It's been a long time, but I have something to say now.

I know I haven't been here for a while. Been living on Facebook, but feel this is a better place to put this out there so more people might see it. It is an article I read on CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/gop.stimulus.worries/index.html
In case you want to see it yourself. Here is what it is about. The GOP has released the items on the stimulus package they feel shouldn't be in it. I totally agree. The majority of this stuff will not create jobs and will not stimulate the economy.

$2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

• $650 million for wild land fire management on forest service lands.

• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

Please people, pay attention to what is going on. Obama said he was against earmarks. What do you call this? He said he was against "political pork". What is all this stuff then? Now "he" is using commercials to try to force the Republicans who represent us to cow down to what he wants.

I say this to Grassley McCain and all the other Republicans in Washington D.C., Keep it up. Don't back down. If it is such a great bill, let the Dems have all the credit. Then when it falls flat on it's face, you can honestly say I told you so. Keep fighting for us, even though some of us don't realize that you are.

I'm sure I'll get some comments from my Democratic friends....... that's why I did it here.

Listen to a brand new citizen of the U.S.

To the National Media: BACK OFF!!

The summer has gone by very quickly, it seems. I haven't touched my blog since mid June.
FYI, didn't get any water in the house. The pump ran a lot for a while, but we stayed high and dry and got the freezers back in the basement. I decided to write something now because of some thing going on with the national media.

McCain has chosen a women as his running mate. This is incredible. History has been and will be made at the end of this election. We will either have the first black president or the first female vice-president.

News broke today that McCain's choice for his running mate has a 17 year old daughter that is 5 months pregnant. This is what I want to say to the national media:

BACK OFF!!! What is your problem? This very young woman has made a life changing decision, a CHOICE for you Democrats and Independents. She didn't have an abortion, she CHOSE to have the baby and is hoping to marry the young man who is the father. You keep harping on about what the conservative Republicans are going to feel about it. Oh, what a horrible thing. I think the Republicans will stand with her and support her in her decision.

Obama has even made a very strong statement that families are off limits. I hope he sticks to that better than he did about campaign financing.

But the media says, Oh, what else hasn't she told us? Ya know, McCain knew about the daughter before he chose Palin as his running mate. If you think you are going to find a squeaky clean candidate, you are living in a fantasy world. Everyone has something, big or small in there closet, including all of you at CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, and anyone else out there who is waving an "Oh, my God! How can this be." flag.

This young lady made a huge decision that is going to change her life in a major way. She made a CHOICE. That should appeal to a lot of people. She has the support of her family. Hopefully she has the support of the father of her child and his family as well. I do not think this is going to affect Palin's ability to serve as vice-president.

Things happen. A persons integrity is shown and can be judged by what they do after things happen. That goes for Obama, McCain, Palin, Biden, and everyone else in this world of ours.

Rant ended.

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY! FLOOD OF 2008

Well, this has been a he** of a week. It started out all right, I guess. Was painting up in a salon in Cedar Rapids Monday evening. Was in a lot of pain the next day, but good work.

On Tuesday Marco Polo and I went to a gentleman's house to help put his air conditioner back together, and since he was so close, we went to the reservoir to see if it had gone over the spillway. It was inches away. It went over later that night. Thanks Army Cor of Engineers.

Then, Tuesday evening my neighbor who happens to be a deputy sheriff pulled up while I was out in the yard and said we, as in the town of Tiffin, would be getting some water and that sandbagging was going to start on Wednesday.

I live in a duplex type dwelling. Our houses kind of butt up to each other instead of side by side. Makes my place look like a free standing home on the corner. The other part behind me is several yards from this creek that runs the whole length of the street and then some. Usually it is rather quiet and is not much of a threat. Now there is the possibility of the Iowa River backing up into Clear Creek, then backing into this creek and causing a lot of flooding.

During the 500 year flood,(which by the way, happened in 1993. That's a short 500 years.) this area in which I live was still undeveloped. Now, with all the fill and the building and the additional building that Coralville has done. (note: the hill that was moved from the north side of the road to the flood plain on the south so they could build a Lowe's. Plus the mall and other business literally built in the flood plain, not to mention the Marriott) I fear that my street may be in trouble.

Many of us from town helped build a sand bag wall behind the houses lining the creek. Great stretching lifting, cardio and weight workout, but when my heart rate reached 144 I knew I had to stop or drop.

Anyway, the kicker to this is that I have a basement. Not a walk-in, a real basement. We have a sup pump that we recently replaced with a more powerful one, and it is keeping up with the rain water quite well. The problem is that I have two window wells in the basement. If the water starts going through the low place between my house and the house just north of us, it might just think that low spot in the window well would be a great place to go and make an unwanted indoor pool. (no jokes here people, it really isn't funny).

Soooo, I have been sandbagging and putting up plastic. The window well on the north end has coragated steel around it also so that might help. Major kudos to my work buddy Marco Polo who has been helping me in this endevour. He came up with the steel idea. I am hoping we won't have to test it out.

Now, the next job is to get the really important stuff out of the basement. I have two freezers. One if full of beef and the other has home grown chickens, some pork, pizza meatballs pies etc... Those are a priority. Washer/dryer, micro wave oven, actually two, one with a broken door handle,exercise bike, computer, video tapes, books and on and on and on.

I also have a generator to run the pumps in case of a power outage. Yes, I used the plural, pumps. I have a bucket with a whole lot of holes in it in the north window well and if water starts building there, I can pump it out.

