Code Neon Blue!

Last week the family and I attended the first annual Appreciation Party at the Big Timbers Museum here in Lamar.

I had unfortunately used almost the last bit of juice in my camera batteries earlier that day, but I had just enough to get a shot of some of the attendees, plus this banner which hangs in a place of honor by the door.

The National Civic League started giving this award to 10 cities annually in 1949. Lamar was a winner in 1959. If I’m not remembering wrong, we cinched it by putting in a swimming pool…something like that.

The Big Timbers Museum has some unique and interesting items in its collection. I hope to go on about them more in the future, especially after some visit when I have good batteries in the camera.

Well, you could go to a meeting. Some of the Prowers Dems got together last night to make plans for upcoming events like the Cinco de Mayo celebration on May 3, and then the Lamar Days Parade the following weekend. We’re getting more and more new people active, and I think this year’s parade entry will be our best yet!

Once I got home, I ate the dinner my family saved back for me and then started trying to catch up on my internet reading. Around midnight, a strange noise distracted me — cop car sounds. I thought my son (Big Sterling, not TrainBoyMike) must be playing a new game on his laptop, but then he said, “Hey, what’s that?”

Being closest, he looked out the main living room window. Being a temporarily dirt-side trucker, he instantly recognized the lights pattern of an annoyed officer of the law, coming down our isolated rural road.

Said officer was in hot pursuit of a vehicle proceeding rapidly, without benefit of headlights, right past our house! Naturally, Sterling and I jumped up to find a better viewpoint, particularly since we both know the good part of the road dead-ends just past our neighbors to the east. The next section is a field road. Except when the irrigation water has been running. Then it’s a pond.

Sadly, I forget to grab my camera as we ran for the back porch, so I have no COPS!-like footage to astound you with. It was quite exciting for a little while. There was some shouting for the driver to come back out of the house — apparently making it inside did not count as plausible deniability — and then another flashing police vehicle joined the party. Followed by two more of the non-flashing variety. (Our guess was that those were Sheriff types backing up the municipal cops, since we are outside the city limits.)

By the time it all settled down, I felt like I was too tired to write a good blog post. So that’s why you are seeing Tuesday’s entry today.

I’ve been at the Mildly Toasted stage of Cheesed Off ever since Thursday, because of Colorado Ethics Watch First Annual “Ethics Roundup”.

It’s not that I think it’s a bad idea, or that it was done by bad/misguided people. Definitely not. But on two of the three sites where I’ve seen it mentioned, I am not the only one wondering why the heck Wes McKinley got added to the Ten Most Corrupt list.

Here’s what they got him on: his staff failed to file required campaign reports on time. Twice.

Yes, someone should have done it, and yes, it’s Wes’s responsibility, in the end, to see it got done. But he got fined, so he’s paid his debt to society, as it were. Also, it should be noted there were NO irregularities mentioned in the CEW’s report, just the naughty, naughty lateness.

It has not yet been adequately explained to me how being late with something makes a person corrupt. (If failing to meet deadlines = Evil!, wow, am *I* ever going to Hell!)

I’ll tell you what this reminds me of — school. Did you ever have an assignment that you didn’t get finished on time? I sure did. Some teachers would dock you a letter grade. OTHERS would refuse to take any late papers at all, ever, and give you an F.

I guess if CEW wants to be That Guy, they have a right to make that choice. But it seems to me that being rigid and punitive, equating failures of clerical technicalities with conflicts of interest, alleged bribery and/or physical violence, brings their sense of balance and judgment into question.

If their judgment is questionable, why should the public care about who they put on their list?

So all in all, I’m afraid I have to give CEW a C- for their report. Next time, please show your work.

I read something very interesting in my friend WeatherDem’s blog the other day. My electrical provider, Southeast Colorado Power Association, is one of “22 Solar Residential Program partners … selected to promote the installation of residential solar electric and solar domestic hot water systems statewide.” They will do this by helping the folks chosen to take part in this trial run get rebate grants to offset the cost of the solar power installations.

