Tar and Feathers and Pitch Forks

If I ran True Value I would stock up on tar and feathers and pitch forks. Seems (to nobody's surprise) that everyone wants to fix infrastructure . . UNTIL, it's their street and they have to pay for a portion of it.  

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Seems Sundays cold front was a phenomena and has a name. 

One small thing was this did not REALLY come off the lake but after finding some more articles it's not a 100% lake driven thing.  Most Wisconsin people know this when we go to Miller Park and find out it's 30 degrees cooler.  

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Some sort of voting today - do it.  But remember, only one candidate says he will abolish the IRS and get rid of all of those nasty Environmental Protection "rules" AND, give the rich a 20% tax break so they can help the poor.  Vote with your heart and not your brains.    

I will literally be glued to my TV tonight, and when I say literally be glued  I mean it will be on and I'll be multi tasking probably with a baseball game on.  

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The NEW CDA had a meeting last night which, for the first meeting in a long time was fruitful and confidence is high.  Found out that the OLD CDA gave the OK for a $30,000 loan to Hydro Street which probably would have been paid off.  But the City Council at the time (no members on the current Council were on that one Council)  decided an extra $50,000 was OK.  Should have listened to the CDA which basically disbanded after that. 

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Yesterday was the first time in MLB history that two teams had their starting pitcher batting 8th in the line-up.   Brewers are already making their mark.  

OH - there was a basketball game last night.  I hear it was exciting.  Meanwhile I was watching the Cubs in a 6-0 game.  OOPS!  I forgot about the basketball game.  DAMN IT!  

OH - I think Philadelphia has one of the prettiest ball parks in the Majors . . .at least when I play MLB The Show16.  

And my umpire buddy.  '16 now has 20 home plate umpires each with his real life tendencies.  For instance 

 Mike Fillmore -calls inside strikes vs lefties  

Clyde Washington - Low Strikes and known for wide zone (and everybody hates him).

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and finally - my favorite kind of art is what Norman Rockwell did and when I went to Washington DC I knew the trip was more of a meet and greet (two thoughts in one sentence - must be a name for that).  I took a crap load of photos in DC but knew when I got home I would have a better idea of what I missed.

What I missed were people shots.  I'll have to work on that.

ANYWAY - This is one of my favorite pieces that no one really looks at.   It was taken at The Harmony Bar and Grill and I call it "Harmony".   If I was not obsessed with making millions of dollars I would only do this kind of art . . . . wait . . . I have not made a million yet so maybe I should concentrate on what I like.

Harmony

Have a great Tuesday. 

OPENING DAY

WOW - this week blows for weather - I give it a D+.  In fact looking farther out I see rain in 7 of the next 10 days which is NOT what the farmers want to see.  They would rather have a drought to begin the season. To get the crops IN and then to make whatever they planted send it's root down to get water as opposed to spreading OUT.

This last weekend was REALLY interesting. Saturday Elwood and I were attempting to do some landscaping (the water tower wall is doing well - we're going to put in some veins of color next).  We have a part in our patio that was out of the wind and warms up nicely IN SUN but there were nine concentric bands of heavy snow squalls with bright sun in between.   

Look at what the temps did Saturday as the day went on.  The top red line was all over the place as the bands flew by. The green dew point line kept going lower and lower. 

Then Sunday the weather was windy and kept getting warmer and warmer . . .UNTIL . . the cold front went through 

We went from 67 at 6:15 to 42 at 7:15

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BTW - I'm running for alderman so if you have a chance and see my name on your ballot put a check mark next to "Melotte"  Thank you.  I'm also pro Andy Traxler. I normally do not "support" candidates because I think I actually hurt their chances . . . sorry Andy but I gotta go with my heart on this one. Good luck buddy, your a good honest person and we (I) want fresh excited people in office to help Columbus continue to move forward (which we really are).

Two years ago I said I believe Columbus was like a heavy train that was just getting moving.  Now two years later I feel that train has picked up some speed, with many housing starts, a number of businesses opening and a few on the horizon that are getting the details worked out and plenty of road construction.  In fact this summer is the opening volley for what could be a big 5 years in road construction.  We're even starting to talk about a total reconstruction of Hwy89 now in teh next 5 years.

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It is so awesome how Wisconsin is the tip of the spear and politics and it's all about Wisconsin for 2 more days.

The science polls are all out and disagreeing with each other.  On one hand you have Nate Silvers Poll-Plus which rank polls and take other data into account and back testing is 7% better then just looking at raw poll numbers.

RAW poll has Sanders with a 65% chance of winning Wisconsin while Poll-Plus has Clinton with a 52% chance to win.  blah blah who cares. 

The GOP is the real fighting ground where they have said Wisconsin is the front line for stopping Trump which is weird since he is the Republican front runner.

WE MUST STOP WHAT WE HAVE SPENT THE LAST 7 YEARS CREATING! 

Polls ONLY has Cruz with a 88% chance to win and Polls-Plus has Cruz with a 95% chance which personally is too bad since I am more afraid of Cruz then Trump (as if either can win the National Election). 

