just when you thought it was safe to...

stop thinking about national politics, Sarah Palin pulls another fast one.

She quit her job as Alaska's Mayor...er...I mean, Governor, citing a list of vague reasons, and mostly blaming the media for being hard on her.

Get real lady. You don't get elected president in 2012 by running out on your job in 2009 and blaming the media.

I don't know who will be running for Prez for the GOP next time around, but it won't be you.

Supervisor grade card

As you probably know, the current Mont. Co. School Superintendent is leaving. You can find details in this article that appeared in Sunday's RT.

During her tenure here in the county, Ms. Anderson has met with some serious opposition and ill will from some people in the school system.

I have met with her on a professional basis twice - once in 2006 and again a few months ago, before she announced her impending departure. In both cases, I was impressed with her knowledge, professionalism and involvement. In particular, in our last meeting, she discussed the process by which she found $4 million in budget cuts imposed by the county, without laying off any full-time employees. She involved the schools directly and asked them to cut where they could most afford to, keeping in mind their mission of providing top-quality education to county students. I know that she was shocked when she learned how the system really worked here, and that the school board had so little funding to work with for the amount of economic activity generated in the area. But she said, no matter how much she would have liked the situation to be different in that regard, it was what it was and she was going to do the best she could with what she was given.

I think she did that.

Along the way, just like Ms. Kyle in Radford, she made some decisions that were not popular. But as far as I can see, and in general if you believe what is written in the newspaper, her tenure has been very positive for the school system.

I give her an A.

Winners and Losers

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.

And sometimes it rains.

Anybody know what that's from? One of my favorite movies.

Anyway, the point of the post today is just a strange observation. Since I broke down and purchased a pro account on Flickr, I have been able to review the statistics on my photo stream. I can see which photos have been viewed the most, etc., with just a glance at the statistics page. It's pretty cool.

So, I noticed something interesting. I have over 200 photos posted so far, as well as over 16,000 total views, and every day this demotivational poster (click link to larger version) that I did as a joke for somebody is in the top 5 hits.

I cringe when I think to what use it is being put. But I also cringe when I think that I could have been selling these things, if they are that popular.

Thursday commentary

A previous blog about the comments from Blacksburg Partnership Prez Akers has already been uploaded, so I'll not go into that here.

Two other issues in today's news are noteworthy, both editorials.

First, the article about Boucher's role in pending environmental legislation. I have known the man for a while, and I can't really imagine him leading a negotiation, but my real point here is about the idea that human activity is beyond any doubt responsible for the current apparent warming trend. On my recent trip to Skye, in northwestern Scotland, I remarked to a local about how deserted the place seemed. The local person told me that during the time of the Viking invasions, around 1000 AD, they actually imported cereal grains from Greenland to Scotland. I recalled that Greenland had been much warmer at that time than it is now, but I wasn't sure about his facts. A little research shows that the climate during the 400-500 years around 1000 AD was in fact significantly warmer than today in that region, and that grain crops in far northern countries were actually big business. Check out a little history here. So, at that time the Greenland Ice Sheet was significantly smaller than today, and presumably nobody was driving cars or running factories on coal and oil, so the greenhouse gas generation wasn't coming from us, unless you count the spicy Italian food. So, in spite of the fact that I am all for conservation in general, do we need more laws about it?

Second, there is an editorial griping about how the Mont Co BOS did not solicit citizen input when they selected the new county administrator to replace Clay Goodman, who was stolen in the night by economic development ninjas and is being held captive by the City of Roanoke. Well, whoop-de-doo. Even if they had solicited citizen input, they would have found exactly six people who wanted to speak at a BOS meeting, and only one of those would have had any understanding of what the county administrator even does. Four would have complained about rezoning issues (two for and two against) and one would have asked for bike lanes on 460 bypass. We elect these people to study the issues with the help of the very good staff members and then take care of these sorts of activities for us. Pausing to go through the circus of a BOS meeting, that let's face it, would not have been useful, is nothing but window dressing and placation of the few transparent government police in the community.

Blacksburg restaurant 'evolution'

I hate to keep doing this, but I will have to plug a story in the RT today, about the restaurant scene in downtown Blacksburg. The story is basically about how different establishments in downtown keep going out of business and others open up. It's all basic information about how things work in a college town, except for one statement by Diane Akers, Prez of the Downtown Abandoned Building Partnership.

Speaking about what happens when a new restaurant opens, Diane says "...as one comes in, you can even bring some people that might not have come here before."

Really? From where?

Everybody else in the article pretty much says the opposite. In fact, in the next paragraph, one of the owners of Mike's Grill, the perennial favorite ultimate wonderful non-chain always-busy hamburger palace says that every time a new restaurant opens, it affects all the other restaurants at least for a while as some customers go try out the new place. He just hopes that even if they like the new spot and start eating there, they will still realize that there is no replacement for Mike's Grill, and keep coming back.

