Alan, Kenny, Joe, originally uploaded by hjoew.

Alan, Kenny and I went to Colerain High School together, class of 1992. Back then we were all very much involved in the Colerain (now Clippard) YMCA’s Leaders Club, a volunteer service group for teenagers.

Being in Leaders Club and the many friends I made and re-made during that time made a huge impact on my life. The group of about 25 people - of about which 10 were very active - were some of my closest friends in high school.

We traveled each summer to the YMCA’s Blue Ridge Leaders School in Black Mountain, North Carolina for a week where we partook in everything from learning to be a lifeguard to gymnastics to garnering a deeper spirituality.

It may sound completely corny, but sitting on the steps of Lee Hall (the main building at Blue Ridge) looking out at the Black Mountains and listening to James Taylor sing “In My Mind I’m Going to Carolina” over a loudspeaker really can get a kid to thinking. Lots of tears were shed by lots of people. I think my Leaders Club experience would be similar to the many others who have also participated in this group.

I made lifelong friends out of this group. Though Alan (pictured here) and I have been friends since we met in kindergarten, I would have to say (and I don’t know if you would agree, Alan, or not) that our experience in Leaders Club solidified our friendship for life. We learned a lot about growing up, each other and how to get along during those times. I’m so glad I did.

So, last week when I went to meet Alan on Fountain Square he was standing next to the fountain talking to a guy who I barely recognized at first. But as I got closer I realized it was Kenny, the guy I had so much fun with back in Leaders Club but had lost touch with probably 15 or more years ago. I was truly happy to see him and gave him a huge hug.

We chatted for awhile. He told me he read my columns in CityBeat and had seen the blog and other stuff. We exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers and plan to keep in touch.

Whatever comes next - whether we rekindle old friendships or are just happy we ran into each other again - it is so nice to harken back to the old days and reminisce with old friends.

One standing joke came back immediately. We had a diverse group back then. Our old joke was that when we all hung out it was like the United Nations meeting in Colerain. It was nice to meet again.

In fact, thanks to the social networking phenomenon sweeping the nation (uh, the world), I have been reacquainted with loads of people from the Y and other places that I, frankly, doubted I’d ever hear from again. And that’s wonderful!

I don’t know how many teenagers had experiences like that, but my guess would few. I wish for everyone who wants an opportunity like I had, so one day, you can have those UN meetings, too.

When Melissa and I hit the town, we hit it hard.

I was thoroughly bummed to read this in my morning Google Alert:

“PimpMyNews is a new, free service allowing you to hear the latest news from your personally selected mix of news sources and blogs. Anyone with an MP3 player and Internet access can use it. CEO John Atkinson will be speaking at the next Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast* so we did a quick Q&A with him to give some background on the event’s special guest.”

PimpMyNews CEO Speaking at Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast.

Why? ‘Cuz I want to go to the breakfast, but, alas, it’s a sell-out (it’s also the second one…geez I’m late). But I put myself on the waiting list by commenting at the above post. You ought to, too. Maybe we can petition for a larger venue?

Second Sunday On Main, originally uploaded by hjoew.

During July’s Second Sunday On Main, I stopped into the soon-to-open Iris Book Cafe on Main Street. I was very excited about the space. It’s really nice! I can’t wait to spend hours there - especially in their beautiful courtyard.

No rim shots, originally uploaded by hjoew.

Ba dum da. Take that.

I was super happy that I was able to make it down to the Cincinnati Blogger Convention last week at one of my favorite places in all of Cincinnati, the Mercantile Library. Chris Messick - who has to be the world’s least grumpy librarian (he’s actually cheerful and friendly) - helped orchestrate the whole thing, which, I have to say, seems to have been a rousing success.

Though I was only there for about an hour and fifteen, I really liked the experience. I have found out recently that I rather enjoy geeking out with the geeks.

And today, Mr. Messick so politely sent us a list of all conventioneers replete with links to their respective blogs. So, here I post.

5CHW4R7Z (http://www.5chw4r7z.blogspot.com/)

Bad Pitch Blog (http://badpitch.blogspot.com/)

Building Cincinnati (http://www.building-cincinnati.com/)

Buy Cincy (http://buycincy.com/)

CETconnect (http://cetconnect.blogspot.com/)

Cincinnati Area Commercial Real Estate Trends (http://cincicommercialrealestate.blogspot.com/)

Cincinnati Blog (http://www.cincinnati.blogspot.com/)

Cincinnati Dealer (http://www.cincinnatidealer.com/)

Cincinnati Locavore (http://cincinnatilocavore.blogspot.com/)

Clark Street Blog (http://clarkstreetblog.blogspot.com/)

Die Fladermaus (http://mattvant.blogspot.com/)

ENCORE (http://encorecincinnati.wordpress.com/)

Girlfriendology (http://girlfriendology.com/)

Gonz O’Lager (http://gonzolager.blogspot.com/)

Hello, Gerard (http://hellogerard.blogspot.com/)

