Metronet Moves to New Downtown Home

Metronet's new downtown home at 51 S. Indiana Street. 

Metronet, local provider of Greencastle’s 100% fiber optic network, has a new home. The Courthouse Square Business District downtown. You’ll find us at 15 South Indiana Street one block south of the square, across the street from Crown Equipment and next door to Moore’s Bar & Restaurant.

After more than six successful years on the southeast side of town, the opportunity for this new home downtown presented itself and we knew it was the right move for us.

We purchased a fantastic historic building built in the late 1800s with great bones and were able to breathe new life into it. Starting with complete interior renovations which modernized the inside with our fiber technology, we then installed a new roof and gutters, repaired the historic brick exterior, and finished the outside by giving our building a facelift with historically accurate paint colors.

Seeing first-hand the changes and improvements around Greencastle due to the Stellar Community Grant only confirm that our decision was the right one. We’re proud to be participating in Phase Two of the Stellar program which will allow us to further improve the building with transoms and new windows based on historic drawings.

During the purchase process several folks shared with us some of the history of the building. As Bill Dory, executive director of the Greencastle/Putnam County Development Center, noted, “Communications in Greencastle is coming full circle. Metronet’s new office location once housed the local newspaper and later the first telephone exchange in the community.”

Metronet is proud to have invested millions of dollars to build our 100% fiber optic network in Greencastle and to be a community partner.  It’s our goal to offer outstanding local service and superior products at competitive prices. And we’ll continue to do that, only now from downtown.

Our service offerings include high-speed Internet with speeds up to 100Mb without slowdowns because you don’t share a connection with neighbors, a sharp television picture whether you’re watching HD or standard definition, and reliable phone service with all the features and unlimited long distance. 

Our 100% fiber optic network also offers unlimited possibilities for the future — like games, apps, interactive TV and other features.

Metronet is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Come visit our new home. We’d love to see you.

Marianne E. Cox

Simple Steps to Reducing Energy Consumption

When it’s 100 degrees outside, most people don’t want to think about electric costs.  In today’s economy, households are being forced to reduce usage to avoid soaring energy costs.  When confronted with the choice of “to pay or unplug,” there are simple steps—sometimes hidden in plain sight—we can take to reduce energy consumption.

 

Shannon Norman, City Planner, City of Greencastle

 

Article:  Electric City

By Claudine Zap | Electric City 

We live for gadgets. But even the smallest ones can consume an enormous amount of power. See some of the worst offenders.

Game Consoles—It's all fun and games, until you get your energy bill. If you leave your Xbox or PlayStation on when you're not playing, you are wasting as much energy as leaving a desktop computer running.

Plasma TV—Plasma TVs consume about two times more power than LCD versions. To save even more energy, go for a smaller screen. A 32-inch set uses about half as much power as a 52-inch LCD.

Digital picture frames—These little items pack a power punch. Consider this: If every home in the U.S. had one of these displaying around the clock, it would take five power plants to keep them on, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Laptops—If your laptop has a screensaver with images, it consumes more power than an idle laptop.

Battery chargers—Your mobile devices doesn't take up that much power on their own, but if they are left plugged into electric outlets, even when the charger isn't connected, they continue to draw power. Add up that most households use more than one charger, and across the country, they could consume the energy of several power plants.

Power-saving solutions—One way to stop power use when you're not using your devices: Turn them all the way off. Another way to save -- try an energy-saving power strip. The power-savers are designed to cut power to devices that don't need it.

You can also change your new device's default settings: You can manually change the brightness settings on your TVs and computer screens to suck up less energy.

The green website Treehugger has helpful tips for getting more eco-friendly gadgets, including: checking with Energy Star and Consumer Reports before you buy; and, take advantage of local recycling programs when you do switch out gadgets, or even consider selling your old one instead of throwing it away.

To view this article, visit:  http://screen.yahoo.com/blogs/electriccity

A Karaoke Night with the Stars

ParkFest's Karaoke Contest was such a treat!   We had 15 people sign up to sing songs from Elvis to The Judds.   Constants ranged in age from ten to 67 years old.

We awarded two $100 cash prizes.  The judges – Sue Brucks of Studio B, Jared Jernigan from the Banner Graphic, and John Fisher from WREB radio – awarded the Judges’ Choice Award to ten year-old Sydney Anderson, who blew us all away with her version of James Brown's "I Feel Good.”  Sydney walked up to the microphone shaking and nervous, but after the crowd chanted, "you can do it, you can do it" she took a deep breath and decided to go for it.  As soon as the music started Sydney took off like a rocket and every face in the crowd wore a smile!

Our audience had a chance to pick their favorite to win the People's Choice Award as well.  When all the contestants had finished, the crowd voted by dropping money in the mason jar labeled with the name and song of their favorite singer.   The People's Choice award went to Katie Null of Indianapolis, whose grandfather is a Greencastle native, and invited her to come give it a try!  She sang Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”

Voting for the People’s Choice Award also was a fundraiser for the Greencastle Civic League's Splash Park Project.  We raised more than $250, thanks to the generosity of our ParkFest audience, and the boldness of our Karaoke contestants.   THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO MADE THIS EVENING SUCH A WONDERFUL AND FUN ONE!

On my way home that evening, my cheeks ached, and I realized that I hadn't stopped smiling all night. 

Thank you Greencastle! 

Bobbie Lancaster, ParkFest co-chair