Espola's newest neighborhood

espola said:
In the City on the Country near us, the City Council rejected a plan to build 22 housing units reserved for sale to US veterans and active duty personnel by a 3-2 vote last night. It is hard to imagine dissing veterans in Poway, but it happened. The fake-cowboy mayor, his personal appointee, and the rightest winger in the Council teamed up to defeat it. They liked the idea of housing for veterans, but they didn't want to have anything to do with the commies of Habitat for Humanity.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...ls-poway-veterans-project-20161116-story.html

Mayor Vaus got into Poway politics by spearheading a recall campaign against the suddenly-unpopular Betty Rexford a few years ago, after her neighbors complained she was using City compliance officers to harass them, and after she allegedly ordered the Poway Fire Department to park a truck in front of her house during the 2007 wildfire that burned a lot of other parts of Poway. During that campaign, he promised not to run for the office if she was successfully recalled, but then he backtracked, and using the mailing list and other contacts he had acquired during the recall, he got her out and took her seat. He should remember that recalls work both ways.
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Habitat for Humanity filed a claim with the City of Poway for $553,000 for costs they spent planning the rejected Veterans' housing project on a city-owned vacant lot.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...y/sd-no-sd-poway-veterans-20161207-story.html
 
California CRV schizophrenia -
Milk in a 1-gallon bottle - no CRV; Water in an identical bottle - 10¢ CRV
Orange juice in a 1/2-gallon bottle - no CRV; Sunny Delight in an identical bottle - 10¢ CRV
 
Reminded by a facebook funny name clickbait today - I used to work with an English engineer named Richard Head. Once he got used to American customs he changed his name to Dereck. We also had a Tom Teters and a John Peters, which sounded very much alike on the PA system. The sweet young innocent department secretary suggested that when she wanted John she would page for Peter Johnson. She didn't crack a smile.
 
I had to interrupt the football game tonight to watch Jeopardy. What the heck, I do that most weeks anyway, but today was Cindy Stowell's 5th win, which qualifies her for automatic entry into the annual Tournament of Champions. Except - Jeopardy has already announced that Cindy passed away between the recording of her episodes and the time they were broadcast. They had already moved her up in the chain of contestants after she told the producers that she had a fatal cancer condition and might not last long enough to go through the normal delays. Jeopardy has not announced how many games she will win, but she is already in rare company.
 
espola said:
I had to interrupt the football game tonight to watch Jeopardy. What the heck, I do that most weeks anyway, but today was Cindy Stowell's 5th win, which qualifies her for automatic entry into the annual Tournament of Champions. Except - Jeopardy has already announced that Cindy passed away between the recording of her episodes and the time they were broadcast. They had already moved her up in the chain of contestants after she told the producers that she had a fatal cancer condition and might not last long enough to go through the normal delays. Jeopardy has not announced how many games she will win, but she is already in rare company.
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She got through 6 wins, making over $100,000, which she wants donated to Cancer Research Institute.
 
My daughter has a TV remote with voice recognition. My wife said "CNN" and CNN came right on. I tried "naked cheerleaders" and it showed ESPN.
 
I made up a little song called "All Holidays In", sung to the tune of "Happy Birthday" or "Good Morning to All"

Happy Festivus to you
Io Saturnalioo*
Merry Christmas
Happy New Year
Kwanzaa, Hanukah, too

*poetic license
 
Highlights of the trip north -- (besides rain and wind)

Hour-long traffic delay because a truck and trailer jumped the jersey wall and landed on the commuter rail tracks in the median of 210 in Pasadena. Several lanes were blocked on the other side with emergency vehicles including a monster crane rigged to lift the whole thing at once, and our side because everyone was slowing down to get a good look. After crawling through that mess, we made sure to get a good look too.

Finding the all-holiday-music radio station and hearing Willie Nelson singing Frosty the Snowman, followed soon after by Elvis with Here Comes Santa Claus.

Leaving the lights on too long in the parking lot of the Asian food store and getting a jump from a white guy with an Asian wife and a pickup. I promise to make no more jokes about Fords.
 
Observed in big Asian food store --

Vermont Curry - Product of Japan
Great Wall pork loaf (picture looks like Spam, labelled in Chinese and English) - Product of Canada
 
The street in front of the kids' apartment in Sacramento usually has plenty of open parking spots, but with 2 restrictions. There is a 2-hour limit during the day M-F, but a visitor pass on the dash trumps that. There is also a street-cleaning restriction - no parking on the near side Monday mornings or on the far side Wednesday mornings. Last night I got up in the dark to move the truck over to the other side; this morning I observed 5 cars in this block with $55 tickets under their wipers. Sweet deal - keep the streets clean, and get the ignorant and/or forgetful to pay for it.
 
