Going beyond the obvious with the Census estimates

*GROAN* What's the City Beat gonna write about today? I've got a head full of semi-crappy ideas that I'm trying to turn into not-so-crappy stories and, competition being what it is, I guard my story ideas with my life.

Actually, I can talk about one of the stories because we already had it today and my job is to flesh it out in the nerdiest way possible. You can have fun with me if you go to the Census Web site and down load the data sets for North Dakota and Minnesota.

Basically, I'm rethinking the way I write about population changes and that could change which county I identify -- or my numbers identify -- as the worst off.

Usually, when we talk about population change, we talk about the percentage change within a single political unit, a county for example. I think this is fine if we're comparing a county to its past self. But it seems inadequate for comparing counties to one another.

After all, the population of counties may be the same but the area they cover may differ. Pennington County, Minn., and Rolette County, Minn. N.D., have about the same population of 13,500 or so, but the land area is very different. As a result, Pennington has 22.3 residents per square mile and Rolette has 15.1 residents per square mile. I'd have to check with some demographers to see if I'm on the right track with this, but I really think population density is the best apples-to-apples comparison.

Another reason a percentage change alone seems inadequate to me is the fact that the economies of hub cities may cross county and state lines. The obvious example is Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, which are in different counties and states but share the same economy. I'm sure Thief River Falls in Pennington County draw workers from adjacent Red Lake, Marshall and Polk Counties. This interdependence among counties means that an apples-to-apples comparison is even more important.

So enough with the lecture. Consider the two tables below. The first one features the population change in percentage terms and the second one features the population density change in numerical terms. I left out the population density change in percentage terms because it's the same as the population change. Again, I'd just be comparing the county to its past self. Population density change in numerical terms allows us to compare counties to one another.

Anyway, the orange part is the Worst 3 counties in each state. Notice that they're different depending on the tables. I'm still not sure what any of this proves even though I spent most of the day screwing around with the spreadsheets and eight maps with numbers scrawled on them.

What I'm trying to figure out is if there's some kind of pattern aside from the obvious ones, which I grew increasingly dissatisfied with. Rural areas are losing population, North Dakota's more so than Minnesota. Indian reservations are growing in population and keeping some rural areas from losing more population. The largest cities are still growing. I could've written all this a year ago or five years ago and probably have.

Bah. I'm getting outta here. Maybe I'll have a fresh perspective tomorrow. Enjoy the fruits of my frustration.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 7/01/2009 at 10:17 PM | Comments (5) | Permalink

Tags: census, northern valley region, population change

Teasing out ticket sales numbers

The City Beat tried something unusual today to estimate how many tickets the Alerus Center might have sold over the weekend for the Britney Spears concert.

I did this because not a lot of data is available at this point because of some confidentiality agreement between the concert promoter and the city-owned events center, probably by way of the privately-owned management firm VenuWorks. My estimate, though, is so rough I didn't want to lead with it.

At any rate here are some base assumptions:

First, start with the data I have on the tickets available and how much they sell for (Gross revenue just means how much they'd make if they all sold.).

 Below is the seating chart that corresponds to the prices above:

The dollar amounts are a bit off because of a $2 surcharge the Alerus Center tacks on. The green is $39.50. The yellow is $49.50. The blue is $65. The orange is $95. The black is $95, but you have to stand. You can see a diagram of the central area at Ticketmaster's Britney site.

Premium is sold out

I checked Ticketmaster early this morning and found that none of the premium seats are available. These the famed tickets that go for up to $495. (Ticketmaster indicates they're now going for $450. Because they were unavailable, I couldn't see if there are any surcharges additional.)

My data shows that there are 632 tickets in this area, including the 500 that will have to stand. That's the number we reported after talking to Alerus Center folks. The seating chart says 450, but I'm going with our numbers.

With all tickets sold, we're looking at a gross of $110,700. A handful of tickets, though, apparently are reserved for whatever reason -- promotions, sponsors, I don't know -- so not all 632 were sold. So a round $100,000 is a good estimate.

No data

At the $39.50 and $49.50 levels, I have no data. I do know that there are still plenty of tickets available.

It's about 7:25 p.m. as I'm writing this and I just checked Ticketmaster. What I do is I checked to see what kinds of seats are available with a purchase of one ticket, four tickets and eight tickets. Ticketmaster will try to keep you with your friends and get you the best seat, which usually means the seats closest to the stage.

Here's what I got at $39.50. The first number is the section number. The second is the row. The third is the seat.

At this price level, the best you can expect is Row T. Sections 202, 208, 211 and 217 are closest to the center. Sections 201, 209, 210 and 218 are farthest from the center.

• 217 V 4
• 210 X 1-4
• 218 V 1-8

You can see that there are tickets at Section 217 and Row V, which is only three rows up.

Here's what I got at $49.50.

