marylou

I don't have that kind of time.

My cat is a ferocious killer. If you mess with her, she will kill you. Just ask that cute little bird she took out yesterday. Sherri, I hate to tell you this, but those shoes make your feet look a little, er, big.

Ballard Ale House is an excellent choice. I'm penciling it in on my calendar.

The author posts here, why not contact him?

It's not a challenge, it's a soy product. The carnivores still win here. Sorry.

I'm eating bird tomorrow with Tvashtar, but neither of us are related to her by genetics or marriage. Should be tasty.

Sorry to hear of it, Chirp. How I so do not miss the mean streets of T-town of my youth.

What is often not mentioned with regard to the upper Stehekin is that the NPS has estimated it will cost SIX MILLION dollars to fix the road. That can only take place after Congress votes to adjust the Wilderness boundary to make room for the rerouted road. With very limited exceptions that do not apply in this case, Federal Wilderness boundaries can only be changed through an act of Congress. Funding for the Upper Stehekin would come out of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. That Subcommittee is also charged with funding road repairs elsewhere, such as in the FS land system. Yes, the FS and the NPS are, at Cabinet level, under different departments, but at the congressional funding level, they are not. If there is widespread public support for moving and fixing the upper Stehekin, that will essentially take away 6 million from other projects, such as repairing the road and bridge damage in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie NF. 6 millon would go a very long way there, and most of the MBSNF projects still don't have funding, even many of them from the 2003 flood. What I'm trying to say about the upper Stehekin project is be careful what you ask for. I did not care for Joel Connely's article, I think it further divides us instead of finding ways to bridge the gap between, say, the NCCC, and the WCC or other user groups who use roads to access recreation.

That's a really good point, Bob. I have thought for a long time that there should be some sort of a test that they should give people before they are allowed to drive a car. They would need to show that they could safely operate the car, and then maybe do a written test to show that they understand the rules we have about driving. If that didn't work, they could have law enforcement ticket people for doing things that are unsafe to themselves and others instead of trying to "catch" people speeding. Yes, there's a good reason they won't let me be in charge of anything.

Except for Fern and Murray up north, and the Muffster in the Buffer State down south. Badass, all of them. Don't hate us Washingtonians for being so gul-durned groovy. It's not our fault, we were born this way.

I first met P. Puget in 1985 or 1984, completely outside of any associate trappings of this infernal website. I was but a hot young thing, and Puget was everything I've since come to represent. That's enough for me, I don't need to meet any more of you gapers.

Your Freudian Slip is showing.

Sorry to have been such a blabbermouth last night. It was interesting to see seemingly disparate recreation groups facing a lot of the same problems. I think we have some great opportunities to work together.

I think you're a little naive about how HMOs operate. They don't pay for you to have surgery in Singapore. I saw my ankle surgeon up at GH today and he practically pooped his pants when I told him I'd be picking up 20% of the cost. They keep docs blisfully out of the loop on the nuts and bolts of things like that.

That's true, though the stagehands strike on Broadway may be a watershed moment for my trade's working conditions. We'll see.

I haven't decided yet if I would have had the surgery or not if I'd known about the cost. Wait until I can see the complete results of the work that was done and then I bet I will know the answer. In my case, there was no alternate procedure. The alternative would have been to continue living in constant pain, as I had for 8 years prior to having the work done. That said, I still don't know how the hell I'm going to pay for this.

No. If I wanted to lay blame, I'd blame the 2 guys who got in bad car accidents afer falling asleep at the wheel on their drives home, the guy who had prostate cancer, and the guy who had a hip replacement. They have driven the costs up for our group, so it must be "their" fault. If I wanted to blame "the union" for it, I suppose I could say that rather than negotiating pay freezes for us so we could put that money toward our health care, that they negotiate a pay CUT in order to increase that %. So no, there's not really a way to blame the union for spiraling health care costs. It's our own damn fault for having to use our insurance.

REally? You don't think it's because our insurance group is so small that one major claim can drive premiums up? Oh, okay, I guess I'll try to find a way to blame the union for this.

Here's a little shocker I found out today. I have a full time (union) job with regular benefits etc. I knew that our coverage had been creeping downward incrementally, and that now I have a $500 deductable (actually it was 300 last year so I was surprised) with my HMO insurance. In looking over my bills for the little ankle surgery I had last month, I discovered that I'm now only 80% covered for surgery. All I gotta say is holy shit. I definitely didn't make financial plans for that little surprise. Let this be a lesson to keep track of the erosion of your health care before you get an unpleasant little surprise like the one I got today. Yow.

I'm hoping to make it for the first hour or so. Will the meat and potatoes issues be at the top of the agenda?

Aww, thanks for your concern about my Local's well-being.

Our atty is on retainer, but unless we have a lawsuit going on or something major like that we rarely use him for anything. I do remember his office helping our local to come into compliance with Beck. Busniess Reps generally take care of most of the "legal" stuff, it's not really rocket science to negotiate a labor contract or represent a worker in discipline or termination cases.

Yes pretty much everywhere. It didn't used to be that way but people were so woefully underpaid and overworked that they've all opted to unionize over the years. In many cases wages went up 40- 50% and no one's gone out of business over it. We don't do all the sheds and arenas, but theatres, yes, definitely.

What representation? Can you get a free attorney if you think you've been wrongfully terminated? Can you do this without going to court?

Which workers Jay? It takes a lot of people to run a theatre.