For the longest time any paragraph break in the comments section hasn’t displayed properly. I’m happy to report that is now fixed. Long comments, with paragraphs, willl now be easier to read.
This week’s poll is about the use of the U.S. Mail. We all receive mail but my question is how how much you send out. Take the poll in the upper right hand corner of the main page.
The post office ended its first quarter — October 1 through December 31 — with a net loss of $384 million caused by a drop in mail volume of 5.2 billion pieces. The 9.3 percent drop was the eighth consecutive quarter of volume declines, the agency said. (Source: CNN)
In a typical year I stamp and mail fewer than 10 items. Where possible I try to receive mail electronically. Payments are done online. I’m going to try to get my condo association to have a paper recycling bin near our mailboxes to make it easier to pitch junk mail.
To save costs one option is reducing delivery from six days a week to five. The postal service needs Congress to authorize that change.
Regular readers know I suffered a major stroke on 2/1/08 and spent all of February, March and April 2008 in three hospitals recovering and receiving therapy. A year ago today I transferred from hospital #2 to #3. This was a big deal because except for a few times in therapy I had not been outdoors for very nearly two months. My middle brother Randy drove up from Oklahoma City to drive me to Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mt. Vernon, Missouri — a 4 hour trip made longer by flooding along the Meramec River.
Staff at St. Mary’s/SSM Rehab helped get me into his car for the trip. It was scary because I couldn’t walk yet and we had no wheelchair with us for the journey. I managed to get there without needing facilities. It was Good Friday.
Once there I of course waited in the car as Randy went inside to tell them we had arrived. The facility and grounds are quite attractive but the addmitting entrance (above) is less than appealing.
I spent five weeks there. Turns out the director is named Steve Patterson. I returned in August for a quick visit as I pased by on I-44 headng to Oklahoma. I was scared as I arrived and scared to leave and return home. They taught me well so my recovery continues to progress.
You go away for nine days and you miss stuff. Plus I had some major technical issues for a week. Adjusting to the time changes from the West coast and central time zones has not been easy.
The following is a potpourri of topics:
Ballpark Village softball field and parking lot:
OK, I was back for this exciting news. Where we thought we were going to have a mixed use village we will instead have a softball field and a surface parking lot. I understand the economic conditions today but this dragging started years ago. Current conditions are simply a cover. It has been said this solution is temporary for the July All-Star game. My guess is it will still be there a decade from now.
Treasurer’s Office and the Post Office:
Parking revenue contractor ACS forgot to pay the Post Office $53 for a P. O. Box so hundreds of payments got sent to a dead letter office. Thus, payments people had mailed in were not received. Not good.
Graffiti downtown:
The vacant building across the street from my loft got tagged with graffiti on three floors.
This was a project started by the now defunct Pyramid Construction.
Madoff:
Organizer of the biggest scam on Wall Street is finally in jail. Yesterday his accountant was arrested on charges of fraud for rubber stamped audits. Many more folks had to have been part of the ponzi scheme.
Natasha Richardson:
Actress Natasha Richardson died as a result of a head injury from a ski accident. Richardson had bleeding between her brain and skull. 13 months ago I had a stint to drain bloody fluid from my brain after my stroke. We can’t walk around wearing helmets but after deaths like this we may want to consider it. Certainly when bicycling, riding a scooter or other such activity please be sure to wear a helmet. Story on CNN.
Economy:
Newspapers ceasing print. More layoffs. Bankruptcies abound. AIG pays bonuses. Earmarks are demonized while bigger budget items go undebated.
Software & Hardware:
On my second day of my vacation my blog encountered major issues. The problem was hard to pinpoint. All is well now. In a weird way I’m sorta glad I couldn’t post new posts. It gave me more freedom to enjoy my vacation. At least until the last day. I took over 1,100 photos and I backed them all up to Flickr as soon as I pulled them off my camera. Good thing too because the hard drive on my Mac notebook (12″ G4) gave out. I have some good video clips I hope to recover.
I just returned from Spring Break. UrbanReviewSTL is back too, sorta. I’ve tested your end of the site but we are still working on some issues on the back end.
I’m grateful to Lara Kramer for her help this week.
UPDATE: I’m still getting errors trying to post comments. So I’ve turned off comments on this post. Thank you for your continued patience.