OLD MAN WINTER CAN TAKE A HIKE!
Somewhere, in a location not far away (could be YOUR house or business, in fact), that old winter carol is playing..."Let It Snow", "Let It Snow", "Let It Snow". If it's playing...turn OFF your radio, CD player, Turntable, I-pod, or whatever. It's snowing, OK? There are STORM WARNINGS out there! There is MORE snow headed our way! DO YOU HEAR ME? BOYCOTT that damn song! NOW!!!
____________________
School Daze, School Daze dept.: In Coeur d'Alene, it turns out that Lakes Jr. High is now "too expensive to be remodeled"; at least that's what we're being told so the powers that be can build a new school where Persons' Field is now, and rob Coeur d'Alene of MUCH NEEDED GREEN SPACE. Yet, plans to remodel Borah School, which is about as old as Lakes Jr. High are in the works. HUH??? Harder, I guess, to relocate an elementary school?
I went to Borah School a coupla years ago for its 50th anniversary celebration; I went inside, and the place looked great; 'twas the same old place as when I went there in 5th and 6th grade. And, I'm sure "Lakes" is still in pretty good shape, too. Why not just IMPROVE AN EXISTING FACILITY? It CAN be done! And that's my position on THAT.
____________________
And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind dept.: Looks like the developers (there I go using the "d-word" again) are once more trying to put a "push" on building new homes near Best Hill, down at the east end of Best Avenue. Opponents say the watershed is in danger if that happens. The proposal, rejected once, was submitted AGAIN with hardly any changes. Looks like the old "wear-down" strategy to me...just keep throwing it in our faces 'till the "permit" is "permitted". So the great Coeur d'Alene land grab continueth on. What with all the building activity around here, it's a good thing the north side of Best Hill is steep; the only houses you could build there would be for MOUNTAIN GOATS. BAAAA! And I'll bet a developer somewhere has thought about doing just that. Grab that land!
____________________
Trivial Pursuit dept.: Right now, Baba Wawa is interviewing the "ten most interesting people of 2005". Maybe I'm an old stick in the mud, but I don't care about any of those people. Interesting to who? Do I care about Charles and his blond pony Camilla Parker Bowels...er, Bowles? Do I care about the star of "Desperate Housewives"? Do I care about BABA WAWA herself? When you're talking about the average Barbara Walters special, it contains less important stuff than the increasingly fluffy and frothy "Entertainment Tonight". Plus, Mary Hart has better legs than Barbara, not that that's got anything to do with anything (or maybe it does).
____________________
"Up" pops another subject dept.: Turns out that our general area, and Spokane in particular, is great for us guys! Why? This area appears to have less of that malady referred to as "E.D." It's a dysfunctionality that has nothing to do with how well you get along with your significant other. Wait, maybe it does! Unless you happen to thrive on aggression. Otherwise, if you both are arguing and throwing things at each other, well, let's just say that's not a conducive climate for "conjugating". I think I'd better stop this thought before I type myself into a corner. Might be too late for that, though.
____________________
They get rich each time they pitch dept.: Two major-league relief pitchers were awarded lucrative contracts by their respective teams today. One guy got 1.43 MILLION over 3 years; another got 2.47 for a 5-year deal. Now, we're talking about guys who only throw an inning or two when their team is winning, and NOT AT ALL when their team is losing! (You don't want to waste those expensive arms on losing games after all!) In today's baseball economy, these "relief specialists" can end up making more money than a STARTING pitcher, who is required to go at least 6 innings in a game, or he's toast. Go figure!
____________________
Kris Krocker has found a reason to live dept.: Oh, those nice, cloudless summer and fall days. Sunny and warm, day after day. After day. After day. After day....you get the idea. The weather for the next ten days is a carbon-copy of the ten days before. When the weather's good, the average weather-caster is about as busy as the Maytag Repairman. I'll just betcha, though, when the snow flies and motorists are getting stuck and all kinds of winter inconveniences present themselves, these weathercasters just salivate at actually having some RELEVANT NEWS to broadcast! "Whoopee! It's SNOWING! ICE! SLUSH! DANGER! The world actually CARES what's in the WEATHER FORECAST! YESSSSSS!!!!"
(That's kinda like Steve Martin, in "The Jerk": I'M IN THE PHONE BOOK! I AM SOMEBODY! I'M IN THE PHONE BOOK! WHOOOPEEEEEE!!!")
____________________
Your job could be next dept.: MERCK is laying off 7,000 workers nationwide. Merck makes all kindsa pills for all kindsa thrills. You'd think Merck workers would have job security...everyone needs prescriptions, right? Whenever ELVIS wanted to get himself stoned, he'd consult the "Merck Manual", which would tell him what combinations of certain pills would do to him. He'd taken a bunch of pills right before he died. I'd say he took the "wrong" combination of drugs there!
____________________
If I take a little bit, they won't notice dept.: A long-established 63-year-old congressman, RANDY CUNNINGHAM, admitted that he took almost 2 and a half million dollars in bribes today. Coincidentally (or not), his affairs were already being investigated. I must ask, would we even be hearing about this if he WASN'T being investigated? Cry those crocodile tears, congressman Cunningham!