My foundation is pretty high, so if I can keep the water from coming into the windows, I stand a real fighting chance. Some other things have been working in the city of Tiffin's favor as well. The Iowa river has a very strong flow and it seems to be literally sucking the water from Clear Creek. The other is not so good for Coralville. A levi was breached near 1st ave so the baseball fields and businesses in that area are getting more water than expected. Bad for them, good for Tiffin. The water can spread out more. At least quite a bit of the area there is baseball and soccer fields.

Poor Cedar Rapids!! Elis Island just looks like someone just dropped a couple buildings in the middle of a very large river. 380 is the only way to get from one side of town to the other. Highway 30 east is closed, 965 between North Liberty and Swisher is closed, Hwy 1 near Mt. Vernon is closed.... It is very difficult to get around.

I don't know how many people read this, but whoever you are, send up a little prayer for the people effected by this flooding going on in Iowa and pray that the rain will stop for a while so things can settle down. I would really like to keep my basement dry. Thanks so much. ;-)

I will try to keep all of you posted.

MATHMAN IS MOVING TO TWIN CITIES

So, I'm flipping through my favorite blogs, checking up on all my favorite reads. Dweezes said something that really tickled me, so I responded. Went to Law and Disorder to read about the pains of tearing up carpeting. Then I went to Mathman.

His wife got a new position in Minnesota and they will be moving very soon. I wanted to comment, but didn't know what to say. I have never met him, but have enjoyed reading his blog and sharing thoughts about things.

I wish you and your family the best of luck in your new life experience. Oh, are you still going to do the biking across Iowa thing?

Hope you keep up the blog, how else will Space Monkey and the rest of us know how you are doing?

Arby's buying Wendy's

When I am at my job of working with a friend of mine fixing up a house in C.R., we usually go to his favorite place for lunch. Wendy's. Now, I really like Wendy's. They have great food, and good selection and I really like there fries.

Now I read that Arby's parent company has finally succeeded in buying Wendy's. Dave Thomas's daughter doesn't seem too happy about it.

They are a great chain, and have a great story behind there beginnings. I worry that they will loose there uniqueness or disappear totally. I would start going to Burger King before I would start frequenting Arby's or the golden arches of McDonald's.

Arby's is all right if all you want is variations on the same theme. McDonald's though, yuck. The last time I was there to have a meal I was really disappointed. I must say though, the fries are still quite good. But one does not live on fries alone. I'm sure you could, but I don't think I could stand it that long.

Wendy's burgers, Chicken, fish and salads are the tops in my book and I hope this will not change them out of existence.

WHAT THE BLEEP IS GOING ON???

So I am at work earlier this week and I get a call from Side Notes. Had I seen the article about the Englert sending a letter to the Johnson County board of supervisors about there concerns of Coralville building a performance space in there fair city. No, I said, but I will read it and check out your post.

WTF!!! I have also read that the Englert was asked for there input, but I agree totally with Side Notes that the letter did not sound like and expression of opening dialogue and more like a whining threat to force Coralville to not build the space.

ICCT originally pledged IN A CONTRACT an amount of 40K with an additional 10k. Along in THE CONTRACT was the agreement that ICCT would be the in house theater for the space and we would have a special price agreement. Percentage of ticket sales and concessions sales were included IN THE CONTRACT.

Later, when things changed and ICCT got shafted, for lack of a better word, the Englert started asking for that last 10K that was IN THE CONTRACT. If the whole in house theater thing was just an agreement, how did they know the amount. They said there was no contract. HMMMMMMMM.

After the Englert closed as a movie theater and someone was planning on turning it into another bar, I took it upon myself to e-mail all of the members of the Iowa City city council and inform them of the economic benefits of having a large live performance space downtown. It would bring wanted patronage to the local restaurants and hotels and it would give people a good reason to come downtown. I also mentioned the possibility of hosting an IACT theater festival which gets held every other year and in which ICCT had participated and won several times. This would bring in money from out of town and from across the state.

The Englert is a fine performance place. I really enjoy being on that stage, and I also enjoy being in the audience. I especially enjoy working with Chris ( you know who you are). You are a super tech person! But the whining has got to stop.

The Englert is there because of all the people ( not corporations) who worked there buts off to raise money, and the people who have there names on the backs of those theater seats. I have my name on one and my husband has his name on another.

It was meant to be a local artist performance space. Most local organizations cannot afford to perform there. ICCT is on a financial tight wire because of the savings they sunk into a place that they thought they would now be able to call home. A real theater.

Coralville and City Circle are no threat to you. Get over yourself.

And......... As long as I am ranting, what about this state wide ban on smoking in Iowa thing? The state finally passes a higher state tax on cigarettes to help fill the state coffers. (don't let them try to fool you into thinking anything else). And then they ban smoking in public places.

Now, I am not a smoker and I like the idea of going out with friends on a TTT and not have to come home smelling like an ash tray. But there is something about this whole thing that I really don't like.

This is a totalitarian law. Sure, smoking is bad for you, and maybe we can get some people to stop smoking and keep the rest of us from being effected by second hand smoke. But, what could be next? New York is trying to stop the sale of fatty foods. Twinkies really aren't good for you, should the state pass a law banning them? Are we going to start legislating when we should start wearing winter coats? You can only buy state sponsored bio fuels. Better make a law that doesn't allow alcohol of any kind in the state because it is bad for you.

Now you may say, the state passed this law to protect our health. I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure most of the state legislature doesn't really care about our health. This is just the state flexing there power muscles.

I want to end with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: Anyone who give up a little freedom for safety, deserves neither freedom or safety.