Vegetable garden revamp

I thought it was time to redesign the garden a bit. I planted some stuff in the front one. The rate I am getting things done, it could be June before I have everything planted. This is what it looked like last year:

This was the plan last year.

50K River Run Done

Sarah leading the way. We stayed together the whole 31 miles.

I saw parts of Riverside State Park that I never knew existed. At one point we were all over Deep Creek, up on the rocks, down in the creek bed. Very cool. Lots of big hills in the first half.

Eventually, we realized we could walk up the hills about as fast as running up them, so we did. Took in lots of water, Heed and potatoes at every water stop. Tripped and fell down twice without injury, just a lot of rolling around, which actually felt pretty good at miles 28 and 30. My back was kind of stiff, and the impacts and subsequent thrashing about seemed to help.

This is probably the best run race I have ever participated in. Very well marked except for one spot near the end where some prankster had obviously removed the arrow. Nothing funnier after running 5 plus hours.

We took a breather midway and I changed my socks. Ike came up and told us he had placed First overall in the 10k. That was amazing and we talked a lot about that over the next 15.5 miles.

Beautiful day and a very great time with beautiful Sarah!

Campaign Bike Rides Again....

It had good luck in the last presidential election, and then again defeating Tim Eyman's most recent kookoo plot.

The EMS levy has been approved, every six years, since 1980. It funds a big chunk of the fire department. The cost continues to be 50 cents per $1000 of home value or $50 per year per $100,000 of home value. If it's not approved, in January we will probably lose about a third of our firefighters and three to five of our 14 fire stations would have to be shut down. Also, insurance premiums would increase.

The other option if it doesn't pass, I suppose, would be to severely cut into other city budgets to keep Spokane's fire department going. That would not be good either. Studies show that people's choice to live in a city is based on public safety, quality of life and educational opportunities.

Compared to other departments in the state, Spokane's citizens get a lot of bang for their buck. We've got the busiest engine in the state and the department's call volume is huge. Here's a link that shows how Spokane's citizens' tax dollars are used compared to other cities.

Back in the 80s, there were over 80 firefighters on duty every shift. When I was hired, over ten years ago, we were pushing 70 on duty. Now we are in the 50s. And over this time, our call volume has doubled. The EMS Levy enables us to continue operating in this mode.

If you are interested, here is a link to the YES EMS website.

Thanks for listening to my shameless plug.

Back from San Diego.

Man, San Diego was great - except everyone, where we stayed, rode their bikes on the sidewalk! I was a visitor, so I didn't scream at them. In fact, I don't think I have ever been more mellow.

80 degrees our first day there.

Our hotel was on a thin peninsula with a large, sheltered bay on one side and the ocean on the other. Mission Beach was nice.

If California is broke, I think we could use a little of that "brokeness" here in our state. Things were hoppin'. The only political bumper sticker that I noticed was this one and it related brokeness as well:HINT: If you want to "Tell Barack I'm Baroke" you may want to get a different car that reflects your barokedness. I see that you drove down to Seaworld ($60 a pop, plus tax, plus parking) with your family from Colorado for Spring Break in a new Yukon. I am sorry. Is there anything I can do to help you (beside talking to Barack)?

I am beginning to thing that "being broke" is not what I thought it was.

Addendum 4/3/10 - Aidan found this link which may explain more about the Baroke Obama concept.