All posts by djones

council, water, weather

Too Much To Do Tuesday

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Tonight will be a quick post since the pre-council meeting and then the council meeting with the water issue public hearing took up a lot of time. At least the public hearing went well. We had people from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) present to explain what happens if the issue doesn’t pass on the ballot and the engineers present to detail all the options and treatment methods we considered and their estimated costs, etc. There were less than a half-dozen citizens that testified and asked questions, so I think the public informational meetings along the way really helped. But we did have a nearly full council chambers for only the third time in the last 6 years.

When I came home, it was really beginning to rain and the temperature was already down to 45. The higher altitudes to the east (up around and beyond Denver) were predicted to get snow tonight. I guess fall really is here. Of course when I got home, Molly was waiting and wanted to go out. So I let her out and went to grab a towel or two. There are few things less pleasant than an affectionate greeting from a soaking wet long haired dog, towels in hand or not.

Molly told me about her day as I fixed my late supper. Her discription consisted mostly of woofs and growls from what I could understand. There were also squeaks of the chew toy and a few low rider sprints through the house as well. Of course, as soon as I sat down at the table, she wanted to rest her wet head on my lap.  I’ll leave it to you to imagine just how thrilling that is.

Finally, two readers have signed up to follow my twitter account in the last week. Proof positive that people have too much time on their hands. If you want to follow, I’ll save you all the detective work of those two – I am djones666 on twitter. Just be forewarned that I twit (note that I called it a twit, not a tweet) very seldom and on very random topics. Someday I may even put a button over on the side to let people follow, but for right now you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Time to put together a couple of notes for the radio show in the morning and then hit the sack. Probably better get the names of the CDPHE people written down so I can attribute them correctly. {*grin*}

water, weather

Fall Is Coming!

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Today is definitely a harbinger of the fall to come. Saturday for the garage sale and yesterday for my booth duty at Sugar Beet Days, it was in the 80s and sunny. Later in the day yesterday it turned rainy and started cooling off. Today it drizzled most of the morning and reached a high of 54 degrees as the northern cold front settled in. Definitely fall weather. L reported that it was snowing in the mountains today. Fortunately, it is supposed to be back in the 70s by the weekend and not freeze yet down here, although it will be in 30s the next several nights. Guess we picked the ideal day for the garage sale!

In the aftermath of the garage sale, it’s amazing how one finds odds and ends laying about the house that were intended to be in the garage sale but never quite got hauled out. Oh well, it gives one a start on the stuff for the next sale seven years hence. After a day of no more heavy lifting, my knees are returning to normal.

Tomorrow is yet another public hearing on the water issue here in the city. This one will feature the engineering report on the technical details of the new treatment plant. Other meetings have have concentrated on the community impacts and and non-technical overviews. It will be interesting to see what the tenor of those who actually attend this meeting will be. Engineering reports tend to be a bit dry {*grin*}, but they also attract all the “but if you just did this illegal thing or that illegal thing it would be cheaper” crowds. Because of the size of this project, we had two separate engineering firms look at the plan and estimate the construction costs. They were in agreement to less than 1% on a $27 million dollar project. That tells me the numbers are right and have little wiggle room.

In any case, the engineers and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will be in town and so I’ll be tied up in meetings before the council meeting and public hearing. Given the full agenda to follow the public hearing at the city council meeting, it may be a late evening. (Just in case you are wondering, CDPHE is the agency responsible for administering the EPA front line enforcement in Colorado. They have been a good organization to work with thus far – I often feel sorry for them and the EPA heat they have to take through no fault of their own).

It will be interesting to see if the young man who called me last night to inquire when we met for city council will be in attendance. He needed to attend a council meeting for one of his Boy Scout requirements. I got a laugh out of it since I sit on the committee for another troop and knew exactly what requirement he was working on. I still asked him to explain it to me and he did a very good job. That’s why it will be interesting to meet the young man. I was reminded of his call since I was preparing a proclamation for another young man’s Eagle Scout ceremony next week. (I issue proclamations for Boy and Girl Scouts who reach the highest rank – it’s my personal abuse of the power of mayor if you will. Actually, the power of proclamation is one of the few unfettered powers a mayor has. My policy has always been that if it isn’t illegal or immoral, I’ll probably proclaim it.)

Time to resume cleaning up the aftermath of moving out the junk fine consumer goods for the sale. In other news, I got lucky enough to get a password into the second level of the Rockies ticket raffle for the playoffs. L and the Son both got the “Thanks, but you lose” emails. Maybe I am heading into a streak of good luck. Wish me luck!

garage sale

The Great Garage Sale of ’09

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Time for another rare weekender from me. That is partially because I am too tired and sore to do much else and partially because the helpers (Hi mom, MIL, L, and Marlene) want to see how the pictures turned out.

Our great garage sale of ’09 was slated to open at 8am, but that meant little to the pushy-loos who tried to get early cherry picking rights. {*grin*} As I was setting up tables shortly before 7am, the first of the people I had to tell repeatedly that we didn’t open until 8am came driving up. In any case, by 8am it looked like this:

(Note my MIL heading back to the cashiers table and my mom in the blue jacket putting the finishing touches on the items on one of the tables. Also note that yopu can see a lot more detail if you click on the pictures and look at the full resolution version.)
 
