Monthly archives: February 2009

 

 

Eliminating Mandates?

  • By: Cindy

Time are getting tougher by the day, but the latest idea from several towns in an effort to save money has gotten more than a few people shaking their heads.

Several towns in Connecticut are claiming that nearly $30 million can be saved if the state would eliminate several mandates (or rules and regulations each municipality has to follow) for two or three years just until Connecticut gets back on its financial feet-(Yeah, right-you know once these mandates are “suspended” good luck trying to put them back into place).

One of them is furloughing teachers for a week, thus reducing the school year from 180 days to 175 days. Do these people need to go to rehab? They don’t go to school ENOUGH as it is-now they want to reduce the amount of school days on top of it!! I DON’T THINK SO!!

The toll idea is bad enough, but this is even WORSE!!

When I read about ideas such as this, I am GLAD I AM LEAVING CONNECTICUT NEXT YEAR!! CRIPE, what is going on here??

One of the other mandates some municipalities want to eliminate is the legal notices that have to be put into the paper when a legal decision is made. Oh you know Cheshire will be lobbying for that one!!

I can bet the next step will be the elimination of the minutes and agendas on the town and city websites-Why is Pandora’s box being opened!! This whole thing just sounds like an excuse to violate peoples rights under the guise of ‘financial difficulties.’

Here is the link to the Hartford Courant article

On the subject, I did speak about this issue several months ago-REGIONALIZATION-this has been brought up in Connecticut, with some lawmakers saying that the 169 town setup is straining the state financially.

NPR Podcast on Regionalization in Connecticut

Finally, I DID see the plow go down my street around 4:45  and 9: 05 p.m. on Tuesday plowing the snow that was “supposed to be rain” and it did seem the plow was traveling at a slower rate of speed–good job!!

 

Moving On

  • By: Cindy

I think I made my point with the mailboxes so it is time to move on. HOWEVER, I would like to thank the town of Cheshire for replacing my mailbox with a nice post. This is NOT a temporary.

It is a nice wooden post that I will stain in the spring. I like this mailbox post a lot better than the one my husband had put up. He had what resembled a landscape tie beam and put a white decorative sleeve if you will, over the beam.

I did not like it because it didn’t match our house which is tudor facade NOT WHITE. This new post is nicer-it is plain, but it fits in with the colors of the house. Early Monday morning I heard a beep beep beep. I went to my window and saw the DPW truck with a backhoe removing snow from our curb and carting it away. Then I saw the DPW man take down our cracked mailbox post, and replace it with this nice one. He even left our old wooden beam and put our old black mailbox affixed with new numbers on the mailbox post.

It was a very neat job.

I just hope that the other people whose mailbox posts were shattered got THE SAME TREATMENT!!!

Here is MY new mailbox post-I will be going around town to see if OTHER mailboxes that were ko’ed were replaced.

Now onto another issue–Gov. 860 made her speech. I didn’t hear it-my spouse did-he claims the Democrats won’t go for all of her spending cuts. They probably won’t.

But listen-does ANY state really want to reduce spending. Then unfortunately you have to have concessions from unions, which probably won’t happen either. It is a little disheartening to hear about some people who work for the state making OVER $50,000 a year to ANSWER THE PHONE!! AND THAT IS ALL!!

Oh I forgot, they play solitaire and those other games that come with the computer when you purchase it–tough life isn’t it.

But you can see what is happening-a domino effect. You can’t give one sector, teachers, a 4.4 percent raise as Cheshire did over the next few years and expect the Police Union and the other unions in this town and other towns for that matter, to expect less!! I will be running that step program again for the benefit of the Cheshire Police Department in a few days. This is the same program my husband is participating in-he is also in the union.

Click here for transcript of Gov. Rell’s address

Click here for Ct State Employees Union Video

Also, here is a story I KNOW all you guys out there will like:

“Porn Clip Interrupts Super Bowl For Some Viewers”

The Porn Clip CAN be seen on Youtube and TMZ.com (scroll halfway down).

Could you imagine watching the Town Council meeting and seeing a porn clip for 10 seconds?? I am working on it!! Nothing like the Town Council IN ACTION!!

Anyway, I did want to touch on this video streaming that apparently the Ordinance Committee will discuss this Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in the Town Hall.