____________________
Some Guys Have All The Luck dept.: Rock sellout Rod Stewart has had his 6th child, by his latest "significant other". He's had 4 "significant others" in-between numerous boozy flings. He's 60. Slow down, Rod; your expenses will be mounting. You better record a few more rock-&-roll "sellout" CD's which feature lame versions of torch songs sung better by Sinatra years ago. You gotta make money somehow, right? In closing, it doesn't sound like Rod worries about "E.D."!
____________________
California Dreamin' becomes a Nightmare dept.: This here makes me feel old: Denny Doherty, male lead singer of the Mamas and the Papas, is 65 today. Remember their song, "Creeque Alley", which was a sort of musical history? Well, now, Denny can dedicate the song to his old, aging, aching bones...just by changing the spelling to "CREAK Alley". (okay, that's not funny, but it IS timely)
____________________
Who sez CDA Residents aren't fashion trendsetters? dept.: Whilst having coffee at the Java place today, I hauled my nose out of the newspaper long enough to see someone wearing a T-shirt which read: "I am out of my mind. Please leave a message." Hey, I resemble that!
____________________
I can't find a good way to end this post dept.: So I'll just pull the ol' "dump and run" strategy; a veritable cyber-"Chinese Fire Drill", if you will. That's right, time for another UGLY STICKER! Us kids used to buy 'em in the 60s, 5 stickers to a pack, along with a pink rectangular-shaped foreign substance that looked suspiciously like fiberglass concentrate, and tasted like it too. Without further
adieu (whatever that means), may I present Miss IRIS:
Poor ol' lonely Iris. In spite of the fact that she's got a KILLER SMILE with breath to match, for some reason, guys just seem to stay away from her. They don't realize she'd be a fun date; she'd crawl all over any guy she went out with!
Alas, she is doomed to a solitary existence of sitting home, watching cartoons on TV. Her favorite? "Pop-eye"!
____________________
Okay, that was really, really stupid. But it got your attention! Nyaah! Nyaah!
posted by Lil ol' me... at
11/29/2005 10:38:00 PM
CLICK ON THE "YAHOO" BOX ABOVE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HER~
5 Comments:
CdaDave,
Regarding Lakes, it is possible to remodel it, and it is one of the plans they're considering (at least they said it was at the Open Forum meeting they held Monday night). It's possible it could be remodeled as Lakes, or as a replacement for Sorenson elementary as well (probably more possibilities as well, but I can't remember them).
If it stays Lakes, there are issues to overcome, however. You have to put 600 kids somewhere while the remodel is going on. (there's asbestos abatement involved, so it won't be possible for them to be on site---at least, I'd expect that lawyers wouldn't allow them to be there).
They discussed keeping all 6th graders at their elementary schools another year, and busing the 7th and 8th graders out to Hayden Elementary for the year it'd take to remodel, but with fuel costs what they are, I don't want to imagine the costs for that.
Somebody from the district (wish I knew his name... was probably one of the building/maintenance guys, not a superintendent or an administrator), talked about the Cd'A High remodel, and that in the end it cost the same to remodel as build new in that case. He did say he felt that Lakes was a "solid" building, and could/should be rebuilt.
As another reference point, they also talked about the Lewis & Clark HS remodel in Spokane, where building new was projected at ~$37 million, while the remodel eventually cost them $80 million, plus the costs of holding school at a nearby commercial building for the 2 years it took to finish (over $2 million, I think?).
Regardless of what happens, the school district already owns over 1/2 of Persons Field.
I'm betting it'll be sold if they don't get the permits approved. Let's just hope in that case the city is the one who ends up with it, or the green space is gone for sure!
Hi, markr. I remember, when the existing CDA High School was built in 1970, that we all split-shifted at what is now "Lakes". So I've actually been thru that "student-rerouting" experience, and while it was a hassle, it was doable. So perhaps the Lakes Students could be dealt with in a similar manner.
Yes, added busing, plus asbestos removal in the Lakes building would probably "up" the costs a bit; no doubt it would. But, if "paying extra" to preserve precious green space in Coeur d'Alene is the result, then I think it's "well worth it". I realize there are no easy answers. But I have also seen perfectly good buildings in CDA bite the dust, an example of which is the old Junior High Buildings which were located on 4th Street, where Phippeny Park is now.
Yup. I myself am a product of the late 80s split-shifting at the 'now-current-but-pre-remodel' Cd'A high.
I have no idea how this will play out, but it should be interesting.
Stay warm...
They called it second sessions when I was in school in CA. Certain districts were plagued by it, my parents moved us into a district that wasn't doing it, then, by High school, they were. We were on the early shift, dismissal a 1 pm. I spent the rest of the afternoon learning computers. Well worth it ironically.
How nice to have intelligent debates without flamethrowing; people just come out and state their case, and opinions are shared.
I'm sure the situation will play out, all right, and I also think that in spite of the fact there are those in CDA who'd like to see 'green space' preserved, Persons field will probably succumb someday. Again, who knows...?
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home