Sleet, rain and snow turn the air silver.

The sky is coal.

A muffled roar soundtrack.

To my learned touch.

The machine leaps to my will.

Blank.

And as I piloted my industrial strength lawn mower in dozens of half-acre lines I sang to myself:

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
But while you debate half empty or half full
It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown [8x]

Your love is gonna...

After an extended period of unemployment I have begun working for the Parks and Recreation Department of City of Olympia as a groundskeeper. Whack, mow and blow dontcha know. Working for the City is very nice for reasons I will elaborate on later.

While making the city a prettier place to be I began to reflect on the best and worst manual labor jobs I’ve had and a funny thought came to me. You know you’re an Olympian Working Class Hero if:

• You know at least two guys at the parts counter at J&I Power Equipment by name.
• You now call that little shit you went to Capital high school with Sir.
• Your resume includes the phrase ‘Strong mechanical aptitude’.
• You don’t drink at the Broho out of respect for what it once was.
• KCPQ 13 is all the TV you need.
  
• A seasonal position with Lacey or Olympia is the best damn job you’ve had in years.
• Driving around Thurston county you point out to your passenger the trees you’ve pruned and the stumps of the one’s you’ve felled.
• You’ve whizzed in a cup in the bathroom of building 405B of the Capital Medical Center.
• Fones road is all about Home Depot.
• Harbor Tools sucks!

"Over on Olyblog Laurian insists that she's a woman. Her middle name's Martin. The reporter apparently believes Laurian to be Male. Others on Olyblog have made the same assumption. Oh well, you know how it is with some Tranny's in Olympia. Laurian is 48 - no wonder s/he hates music, s/he's gotten old. CCM Fan | 04.08.08 - 12:46 pm | #"

Anybody know who the aurthor might be? I sure would like to threaten the them with a suit or challenge them to a duel.

Sir, I say Sir, those are fighting words.

Ya know, as bad and crazy as the debate can get around here, we are Angels compared to the mouth breeders lurking around the Zip.

As sexy as the debate over the proposed noise ordinance was, the Planning Commission had other two other items on it’s agenda.

Kraig Chalem from Olympia’s Community Planning and Development briefed the commission on changes and clarification on Temporary Use permits. These are the kind of permit you get to site a demolition debris dumpster, to have a garage sale, (Bet ya didn’t know you needed a permit to sell that crap in your garage?) or to annex some sidewalk in front of your restaurant for tables and chairs. Most of the proposed changes were to clarify definitions or to eliminate redundancies in the OMC.

Preceding Mr. Chalem was Mr. Andy Haub, Planning and Engineer Manager for the city. He briefed the Commission on the projected impact rising sea levels will have on Olympia.

The Climate Impact Group (http://cses.washington.edu/cig/) predicts the sea level rise (SLR) in the South Sound could be as much as 22” by 2050 and 50” by 2100. Downtown Olympia sits between one to three feet above sea level. A one-foot rise would cause ponding on some streets and flooding during extremely high tides. A two-foot rise would interfere with stormwater pipes and even causing the flow of water in them to reverse. A three-foot rise will flood most of downtown. These predictions are based on the most dire SLR scenarios.

On Monday night the roughly 30 people showed up at Olympia city hall at a public hearing held by the Olympia Planning Commission to testify on a proposed noise ordinance specifically tailored for downtown Olympia.

The move towards a quantified noise ordinance began in early February at the request of Councilman Kingsbury. Currently there are no guidelines for noise pollution and no laws that deal with noise complaints other than nuisance code found in the Olympia Municipal code 8.24.020(J) The emitting of loud and raucous noise, from whatever the source or location, in a manner which, under the circumstances, unreasonably disturbs others; The proposed ordinance is based on ordinances from a dozen cities medium and large cities in the Puget sound region and the Washington Administrative Code 173-60-040 and 173-60-050.

Ruth Snyder a downtown Code Enforcement Officer presented the proposed ordinance that would set 60 to 65 decibels, approximately the level of a conversation, as measured at a property line as the allowable noise level during the day. The level would be 5 to 10 dbs lower at night.

Dear Bloggers, Although Olyblog is not a deliberative body, I believe are pearls of wisdom in Robert’s Rules of Order that can facilitate debate while diffusing slander, flames, and other personal attacks.

The Olympia city council is rightly shy of opening up debate over the repeal of Olympia’s Anti-nuclear ordinance. As the editorial of March 1^st correctly observed “they (the council) are loathe to even bring the issue up because it is seen as a divisive, national issue that will only drive wedges in the community.” Such a debate will be divisive and distract the council from much more pressing issues. And yet the editorial goes on to call for just such divisiveness. Why this apparent contradiction? Money my dear reader, the ethics-free pursuit of filthy lucre as performed by our paper of record the Daily Zero. Witness the latest case study of our so-called newspaper’s practice of the fine art of yellow journalism.

Here are a couple examples. I’m sure my readers can name at least one issue the Olympian has mangled or chosen not to cover at all.

Last night the tag CPDT appeared on several surfaces in common areas of my apartment building as well as the surrounding blocks. I am fluent with most arguments in favor of tagging therefore cannot for the life of me see why a tagger would deface the communal space of the Elks building. I ask if the readers of this site know who lays the CPDT tag they pass my email address laurianw@gmail onto the tagger so she/he can explain to me why tagging my building is acceptable. I promise any conversation will remain private.