02/01/2002:
It's hard to believe it's already February. Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, maybe he'll see his shadow and decide to finally have some winter, considering how very little of it we've had to date. The snowdrops are already out in force at the great garden house between Busey and Lincoln on Nevada, I see shoots by the half-underground apartment window on Nevada by Coler (that apartment, in spring, looks out at eye level on crocuses and daffodils, which must be great) and I've got shoots coming up in my garden as well. Also in my garden though I noticed yesterday looking out my window that the vinca is mostly dead. That had me worried - why is mine all soggy and brown and dead but other places theirs is fine? I was thinking maybe it got too wet or it had some odd disease or what, but then I realized - duh, it's been trampled to death by construction! That is actually a relief - it will either come back, or it won't (in which case I can buy more, I guess) but it's not some kinda permanently bad garden. Anyways there was a bit too much ivy, which also conveniently died off, so I can plan things out for real now... I like the bulbs but I want other things too, possibly including bushes right next to the house part. This summer, after painting, looks like When It Will Happen.
In somewhat related Porch News, they have built the vent for the gable and installed it. These days at the store you can only get cheesy vinyl vents, but Douglas actually built me a nice paintable wooden one. It's details like that which I am appreciating, having it made as a unique project. Shingles for the walls are now bought too (and are smelling up the outside area quite nicely) but it's been wet so no install yet. It's almost too bad to paint them, but the rest of the house demands it. At least these won't start off with 8 layers...
It is Friday so there is the usual dinner thing at J&B's which tonight is probably going to involve some hardcore Scrabble (hardscrabble?). Before that is conversation table at the Espresso and then tomorrow I'll be helping to bust up some walls and do some moving to open up the back back room at the Independent Media Center space in Urbana so that more concerts and stuff can happen there. Par-tay. I hear there's also a new Saturday Night Live this week. Woo.
02/02/2002:
So I'm blowing my nose and it's coming out grey like laundry lint. I suppose one might say I've been productive in more ways than one...
From 10 AM until 3 PM or so I helped a buncha people at the IMC clean out the back room of the IMC (the room that you get to by passing through the door at the old back of the space, next to the dishwashing area and the breaker box) and then rip out the wall back there that divided that space into two, so that there is now a big space usable for bands, talks, etc. "Clean out?" Yes, the back space was just packed FULL of random craft cruft with a "country-esque" theme, tons and tons of half made birdhouses, old frames, random cross stitch patterns for twee little angelic baby-themed items, old canvasses, bags upon bags of ceramic baby doll parts, old chairs, old clothing racks from department stores long since gone out of business, air conditioners, and a metal portrait of the Marlboro Man himself. All this stuff belongs to the landlady living upstairs, under whose direction we carted it all up there, minus a few things we carted to the basement (including a huge heavy amazing antique $6000 china cabinet). Afterward she made us lunch in her apartment and we watched part of some kinda western "Hang 'Em High" before going back downstairs to rewire and remove some breaker boxes on the doomed wall and then finally kick out the doomed wall, wallboard, wood frame, and all. The wood frame is being saved to build a new wall around the stairs. The landlady left as we were finishing up, to go to a flea market (!!). Various room improvements to this space should be happening each weekend, with the goal of being done by the big music festival in March.
After a bit of reading at the Cinema Cafe I wandered on home to listen to Michael Parenti on the radio, and got the idea to finally cart tools and paint and crud to the basement, sort out the cabinets in the basement, and put the stuff away. Wow. Yes. Now when I want to do something around the house I actually know where to get the stuff I need, just like I know where everything is upstairs. Of course, not all the junk in the basement cabinets was even MINE - some of it is Rick's old junque, including such treasures as a really hideous green vinyl/plastic sorta marbled flower-petals from hell lampshade thing.
Hmm. Perhaps the landlady over at the IMC would like the lampshade...
02/08/2002:
The learning and media pages are now UP! Whew. For what it's worth, the links page should go via the same pattern (remember, it's all XML-driven now, so the program that takes the raw file and formats the links with the anchor stuph all linked up, will be the same - writing that was the major thinking part of the pages) so should be easy enough, except that I have tons of links, some of which, well defy easy categorization, so making the XML file itself is gonna be the hard part there. The media one was bad enough!
Last night the Champaign County Board Personnel and Public Officials Committee met and voted to approve the Living Wage resolution. Not only did they approve it, but they approved it unanimously. We had a great turnout for the meeting, all the benches were filled with a mixed crowd, all ages, men/women, various races, actual employees of the nursing home, union members, church members, the works, and the press was there too (DI and N-G). This vote means that the resolution will be passed on to the full County Board for a final vote. So far things look good there. Their next meeting, at which this should be discussed, is February 25th. Unfortunately it looks like I might be at a conference in Wisconsin and miss it.
In the latest redistricting based on the year 2000 census, I've been moved out of County Board District 8 and into District 9. I pretty much knew and liked my reps in 8, but need to find out more about 9. The one guy I know of, Beckett, was highly annoying last night in that he kept quibbling how he doesn't think the board can possibly pass legislation that will bind future county boards. Like, duh, dude, that's what elected officials, like, DO, y'know? That's why you were elected for heaven's sake! It's the same line he used at the last meeting, and although it came up during the internal talk only portion of the meeting (so none of us could say anything) another member brought this up and pointed out that Beckett didn't have trouble voting on other resolutions. Hah. At any rate, I need to find out who the other 2 reps for District 9 are (there are 27 members, 3 representatives for each of nine districts). They are looking for people to run in District 9, hm. Anyways, I'm still in State House district 103 (which has been more sensibly redrawn to include all the urban parts of Champaign-Urbana, rather than splitting Urbana in half into 103 and 104), State Senate district 52, and US Congress House District 15. Several people I know are running for US House in the 15th district. Primaries coming up soon...
Tonight is the first anniversary party of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. It officially opened for business on January 19th, 2001. There will be jazz, potluck food, cabaret, poetry, and general wackiness going on starting at 6 PM tonight at 218 W. Main St Urbana. I've made soup for this thing, and there will be new T-shirts for sale. Tomorrow it's back to work on the back room at the IMC, starting around 10 AM. We'll be drywalling, possibly doing some electrical. Come on by.
