Another morning with no morning swim.
Changing the subject from not swimming to tolls.
This morning I read that in a day or two an automatic toll system is going to go into effect, charging vehicles to cross the 520 Floating Bridge from the Seattle side of Lake Washington to the Redmond side.
When that Floating Bridge first opened a toll was charged until the cost of the bridge was paid off. This did not take too long, and then it was free to cross.
The new toll being charged to cross the 520 Floating Bridge will help pay for the replacement bridge, set to open in 2014. Over $1 billion of the over $4 billion cost of the 520 Floating Bridge project is expected to be paid by the tolls.
This had me thinking. How bizarre. In the Seattle zone a toll on a Floating Bridge is going to generate more money than the entire current projected cost of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle.
Methinks maybe some money could be raised to help pay for the TRV Boondoggle by charging a toll to cross the non-signature bridges that will span the Boondoggle's un-needed flood diversion channel.
Changing the subject again from tolls to the Christmas Tree Caper.
Someone calling him or herself Anonymous made an interesting anonymous comment about what s/he calls a "Clumsy Christmas Tree Caper"....
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Don Young Clears Up The Controversy Over His Tandy Hills Christmas Tree Cutting":
I think most people believe that Don Young is generally a Force for Good in the Tandy Hills. Even as the author of one of the sarcastic comments about his clumsy Christmas tree caper, I don't doubt his fondness for the park. But posting that picture on the Tandy Hills Facebook page was magnificently, hyper-egotistically, dumb - and I think it provides sufficient excuse for any amount of nose-tweaking which therefore results. You can't post a picture of yourself dragging a freshly killed Christmas tree across a publicly-owned nature preserve and expect an avalanche of warm fuzzies in return. Fortunately, here on the intertubes, any deed, good or bad, seldom goes unpunished.
Wanna cull trees? Fine - do it in an official, managed, boring way, preferably without enjoying it at all. Don't gather up the kids, grab an axe and go traipsing into a public park looking to murder an evergreen for Christmas. And especially, for Santa's sake, don't post evidence.
Methinks "Clumsy Christmas Tree Caper" has a much better ring to it than "Tandy Xmas Treegate Scandal." Adding "gate" to a scandal has been done to death.
I agree with "Klutzy/Clumsy Christmas Tree Caper." Don Young sounds a little disingenuous. No, a lot disingenuous.
ReplyDeletePlus, I'm jealous. I would also like to harvest a free invasive juniper Christmas tree species prairie tree of my own. That would be the cat's meow. How about opening harvesting to the rest of us in 2012. I would even pay to do so.
PS- why did you buy the sour cream on the outward bound of your walking trip rather then inbound? The timeline is murky and these things fret me.
Anonymous, my intended inbound route was not going to go by Krogers, hence the outbound sour cream purchase. Had I realized I would return to civilization by Krogers I would have bought the sour cream at the inbound end part of the ordeal.
ReplyDeleteI think your Christmas Tree Sale as a Tandy Hills fundraiser is an excellent idea. Two birds with one stone. Get rid of pesky invasive species and raise money. Of course, the Godfather of the Tandy Hills would need to monitor the harvesting to make sure only the bad trees were murdered.