I know about this because my friend WHO IS CONSTANTLY READING TIM WHITE’S BLOG, told me about it. So I did want to offer some information on just how to do live video streaming. I WAS thinking about doing this a few years ago, but it never worked out.

So here are a few links to video streaming.

Web Stream Town

Live Streaming Video

How to Stream Live Video

 

Stats

  • By: Cindy

Visits based on day of month (January)

1895
Statistics
3.49
1		 1675
Statistics
3.08
2		 1669
Statistics
3.07
3		 1771
Statistics
3.26
4		 2046
Statistics
3.77
5		 2062
Statistics
3.79
6		 1680
Statistics
3.09
7		 1578
Statistics
2.9
8
 1576
Statistics
2.9
9		 1574
Statistics
2.9
10		 1779
Statistics
3.27
11		 1670
Statistics
3.07
12		 2004
Statistics
3.69
13		 1601
Statistics
2.95
14		 1832
Statistics
15

I have a friend who really likes Tim Whites blog.  Umm, WHY is this person STILL my friend?? She didn’t say she liked MY BLOG!!

She told me Tim ran his statistics on how many hits he gets. She asked me to run mine.

Well it is not that easy because I had to have my son rig a program because believe it or not, WordPress is German and in Germany it is against the law to keep track of IP addresses which of course count towards how many hits one gets on their blog. I am able to see how many actual IP addresses hit my site and from where. It also shows me how many times the same IP address hits the site and what time of day and where the IP address is located.
Now I can’t run the entire statistic area because it is too large, this is just for the first 15 days of Jan. 2009. My son filtered out caches and proxy servers. These are actual HITS from IP addresses  EACH DAY, not including  RIPE or APNIC or that AP server THOSE WERE FILTERED OUT and do not count in these numbers.

In other news: I just happened to be driving down Mt. Vernon Road in Southington Friday night after taking my son skiing at Mt Southington. I decided to drive down that road to see how many mailboxes might have gotten knocked down by the snowplow–do you know how many?  ZERO!!

I HAVE POSTED a short video under FEATURED VIDEO OF THE MAILBOXES ON MT VERNON ROAD IN SOUTHINGTON. TO SEE THE ENHANCED VERSION OF THIS VIDEO-DOUBLE CLICK ON THE SCREEN AND IT WILL TAKE YOU TO MY YOUTUBE SITE.

I HAVE A 38 SECOND CLIP BUT I TRAVELED THE ENTIRE SOUTHINGTON PART OF THIS ROAD AND NO MAILBOXES ARE DAMAGED.  IF YOU DOUBT ME, TAKE A DRIVE AND SEE FOR YOURSELF. MT. VERNON ROAD GOES PAST MT. SOUTHINGTON OFF OF MARION AVENUE.

And speaking of photos and videos I am so excited because I got a new digital camera, a real good one that takes VIDEO with SOUND!! YEA!!! I plan on using this camera a LOT!! You will see what I mean in a few days.

Also, I did e-mail Cheshire Police Chief Michael Cruess with a good idea that is now being implemented by the Hartford Police Department. THEY are putting surveillance video of criminal activity on YOUTUBE!! I suggested this to Chief Cruess when the thefts of those large cutout cartoon characters from the Barker Cartoon Museum on Rt. 10 in Cheshire took place in early January.

The alleged thieves can be seen on a screenshot from surveillance tape. I asked for the tape  a few weeks ago to be put on Youtube so myself and other bloggers could post it and alert the public. I know the chief forwarded my request to Lt. Markella but I did not hear anything, so when I noticed this program by the Hartford Police Department I sent it along to the CPD.

It seems more and more police departments are using this tool.  I believe it is VERY effective and cuts down on crime. In fact, this is how Dog the Bounty Hunter gets his man or woman. He floods the community with photos of the wanted person.

Also, offering a reward is an incentive.  If the reward is high enough, believe me, someone will tattletale!!

The Chief e-mailed me back and said he passed along the suggestion to his Detective Department. I HOPE they implement this program A.S.A. P.!! I will be following up with the Chief on this idea this coming week.

So here is the Youtube Channel the Hartford Police Department has. The music from Dragnet is CORNY and takes away from the seriousness of this site.

click here for Hartford Police Youtube Channel

“Freeze”-You’re on Youtube!!

In closing, here are three words for you to ponder:

High School

Poor Choices

Retirement