• 209 G 14
• 218 N 3-6
• 218 N 7-14

The best you can get is Row A and Row G is only seven rows up. Row S is the worst. The closest sections are as above, which may indicate that the closests sections are no longer available.

Rough estimates only

Steve Hyman, the Alerus Center's executive director, said 55 percent of the reserved seats at the $65 and $95 levels are sold. There are 2,884 tickets at the $65 level and they're all reserved seats, which, in this case, means you actually have a seat. Non-reserved tickets means you stand.

In the $95 level, there are 10,380 tickets, but only some of them are reserved seats. How many? Steve wouldn't tell me because I'd do the math and figure out how many tickets he sold, which would mess with that confidentiality agreement. So I had to estimate. I came up with about 4,400.

What I did was I measured the surface area of each of the sections in the seating chart above. They appear to be to scale -- meaning they're not distorted -- judging by their similarity to diagrams on the Alerus Center's Web site. I used 1/16 inch as a basic unit and came up with 720 square units for the $39.50 level, 1,100 for the $49.50 level and 1,080 for the $65 level.

I know the number of seats in these areas so I was able to test if the map is distorted or not. It turns out that there are 2.65 to 2.77 seats per square unit.

There are 1,650 for the reserved seating area at the $95 level. As I've mentioned, I don't know how many seats are actually in there. I used an average from the other ticket levels and came up with 2.69 seats per square units. That works out to 4,446 seats.

By the way, I came up with this technique when I remember a TV program I saw once where they talked about how the CIA would get these recon photos and they'd have their analysts doing all kinds of measurements, including how large the buildings might be, to figure out what was in them. You never know when a little piece of knowledge like that can come in handy!

Now the 55 percent sold figure that Steve gave me applies to both the $65 and $95 levels, but he didn't give a break down. I decided to try some scenarios to figure out how much those sales might have grossed:

• If the 55 percent applied equally to the 2,884 seats at $65 and the 4,446 seats at $95, that's $335,407.
• If the 55 percent applied to all 7,330 seats -- which is 4,032 seats -- at an average between the two price levels of $80, that's $322,520.
• If we assume that all seats at the $65 level sold out, leaving 1,148 seats -- 4,032 - 2,884 = 1,148 -- at the $95 level, that's $296,520.

Since the $65 level likely did not sell out, it's safe to say the gross from reserved seats is in the low $300,000 range.

Conclusion: The gross is at least $400,000, including the premium tickets.

Remember that the guarantee is in the $750,000 to $850,000, as I mentioned in this post. I also mentioned that we should add expenses of, say, $150,000, for a sum of $1 million.

Further conclusion: Maybe $600,000 more to go.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 6/29/2009 at 6:34 PM | Comments (15) | Permalink

Tags: alerus center, britney spears, budgets and taxes, gf and egf

Quickies: Kiss ain't coming unless you vote

• Back in April, the Alerus Center was telling everyone to demand Kiss come to town. How's that going? Grand Forks is No. 93. Fargo's higher up on the list at No. 57. And Winnipeg is No. 2.
• Interesting initiative in Oregon to ensure people know what the hell they're voting about instead of listening to stupid commercials.
• Apollo astronauts took field trips to Minnesota, Iceland and other places to study rock formations. Maybe Mars bound astronauts will head for Walsh County some day to see the Dahlen Esker?
• Back when the City Beat was living in Vietnam in the early 1980s, we were all awed by foreign stuff. Without much access to the West, I was particularly amazed by Soviet video games. Then I came to America and discovered Atari and Nintendo (then specializing in arcade machines) and realized the Soviets were cavemen. This Soviet game ported to interactive Flash really brings back memories. [via Read Russia.]

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 6/28/2009 at 10:53 PM | Comments (11) | Permalink

Tags: alerus center, frivolous links, vietnam

Risky fun

The City Beat went a-storm chasin' the other day and had little luck seeing a tornado or even a blasted funnel cloud. I wasn't the one driving, which was both a curse and a blessing; a curse because I couldn't follow follow the route that I wanted to follow, which I thought would get me closer to the action; a blessing because I had no idea of the signs of impending danger and could've done something very stupid.

Since we'll likely get more tornadoes this season, I figured I'd better bone up on storm chasing safety, which is as good a topic for the blog as anything.

One of the things that confused me Friday was the tornado siren and what it really signaled. The impression I had on Friday was that it meant you had to go in the basement to hide right away. One of my friends said an extremely obnoxious and overbearing co-worker, misunderstanding the drill, actually threatened to carry him into the basement.

