Mecklenburg County Shortfall

Dear City Council Member Kinsey,

I forward the below e-mail for your files.

Subject: Fw: CPCC Spending Concern

Hello Nancy Carter!

It has been a while that I have sent word your way and here is a message that I have sent to our Mayor.
CPCC has signs on fences around the project site that slate it to begin 2/2/2009.

This need not be if all involved cause the bond money to not be there thus saving for the City & County.

Subject: CPCC Spending Concern

Dear Mayor McCrory,

I saw and truly appreciated your thoughts and statements on WCNC a few weeks
ago when interviewed by Dave Wagner, especially how you urge Charlotte as a
city to finish projects that have been started and to not begin new ones.
Dealing with this is a proposed eight-floor parking deck at CPCC that if not
constructed can save the city and county a number of millions of dollars.
Following here is a statement/comment that I have sent to a few television
sites.

"Look into the money that Central Piedmont Community College spends also,
like on needless parking deck projects that do NOT promote public
transportation use and seem an opposite message than the trolley lines that
have been & continue to be constructed on Elizabeth Avenue. Millions can be
saved there--besides why does the college insist on a new deck (at Memorial
Stadium) when the old Thompson Orphanage parking lot exists and could be
used? It sits fenced and "abandoned" right across the street from the
college administration buildings at 4th street across from the Metropolitan
Target store. Tony Zeiss is very short-sighted when it comes to the
community" part of the name of the college."
Certainly with the Home Depot Design center leaving, there is a great deal
of available space to be seen in the Midtown Area and parking decks are not
going to be as crowded there within the next few months either !
We need to be a good example of knowing when enough is enough, and not
continue spending like it is still 2006--2007.

I plan on being at the next County Commissioners Meeting that allows public
comment with a statement to this end on February 10th.

Thank You Mayor
For your Interest and Concern in this Matter,
& Feel Free to Contact Me,

$90 Million Shortfall for Charlotte/Mecklenburg

A victory: because the county has almost no money, due to the 2008-9 economic downturn, the Central Piedmont Community College parking deck project that has been "shoved down our throats" and was/is to be built directly across the street from my house may NOT happen!
I am overjoyed, to a degree... We do not and did not need an EIGHT floor monstrosity dedicated to the dead use of space for automobiles and nothing more. President A. Zeiss of the college should apologize to the citizens of Charlotte, and especially the Elizabeth area, for his forceful attitude and arrogance; he was wrong and possibly he will walk away with his "tail between his legs."
Maybe he would be better as a shift manager at a local Food Lion grocery store...

Death of The Elderly on a Frozen Day

A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.

Marvin E. Schur died "a slow, painful death," said Kanu Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.

Neighbors discovered Schur's body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time, The Bay City Times reported Monday.

"Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly," Virani said. "It's not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they're burning."

Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.

A city utility worker had installed a "limiter" device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur's home on Jan. 13, Belleman said. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.

The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur's body, Belleman said. He didn't know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.

Schur's body was discovered by neighbor George Pauwels Jr.

"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the newspaper.

Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on houses for 10 days, then shut off power entirely if the homeowner hasn't paid utility bills or arranged to do so.

He said Bay City Electric Light & Power's policies will be reviewed, but he didn't believe the city did anything wrong.

"I've said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors," Belleman said. "When they think there's something wrong, they should contact the appropriate agency or city department."

Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.

Bay City is on Saginaw Bay, just north of the city of Saginaw in central Michigan.

100 Years Old & Played with Babe Ruth

Like...You Know...I...Uh...

...You know, I just couldn't do it...

Caroline Kennedy on her reason for choosing not to take the position of New York Senator.

2009 Reality Hits

There was no big snow. Charlotte was "spared" any tragedy because of it, but to me I would have loved seeing the city very covered with enough snow to hide everything.

We have our new president...only TWO days of this and nasty people like Anne Coulter are on "Doctor" Phil speaking like a drunk woman in church telling off the preacher.
Phil had his cheering minions to applaud in the audience.

Seems money is very tight with absolutely everyone.
Here we are in he reality I seemed to have predicted as early as May and June of last year. 1929--1930 the beginning of the "New Depression."
One man on "Good Morning America" said that the amount of bailout that is being given and has given has failed as seen with the Bank Of America new request for money as the say: "The acquisition of Merrill Lynch was more to the negative side than expected." Ken Lewis CEO of BoA stepped in yesterday and personally bought 200,000 shares of bank stock.
This morning's GMA interview "This puts us back to September 2008. Are we ready for a real bust of the banks? We have only postponed what was happening until now & there is an inevitability that can not be stopped."

Snow for Charlotte

Ah, we have a prediction for about 5 inches of snow to fall on Charlotte tonight. We will wake up to a new world with Barack Obama as our President to be sworn in at Noon tomorrow, January 20th 2009 and Charlotte will have a coverlet of white to mask the scars and open areas of the city.

