Tag: NextDoor

Thirstdaz Theme Music

It’s a sunny but pale blue sky heavy with chilly hair outside my windows. Sunshine coats the rooms but the heating system works against the tilting, spinning, revolving Earth’s travel through space. It’s gettin’ colder here. Winter is on the way. 42 F today, 52 F is our high after a night of light rain.

Power outage struck at ten fifteen PM. It was to last three hours. Social media kept us informed. No, not the city, or emergency services, or the power company, or any official outlet. Those were mute. This was off hours, don’t you know? Nobody works on social media for any city org during night’s darkness. Nope, it was neighbors on FB and NextDoor sharing where power was out, the probable cause and the city’s estimate for when it would be back up. One had learned the last by calling the power company. Overall, we all refrained from calling the company because we knew it was a wide outage and we knew they were busy. But we hungered for information. Social media filled that gap.

The Neurons have “Breakdown Dead Ahead by Boz Skaggs going in the morning mental music stream. This is in direct response about 1) stories of Trump losing his grip (along with tangential questioning about who will run the GOP with Trump gone) and 2), the fucked-up place where We the People stand. Thanks to the Roberts Court, Project 2025, aided in some part by the super wealthy who own media chains and outlets, we’re drifting further and further from a nation of equality and freedom. A twisted form of ‘Christianity’ is being given a pass to the detriment of other religions. Prices are rising, affordability is falling, and the regulations which worked to give us fresh air and water and healthy food choices are being shoved aside.

Meanwhile, yes, since the Trump Epstein shutdown has ended, and the Trump files — sorry, it was a slip — the Epstein files are being released. CNN has pointed out the massive loophole to that. Basically, anything ‘under current investigation’ is exempted from being released. And who makes that call? The Trump AG and DOG. That loophole aligns with the suspicion many of us carry that the Trump Regime will not let the full truth out and will protect Dizzy Donny. As my wife summarizes in her succinct way, “Oh, we knew it was going to be dirty.”

The truth of what happened with the four smirkers is still out there, waiting to be uncovered.

I’ve checked the front and back entries. No peace and grace out there. Don’t know when they’ll show. They haven’t been answering my outreach. Tried emails, texts, phone calls, and there’s nothing. It’s like the Trump Regime has disappeared peace and grace. Meanwhile, I comfort myself with hot, black coffee. Okay, here we go, boiz and gurlz. Cheers

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Mundaz Wandering Thoughts

Call it first world blues. Again.

The annual property taxes bill arrived in the mail.

Normally a mild-mannered but curmudgeonly individual since I was young, the tax bill brought out my dour side.

I vented to my wife. “Our real market value declined by nine thousand but the assessed value increased by two. The land increased in value but the structure’s value plopped by a few thousand. Yet, the tax has increased a few hundred dollars.”

Used to the annual rant, my wife nodded in feigned sympathy and fed me some new irritation fuel. “That’s so we can pay our city manager their ridiculous salary.”

Yes, we’re in an Ashlandia uproar over the city manager’s compensation. She doesn’t live in Ashland, and makes 226K a year after a 30K pay raise. Total compensation pushes her package close to 400K a year. She earns more than any other city manager in the area, yet there is a general impression among the hoi polloi that things in the city are going in the wrong flippin’ direction. Fer instance, while the city manager and other ‘managers’ were given raises, the city laid off maintenance and office people and cut back services. Like, WTF, over?

I pointed out to my wife, though, “The city manager’s pay doesn’t come out of this. This is the county’s tax bill.” I then read her the itemized list of bond issues we’re supporting in our $6200 tax bill (with discounts for paying it on time and in full in November). Most of it is for the Ashland School District. Yet, Ashland Schools needed a $890,000 donation to make ends meet.

This all does not computer. Our house was built in 2005. Three bedrooms, two baths. Almost 1900 square feet, it’s not large or fancy, all on just under a quarter acre of land.

On the other hand, I reminded myself. I have a decent house and life. I can afford to pay these taxes when it will strain others.

Ranting is in me, though. I’ll rant, let it go, pay it, and move on. Then, though the subject came up in NextDoor. Multiple people turned out to have the same opinion as me about the subject. Reading their comments validated my opinions and insights. Thus comforted, I slept well.

For the record, here’s more about the donation to the school district from last week. Cheers

Kelly Clarkson Is Amazed By $1 Million Anonymous Donor Who Saved Oregon School District

Ashland School District in Oregon was facing an $8 million deficit last year, until an anonymous donor stepped in with a nearly $1 million donation to save teachers’ jobs and student programs. Kelly meets superintendent Dr. Joseph Hattrick, executive director of the school district’s foundation Erica Thompson, as well as students Soren and Grace and teacher Paul, who share how the community came together to thank the donor. Watch till the end for another huge surprise for the Ashland School District from Scholastic and Kelly!

