Dear Answer Man, what's the betting line on the Sixth Street Southeast bridge being open by Nov. 1?
Don't bet on Nov. 1, but you might cover the spread if you bet on Monday, Nov. 9.
John Wellner, infrastructure manager for the city's public works department, says the new bridge over majestic Bear Creek is all but done now but some details remain to be tidied up. Construction on the $2.3 million bridge project began in April. Home owners in the area will be eager for that day, as will commuters who have found work-arounds for the Sixth Street and Ninth Avenue Southeast intersection since last spring.
The old bridge lasted 50 years "and served us well," John says. They're aiming to get 75-100 years out of the new one. By that time, I intend to be on a beach in Florida.
I have good genes, as you may have noticed.
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Oh thou great and mighty sage! If anyone knows the answer to this, it would be you.
My husband and I love Greek pizza and with the demise of O'Neill's, we have not been able to find an authentic gyro meat (not chicken) pizza. Can you work your magic and find out who might make a gyro meat pizza? -- Sue Johnson
My magic is hard at work for you, but all I've found so far is the Greek pizza with chicken at Mr. Pizza North. Checking the Twin Cities, I've found at least a few -- Zamboni'sin St. Paul and A Slice of New York in Minneapolis.
If you know of any options in Rochester, be a gyro and let me know.
Wrong Rochester
Every day in this column, I exceed your expectations, impossible as that seems. Here's where I'll go above and beyond your expectations for today.
In a marvelous column item last week, I told you that not only was Glenn Beck, the far-right political provocateur, in Rochester recently, but so was wayward opera star Nathan Gunn. I mentioned that his travel plans had gone awry, but here's the rest of the story.
Gunn, a baritone who's a regular with the Metropolitan Opera, was in Dallas preparing for the world premiere of a new opera by American composer Jake Heggie . He had some time off over the weekend of Oct. 16-18, so he planned to fly to Rochester, N.Y., to visit his daughter, who's a freshman at the Eastman School of Music .
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Gunn made the connection in Chicago, arrived at the Rochester airport, caught a cab downtown and it was only when he tried to check in at the Hilton Garden Inn on South Broadway that he realized he was in Minnesota, not New York.
That's a long way to go without catching on that he was 1,500 miles west of where he wanted to be. One of the clues he missed, he said in a phone interview last week, was when he told the cab driver he was going to the Hilton on Main Street. The driver corrected him, "We call that Broadway here."
"Luckily for me, they had a room," said Gunn, who decided to stick around for a few days, since there was no easy way to get to New York and back to Dallas by Monday night. He wandered around Rochester and said, "It's a lovely town. I took myself to brunch on Sunday and hung out at Chester's, watched football" and made some new friends, among others Don and Cynthia Hillmanand Jerry and Kath Perry.
"I'm more used to being in hotels in big cities, where people leave you alone," Gunn said. "What made it enjoyable in Rochester was that people seemed very friendly and very used to meeting visitors."
This is hardly the first time someone has confused our Rochester with the less notable one in northern New York. As you'll recall, when the Texas Roadhouse restaurant by Sam's Club opened a few years ago, it had a wallpaper mural that featured Rochester, N.Y.
Fortunately for Gunn, he turned up here in October, rather than January.
