I’ve lost my buddy. Jake was probably the best dog I ever had. He also was the dog I’ve had the longest as well. We debate for how long we had Jake, but it was roughly 10 years (getting him in 1998). He got him at a time when I previous dog ~ Spot had died. So there was a farm place without a dog. At that time we would go to Hutch Sales Barn to find deals on small poultry and knew they had at the time free kitten/ puppies to give away as well. We got Jake from a family that lived in New Auburn, but not much else for background/ information. We always had fun describing what breed Jake really was. We think it was Golden Lab/Golden Retriever with possibly German Shepard mixed in as well, but nothing for certain. His name was in reference to the song by Pirates Of The Mississippi - Feed Jake . Always thought after I heard that song, I’d wanna name my dog that. That song summed up much about my dog too.

Although he wasn’t a born hunter, he always loved to roam the farm, occasionally scaring up a rabbit or his specialty, squirrels. While they utterly fascinated him, he only caught one once and he didn’t hang onto it for long after. He spent more than a few hours treeing a squirrel and wondering in barks and yelps why they didn’t come down. He always loved going for a bike ride or walk and would always be checking things out a few hundred yards ahead at most times. He also loved car or truck rides, although with car rides, he usually jumped in and usually kicked out immediately.

He was a very loyal dog. He often knew the visitor to the farm before they set foot out of their ride. He had a special sense for guys and whether they were good or not.

In the last few years, Jake even learned to ’shake’ his paw at his advanced age, no doubt being jealous of his companion Max (our Black Lab). Although Jake never loved to shake, he would do it on ocasion if it meant he would be getting a meal or a pat on the head.

Although we are not sure what ultimately happened to our friend, he did get loose on one of his occasional runs with Max and never came back. We can only assume the worst.

I think the following pictures capture his spirit best, that of a happy dog, enjoying the world around him. I’ll miss my buddy. Bye Jake.

From Jake

None the less, McCain didn’t win. I think he was screwed over since his initial presidential run in 2000 when his campaign stalled as a frat-boy from Texas noodled his way into the White House. McCain never really recovered from that. His form in the campaign was off, and the administration sure didn’t do him a single favor for torpedoing his run in 2000. Ah, time for a change.

As for the US Senate race in Mn, it was ridiculous. Why didn’t the two main idiots just say they were gonna bash the other in so many ways that it would look more like a sissy fight than a run for elected office. These two took pride,it looked like, in hating the other guy and finding new ‘campaign’ ways to do so. Yuck.

Al Franken got what he deserved. After losing outstate Mn in the primaries to his DFL competitor, he was blase enough to admit that his real opponent was Norm Coleman the whole time. I sure that statement and attitude were enough to convince some couple hundred voters to switch to GOP or even Independence Party, which fared better than may have been expected. It is of note that the Independence Party did play a spoiler of sorts in this election as well. Just goes to show that 3rd party politics may liven up the electoral scene.

As for the citizens of Minnesota, the majority of them took it upon themselves to raise their taxes via a sales tax increase. They bit this propaganda hook, line, and sinker (or art piece, I forget). Little did anyone mention that the arts and parks would greatly benefit from a good chunk of this amendments ‘great outdoors’ improvement plea. Little did the state government have to worry about, because with it’s passage, they passed the buck (no pun intended) and get to bask in squandering my generations taxes on whatever they have to money to.

Where did all that ’state lottery’ money go we Minnesotans were promised a decade or so ago? All I have heard was embezzlement charges against the big shots running that gig. Yuck.

These taxes tend to stay on the books too. Mankato for one, is a city around the area that has had implemented an extra sales tax to pay for a ‘regional’ project in the Civic Center, but now after the initial taxing period has expired, they conveniently found numerous other ‘priorities’ that needed funding. Yuck.

Almost can’t wait for another even numbered year. Yuck.

Enjoy!

Since eBay ditched it’s latest CEO for a new, fresh CEO, the company has taken some fairly drastic steps to change it’s business model while cutting away the almost utter devotion most avid users had for the service/community it created.

It has been slowly evolving. First they raise prices for things, which justified or not almost always happens with any floundering and/or greedy business.

Next they decided to take away the voice of reason that many a trustful and honest eBayer relied on, the positive/negative feedback tool. Now a seller cannot complain about a deadbeat buyer, but the buyer can continue to blast you as a seller without real visible recourse.

The latest indiscretion is what really makes you wonder what will come next. Now eBay is insisting that you ship products out for a set price, no mind whether the time/energy to ship at that price is even relevant.

I’ve read that eBay is trying to cater to the larger sellers on eBay with it’s fees and Buy-it-now auctions, but with all the changes and the utter disregard for the small time buyer/seller, eBay is cutting it’s core audience to the bone.

They are slowly morphing into a online storefront. Gone will be the entertainment and candor of possibly the first internet e-tailer that really had a compelling reason for people to get on the internet and buy/sell almost whatever you could dream up on a site originally dealing with Pez dispensers.

It annoys me and I can see myself shying away from the site due to this continued behavior.

We had a local politician come by the other day and all I can say it is was amusing. Seems there’s a commissioner race heating up for the district basically surrounding Gaylord and Sibley Township. Currently there are 4 filed candidates. With a primary looming, the list shall be whittled down to 2 for the fall election. One of the candidates decided to pay a visit to our place on Labor Day. Fitting enough and given the right circumstances a good move as he was the one and so far only candidate to visit our place.

