That's what I've been saying

John Lott publishes an op-ed that basically says there is no recession despite the media redefining what recession means.

The soap opera that is the Snoqualmie Valley School District

Let me ask the audience a question.

Imagine, hypothetically, a bond proposal was put on a ballot for the community to vote on, and the result of that vote was 58/42 rejecting it (60% is required to pass).

Now imagine the exact same proposal was put in front of the voters again, and that proposal was rejected 58/42.

What would you guess would happen if a very similar proposal was put in front of the voters a third time, during a time when the economy has turned south?

What? You think it would fail 58/42. Well of course you'd be right.

Which is exactly what happened with the latest bond proposal. Surprise, surprise. Sigh.

We have an overcrowded high school in the Snoqualmie Valley School District. Or so I hear. So it's imperative that the school board figure out a way to alleviate the overcrowding. You'd think that they would ask the voters to vote on funding a new school. Well, they have. But they've also overloaded the proposal with another school, a myriad of school repairs (don't those fall under M&O?), a second stadium, etc. Lots of pork to go along with the high school.

So, there is time to put a proposal in front of the voters to fund one (1) High School. No bells, no whistles, just one high school to educate the students. The decision by the Snoqualmie Valley School Board? Nope, can't do something that common sense. Ridiculous. This is not a hard problem to solve, unless you make it a hard problem.

Of course, we've been in the area long enough and have heard enough stories about the local high school (Mount Si) that Amy and I have already decided our boys won't attend there. You can read some of those stories at the Coalition to Defend Eduction, and those are just the tip of the iceberg.

Spencer gets his Green Belt

A couple weeks late, and no video, and we had a bad angle for pictures, and... anyway, Spencer got his Green Belt.

He's also now in the Black Belt Club, which is cool because he gets to learn how to use weapons. Responsibly of course. And I get to play with those weapons, only I'm not sworn to any secret code of responsibility like Spencer is, BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Can't wait until the Ridge ROA sends me another dumb warning letter that there's a twig out of place in my yard. For you lawyers out there, I'm just kidding of course.



This was cool, Spencer did a "hook kick" to break a board. Very impressed he was able to pull it off. Normally they don't do that at that young of an age but the instructors let them give a go. And what do ya know, all the blue belts were able to do it. A lesson for us all.

A successful Easter Feast

We partook in our annual Easter Feast, hosting our neighbors in our humble abode last Sunday. Of course we deep-fried a turkey, and of course I had my challenges. Rain, too much oil (that ended up on the driveway), and a tank running out of propane couldn't stop me though. Our neighbors brought lots of good food, the kids had fun, and we even broke out Rock Band afterwards.


I am working my ND-neighbor's son and getting him attuned to the Old Gold and Black.

Amazon Kindle

So I now have an Amazon Kindle, courtesy of my folks who bought me one for my birthday. I already like it, it was very easy to set up, and within minutes I had my first newspaper subscriptions (Seattle Times and Wall Street Journal) and book (10 day MBA) downloaded and opened.

The wireless signal is pretty good, considering I often have trouble on my cell here (to the point where I rely on the Wifi on my TMobile Wing in order to talk from home). The subscriptions already work nicely, being available to me within minutes of powering on my device today.

The web browser doesn't support Javascript, so using my favorite Google tools (GMail, Reader) is out of the question.

It does come with a speaker and the ability to play MP3s... although I haven't figured out how to adjust the volume. And the sound quality certainly isn't going to impress anyone.

I had previously played with my neighbor's Kindle, so getting used to the interface wasn't a problem. The eInk is very easy on the eyes, and its small size makes the Kindle ideal for reading in bed (although I prefer audiobooks to fall asleep to, audiobooks have the problem of having to figure out where I was when I fell asleep and rewind my iPod to guess where I was... quite a pain).

What I like about it is that my entire book library can sit in the area of a pad of paper. I already have bookshelves of out of date books clogging my office, hopefully one day they are all digital and residing on my Kindle. Where they won't get read, but hey at least they aren't serving as kindling in case my house ever catches fire. No pun intended.

This thing will get some use; I will get my money's worth.

Seattle Thunderbirds

This is a little late, but a week ago Saturday Amy and I had a date cancelled due to a babysitter cancelling on us, so we decided to take the boys to their (and our) first Seattle Thunderbirds (WHL) game. Way fun. They play at Key Arena, parking was easy to obtain, and we surprised Spencer by not telling him where we are going. "Awesome, my first hockey game! All right! Who are we cheering for?"

Garrett was actually able to make it until about 6 minutes to go in the game (Seattle beat Portland 8-2 FWIW), then he got a little restless.

They have a ticket package where you can get all the weekend home games for a year. I think we are going to look into it for next year.

See ya DOOK!

=)

Yet another reason I love the Aussies

This YouTube video tells all. In the US the bikers probably would have been arrested...