1. His birthday is Halloween! Trick or Treat?
2. #100 (I’m assuming there was another person involved 
3. He has great taste in women!
5. He doesn’t mind doing a little house work.
6. He know’s how to sit for a tattoo.
7. He knows how to do this… and I don’t.
10. This.
Click anywhere, or better yet, go wish him a happy birthday!
HAVE A GREAT BRICODAY 
Clouds don’t worry about
falling into the sea because
they can’t (a) fall or (b) drown.
But they are free
to believe they can,
and they may fear
if they wish.
~Richard Bach
Clouds don’t worry about
falling into the sea because
they can’t (a) fall or (b) drown.
But they are free
to believe they can,
and they may fear
if they wish.
~Richard Bach
Clouds don’t worry about
falling into the sea because
they can’t (a) fall or (b) drown.
But they are free
to believe they can,
and they may fear
if they wish.
~Richard Bach
Do you ever wonder WHY we have problems?
Richard Bach (Illusions, The Adventures of a reluctant Messiah) wrote: “There is never a problem without a gift for you in it’s hands. We seek problems because we need their gifts.”
Have you ever met someone who needed a word to help them through a rough time? You happen to have the right words because you have been through a similar situation. Do you ever wonder if the “gift” from your problem, was in part to have the needed word for someone else to use at a future date?
If our problems leave us with gifts, are some of those gifts left with us specifically to be passed on to another person at a future date?
But it was a helluva a fight… (metaphorically speaking)
A HUGE Thank-You to my daughters and my wife-in-law for their added support, you ROCK!
Tonight was the public hearing for parking, and the city opted that revenue gained from parking tickets was more valuable than a healthy downtown (InMyHumbleOpinion), but by God, they made their decision knowing that there is a very large group of people who went the distance in their committment to having a vital downtown. There was a token promise to come to a solution for longer term parkers at some future unknown date (that may never happen).
Even though my city is sToOpId (IMHO), I remain steadfastly committed to the improvement of my community dispite politicians who will most certainly burn in hell for twisting, distorting and molesting the truth until there is but a shread of fact left in any public statement they make.
In February our lovely downtown, with an average parking turnover of 1.4 hours per parking space with only a 70-80% of parking spaces being used at any given time, will impose a blanket 2 hour parking limit downtown, with no (NO) options (except a few parking structures that are home to many of the finest crack addicts in town) for those who want to spend time shopping, having lunch and spending money. Of course some people will stay longer and that will generate new revenue for the city (not downtown specifically)… what a boon! Perhaps they will invest the extra dollars into making a huge, lighted sign for downtown that reads: “Downtown… come for a minute, then get the hell out!”
Of course *this* is my official and public take on the situation. If you want to know what I ~really~ think, just let me know!
*sigh*
I’m taking a little blue pill and going to bed…
The city council meeting is to decide to accept, decline or defer the parking recommendations for downtown on Monday. It’s crunch time to come up with numbers of people to either come to the council meeting and stand with us or to garner people to e-mail city council members to request a delay (until after the formation of the Business improvement district). The city, unfortunatly seems to only be looking at revenue to be gained from parking tickets, and they seem willing to sacrafice many of the smaller businesses downtown to do that.
Friday I spent hours with owners/managers of spas, salons, resturants, coffee houses discussing parking issues. Many are not even so concerned with limits so much as their being no way to spend more than 2 hours in a shopping district… no exceptions are being proposed for customers who’s shopping needs extend past the 2 hour limit. A few people are meeting me at the shop prior to the meeting so we can go together… there will be several similar groups gathering before hand.
