Blood Moon

Wake up, get outta bed, drag a comb across my. . . . no wait . . I don't do the comb thing  . . never mind.

2:00 this morning I wish I would have taken this photo but MY attempt fell short.  HOWEVER, my nephew in Texas was more successful.

My attempts were problematic as I still had a slice of moon which was brilliant white and with the darker red moon the contrast was just too much for my sensors.  So, I have a plan for October 8th (a Wednesday night/morning) and I'll have something really cool planned for the NEXT Blood Moon.

Learned a few things.
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City Council Meeting tonight! 

1. Election of Council President
2. Mayor Appointments to commissions and boards
3. Presentation of Service Plaque to Bill Breuing CFD
4. Proclaim Arbor Day
5. Take Action or not, on Hospital Bonding Request
6. Take Action or not, on Conditional Use Permit for Sentry/Hardware Store *(1)
7? reads like #6
8.Lots of Room Tax requests
13. Approve Waste-water's repair of their hydro excavating machine
14.Approve or not, of purchasing a used Street Sweeper for a cleaner downtown *(2)
15. US Census Bureau's Consolidated Boundary and Annexation Survey
16.Senior Center Advisory Board Ordinance fix (age discrimination thing)
17. Approve or not, A Resolution in Opposition to Eliminating the Tax Exempt Status of Municipal Bonds.
18. Approve or not, Economic Development & Marketing asst Position
19. Approve or not, an operators licenses
20. Approve claims for a lot of money
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Council of The Whole (basically NEW business)

6. review/recap Intercity Snowmobile trails
7. recommendation by Parks and Rec to set aside $ from rentals for maintenance of Pavilion and Rest Haven
8. Creation of a Columbus Tourism Commission to handling ALL Room Tax $$ without Council approval
9. Founders Day Ordinance giving all city employees a day off with pay
10. Primary elections
11. Employment agreement for City Pool Manager
12. CSS Task force (hiring a Consultant with knowledge for 16/60 Strategic Plan)
13. Contract with Carrico Aquatic Resource for Chem management for pool
14. Consideration of a subcommittee for review website
15. Secret meetings
go home

Melvil Dewey and his system

A little rain this weekend in Columbus.  1.35 inches Saturday and 2.37 inches yesterday for a whopping total of  3.72 inches of precip.  Still no "day of the worms" yet.

Seems every year there is one day when all the worms come out of the soil covering the roads and sidewalks so you drive to work by killing thousands of squishy worms.  Robins must love that day.  A Robin Thanksgiving.

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Pet peeve whine of the day - Justified.  GREAT show.  I was watching the season finale' and the DVR did not record the final 10 minutes.   DAMN IT. So it was on again Saturday night and I had the DVR set to record it.  Well, of COURSE the storm came and I AGAIN, missed the last 10 minutes when the sat went dead.

OK OK - It's on On Demand.  So I recorded it and guess what - NO FAST FORWARD!!    sigh!!
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Had a meeting with Eric the Water & Light czar and I gotta tell ya, I was not offered a fresh glass of water OR a cup of electricity.  I'm wondering if this is all a front.  I didn't even see a bubbler in the building.

I suppose the first thing out of my mouth should not have been "Why the hell do we pay so much for water!!"  At which point I was expecting to have water thrown in my face but . . . . . too expensive to waste? (notice I did not complain about electricity).

In reality this whole "water is too much" is silly.  Is it more expensive then other towns?  YES, but not by THAT much and factor in that we do not have to have a water softener or buy salt.  The reason for soft water in Columbus is unknown but it started back in the 1950s and no it has nothing to do with birds.

Our water is extremely hard in Columbus which is great for dark beer and horrible for light colored beer.  But I digress.

Many people will be surprised that Water & Light is NOT a government organization but more like the Post Office, a separate entity that is sort of hired by the city. A community owned utility and they gave Columbus about $450,000 last year, 6% of the City's total revenue.  They are the largest tax payer in Columbus.