A view of some of the other stuff as the crowd mills about, anxious for me to proclaim that we are open for business  These picture omit the furniture we also had for sale. Big heavy furniture. Furniture I got to move yesterday and then later today as people came to pick it up.
When I finally proclaimed us open for business, one of the ladies in the crowd would have made any linebacker proud. She quickly grabbed a color TV, a VCR, a DVD Player, and shouted she wanted the water cooler as well. She did all this while talking on her cell phone calling for the large transport support (her mate driving a pickup truck). Sales and visiting stayed brisk for the next several hours. (After all, one of the real points of garage sales in a small town is to visit with everyone!)

By the time the steady rush was slowing down around 10:30, we had sold a lot of the junk solid consumer goods on hand. Part of my collection of mice and engineering books were still available, along with some old computers and printers and decorative doodads.

 
 
Over the next hour a lot of this stuff sold as well. The chalk board was a late addition to the field since we forgot to put it out. It had been sitting in a family room closet for years, untouched by human hands. In fact, when we pulled it out, it had this on it:

It had been a back prop for a play/movie by the Son and Sarah, his cousin from Connecticut. To give you an idea of how long it sat there, the Son is now in college and Sarah started college this fall and this had to have been during their grade school years. Because we put it out so late, no one bought it and we got to keep it for another timeless string of years. Probably just as well since L and MIL were both pretty sentimental about it.

Spent the afternoon cleaning up and packing the remaining stuff suitable for charitable donation up to wait for the time later in the month when they are in town. Time now for me to to sit back and get ready for tomorrow since I have booth duty all day at the local Sugar Beet Days (harvest festival) for the EMS Authority ballot issue. I’ll see some of you there.

friday high five

Garage Sale Ho!

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It’s Friday and I’m in the throes of preparing for our once every seven years garage sale. Thus it’s time for

Five Hazards Of  Garage Sales
  • Seeing just how much junk you have accumulated. Neotoma cinerea has nothing on me.
  • Realizing that many of the items you treasure for their emotional importance to you are quite literally priceless – as in no one would pay a wooden nickel for them.
  • Finding that particular doodad you stored away so carefully so that you wouldn’t have to buy a new one when the one in use died. Of course you have already replaced said doodad several times, buying a new one each time because you couldn’t find the one you so carefully stored away.
  • Feeling gritty and dirty because of all the dust you keep digging through in the stacks of junk that hasn’t seen the light of day for years. After all, who moves and dusts their junk stacks unless it is time for a garage sale?
  • Dreading the coming of the Saturday morning early-lookie-loos. You know, the people who believe that if you said you were opening at 8am, they should be able to stop in and cherry pick at 7am. The same people who will ring your doorbell continuously until you stumble to the door at 6:45am just to inquire if you won’t let them have a quick look before they start lobbying for the 7am cherry feeding frenzy. Those people.
mama kat, Molly, writer's challenge

What I’d Really Like To Know

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Some more fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

My time is short as I sort out junk priceless items for our garage sale this weekend. After all, who knew I had more than twenty old mice in a cupboard, even some that might be computer antiques. It is not like I will be using them in the future – some of them even have the old serial port interface. Try and find a modern computer with a nine-pin serial port in this day and age. {*grin*} But someone may find them useful for building their next robot!

Because of the time situation, I am going to break with my tradition and only going to address one of the topics this week. But you should hurry over to Mama Kat’s and join in the fun while I dredge yet more junk priceless items up to display and sell.

4.) If your pet could talk, what would you want to know? (inspired by KK from Kamp KK (but not the KKK))

First off, i suspect Molly would take issue with the idea that she can’t talk. After all, if someone can gaze at you with these guilt inducing peepers, how can you claim they can’t talk?



In any case, here are three things I’d really appreciate Molly deigning to answer for me. It’s not that I haven’t asked her, it’s more that I haven’t been able to grok the answer. (Go ahead and look that word up, we’ll wait. To all the Heinlein fans out there who caught the reference, let us share water!)

The first question is simple: Why do you find it vitally important to try and herd the birds and squirrels in the back yard? It’s not like you have any purpose in bouncing around like mad trying to get them to obey you. Admittedly, it may serve as your doggie version of a daily aerobics class – after all, jumping higher than your head a few hundred times a day has to keep you in pretty good shape. But you are a much smarter dog than that. You have to have figured out by now that you cannot reach the power line where the squirrels run to and fro and you certainly can’t catch the birds as they twit back and forth.

The second question is a bit more philosophical: What do you think about as you spend hours scanning the horizon? I know that you are hoping that a bunch of sheep will suddenly materialize in front of you to fulfill your inbred herding fantasies, but like me and my fantasy of a beautiful harem of lovely ladies suddenly appearing in my den, it just isn’t going to happen. We’re both old enough to realize that now. So why do you sit and stare for hours like this?

And finally, what is it that turns you from she-who-must-investigate-everything and she-who-must-protect-all-in-her-domain into the quivering mass of nerves acting like a needy 2 year old when there is thunder in the area. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the quivering wet nose on my leg. It’s not that I dislike the whimpering and the putting of your head and then paws on me to make sure I’m ready to give you reassurance. But it just doesn’t fit in with the fearless way you investiate every thing you see and the protective way you guard L and myself from the unknown. Besides, it leaves you so worn out after the storm. It’s really hard to see you looking so wasted after the storm has passed.

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