Category Archives: reporter

football, reporter, son, weather

Yo Ho Ho

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I am contemplating just making my titles be something like Monday, Tuesday, etc. It seems that no matter what my intent is when I write the title, the actual blog entry morphs into something else in the process of writing it down. Does that ever happen to you?

Today was a day to enjoy the warm weather before the storm. The adiabatic heating got it up to near 60 today as the cold front pressed in. The forecast for tomorrow has it getting up to a glorious 10 degrees before falling into the minus numbers by 6pm. Quite a change from the 60 of this afternoon. (BTW, the link to a definition of adiabatic heating and cooling is for my wife and others that are curious what it means when I babble on and on.)

I fixed the front yard light, put up some Christmas ornaments, and went walking with Molly the wonder dog. It was a fun way to spend the day outdoors in the sun and warmth. I suspect even the squirrels know the weather is changing. They were all out sunning in the park today as we walked. Of course Molly wanted desperately to go say hi to each and every one of them. And of course they stayed just out of dog reach and chattered. The first dog that learns how to fly is going to be a real surprise for the squirrels.

The son rolled into town yesterday to see some friends. We talked on the phone for a bit in the evening and the next I heard from him was when got here to the house at 5:30 am this morning. He got up and took a shower at 1:30 this afternoon and left. I suspect I’ll see him at early in the morning tomorrow when he gets back in and then tomorrow afternoon when he gets up to head back to college for finals on Monday. Such is the life of a college sophomore sneaking home before finals. Brings back memories doesn’t it?

In other odds and ends, I haven’t heard again from the AP reporter who was down here the other day. I suspect that when she gets the story done or if she has questions will be the next time I hear from her. It’ll be interesting to see what she makes of it. The driving factoid that is behind the interest is that our sales tax revenues and other economic indicators here in the city are within .2% of last year. This is as opposed to the 30-80% drops in many urban cities. I have my own beliefs as to the reasons, but I’ll wait a bit to expound on them.

Let me close by lamenting the lull in college football games. Other than the I-AA (as it used to be called) semi-finals, I’m suffering from withdrawal. I can’t wait for bowl season to start!

economy, kids, meeting, reporter

Mid-week lull

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Today was the lull in what otherwise has been and will be a busy week. The walk down to the radio station was cool to cold, depending on how the breeze caught you. Since it was a glorious 15 degrees and the breeze was gusting to 20 mph, I wore my sweat pants. Just a bit too nip for shorts. Drat.

For approximately the 30th time out of the last 255 radio shows, the only live callers were jokers. Today it was the auto parts store I pass on the walk in to the station calling to ask if I had convinced the council to resign so I could sell their council seats. I told them that lord knows I’d tried, going so far as to forcing them all to resign. But then I had to reappoint all the original council members when I couldn’t convince anyone to buy their seats. (Somehow I don’t think there is a huge pent up demand for small town council seats. Oh well.)

I spent about an hour on the phone with a nice reporter from the Associated Press who is going to venture out here to interview me and some of the other community leaders tomorrow. We’re getting some attention because we are bucking the national trend of heading into an downward economic spiral. Because of the wind energy construction, relatively good commodity prices for the farm community, and lowered energy costs, we are actually experiencing some economic growth and a continuing labor shortage. It seems to conspire to make us noteworthy in the current economy. It will be interesting to meet the young lady. I am curious to see what her last name actually is because I haven’t heard it pronounced the same twice. Then after a couple of exchanges of email with outside counsel for the city about some contractual matters, I was free to pursue my own interests. Of course, by then I had a splitting sinus headache, but what more could one ask for.

Tomorrow is clear for most of the morning and then I have a luncheon date with the 5th grade class at the local parochial school. Every year they invite the mayor to come and have chili and cinnamon rolls with them. The shy young gentleman who called this year was a bit tongue tied on the phone. I think it caught him by surprise that I answered the phone. It gives the fifth graders a chance to meet the mayor and ask questions and it gives me a chance to explain how local government works. At that age, the mayor is still a semi-mythical creature that wields unknown powers. It helps to disabuse them of that and start them thinking about how government really works. When the kids reach the seventh grade, we have the “If I were Mayor …” essay contest for all the schools. The entries are judged and awarded scholarship prizes and then passed on to the Colorado Municipal League contest of the same name.

After the lunch, I have the meeting with the AP reporter and then a couple of other meetings. Oh, and during all this we are interviewing the finalists for the fire chief position. Fortunately I don’t have a lot to do with that process right now. In the evening I have the local community college Christmas gala and then finally I am done for the day. And speaking of being done for the day …