Actually, the siren doesn't mean that at all. Here's what it says on the city Web site:

There are 4 reasons the sirens may be sounded aside from practice drills:

1. A tornado warning has been issued in Grand Forks (or the surrounding area) by the National Weather Service.

2. A funnel cloud has been spotted near the city of Grand Forks.

3. A "wall cloud", which can produce a tornado, is near or moving toward Grand Forks.

4. Straight-line winds have been clocked in excess of 58 mph in the Grand Forks area.

The sirens that sound are the same - there is not a different sounding siren for different warnings. When the sirens sound, they are for real emergencies - and they are designed to warn people who are outdoors to seek immediate shelter. They are NOT designed to warn people who are indoors. 

There are always going to be those crazy people -- like me -- who insist on witnessing as much of the meterological drama as possible before taking shelter. For those people and for would-be stormchasers, here's some tips:

• As many have heard, a green sky can indicate an impending tornado, though, contrary to folk wisdom, it doesn't automatically mean there will be a tornado. It just means there's a hell of a lot of water droplets in the air and the setting sun is shining through them. Red and blue makes green. By "green," what's meant is a greenish tinge, not leaf green. When I was out Friday, I noticed that the sky and clouds northwest of town was greenish in this sense though the usual blue-grey was still dominant.
• When a tornado is getting close to you, it's probably going to be pretty obvious.

The ones accompanied by crazy rain are usually surrounded by something called a "bear cage," which is an area of really crazy rain and/or hail that makes it impossible to even see a tornado inside [See the diagram in the middle of this page.].

The ones not accompanied by crazy rain are still going to be surrounded by wall clouds, dark, scary-looking mothers like the clouds I saw on Friday. You'll see rotation in those clouds, too.

The National Weather Service lists these warning signs:

• Strong, persistent rotation in the cloud base.

• Whirling dust or debris on the ground under a cloud base -- tornadoes sometimes have no funnel! [See this picture.]

• Hail or heavy rain followed by either dead calm or a fast, intense wind shift. Many tornadoes are wrapped in heavy precipitation and can't be seen.

• Day or night - Loud, continuous roar or rumble, which doesn't fade in a few seconds like thunder.

• Night - Small, bright, blue-green to white flashes at ground level near a thunderstorm (as opposed to silvery lightning up in the clouds). These mean power lines are being snapped by very strong wind, maybe a tornado.

• Night - Persistent lowering from the cloud base, illuminated or silhouetted by lightning -- especially if it is on the ground or there is a blue-green-white power flash underneath. 

Obviously, you want to stay away from the path the wall clouds are taking:

How can you tell if you're in the path? If the tornado is not evidently moving to your right or left, but is simply getting larger and closer, then you're in the path. This is not a good place to be. Of course, even seeing a tornado is not like going out for a Sunday afternoon picnic and it is even harder to find oneself in the path, but if you should do so, then do us all a favor and get out of there, ASAP! 

• Have some source of information about where the funnel clouds and/or tornadoes are forming and where they're going so you can get closer, but not so close as to get yourself in trouble. We were calling back to the office and listening to KNOX on Friday.
• If you're driving around, the biggest threat is apparently getting yourself killed because of the slick roads, according to this storm chasing Web site:

The greatest dangers to storm chasers are not tornadoes, but instead, traffic crashes and lightning. Driving in heavy rain, high wind, dust and/or hail is obviously dangerous, even to the experienced chaser. The only known death of a chaser during an intercept happened in 1985, when an OU student slid off a wet road while trying to avoid a large animal. Even the most careful and conscientious driver may have problems under severe weather conditions -- such as misjudging distance or hydroplaning. The solution should be obvious: Slow down on wet roads, watch for obstacles, animals and other vehicles in unusual and unsafe places; and drive very slowly whan making turns on wet surfaces. Given the hazards -- and the proliferation of inexperienced and reckless drivers around storms, it may be a matter of great fortune that more deaths haven't happened from vehicle wrecks. Lightning is especially insidious because you may never see or hear the bolt which kills you. Even when it doesn't kill, lightning can cause ugly and horrifying aftereffects which may linger for a lifetime and cause permanent disability. Several chasers have been struck by lightning; fortunately, none have died yet. Numerous others have had terrifyingly close calls. Simply being around a thunderstorm implies a heightened lightning danger, as Gene Moore, Chuck Robertson and others discovered on one infamous chase. But good lightning safety practices minimize the threat -- namely, staying inside the closed vehicle whenever possible, and when outside, avoiding being the highest target and touching metal wiring.

Also, car-flipping winds, car-crumpling wildlife, head-shattering hail and flash flooding are also dangers, says the Web site. This is why you should pair up so one of you can keep his or her eyes on the road. You should probably stick to paved roads because heavy rain can do crazy things to country roads.

• Don't be a yahoo. Rules of traffic and courtesy still apply during a big storm. Also, if you endanger yourself and others, you create more work and risk for rescue crews.

There's a ton of good safety tips from this Web site, which I quote above.

The National Weather Service has a good tornado FAQ, as well.

Posted by: Tu-Uyen on 6/28/2009 at 7:51 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: tornado, weather