The one thing that needs to be stressed is that Columbus has a very fast On-Site Response time, we have our own people on site within 8.7 seconds . . . well, that is the goal at least, your time may very depending on a number of factors.

Today I will tour the Department of Fire hoping I will at least get to see what an uncontrolled fire looks like and perhaps take a truck for a spin and wear a hat.

I also need to talk to Davis about DPW and The Chief to tour the Police Department.  I had a tour of the Senior Center last year and perhaps the library could give me a run down on the Dewey Decimal System which was named after Melvil Dewey.

Before Melvil's brilliant idea libraries put books in a permanent shelf location in order of when they acquired the book, not by subject but they were shelved by date.

In 1876 Mr. Dewey published a pamphlet titled  "A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library." and in March 1876, he applied for, and received copyright on the first edition of the index.   

Could you see going to a library looking up a book and then looking for the June 1976 shelf?

WELL, there ere many people that did not appreciate Melvils system because of it's complexity and limited scope of "scheme-adjustment".  In particular, the arrangement of subheadings has been described as archaic and  being biased towards an Anglo-American world view.  That's what Americans do, it's all about us.

Some libraries, particularly in Arizona are switching to the  Book Industry Standards and Communications (BISAC) system which is used in bookstores.

Fascinating.
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How about those Brewers!  YIKES!  The last time they won this many in a row was . . . . . LAST YEAR . . . . IN APRIL!! And then they went on to win 5 of the next 21 games.

Ride the streak and enjoy it while you can. 

   

Sleep

Looks like my Columbus Connects link did not "take" yesterday.  I'll see if this works.

Columbus Connects is a Facebook page which shares information on local events, happenings, meetings, elections, news, and more for the city of Columbus WI
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I received my sleep study results from the UW Sleep Cohort  . . . study.

Seems I'm an 85% efficient sleeper which is normal.  In my study I have 5 periods of REM sleep which is also normal in a nights sleep but I was only in REM for 49.5 minutes total and they would like to see 90 minutes.  Well,  take those damn wires off me and I would sleep better.      

Have you ever woken up from a deep sleep and you are like paralyzed?  You are half awake but cannot move? You will yourself to roll over but your body is not paying attention?  It's because you woke up in REM sleep.  Your limbs actually ARE paralyzed.  In REM sleep blood flow to the brain increases and your body temperature and breathing rate also increases. But at the same time large muscles are virtually paralyzed and your arms. legs and trunk can not move. 

The good news is that I never stopped breathing.   It took 9.5 minutes to fall asleep and my first REM was 129 minutes later.      

My cardio study was fascinating and contrary to popular believe I do have blood flowing to my brain. 

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The Broadway Theater Group attended the 2014 League of Historic American Theater Conference in Chicago.  There were two presentations on fundraising and another one with an excellent perspective on the advantage of operating a historic theater and then a tour of the renovated Uptown Theater of Chicago.

Well done.

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The DOT is holding a public information meeting on the James Street project at the Columbus Middle School in the multipurpose room. The meeting will take place from 4:30 to 7:00 pm. It is an opportunity for the public to see the initial design and plans for the new roadway. Engineers and project managers related to the project will be on hand to present information and answer questions.

I think there are two major things happening.  The actual construction of the road and the revitalization of the downtown which I will be involved with. I vision is to keep the historical aspetc of Columbus but update to get rid of that "old and tired" label.   


Construction is currently planned for 2017. WIS 16-60, James Street through the USH 151 Interchange area is planned to be reconstructed. The project will include a new pavement structure, intersection improvements, bike and pedestrian improvements, and storm sewer upgrades. This project is not anticipating any new right-of-way needed for construction. The existing USH 151 overpass structures are to remain in place. Construction is currently planned for 2021.

The above meeting is the construction part, what are the problems we will have and so forth.   I urge all residents to stop in and take a look at what is going down.  
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