All posts by djones

city council, weather

The Ghost of the Past

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I was back in my old stomping grounds tonight, appearing before the city council on behalf of my new job. It would give all the habitat-for-humanity guessers false hope if they knew that much of the time was spent on the intricacies and failings of the current zoning code in the city.

You’d have been proud of me. I kept my presentation short and to the point. (Especially since the water engineers in front of me were scheduled for a 35 minute talk and it ran to over 100 minutes – not that I was counting or anything. {*grin})

I did get a chance to give the new council and city manager a hard time. At the entry to the council chambers is a rogue’s gallery of photos of the council and the mayor, etc. I noted that according to the rogue’s gallery, I was still the mayor as it was still my picture hanging there. That got a couple of mutters of “Omigosh, we haven’t changed that yet!” out of the staff. That is what happens when you are mayor for three terms – they forget how to handle the transitions. {*grin/2*}

After that, I stopped by mom’s on the way home to pick up a bunch of stuff from her freezer. I’d promised her I’d do so. That way she’d have space to clean one of her freezers. More to get things organized than cleaned – at least so it seems to me. In any case, my solo freezer is now full to the brim with all the additional stuff. I have even begun to suspect that there is creature living on the bottom of my freezer. It has been that long since I’ve seen the bottom. Probably won’t until summer gets here and then it is time to reload.

Today was wonderful since the temperature finally got above freezing for the first time in a bit and some of the snow started to melt. I keep my fingers crossed in hope that it will finally get rid of the sheets of glare ice covering the roads and parking lots. It would be nice to have that cleared away before the next snow storm wonders in. We’ll have to see. I still don’t think it will be warm on Christmas Day, but a man can hope.

The next hint for the job guessers: I was a founding board member of the organization and think I have actually mentioned it here on the blog once or twice.

chorale, monday, music

Only 10 Days Until Santa Comes

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Sunday afternoon was the Master Chorale Christmas concert. It is always a big event with everything from operatic renditions of classic carols to rock and jazz based carols. A great couple of hours of live voice and instrument to lighten the soul for the holidays.

I was supposed to meet mom at the venue, but I ended up being a few minutes late when Molly turned into a stinker dog and wouldn’t come in. (Anyone want to adopt a dog?) So when I got there, mom and friend had already entered the auditorium and been seated. This being a small town, one of the usherettes motioned to me to enter on the left side of the auditorium and said mom and crew were in the left section about 2/3 of the way down. The directions were a bit off, but I found them after the intermission and sat with them for the second half of the show.

I am one of those people who suffers voice envy when I hear people sing and carry a tune. I have a lifetime ban levied against my person by L and the Son that prohibits even thinking of singing in the shower, let alone singing aloud. But even for the terminal vocal disaster like me, there is something especially moving about the massed voices of a choir that plays with the heart strings. Everyone should attend at least one chorale or orchestral event during the Christmas season. It does your inner being good.

In other news, today was the first official day in my new job. Since the press announcements haven’t gone out yet (’cause I’ll probably end up writing them myself), I can’t say much about what the job is right now. Suffice it to say that I am now the CEO/Executive Director of a not for profit organization. For a total red-herring as to what the organization might be, I’ll leave you with this hint: I spent part of this afternoon as part of a crew stumbling around in snow covered sage brush with wind chills in the single digits using a tape measure, hammer, stakes, and orange paint. Any guesses?

(Notice how the title had nothing to do with what was written. That’s because I liked the title all by itself.)

magazine cover, trivia

Trivia Time

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Have you ever been on the cover of a magazine? I have, several times. But the most recent is from the December Issue of a magazine you may not read. Remember back to this post when I chaired my last meeting as President of District 1 of the Colorado Municipal League? The meeting was held at the arch rival town up the road because they wanted to show off their renovation project. Well, the project ribbon cutting they celebrated pre-meeting made the cover of Colorado Municipalities magazine:

Can you spot me in the picture? Remember that I was the mayor of the arch-rival city at the time, so don’t look for me in the front ribbon cutting row. {*grin*} (I apologize for the graying the glossy paper caused in the scan, but if you click to see the picture full size it is a bit clearer.)