This will be a beautiful snow.
I look forward to it.

============================"Broken" & "Head Over Heels" Tears For Fears

Broken

Between the searching and the need to work it out
I stop believing everything will be alright
Broken
We are broken
I'm walking uphill being turned around and round
Secret in motion when my feet are on the ground
Broken
We are broken
In my mind's eye
One little boy anger one little man
Funny how time flies.

Head Over heels.

I wanted to be with you alone
And talk about the weather
But traditions I can trace against the child in your face
Wont escape my attention
You keep your distance with a system of touch
And gentle persuasion
Im lost in admiration could I need you this much
Oh, you're wasting my time
You're just wasting time.

Something happens and I'm head over heels
I never find out till I'm head over heels
Something happens and I'm head over heels
Ah don't take my heart
Don't break my heart
Don't throw it away

I made a fire and watching burn
Thought of your future
With one foot in the past now just how long will it last
No no no have you no ambition
My mother and my brothers used to breathe in clean in air
And dreaming I'm a doctor
Its hard to be a man when there's a gun in your hand
Oh I feel so...

Something happens and I'm head over heels

And this my four leaf clover
I'm on the line, one open mind
This is my four leaf clover.

Optimistic Words for 2009

=========================tATu "How Soon Is Now?" tATu

+Mantra+Prayer+Meditation=Transcendence

Bach gave us God’s Word;
Mozart gave us God’s Laughter;
Beethoven gave us God’s Fire;
God gave us Music
that we might pray without words!

Thompson Twins "Hold Me Now"

The extended version of the tune; the best part is the ending when more than one motive is used like a round and are sung in sequence ad libitum to the fade-out.

=====================================1985==

HOW SOON IS NOW

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and i need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Oh, of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and i need to be loved
Just like everybody else does
Oh...oh...

There's a club, if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry
And you want to die

When you say it's gonna happen "now"
Well, when exactly do you mean ?
See, I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone
Oh...oh...

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and i need to be loved
Just like everybody else does,
Ok ?

*The tune is built around a guitar chord that rapidly oscillates in volume. As to how the distinctive resonant sound was achieved,band member Johnny Marr gave the following account to Guitar Player magazine in 1990:
"The vibrato sound is fucking incredible, and it took a long time. I put down the rhythm track on an Epiphone Casino through a Fender Twin Reverb without vibrato. Then we played the track back through four old Twins, one on each side. We had to keep all the amps vibrating in time to the track and each other, so we had to keep stopping and starting the track, recording it in 10-second bursts... We did it in three passes through a harmonizer, set to some weird interval, like a sixth. There was a different harmonization for each pass. For the line in harmonics, I retuned the guitar so that I could play it all at the 12th fret with natural harmonics. It's doubled several times."*

The History of Croquet

Croquet has been traced back to the 1300's. It is thought that it may have been an in-door version of lawn-bowling to be played in times of inclement weather. It was then played in more confined spaces. The players enjoyed it enough to bring it back outside for the summer. Originating in France, the game was called "paille-maille" which means ball-mallet.

During this period in history the French and Scottish were fierce allies, as a result there were certain cultural norms that crossed the channel. One of these was the game of paille-maille. Golfers took it up with the notion that its likeness to golf made it good practice for the great game.

In 1604 the crowns of Scotland and England were united under James VI of Scotland, soon to be known as James I of England. When he moved into the palace in London, he brought with him a paille-maille set as well as a set of golf clubs.

James' grandson Charles II enjoyed the game mightily and played it often in St. James Park. A nearby road was named for the game, "Pall Mall". This boulevard was much frequented by strollers and soon any road conducive to pleasant walks in the city became known as a mall. Modern retailers adopted the name and now call any conglomeration of stores with a covered walkway a mall.

Meanwhile back in France a doctor changed the rules of paille-maille slightly and recommended it for his patients. He called the new game, "Croquet" after the crooked stick used to hit the balls through the wickets. It then migrated to Ireland where it was called "Crooky". From there it came back to England where it supplanted "pall-mall".

Croquet became popular throughout the British Empire. It gained such tremendous popularity that an association was formed at Wimbledon and formal rules were laid down in 1868. Many fields were dedicated to Croquet. But this popularity was to be short-lived. The game of tennis hit England in general and Wimbledon in particular. Most of the croquet fields were turned into tennis courts.

Even so, croquet has survived as a sport and is even gaining in popularity today as a rather high class sport on the level of badminton. On any given day in the summer, people can be found in their back yards or at the local park roqueting to their heart's content. There are associations throughout the English-speaking world where competition is fierce and standards high. This is a game or sport that will continue to be played for fun or sport by all age groups.

Recording Indian Songs

Almost 90 years ago, recording the Seminole songs of the Indian.

Respecting our American heritage...
Respecting the almost gone...
Respecting the natural and fleeting...

Buffalo Nickel=1925=

Elton John 1976 "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"