Laying low in JANUARY...
...it always seems that January is one of the toughest months!

I'm kinda "laying low" this month. It seems that "Januarys" are always one of the hardest months to get through. Why is that? Well, it's the third cold, rainy, gloomy month in a row, behind November and December. So, perhaps from a psychological perspective, 3 months is ENOUGH! It could have something to do with the fact I'm really "achy" this month, and the cold isn't doing me any favors in that department. It's hard to do much of anything with arthritic pain in both feet and knees, which the cold temperatures don't exactly SOOTHE. So when you can't go anywhere, you stay home, which results in cabin fever. Ack! It's no irony that "winter" carries with it several four-letter words: Cold, rain, snow, and, BRRR!
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Mandatory Relocation Dept.: I read today that quite a few homes in Spokane are being forced to "scat" and "vamoose" in order to git outta the way of the North-South highway that evidently will soon be built in that town. So, some more changes will be happening over there. Houses are being sold for super ultra-cheap, but the rub is, those homes have gotta be relocated. So, lives will be uprooted, all in the name of progress, but Spokane has really needed a good north-south thoroughfare for a long time. Several years ago, when I went to a 10K race in Valley, Washington (north of Deer Park somewhere), it took me LESS time to get from Valley to the northern end of Spokane, than it did for me to get from Spokane's northern city limit down to interstate 90; well, after all, there've gotta be at least 10,000 stoplights on Division Avenue. I think that's where the "powers that be" got the idea for Kootenai County's present hiway 95; all the highway planners got together and decided to use Spokane's Division Avenue as a model! That's gotta be it!
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Never let it be said that "thought" doesn't go into my posts dept.: I used to live in Spokane. I worked for several radio-stations over there on a part-time basis in the late '70s. To demonstrate how successful MY broadcast career was, my last job in Spokane was dishwashing at a Japanese Restaurant! "FLIED LICE"!!! I lived in a couple of different apartments in Browne's Addition, which I always thot was a really weird section of town. Of course, I also kinda like Peaceful Valley, and THAT'S a strange section of town too. But, I wanted to let you know that from time to time, I actually THINK about what I post here, and as such, for reasons of continuity, I offer the following picture:

Here's an old view of Spokane, from about the mid-1940's. Look at the railroad bridge which extends itself ABOVE the Monroe Street bridge! There was another such bridge north of that, which goes behind what is now Spokane's City Hall. At right, you can see the Clock Tower, in what is now Riverfront Park. And of course, if you were about to head north on the Monroe Street Bridge, the 'approach' to that bridge was a whole lot different back then!

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For 3:15, I did feel a bit warmer today dept.: One of the nice things that the Java place does, is play some pretty good tunes over their speakers, and I heard one such tune today that I don't hear all that often anymore. Remember the singing group, "The 5th Dimension"...they had the big hit with "Up, Up and Away"? They recorded a lot of great tunes, but one of my favorites of theirs wasn't an especially big hit, but I always loved it; a tune called "California Soul". Every time I hear that song, I can picture myself on an ocean beach in the late afternoon, being all toasty-warm and feeling mellow, hypnotized by the sun and surf. And that's how I felt today, for three minutes and fifteen seconds. (That's how long the song is.)

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More money going out the door dept.: Evidently the City of CDA has settled with the mother of a young girl who was murdered several years ago, to the tune of $30,000 dollars. From what I read, it seems the mother deserves the settlement; it seems she had a "just" case. That's not the issue. The issue is, there sure seems to be a lot of money being paid out in various settlement cases here in the CDA area, the biggest recent example of that being the situation at the county courthouse when Ms. Kalani was paid-off to keep her yap shut. Conversely, property taxes keep rising, utility and service bills continue to go up, and the occasional "revenue drives" (traffic stings) by the CDA Police Dept. rake in more money all the time. Say, the City of Coeur d'Alene and/or Kootenai County generate "X" amount of dollars in a given year. How much of that "X" amount of dollars will fly out the window to satisfy settlements? In short, "part of X" amount of taxes and fines we pay are totally WASTED, due to ineptitude, either on the city or county level. Is this a worthwhile observation? It sure makes ME wonder about things!

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I don't think they will be missed dept.: I read where two cable networks, UPN and "the WB" are going to be shutting down later this year, and both networks will be combined into one. What does this mean? Instead of two networks no one watches, there'll now be ONE network no one watches! Of course, that's in addition to all the other networks no one watches! I have over 60 available cable channels, and I only watch 4 or 5 of them with anything resembling regularity. Plus, I understand the "combined" network that will result from UPN's and WB's demise, will be shown on WGN-TV, out of Chicago. Wait a minute...don't we already GET "WGN" on a cable channel here in CDA? So that means we'll get the "one" 'combined' network on two different channels? Okay, everyone say it with me: "Huh? What?"

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Okay, I'll dry up and blow away dept.: But before I do, how about another one of those really classy black-and-white photos taken by Leo's studio in Spokane in the 1950's? Even though I've lived around here since before the Civil War, there are a lot of landmarks around the lake I've never seen. Well, I, like a lot of rezzidents here, aren't rich enough to have lake property; we all pretty much stay in CDA, go to the City Park or Sanders' Beach, and that's about it.

One such landmark I've never seen is "Toad Rock" out at Mica Bay, and the ironic thing is, I saw a landmark that I've never seen before in a picture taken before I was born! I tell ya, I'm pretty-much "lost" all the time, ain't I?

Is this rock still there? I have no clue. Hey, that's a great idea for a movie! "CLUELESS IN COEUR D'ALENE!!!" (Sometimes these posts just "write themselves", don't they?)

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Ahaaaaa! It's not even 7:30pm yet, and I'm already done! Of course, in my quest for perfection, I'll probably spend another coupla hours editing it. And it still won't be perfect. Which begs the question: "Why do I do this blog in the first place?" Answer: "I evidently thrive on ANGUISH!"