While you ponder away, I’ll resume watching the football game. Let me know when you give up.




Football game is over. Give up now?





Finally ready to give up? Well look at this version of the cover with my fine artistic modifications:

The two bodies so blatantly outlined in red are my city manager and myself. I am the big one on the right side.

Okay, okay. I admit it was sort of a hoax to say I was on the the cover of this issue, but it piqued your curiosity didn’t it?

small town

You Live In ….

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Living in a small town has interesting side effects the you might not think of in the city. So herewith are a few gems.

The FedEx and UPS guy(s) know your name and your habits – and if you’re not home they will track you down elsewhere to deliver. When L was pregnant with the Son, we walked over to the Medical Center for an appointment with the OB/GYN. As we walked out after the appointment, there was Dave the FedEx guy with a package. He’d been by the house and since we weren’t home he figured we might be over at the OB/GYN.

Your neighbor shovels your walk because he knows you are out of town. And a different neighbor plows the street with his truck because he knows the city snow plows are busy elsewhere.

You know what 4-H and FFA are.

You are in the parking lot of the local big box and notice a shotgun shell casing lying on the ice where they fell out of someone’s pickup. Like this from today:

And your first thought is someone was goose hunting this morning.

You arrive home to a message on the house phone that begins “Daaan” and you know who the caller is before the second word is out. That’s because there are only two people who have ever pronounced your name with quite that sing-song, and the younger one is near ninety. And when the message continues on “I’m at 555-5555 but I will be at home later in the day a 555- oh drat, 12 something, Just call me at home.” you know immediately who it is. He hasn’t remembered his home phone number in the 40+ years I’ve known him. And even if I didn’t recognize the “Daaan”, I could tell anyone in town that someone called and couldn’t remember their home number but wanted a call back and they’d say “Oh, that’s Frank at 555-1234.”

P.S. Sorry for no post yesterday, but I was at a party where Santa came and gave me a present or two, at least one in the nature of that anti-freeze known as Crown Royal.

giveaway, odd question of the day, weather

Philosophical Questions

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It is sifting fine powder snow at the moment, but there is little wind so conditions are actually quite fine. Here is Molly standing in the 0 degree weather and asking why I am not joining her in frolicking in back yard.

She is clearly disappointed that I won’t venture out to help her scout for squirrels. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that squirrels seldom frolic on days like today. If I were a faster photographer, I might have been able to capture Molly rolling in the snow and then laying on her back in the snow. With all that long white fur, cold never seems to bother her. (And I love the powder because it leaves rooster tails behind her as she sprints out to the tree hoping to catch a squirrel unawares.)

Newsflash – the weather bug on my desktop finally hit 1 degree – a heatwave.

On a more philosophical note, I have a question that was triggered by an email after yesterday’s re-appearance of the tattered moccasins. It seems some  shopping/retail organizations run web spiders to pick up blog posts that might tie in to their promotional efforts. Something about my worn moccasins tickled the fancy of couple, at least enough to generate an email or two. So the question posed is this: Would you run a giveaway on a non-giveaway blog?

I ask because we all obviously see giveaways on various blogs to increase readership, etc. And of course there are blogs that are primarily giveaway oriented. But for the small, non-commercial blog like this one, I run headlong into my belief that holding a once in a blue moon giveaway is a violation of the implicit contract with you the reader. It would seem that running a giveaway and forcing/offering following as a method of entry would indeed be a short lived gain when there was no more moolah forthcoming. Am I insane in my beliefs?

I already answered the emails in the negative for a giveaway on this site, so you don’t have to worry about changing my mind. I am really more curious about the feelings and thought processes you undergo on the topic. Feel free to flail away in the comments or email. I’ve been called worse things than crazy before, so feel no compunction to hold back.

Time to get back to work. It will be interesting to see if the weather changes enough to impact the Christmas reception hosted by the college tonight. Only time will tell.