As it continues to deploy in secondary markets, Verizon is lighting up Western Kentucky with over 1400 square miles of broadband coverage. This includes Paducah, Mayfield, Murray and Benton.

“Western Kentucky is a vital market with dynamic, tech-savvy business people, consumers, students, and faculty who want to stay connected,” said Greg Haller, president–Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan region, Verizon Wireless in a release. “The expansion of our broadband network here provides customers with access to the very latest wireless technology.”

With BroadbandAccess, business customers, residents and visitors can expect average download speeds of 600 kilobits per second (kbps) to 1.4 megabits per second and average upload speeds of 500 kbps to 800 kbps. This service is based on EV-DO Rev A.

Verizon Wireless was the first national wireless provider to commercially launch a high-speed wireless broadband network in the United States, which is available to more than 210 million people across the country. In Kentucky, Verizon Wireless’ broadband network is also available in Louisville Metro, Lexington and Owensboro.

Murray State University students will surely be one major beneficiary of this setup.

In a related bit, it looks like Verizon and AT&T will be converging on the 3GPP LTE technology for 4G connectivity (100Mbps wireless.) Nokia is running tests now. Expected retail availability 2012.

A cool picture of the different technologies is here.

In today’s New York Times, a fabulous piece gives the account of Steven Kurutz and his friend Chris’ slow, musical meanderings through Kentucky’s bourbon heaven and should not be missed.

While I don’t drink much, I’m a big fan of Woodford Reserve, which is very close to Lexington and the only bourbon distillery I’ve visited. But after reading this I find myself tempted to head out of the city and do a little poking around myself.

In an article in this week’s Wall Street Journal (subscription, for now), Miriam Jordan writes of Louisville Mayor’s progressive stance on immigration and diversity. While Nashville and others have been drafting anti-immigration ordinances or vetoing those which help immigrants, she writes of Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson’s very visible position towards welcoming individuals from all nationalities into the Louisville economy:

“In speeches, Louisville Mayor Abramson champions the city’s immigrants, whom he calls “internationals.” In each of the past four years, he has handed out “international awards” to individuals, companies and organizations working to integrate and improve the lot of newcomers. “Communities that embrace diversity are going to be the most successful,” says the mayor, who has been at the city’s helm for most of the past two decades and avoids distinguishing between legal and illegal immigrants…..

….There’s a practical reason for the city’s openness: Like many other U.S. cities, Louisville faces an aging population and falling birth rates that are shrinking its work force. United Parcel Service Inc., General Electric Co. and other major companies with operations in Louisville say they need immigrants to keep thriving….

The article tells the story of the Bantu in Somalia, and their transition to Louisville, and is well worth the read.

In addition, I recommend Richard Florida’s book The Rise of the Creative Class as a great primer into the reasons such diversity is so important.

The Kentucky Attorney General’s Office is scrutinizing criminals’ use of online space to see if it violates terms of criminals’ parole, citing concerns about potential encounters that use social networks. MySpace released information Thursday about registered sex offenders who had accounts with the site. The attorney general’s office has not released any information about who the 68 people are or where they live.

In April, Attorney General Stumbo held a press conference about the new Kentucky law requiring the state’s 6,245 registered sex offenders to register their “electronic mail addresses and any instant messaging, chat, or other Internet communication name identities” with the Kentucky State Police Sex Offender Registry (Senate Bill 65 sponsored by Senator Ray Jones II of Pikeville). The new law allows online companies, including social networking sites, to cross-check its members against the KSP Sex Offender Registry. Kentucky is one of six states, along with Arizona, New York, South Dakota, West Virginia and Virginia, that require sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses or other online identities with the state.

Good luck Mr. Stumbo. I hate what some of these creeps do as much as anyone, but this one is going to be pretty tough to do anything about., I wonder how in the world this will be enforced. One can drive through any neighborhood in Lexington and join 3-4 open networks from your car on a laptop in the space of half an hour. The best solution is always going to be with the parents.

So why don’t we quick pretending to be high-tech whiz kid politicians and spend that money on dealing with root causes of the behavior itself, educating parents on the issues, and teaching families how to secure their Wifi?

“Geek Squad picks unlikely place for PC-hospital” reads the headline today� discussing the ultra-efficient PC repair facility opened in Hillview KY last year.� Huh?� Unlikely?� Why?� Let’s see…short distance away from the huge UPS air hub,� an exceptional pool of high tech workers, #9 in the country for headquarters, top 20 places to raise a family, great restaurants, parks, � pretty countryside, terrific remote support technology.� Hmmm.� I’m not getting the ‘unlikely’ part yet.�

Ah… perhaps it’s because� many can’t type the word “Kentucky” and technology without spouting off some sort of negative stereotype.� Even though there are plenty of examples of great things happening.� CNN should know better.� At least the other news sites and papers did a proper job.

I’m definitely not a Geek Squad Fan based on my experiences, but I’m not typical.� The guys at the facility have an average salary of $44k, which isn’t too bad for that area doing bench work… it maps to about $70k in the Valley or NorthEast.� � If my laptop LCD� goes south, I’ll be glad to let them change that out.

Homer Ledford was truly one of a kind. From the foothills he mastered the craft of building instruments (more than 6000 Dulcimers) that are cherished by musicians worldwide. I had the pleasure of enjoying his music (and his old-fashioned, wholesome jokes) in small picnic concerts in the parks near my home in Lexington. Homer passed away a couple of days ago, and with him a huge amount of talent. His band maintained a small website.

Listen to or Watch Homer on Woodsongs.

Homer Ledford was part of many lives and can be found in lots of books. You can find many Homer Ledford Productsonline especially his Dulcimer maker book.

Homer was recently laid to rest in Winchester, KY with over 350 people in attendence. A slide show of the funeral is here.

Hey, I know it’s not an SEO post, and this will probably keep me off the blogrolls of other search guys even longer, but I think its important to let people know about this. I will soon have wordpress and be able to tag my posts more appropriately.

Homer Ledford photos from Morehead State University and Kentucky Herald-Leader personalpost