the physicians realize that."
For more information (including registration, sample letters, and testimonials) about MedLetters, visit medletters.com.