So, Prez Diane is a little bit whack in this respect, in my opinion. And I don't mean that in a bad way, that might, for example bring on legal action. I just mean that this is a zero-sum game, and when a new eatery opens up, it just shares the customers with all the other eateries. Even a top-of-the-line gourmet spot, like the Summit in Cburg, which is the best restaurant in the area (cha-ching!) only serves about 20 people per night, so it's not a signficiant draw.

If Prez Diane represents the leadership of the downtown partnership (D-Part, for short, haha), then it's no wonder things are more the way they are now than they ever were before.

I'm just saying.

Possible Career Change?

Did you ever think that sometimes some higher power directs you where to go and what to do? And by 'higher power' I am thinking television advertising or possibly random phone calls.

Which is what happened to me. Random phone message, that is.

Normally, my random phone messages are for some guy name Lewis, who has a girlfriend in Atlanta who just can't remember that she has his cell phone number wrong in her phone list. It's only wrong by one digit, but the result is she keeps calling me and asking,

"So, whatcha dooin?"

I keep saying "Who is this?"

and she says, "Whatcha mean, who is this. Who do you think it is?"

and I say, "I don't know who this is."

and she says, "Quit messin' with me. You know who this is."

and I say, "No, I don't."

and she says, "Stop playin with me. Did you talk to Shirley today? "

and I say, "Shirley who?"

and....well, you get the picture. This happens about every six months until she realizes we had this conversation already, and then apologizes and hangs up.

But today I got a different kind of random phone message. This was from Janice at the Subway Development Corporation. IF you didn't know, the SDC is responsible for creating new Subway shops all over the east coast. They are based in Mclean, VA. Janice was supposedly returning my phone message that I supposedly left for them sometime in the recent past.

Of course, I didn't do that, and this is probably just a wrong number, but it started me thinking. I did a reverse phone number search and learned that the SDC is located right next to Dulles airport, which is where I flew from when I recently went to Scotland. Also, when I was in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the first places I recognized were Starbucks and Subway, which were on every street corner, just like here in the good ol' U S of A.

So, I am thinking this is not a coincidence, but that I am being directed into a new career. Therefore, I am going to open a Subway shop, and I hear there are some empty spaces in Blacksburg. So there you go.

I know they need more sandwich shops in Blacksburg.

Why is Kyle's pay any of your business?

Another tempest in a teapot is brewing in Radford.

Well, to be more precise, the tempest is brewing in the inkpots of a few vociferous correspondents in the region, presumably because they are unhappy that RU President Penny Kyle makes more money than they do.

Summarizing my understanding of the situation at present, the RU Foundation apparently pledged $1 million to keep Ms Kyle on the job. Also, the university gave her a big raise, perhaps in the vicinity of $150,000. And some more perks.

I noticed several letters and columns, such as this one by RT regular gadfly Christian Trejbal, which assert that she is not worth it. Also, a recent letter in the Current from an ex-student at RU essentially says the same thing.

Generally, these comments, including those by RU professors, note that PK doesn't have a background in higher education administration.

Well, generally speaking, neither do any of the complainers, including the RU professors.

Being a RU alumnus doesn't automatically qualify one to pass professional judgement on past, present or future administrations at the university. Neither does being an editorial writer who is not even a local. Nor does, gasp, being an employee of the organization.

Teaching classes at the school is WAY different from running the place. PK was hired with the full knowledge that she intended to make some changes, and the powers that be must be happy with her performance and vision or they wouldn't be trying so hard to retain her.

And to set the record straight, one alumna complained that she didn't like the school spending her tax money to give PK a $1 million bonus. Well, that was the foundation, not the state, so presumably no tax dollars were put to work there.

As for the RU professors who have spoken out, and especially one socialist who bled all over the virtual pages of a certain leftward web publication, here's a tip. Your main complaint seems to be that PK didn't consult with you enough before making decisions. As if you had to be consulted. Get over yourselves.

Faculty have a cushy life. You guys are apparently complaining because in your eyes, PK has found a better cushy life than you and you are jealous. So now you want to threaten PK with your little tantrums, with the implication that she will lose her valuable faculty if she doesn't pay more attention to you. Well, that can work, if any of the faculty have such high reputations that their loss would mean irreplaceable harm to the university.

I'm just saying.

Sprucing up downtown

According to an article in the RT/Current this morning, Blacksburg's downtown revitalization committee has been busy cleaning up empty storefronts in the town, apparently for free. The working theory seems to be that if you clean up these empty spaces and put nice posters in the windows, potential renters will ignore the high rent and poor condition of the buildings and line up to fill them with new businesses.

Well, nothing else seems to be working, so maybe it's worth a shot, no matter how insane the idea seems on the surface. In fact, I'd like to test this theory in a very controlled experiment. I know of a space that's been underutilized and kept pretty messy and embarrassing for years. It could use a good cleaning out, and if these folks could just add it to their list of projects, we can see if their theory pans out. Susan Anderson, please contact me regarding scheduling this cleanup.

I need time to run over and move my car out before you get there.