I also distributed about fifty printed sheets to businesses than might be negatively affected with info for those who cannot attend, so thier voice will still be heard via e-mails:
“Everyone downtown should have received a letter from the City last
week regarding the Public Hearing
on Downtown Parking – Monday, Oct 23rd at 6:30 PM.A public hearing is being held on whether the City Council should
adopt all 19 recommendations presented by Barney & Worth.Two recommendations are possible problems for downtown:
1. Replace free parking with 2 hour parking throughout downtown
2. Develop and implement paid on-street parking by October 2009
The Salem Downtown Partnership is asking the City Council to delay any
decision on time limits or meters until after the Business Improvement
District is created and the Salem Downtown Partnership is fully
staffed. This will give downtown opportunity to have meaningful
dialog on the economic impact of these changes, and to what extent the
public and our downtown community support parking changes.If you agree that sweeping changes to downtown parking need more
discussion – we need you at
council Monday night. You don’t have to testify (unless you
want to). All we ask is that when Doug Vande Griend presents his
testimony – we all stand up behind him and show our support. Bring
your friends, spouses, children, etc – we need numbers.If we fail to show support Monday
night, time limits will be implemented now and meters will follow in
2009 or before.If you would like to communicate with city councilors on this issue
prior the the Monday meeting feel free to contact them at (send to all
of them!):Dan Clem ~ dclem@cityofsalem.net
Mayor Janet Taylor ~ jtaylor@cityofsalem.net
Brent DeHart ~ bdehart@cityofsalem.net
TJ Sullivan ~ tjsullivan@cityofsalem.net
Brad Nanke
Bruce Rogers
Jim Randall ~ jrandall@cityofsalem.net
Rick Stucky ~ rstucky@cityofsalem.net
Frank Walker ~ fwalker@cityofsalem.net”
Wish us luck!
It’s been weird around here… I wish there was something I could do to quell the weirdness, but there isn’t. I think life is like a race… sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes not, but we all cross the same finish line in the end. I didn’t mean for that to sound morbid, it’s more that I seem to be running harder to keep up with some, and yet lagging so there isn’t such a gap between me and the guy behind me, and yet we all ~finish~ the same.
The two biggies right now are husb and #5.
Husb barely talks to me anymore… I don’t know what is wrong or how to break through. He works 15-20+ days at a stretch (until midnight). He claims it’s to catch up a little, but I suspect he works more than he needs to just because he’d rather not be here. We ignore each other for a couple of hours each day and then we go on about our individual lives… not that I mind the independence, it’s mandatory actually, but still, it feels more like we are roommates than spouses. I’ve tried talking to him about it, but he claims everything is fine. He has issues and no matter how married you are, I guess there are things we all have to work through by ourselves. In my heart of hearts, I still know it’s worth it to hang in until he dislodges what ever is stuck in his butt. My solution is to stay busy and to continue doing things I enjoy doing on my own or with the kids.
Sometimes I think being married is a little like buying a car. You can always trade the car in if it isn’t working the way you want it to, but you never know what problems the next car is going to have until it’s too late. The alternative is not to have a car, but one has to get from point A to point B somehow and public transportation is usually unreliable. Yeah, I know, you hate it when I get all romantic on here don’t ya?
#5 is having a rough time. She and the grandmonster are staying with us again, for an undetermined length of time. The quickie childhood marriage thing isn’t working out so well… who would have guessed? They decided to spend some time apart and then decide where to go. She has issues too and really needs to work through them before entering/re-entering a marriage/relationship.
My issue is that I am a fixer. I want to mend all of the things around me that are broken, I want to nurture them back to health. But then again, who am I to determine what “broke” is, and then to decide the appropriate “fix”? Am I drawn to these things because I am a ‘fixer’? My challenge is in knowing that there is only so much I can do to help… and that often times ‘over-helping’ can increase the damage. Letting people you love work through their own problems, not demanding that they catch up to you, or wait for you in the race is difficult. It frustrates me that as human beings, we must learn the same lessons over and over again either in a single lifetime, or from generation to generation.
I can’t help but wonder how much less stressful my life would be if everyone would just do exactly what I want them to. (OK… you can add “control freak” with ~my issues~)
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