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Do You Want to Connect

Daily writing prompt
Do you remember life before the internet?
View all responses

Life before the net. Do I remember those dark, soulless days? Oh, yeah. I remember those days, just as I recall life without the world wide web, life without cable and DVDs, life without CDs, eight-track and cassette tapes, life without microwaves, and life without cell phones and more than three networks. I remember life without remote controls, which my wife calls, the clicker.

Yes, I remember buying my first personal computer. I remember using the first one at home. Then I recall signing us up for Compuserve and Mindnet. I remember getting my first email address and having no one to email. That soon changed. Viagra offers quickly found my inbox. With it came an understanding of something non-meaty called ‘Spam’ and wealthy Nigerians in need of money.

Yes, I remember pre-net life. Primarily because our TV schedule was fixed according to the cable schedule. Cheers on Thursday, for example. But when the net came into its full flowering, I was able to find a huge variety of things to stream from around the world, watching them when I wanted, instead of waiting for their schedule. Long as I was willing to pay for it.

With the net, the days of going to the front door and looking for the daily newspaper disappeared. There was no need for all that inked paper to stack up and get put out for the trash. Now the news was right there online. I didn’t need to wait until 6 PM to check to see what was happening. Of course, information about what was happening locally soon began fading. We could no longer just pick up the paper and turn to the police log to see what the hell the sirens were all about the other day. No, that faded. Now, there are sometimes stories on Facebook or Nextdoor. Some others are struggling to bring the local news back to us. It’s a challenge. Many efforts arise and fall.

Freedom came with online ordering, too. I no longer needed to prowl through brick and mortar stores, making comparisons, trying to figure out what to buy. Boom, the net was heavy with choices. It was still onerous in the early days to compare things but then came Amazon… Suddenly, whoa. It was a desperate consumer’s dream.

Do you know what it was like to travel in pre-net days? Calling the airlines to get price checks, listening to them look up schedules for you, explaining options? Same with hotels. Expedia and the like made it easier…for a while. But wherever money and humans are involved with money transactions and information, others are there to scam us for their share of the pie.

Yes, I remember life before the net. It was simpler and harder, easier, and more problematic. That’s how it always is with progress. Each step unfolds with new and surprising insights, and the things we used to do begin to fade.

Just think: one day, people will be asking, do you remember life before AI?

And someone will reply, I remember the days before cars. And then we’ll all wonder, what was that like, and turn to AI for the answer.

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Thurzda’s Theme Music

Pop, pow, sunshine has laid out winter. Sprinter holds Ashlandia in its palm and leans hard toward spring. Blooms and blossoms and things are cropping up on trees as life feasts on the strong sunshine. Current temperature is 58 F and the weather ‘they’ say we’ll punch in over 68 F by the day’s completion. Cool beans.

Papi the ginger blade, aka Meep and Butter Butt, loves the sunshine but seems a little perplexed by its presence. Circumstances have promoted him to the only floof in the house, meaning he is also number one floof. He’s still adjusting to his duties but has taken to sleeping in every chair and surface he can find. It’s like he’s stating, “This is mine, and this is mine, and that’s mine, too.”

My wife and I were chatting this morning. She was indulging in her ritual doomscrolling and worrying that she’s in a news bubble. share the concern. Trying to ensure I’m not, I chased down online newspapers in Des Moines, Bismark, Santa Fe, and Tempe to peruse their samples. They mostly focused on local news stories. Only one mentioned PINO Trusk and DOGE. Most said little about politics in general. Interesting. They do seem like the sort of newspaper my wife is constantly bucking for in Ashlandia, a local site focused on local issues, just telling us what’s happening in the community, like why the firetrucks raced down the road with sirens screaming. We rarely get that sort of info these days, unless someone in the known takes to social media such as Reddit, Facebook, or NextDoor to tell what happened.

I have a 1981 R.E.M song, “Sitting Still”, rocking the morning mental music stream. I think The Neurons directed its playing because of the sense that we’re sitting still, waiting for the fall out from the Great Shitsorm of 2025 and the Great Undoing. I’m personally searching for validation of how I was taught the world works from A-Z, including the economy and features like supply and demand, inflation, and tariffs, and the Federal government and its systems of checks and balances. News about angry constituents at GOTP townhall meetings keep my interest piqued: many people are pissed off about what they’ve seen happening — or so it’s reported in my bubble. The GOTP response is to not hold meetings to hear what the people are saying. I’m sort of amused and intrigued whether this tactic can and will hold, especially if cuts to Medicaid are initiated. So I’m sitting still, waiting for results.

Fer instance, eggs. The price of eggs was a big deal in the 2024 elections. Now, The price of eggs is expected to skyrocket by more than 40% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Meanwhile, the PINO Trusk cuts have reached home with several friends in Ashlandia. They were planning river trips. To use the rivers, passes are required. To limit the number of passes, a lottery system is used. The Federal government runs the lottery. With the PINO Trusk cuts, there is now no one to run the lottery.

Well, coffee has signed a treaty with me to provide energy. I’m going with it while coffee still exists and is affordable. Hope your day is strong in many good ways. Cheers

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