One of my children's friends recently moved and her family could not take their cats with them to their new place, so my son offered our home as a "foster" home until we can find permanent homes for them. One cat is older (in her teens), very quiet, long haired, and elegant. The other is really still a kitten, and spends a lot of time zooming around the house and running into things. So I decided to make a video. She just took down some curtains *sigh*. So, anybody need a cat?

I know, I know. What could be more boring than a city planning commission meeting? I will admit, they're not Bonnaroo, but citizens should know what they do, and should care what they do. One thing they do that seems to be working well is using the first monthly meeting as a study session, answering such questions as, "What will be on the voting agenda?" "Are there any requirements that need to be taken care of before we can approve this site plan/variance/whatever?" As a result of learning about what's going to be on the voting agenda, when it comes time for the monthly deliberative meeting (generally on the third Monday at 4 p.m. at city hall), they can get through their agenda much more quickly than if they were learning about agenda items for the first time. They will put items on the voting agenda that have not been part of the study session, or that were submitted a little late, as long as they're the kinds of items that don't require a lot of study, or that aren't going to cause controversy. For example, if a property line needs to be moved a few feet and the owners of both sides of that line are in agreement, the commission can vote on it without having studied it in the study session. This commission is running more efficiently in Tullahoma, due to attention to procedures and details, and that does us all good, whether you can get excited about a planning commission meeting or not. Until next time ...
moar funny pictures

Wow, it was really cold this morning, even though my friends from up north would disagree (sorry about the Packers, y'all). I believe it was the MLK holiday two years ago when it was even colder than today. I had gone to the C.D. Stamps Community Center to get some pictures of the people returning from City Hall on their annual march. I set up my tripod on the sidewalk and turned on my camera. The viewfinder wasn't working. All I could see was a dark square. I remember wondering if it was actually too cold for the electronics in my camera to work. It turned out that I had just left the lens cap on. D'oh! Here are a few pictures I took today: Several members of the clergy, as well as the mayor were all there. It looked like there were about 40 of us marching from C.D. Stamps to City Hall and back again. For the celebration overall, there were close to 100 people. After we got back to C.D. Stamps, everyone partook of a generous buffet of biscuits, donuts, fruit, juice, and coffee as a prelude to the worship program that followed at 10:30. I'll have more pictures in the paper on Saturday.

If this works you'll see my cat playing with a plastic drinking straw.

My goal is to get this accessible from the paper's web site. If I get it figured out, I'll do a post from Monday's MLK march, maybe even shoot some video. Mary