Thursday, the 31st day of January, 2013

Weather. The unusual times started the night of Tuesday, January 29th, at about 7 to 8 PM; watching TV we could hear the wind outside and, since we had been paying attention to the forecast, we were expecting it… The howling got us up at about 2:30 the morning of Wednesday the 30th... We lost power at about 4:30 AM so we went into powerless mode (torches, flashlights, lanterns, candles, etc); I even made coffee the old fashioned way by boiling water on the grill and pouring it directly over the coffee grinds; came out pretty good! At about 7 AM we found out we seemed to have been the only ones in the area not to have power, so we went out to investigate… It turned out that the wind (with gusts of wind up to about 60 MPH) brought down a big tree between our house and DeSalvo’s house; the tree brought down a power line and two posts near DeSalvo’s house. After seven hours, Caney Fork Co-op had two posts replaced, cables re-installed  and power restored. Not bad! We also had a threat of tornadoes in the whole middle Tennessee area including our county; but they did not materialize up here in the Plateau (we are high enough for tornadoes not to like it here…) We have also had a swing of -35°in the last 24 hours… Went from shorts and light sweater to heavy sweats…

Sports. I think they should do away with the NFL Pro-bowl… What a joke… 62-35 was the score of what seems to be more like a full pad practice than a game… Not even an exhibition game… The players have nothing to play for… I believe they get a ‘bonus’ of about $50K to appear in the Pro-Bowl… How can they be expected to play hard to make $50K and risk a contract for $5M? Makes no sense. Do away with it!

Local Politics. Van Buren County has a population of about 5,800 residents; it has a mayor, a county commission, a police force; it levies and collects property taxes and business licensing. Spencer is the only incorporated municipality within Van Buren County and has a population of about 1,800 residents; it has a mayor, a city commission and a police force. It has a utilities department but has no taxing jurisdiction. When one overlaps the two sets (remember Venn diagrams?), there is an intersection data: mayor, commission, police force. These are entities that are duplicated for the benefit of no one. There is nothing available to the resident to the City of Spencer which is not available to those outside city limits; in other words, there is 100% overlap of benefits and obligations… So, there is a set of questions begging to be asked… Why do we need two identical political entities? Can we consolidate and provide better services? What needs to happen to consolidate? Anybody out there in Bluffland would like to take a shot at them?

Food for Thoughts…
“The trouble is, you think you have time…”

- Buddha

So, stay busy, my friends…