Given this start things looked promising. But then went south real quick. Candidate drives up as I am working on car and promptly asks “Is your mom home?”. Make no mistake, I am a voting age citizen and for the life of me only know this candidate for his dubious elected position history and family. So after blowing off me as a vote, he proceeds to the house. At the house, my mother meets this candidate as well. After coming to the door, she is effectively thrown a brochure for this candidate, with no mention of his name, why he is at her door or what she should do with said piece of paper. All that come’s out of candidate’s mouth is “…. um the primary is next Tuesday, um….” and with not much more than that proceeds to leave. What a riot! No discussion, no introduction, nothing.

Later, candidate is seen leaving neighbor’s drive moments after arriving. Which makes this even funnier is that driveway is some 1/2 mile long and candidate is seen backing out. Either he didn’t make it up the driveway or backed up the whole 1/2 after his flier was presumably thrown in neighbor’s general direction. Given the previous firsthand account, both would not be a stretch of the imagination.

What a moron. Why are you running for office if you are afraid of people? Was he put up to this as some kind of prank? How can this be campaigning? You may need to talk to people if they are to actually give a care about what it is you intend to do. This guy doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of doing anything with campaigning like this.

And he somehow got elected to the school board? How?

By now you should know I like delving into interesting financial concepts, especially those online. Having a community based lending option has been intriguing as Prosper has shown.

Well Zopa has finally come into it’s own in the U.S. An import of the U.K. that has now also expanded into Italy and Japan. They were almost 2 years late in the coming to America. Oh, well, at least they made it and could give Prosper a run for it’s (lending) money.

Zopa is a somewhat different beast, but interesting none the least. It also lends out $ but these loans are based at local credit unions. They are associated with Affinity Plus, a credit union from the Cities that I had been acquainted with from my schooling at MSU, Mankato. But the loans are cool. If you get someone else to invest in a CD with Zopa, they can actually help you out. For every CD you purchase through Zopa (CDs are FDIC insured through the credit unions) you help someone out by reducing the rate they pay for their loan thru Zopa. Yes, you can even get your rate down to 0% (i.e. no loan payment) if you get enough help from other Zopa members. That is very cool.

Every CD you purchase is much like a CD at a local bank/credit union. Their current rates continually beat the pants off of local CD rates. These CDs are currently only for 1 yr terms, pretty common for most CD holders out there. With the purchase of a CD you get to apply what ever percent of your return on your money you want to your friend/family member through the site. Say the site offers 3.75% on your money, if you were real generous you could knock down your rate to say 3%, thus giving 0.75% as help to the person of your choosing or even stay at 3.75% and still help someone out a bit more minimally. You get a great rate on a CD and your money goes to help an actual person with their loan rate. Pretty cool.

So ready to help a man out. Check out the link to the left if you are so far interested. Otherwise, contact me and I’ll answer any questions you may have. Wouldn’t it be nice of you to help me pay less on the loan I’m taking out to help with wedding finances? I intend to pay this loan back shortly after festivities, it’s more of a cushion for me.

Thanks!

But wait, there’s more to this saga.

Seeing as leaving a frost-heaved road to it’s own devices is not sound township governing policy, the local intelligencia has come up with a few marvelous solutions.

Alfsborg Township to the immediate west of us has tried a few different tacts. First wise idea was to put rather large (think knuckle sized) rocks down, to ‘fill in’ the frost heaves and then put new gravel over that. While this has seemed to work, it scares the hell out of you when you’re driving and it sounds as though one of those rocks is coming up through the floorboards at you after you kick up one of these rocks. A tad disheartening. Not sure what to make out of it if one of those rocks were to fly/hit anything with so much as a pulse.

Alfsborg has also been ripping up the middle of some real troublesome spots that were pretty much pure dirt/mud and replacing that with pure gravel. Interesting take, haven’t had a problem with these yet, although a good dousing of rain could hamper things (maybe not this year though).

But the blockbuster, cake winner, hands down idiot award goes to the local township buffoons in good ol’ Sibley Township. Seems that in a effort not to be outdone by the upstarts to the west, Sibley Township came up with it’s own harebrained scheme to rid the township of previously mentioned frost-heaved roads. It started out peculiarly one morning with a fellow, presumed to be in the employ of the township, seen discing up the roadside slope of 481st Avenue. While this seemed like a ill advised attempt to dissuade neighbors from haying their ditch easements, it got wilder. A two mile stretch of this roadway was eventually worked up and left fallow.

In discussions with local governing officials, it seems the plan was to work up the ditches unto the road because they contained so much gravel and redo the road from these slopes.

WHAT THE HELL?

How the hell is putting black dirt on a gravel based, gravel covered road supposed to help? This is the rationale though, because someone somewhere heard that this may have happened somewhere else and worked? Whatever.

So today, these bozos went through with their little plan to screwup the road even worse. As I was coming home my normal route, I notice a completely black dirt covered road with two graders grading gravel on top of this. This effectively shut down this road, with no warning or heads up from the township other than to relay their plan when asked about it.

But they didn’t do all of the road, no. They still have roughly 1.5 mile stretch to go, once again on the main route I take to almost everything in Gaylord on a daily basis. I cannot imagine how this fiasco will end up. No doubt it will rain and create a soup hole the likes no one alive could imagine a township government would pay for. I can only imagine they hoarded all this money away from the last few comparatively mild to blow on the craziest frost-heave suppression scheme ever proffered.

Good riddance!

But I can’t get behind it. I realize it’s in beta, but there is one small thing that irks me and I’m sure it’s a deal breaker. As I have played around extensively with genealogy software like Legacy here and PHPGedView here, I’ve tried and test drove most genealogy software out there.

The one and only thing that has me not investing more time/effort into Geni is the fact that when you add women it does nothing about maiden names. It assumes whomever you add them off is their name. I for one recognize women by their maiden names and don’t appreciate typing/ retyping in every maiden name because of a software shortfall.

Geni is promising. But I’m waiting for them to work out all their beta features. Maybe then I dip my toes back in.