March 07, 2009 10:28 am
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Sometimes, a tight deadline is just the ticket to produce the best work.
If it seemed like the fix was on when the Del Norte Local Transportation
Commission took mere minutes Thursday to choose which city and
county transportation projects would go to the top of the list for
federal stimulus money, that’s because it was.
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March 03, 2009 08:46 am
Dealing with what comes through the walls of your home can be difficult.
I’m not talking about cold air seeping through poor insulation or leaks that present themselves when it rains too hard too long. The really challenging stuff arrives via cables that snake their way into your home electronics and your monthly budget.
Think watching TV or cruising the Internet is easy? Think again.
These days, I feel like a couch potato with all the trimmings. I get to watch every basketball game that my beloved Portland Trail Blazers play. Better, I watch recordings of the games so that I can fast-forward commercials, free throws, anything that strikes me as down time as I wield the remote control. I consume each two-hour-plus game in about 45 minutes, which means I’m also a highly efficient couch potato.
And when I say recording, I don’t mean taping. Gone are the days of trying to figure out how to program a VCR to tape a show, a mentally challenging task that always cowed me unless one of the kids was around to do it for me. In fact, gone are VCRs, period. These days, a digital recorder does my bidding. I go to the on-screen TV guide, highlight the desired program (Blazers mostly), and push the record button. This is akin to magic in my book.
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February 28, 2009 12:03 pm
February 24, 2009 09:01 am
It’s not as if Roger McCovey’s legacy needs embellishment. But the fact that the opportunities to watch him compete have been rare only adds to the legend of perhaps the most dominant athlete Del Norte High School has ever produced.
“Bronc” is California’s heavyweight wrestling champ, the best in this gargantuan state for schools of all sizes in a vast weight class that maxes out at 285 pounds. McCovey is actually on the small size for a heavyweight, but that hasn’t stopped him from tossing around the behemoths that rival schools offer up like sacrifices — when they’re not ducking him, that is.
Nine teams competed in the North Coast Section Dual Meet Championship in Eureka the weekend before last, but only two managed to come up with a heavyweight to take on McCovey. Three would-be opponents forfeited. As staff writer Nicholas Grube noted, “Roger McCovey didn’t get much action on Valentine’s Day.”
Reticent challengers are only one of the reasons why McCovey’s actual wrestling time is limited. When another big guy does step on the mat, it’s usually a matter of seconds, not minutes, before he’s on his back, grimacing and beaten. McCovey has been known to extend matches by toying with opponents, glancing at his coach like a victorious gladiator looking up at the emperor for the thumbs-down sign.
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February 24, 2009 08:58 am
Gerry Hemmingsen, chairman of the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors, has appointed Supervisor Mike Sullivan to form an ad hoc committee to “study the justification of the Solid Waste Management Authority.” The first meeting of Supervisor Sullivan’s Committee is today, but it will be closed to the public.
I have read in The Daily Triplicate that Supervisor Sullivan’s committee will evaluate whether Del Norte County should withdraw from its partnership with Crescent City on the Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority. It is not clear to me what specific reason there is for this urgent scrutiny, but I am not concerned about any honest, objective analysis of our services or finances.
We have a balanced budget and earn revenue sufficient to pay all of our costs, without relying on any tax funding or subsidy from the city or the county. The Transfer Station is open seven days a week and we provide a quality service for a fair price. We hire courteous and well trained staff and our service contracts with private companies pump more than $5 million back into our local economy each year.
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February 14, 2009 10:15 am
February 10, 2009 09:29 am
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I knew I had to write this when I learned of a Friday conversation.
On the first day of unpaid furloughs for state employees, a Pelican Bay corrections officer canceled his subscription to The Triplicate. He said he had talked with others who might do the same. Not necessarily to tighten their budgets (the full subscription price is $7.94 a month), but rather to provoke the newspaper to shout out to Sacramento that cutting workers’ pay by about 10 percent is unacceptable.
The fact is, we’ve already been screaming that message. The state government’s budget crisis is the product of a shockingly prolonged failure on the part of its leaders. Remember that first they went months past the constitutional deadline last July 1 for adopting the current year’s budget. At that time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had the bright idea of giving civilian workers IOUs instead of paychecks, while reducing the pay for corrections officers to the minimum wage.
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February 07, 2009 10:50 am
February 03, 2009 09:05 am
It really was a super day, although I could find a better adjective if not for a certain football game that unfolded as the sun went down.
Super Bowl Sunday, Del Norte-style, begins with blueberry pancakes and whale spouts. Syrupy fork in one hand, binoculars in the other, I monitor the blue sea beneath the blue sky. The obliging behemoths send up puffs best detected with the naked eye. If I’m not slow about it, there’s time to raise the spyglass and watch them surface like long flat floating rocks.
The pancakes get a little cold, but I finish them off after catching one of the prizes of whale watching, a tail in the air.
Then it’s down to Pebble Beach, where winter weather has stripped away much of the sand, exposing ridges of rock that trap pools of nutrients so appetizing to the gulls and oyster catchers that they refuse to take flight as I approach.
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January 31, 2009 11:27 am
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Opinion 