It’s too soon for there to be any details on SECPA’s website, but they have a good history so far of being supportive of renewable energy. Another plus, they are a co-operative, so they are not being operated to make a profit for distant investors. The customers are the owners, and control the running of the organization through open voting for board members.

I’m going to have my eye out for new info on this broject, and will report on it as soon as I hear anything!

Today has been a day for tucking in trailing ends of the week’s tasks, trying to make myself pay attention to current details and not get distracted by the things coming up in the days and weeks ahead. I got another issue of our local Dem e-newsletter mailed out — a couple of days later than I intended, but at least a few before the meeting it’s touting….

I would blame spring fever, if I could. The weather adds to the unsettled feeling — 92 down here on Tuesday, but 26 when I went to bed last night. Lots of wind and rain, but there are also birds squabbling outside on the casing of the air conditioner near where I sit, fighting to see who will get the coveted nest in the little wall opening beside it. We have less entertaining wildlife as well; I’ve seen a couple of those wintered-over flies that are nearly big enough to saddle and ride!

At least I wasn’t as sore today as I was afraid I would be. The family and I went out to the Historical Society’s Appreciation Meeting at the Big Timbers Museum. As we were heading inside, I did some accidental mud surfing in the parking lot. No major damage done, luckily, except to my pride.

Here’s hoping for a nice productive yard work weekend. It’s my last completely free one for a month!

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

What you sometimes need is Weather SPOTTERS.

Weather Spotters are volunteers who attend a training session given by a National Weather Service person and then report back to their area headquarters with certain requested weather info, like large hail, rotating wall clouds, or winds strong enough to cause damage.

The reason volunteers are needed to do this is because the Earth is not flat.

In my region, SE Colorado, the NOAA radar is located in Pueblo. Radar beams shoot out in a straight line. So readings close to Pueblo show the lower atmosphere. But once the beams are zooming over MY house in Lamar, they are reading the sky about two miles up, which is not usually where the weathery action is.

The network of trained Weather Spotters provides live-time info that can verify computer forecasts or even help the main office decide whether to issue weather warnings to the general public.

This year was the seventh consecutive training for me and my son Mike. A tornado touched down here in Lamar in 2001, 7/10 of a mile from our front porch. We could see it real good. After that, any irregularly shaped cloud made Mike nervous. When the training was offered the next year, I signed us both up, thinking it would help him feel more secure if he could judge between scary clouds and plain ones on his own. (And it did help!)

This is Tom from Pueblo, who has been GIVING the trainings in SE Colorado for, well, I can say seven years for sure. Probably longer than that. In this film clip he explains why EXACTLY houses explode when tornados hit them.

I took that as practice, by the way. Since I intend to be doing more video blogging, especially at the upcoming conventions, I think I should get experience with filming and editing and uploading and such as often as I can.

There are still a few trainings being held in this region, which you can find on THIS PAGE. You can also take the training ONLINE. They are especially “looking for volunteers outside of large towns anywhere in our area, in remote mountain locations, in the San Luis Valley, and in Chaffee and Lake counties.”

If you like weather, you’ll like doing this!

The common perception about Marilyn Musgrave’s intellect is that she’s not the sharpest disc on the manure spreader. (That’s meant to be an ag joke, but if you prefer to see it as political commentary, fine by me.)

Even so, I was flabbergasted by THIS ARTICLE in the online Greeley Tribune, telling about Marilyn explaining the so-called stimulus check procedure to residents at a local retirement community.

MM said she was concerned about seniors who live off of Social Security…LIKE HER MOTHER.

0.o

I don’t know the details of Marilyn’s personal finances, of course, but I’m pretty sure there are no poor Republicans holding congressional seats. Which means there are two possibilities here.

One, Marilyn was cluelessly trying to bond with her audience by saying they were in the same financial straits as her poor dear old aged mother living month to month on her meager SS checks…even though it was a little fib and her mom has plenty of other assets.

OR….

Marilyn’s mom lives on or near the poverty line while her daughter jets back and forth from DC and lives the high life like all the other Bushistas.

I wonder which it is?

P.S. Short explanation of my recent absence: blah-blah-blah busy with other stuff going on blah-blahcakes. I’m back now.