The NEXT Primary is New York in 2 weeks where Clinton has a 92% or 96% chance to win and Trump has a 99% or a 96% chance to win.  

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It's OPENING DAY - I COULD be sitting 10 rows back behind the Brewer dugout today . . . . but then I agreed to be at the CDA meeting tonight so . . . . the city comes first.  

    

This year the CUBS have a legitimate chance to go all the way. They had a REAL good team last year and their off season was GREAT.  The Cubs are really good. 

Brewers?  Not so much. HOWEVER - even though they are in a complete rebuild - they are still better the Cincinnati who are straddled with long term contracts and are "rebuilding" like the Brewers used to, sort of half ass-wise wishy washy. 

The over under for the Brewers is when will they trade Lucroy.   I'm looking forward to this 162 game experiment to see what stars will come out and show themselves.  Brewers have the 9th best farm system according to Baseball America.

Major League Baseball is mirroring the PGA.  The PGA has a lot of young stars coming out and MLB has a LOT of future Hall of Famer's showing up. There are so many amazing twenty year old's in baseball all of a sudden.   Mike Trout, Bryce Harper (23 years old, hit .330 with 42 HRs and walked 124 times) to name a few. 

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OH - there is a basketball game tonight.  zzzzzzzz  sorry - I just can't get into NCAAB unless the Badgers are in it.  zzzzzzzz

There were 276,000 pre-ordered Tesla's.  I am not one of them.  Why get a Tesla when I can get a Saturn Outback instead. We shall see what car will have the most lifetime miles.  My Outback is at 240,000 and getting it's ORIGINAL breaks done today.  I THINK they are original. I got the car at the 110,000 point and I don't think the previous owner had new breaks and I know I have not put any on.

Five years ago my battery went dead and I asked the AAA guy if he could tell how old the battery was.  He said " This is the original battery, how many miles do you have on this" I said 190,000.   

I'll need to get my first oil chance soon I think. Every 250,000 miles for new oil should keep it running for a while  :-)    

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“Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice” saw a 68% drop from week one which is the 5th biggest drop for a movie that opened above $100 mil.  Friend of mine saw it and was disappointed.  A LOT of action.

That is the problem now with movies.  The action is SO amazing that it is no longer amazing.  I was watching "Nothing but Trailers" a few weeks ago and they showing action thrillers and I saw the same "new" action sequence in two movies.  Perhaps we need more actual plot??

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Sicario

I watched Sicario staring Emily Blunt.  I thought the plot was totally something else and if I would have known it was NOT about a team trying to get a drug lord, I would have liked it better.

Sicario means Hit Man.  It's all I'm going to say.  I really liked the movie but I kept waiting for Blunt and team to go after the bad guy.  And really - she is not even the star. She is the famous person in the movie but it's really not about HER at all.  It's about Sicario.

Still - if you like action shoot at the bad guy movie - it's pretty good.

VOTE TOMORROW!



 

Swing Away

I hope everyone saw Columbus resident Lori Hackman on Beyond The Tank Tuesday night and she was featured again on CH27.

Beyond The Tank: Oilerie's Sun Prairie store featured tonight on ABC's primetime show

Pretty nifty how many Columbus events get on National media.

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Something I have heard recently in the last few years is how baseball is a dying sport.  Even National talking heads say it . . . yet attendance in baseball games has never been higher and Spring Training games are pushing records.   Last year MLB attendance was the 7th highest ever.  Per team the league average 0.4% more then 2014 and this include the Phillies who had a 24% drop last year.

Baseball is dying?  I think not.

I read the Baseball Prospectus article about the Brewers - rather disappointed overall but one thing was hammered in - Bob Melvin was a hack and the reason the Brewers have sucked for so long.

Seems he disliked Walks and did not consider them useful in the overall.  Swing away Merrill, swing away.  It might have worked in one of my all time favorite movies, Signs,  but not for The Brewers.


Now we have Robert Stearns (? is that his name?), a SABR stat geek and I am REALLY looking forward to the next decade of Brewers.

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Did I mention that Saturday's weather is REALLY REALLY going to suck? And Sunday we could hit 60 and Monday is REALLY going to suck but not as bad as Saturday?  What a yo-yo we are going to be on.   45 and showers today, 39 and snow showers Saturday, 58 and party sunny Sunday and 36 Monday.  WHOO HOO!

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Facebook - Seems Facebook is now only for old people.  One young person was asked if they used Facebook and she replied "I don't have a typewriter".   DJ was watching a few things online and the people said how to get in touch with them and Facebook was not one of the social media outlets used.

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Glad I'm not on THIS season Survivor - yet another person had a medical emergency.  For the first time ever Jeff Probts had a house call after seeing how many infections the contestants were getting - OMG it was ugly.  One was so bad they pulled the guy from the game.  This has been a brutal season from worms getting into one woman's year to three contestants all going down within 5 minutes from heat exhaustion and now with so many having scrapes that are getting infected . . . it's been rough.

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That's all I seem to have as I started multi tasking and forgot all about the blog  LOL