Hüsker Dü said:
Are you skiing this year?
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Not likely. I decided after giving myself a concussion at Mammoth (strayed off into the still-frozen spring snow on the side of Face of 3, thinking it was soft but heavy like the beat-up sugar snow down the middle - the snow/ice disagreed) that I can no longer safely ski the slopes and trails I like, and I am bored with the trails where I feel safe. It's not worth the effort and money just to feel depressed. My next-younger brother, who turned 68 this year, taunts me with pictures of his skiing adventures all over Alaska (where he lives) and the Rockies. For a time, with 2 kids at Davis and just having turned 65 so season tickets were suddenly really cheap, I had passes to 4 area (Mammoth, June, Snow Summit, & Bear Mt - which are all one company now so one pass suffices for all), and I had a mission to ski as many Northern Cal areas as I could. Some of those give discounts for holders of other area passes, and most have special deals worth taking advantage - Senior Wednesday, or Buddy Discounts, etc. I check in to the Mammoth webcams every day, and I talk skiing with one of my new neighbors hoping he will suggest a day at Big Bear (and I don't mock him for his H2).
 
espola said:
Not likely. I decided after giving myself a concussion at Mammoth (strayed off into the still-frozen spring snow on the side of Face of 3, thinking it was soft but heavy like the beat-up sugar snow down the middle - the snow/ice disagreed) that I can no longer safely ski the slopes and trails I like, and I am bored with the trails where I feel safe. It's not worth the effort and money just to feel depressed. My next-younger brother, who turned 68 this year, taunts me with pictures of his skiing adventures all over Alaska (where he lives) and the Rockies. For a time, with 2 kids at Davis and just having turned 65 so season tickets were suddenly really cheap, I had passes to 4 area (Mammoth, June, Snow Summit, & Bear Mt - which are all one company now so one pass suffices for all), and I had a mission to ski as many Northern Cal areas as I could. Some of those give discounts for holders of other area passes, and most have special deals worth taking advantage - Senior Wednesday, or Buddy Discounts, etc. I check in to the Mammoth webcams every day, and I talk skiing with one of my new neighbors hoping he will suggest a day at Big Bear (and I don't mock him for his H2).
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My DD moved to SF and she was my snowboard buddy so I am out for now as well. I first snowboarded at 45, I picked up quickly having been a competitive skateboarder for a time and surfer since a wee one, but still I am just a cruiser so my eroding skills don't hit me that hard. Heck I always warm-up on the bunny slopes and that puts a smile on my face.
 
Hüsker Dü said:
My DD moved to SF and she was my snowboard buddy so I am out for now as well. I first snowboarded at 45, I picked up quickly having been a competitive skateboarder for a time and surfer since a wee one, but still I am just a cruiser so my eroding skills don't hit me that hard. Heck I always warm-up on the bunny slopes and that puts a smile on my face.
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Starting in 94 when my oldest got old enough for the Snow Summit day camps, I skied with with my sons for about a decade. I found it really satisfying to ski with new rules - work our way up from the easiest trails every day, see how good we could get, and always stay above them so if they needed help I could get to them easily - except the first time up on the ridge at Mammoth, when I skied down to the cat track entrance to show them where to go, and they both hunkered down in the wind. I had to hike up to them (grumbling all the way) and told them that - no shit - if you don't go down you will die here. Since we weren't going very fast or trying hard slopes in those days I worked on my form, which had always been ragged because I didn't care - I just wanted to get down fast and back up again.
 
Something I really should have known by now -- when the directions on the laxative package say the adult dose is 1-3 tablets, start with 1.
 
I started volunteering as scoreboard/clock/PA operator for Poway High School in 2008, near the end of the South Cal Regional Finalist year (still disappointed that we didn't get any home games in those playoffs). Yesterday I missed my first home game, sick in bed with a cold and stomach uglies. Today I feel fine again.
 
Recycling trivia - my wife got a digital kitchen scale for Xmas (I got the idea from her "How many cups in 500 grams of flour?" questions) that has a resolution of 0.1 grams or 0.05 ounces. While sorting out the recycling last week, I had an inspiration, so I weighed a few empty containers and calculated their CRV value based on what I had been paid the last trip. I was surprised to find that half-liter plastic water bottles only return about 2.6¢ on average, and 12-oz glass beer bottles about 4.6¢. On the other hand, the big winners were 1-gallon plastic water bottles (20¢ from 10¢ deposit) and Martinelli 750-ml Sparkling Cider glass bottles (14.8¢ from 10¢ deposit).
 
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