Joe Wessels (http://joewessels.net/)

Juliet & Juliette (http://julietandjulietteblog.com/)

Kate’s Random Musings (http://www.katesrandommusings.com/)

Keeping it REAL Estate (http://livingcincinnati.com/)

Kelly the the Max! (http://kellyhudson.blogspot.com/)

Live Green Cincinnati (http://www.livegreencincinnati.com/)

Liz Wu Music (http://www.cincychic.com/component/option,com_mamblog/task,show/action,user/id,808)

Make Cincinnati Weird (http://www.makecincinnatiweird.com/)

Mommy Bits (http://www.MommyBits.blogspot.com)

Cincinnati Women Bloggers (http://www.CincinnatiWomenBloggers.blogspot.com)

My Wine Education (http://www.wine-girl.net/)

Not Really a Book Blog Blog (http://nrabb2.blogspot.com/)

Permasmirk (http://permasmirk.com/)

Prospective (http://prosepective.blogspot.com/)

Queen City Survey (http://queencitysurvey.blogspot.com/)

Queer Cincinnati (http://cincywestsidequeer.blogspot.com/)

Soapbox (http://www.soapboxmedia.com/)

Strategic Public Relations (http://prblog.typepad.com/strategic_public_relation/)

The Journey is the Reward (http://blog.morristsai.com/)

Turning the Page (http://www2.cincinnatilibrary.org/blog/)

Urbanophile (http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/)

Wine Me Dine Me (in Cincinnati) (http://winemedinemecinci.blogspot.com/)

With my attendance at the aforementioned convention and the frequent comment I heard being, “You need to post more often,” I have decided that I will. Now, I’ve decided this before, so we’ll see how it goes. But I have now reasons (more than just the nice requests for more Joe-tent) to do the bloggy thing. I will expound later on. Meantime, enjoy some of these wonderful Cincinnati blogs!

In this week’s CityBeat column, I break news about Over-the-Rhine’s Kaldi’s Coffeehouse being asked to vacate the premises for six weeks so an elevator can be installed through their kitchen.

When finished, it would make preparing food in the tiny kitchen a real challenge, but a nice addition for delivering large quanities of food quickly and efficiently to the building’s upper floors. Some chefs dream of a dumbwaiter like this, I’m told. They just want it when and where they want it, if you catch my drift. In the meantime, owner Jeremy Thompson wants to know where all the groovies are going to get their drink on.

Read it about it here.

I don’t talk about blog stats much - well, at all - because there isn’t really much to say. I average about 60 to 100 unique visitors a day - with random peaks and valleys - and that has been fairly consistent for several months. But a few weeks ago on April 17, when the earthquake hit Cincinnati, I received nearly 1,100 unique visitors. Woo-wee!

The earthquake woke me up so I decided to get on the computer and start blogging. Within 10 minutes I had made my first post and updated with more for the few hours after that. So, I got a barrage of Google hits on the subject. That was pretty cool.

Also, I’ve added a few widgets to the sidebar. A while back I added a Twitter widget (to go with the Flickr widget). Just a few days ago I added the Google Reader shared posts widget.

Twitter, if you haven’t discovered it yet, is a cool little application that asks the question: What are you doing? I update it as much as I can through my cell phone (either by sending text messages or using the phone’s Web browser) or by going to the Twitter Web site. Or my new toy: Twhirl.

The Google Reader is an RSS feed reader that allows me to read text (or a summary) and see some photographs from several Web pages at once in a single Web page. It also allows me to hit a “share” button that puts up the blog posts I think are worth checking out, which then appear on Report This! I highly recommend the reader - and checking out the posts I share.

I also added some Google ads to the sidebar as an experiment. I more or less just wanted to see how it worked and how quickly pennies added up. Turns out the only people making money off this blog is Google! Expect the ads to come down soon.

(Photo from October 6, 2007, Feeding Washington Park)

God bless them. Really. They mean well, but after this blog post and my first column in CityBeat, I still believe we are not seeing eye-to-eye on the cause and effect of giving away food in Over-the-Rhine’s Washington Park (and I would add to that: having a “church” service with loudspeakers so loud that windows shake in the building I live in across from the park). So, the good folks at Vineyard Community Church in Springdale (who give away food on Saturday mornings, provide some clothing and other assistance, plus send a van to pick up folks in OTR to attend Saturday evening church services) invited me to come along on a Saturday morning food run and witness first-hand (in this case, across the street from my house where I had been watching them before) the good they were doing. They believed I really didn’t understand. And they were wrong.

This week’s CityBeat column, this blog post, the past writings put me in the awkward position of being at odds with people who are truly, not only trying to do something good, on many levels they are. So, the question then becomes is just “doing good” enough? Or does the good you’re are aiming for actually have to have positive long-term consequences for those you are helping? And does the residual and indirect effects of your well-intentioned actions matter?

I’d say yes, but I think my pleas for understanding may be directed at minds that have already been made up or refuse to hear what I - and others - are saying.