The Palapa Poll - a New Day Dawns

It's a new day here in Clean Town, the results of the Palapa Poll are now available. Without further ado - 75% of you voted for the construction of the palapa 12% sighed and said that we have to be kidding - 12% didn't know what a palapa was. Results are rounded to the nearest whole number and are now final. Now all we have to do is wait for the switch grass to get long enough. We'll post the progress of the palapa (unless we forget). In other news morels have been sighted in the area and that means that it is time to go on the great mushroom hunt '09. The conditions are not what I would like, but there you go. In other, other news, we have many hundred other pictures of the annual tropical trip and so you are still not immune. So keep washing your hands and we'll be back.

11 - What it Means to You

These steps lead down to the cellar of a well known Washington landmark. Snakes and toads and lions and bears must live down there. We're all glad that door is shut or who knows what would be loosed upon us all. If you click on the picture you will see that inscribed above the door is "1848". Most people assume that this is a date some 20 score and 1 years past. It is in fact part of the necromancy of our ancestors. Few could doubt this if they took just a moment to realize that number is 11 in the arcana of numerology indicates a "Master Year". It should also be remembered that 2009 is a master year and it is 11, and it vibrates with the vortex just outside of Brighton. Here is the scientific proof. (2+0+0+9= 11). It guarantees we will have rain in the next few months and that should end any doubt the skeptics among you may hold. We should all feel the vibration of 11 in the "Clean City", know that it is time for rubber shoes. 11 indicates this not a good year to dig holes or start a hog confinement business.

Today is the last day of our Palapa Poll - we want to thank all of you who have taken a moment to vote for cutting edge lawn ornamentation. Tomorrow we will announce the results.

Thank you for your support.

You Can't Make up Stuff Like This

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

You Really can't make up stuff like this. I will refrain from comment, what else could I say.

One day left in the GREAT PALAPA POLL Don't miss it!!!

How to Get Ahead in Chichen Itza

As Always, it is best if you click the image above to get a larger view. The DIY post yesterday ended with a rule of thumb, "If a Texan would do it - don't". I am still waiting for the state to secede, I don't understand why that is supposed to be some kind of threat. I have had occasion to watch Chaos News Network (CNN) in the last few days and, besides feeling like I just put my head into a light show blender - every kind of blinking, scrolling, and flashing text possible all on one screen, or should I say multiple screens, I came away from it feeling uneasy, queasy, and dumber. I won't repeat it here, because I don't want you, dear reader, to feel that way after reading this blog. I think Texans have an advantage here since the only way to lower the IQ in a room of Texans is to add more Texans.

So you may be asking yourself, what does all that have to do with the picture above, precious little I fear, except a now almost 40 year old memory. When I first went to Yucatan, I had the privilege of seeing a number of ruins. Being a sullen know-it-all teenager at the time, felt I learned some secret of the universe shared by only the elite of the planet; my god, I'd seen the Maya Pyramids. I felt like that until I ran across a group of Baylor frat boys just flown in from Waco. Besides patting each other on the butt and guzzling beer, consistently kept asking each other when they we going to Chicken Itza, it might have been funny once to mispronounce Chichen as Chicken the 100th time it wasn't funny. So the skull altar at Chichen somehow resonates with the empty heads from Baylor. Next time we'll talk about intelligent design.

Hey, Palapa Poll - Go Vote!

DIY

Above is an example of DIY roofing. DIY (Do It Yourself) is all the rage and it can save you thousands of dollars a year. A bit of thought should be put into a DIY project in order not to have unexpected results. Good DIY projects are:

• Small birdhouse kits
• Sweeping your own floor
• Laundry
• Breakfast
• Operating the TV remote (provided you have found the correct one out of that pile near your TV)

It should be remembered, however, not all projects lend themselves well to DIY. Some examples of these are:

• Roofing of any kind
• Home Dentistry
  
• Most repairs to your car
• Home wiring
• Pharmaceuticals
• Pyrotechnics of any kind

A good rule of thumb is that if a Texan would do it - don't.

Only a few days left to change the lawn ornamentation paradigm - vote in our palapa poll

Library Pigeon

Above is the new library's pigeon. It is currently living in what will be the skylight. While the pigeon might be considered the official city bird, it is probably not a good idea to have a library pigeon. A raven has a literary tradition that might be excused. A nightingale, ditto. A pigeon has the "rat with wings" tag and it pretty much deserves it. So if the library is going to have a bird, I think they should reconsider species; even the toucan was on a cereal box, let's get a bird with a better rep.

Only five days left to show your feelings about palapas in Iowa. Don't let this chance to add another dimension to lawn ornamentation pass you by.

Gone Fishin'

When you order seafood on Isla Mujeres it is fresh. The boats above are where that fresh seafood comes from. Every morning they go out on the open sea and bring home every manner of wiggling, squiggling, flipping, and undulating things for the tables of the Marisco places. These are "Old Man and the Sea" boats. These don't take tourists to the reefs or to scuba among the clown fish. These take Spenser Tracy dressed like a poor Cuban out to do manly Hemingway things with ropes and stuff. They don't take Hawaiian shirts and designer flip-flops along the beach to watch the sunbathers.

The time to plant your palm trees is this weekend in the light of the moon. Be sure to plant them in sandy well drained soil with plenty of sunlight.

Only six days left in the palapa poll - please vote.

Great Places Sees the Light

Above you can spot members of Washington's Great Places group as they "See the Light". While touring the construction of the new library, members held their hands to the sky and saw the light, or at least the skylight. Hardhats and safety glasses clad members of the so-called group toured the construction site this morning snapping pictures and tramping up and down the stairs of the new facility. The facility is expected to be completed sometime Friday morning and be open to the public on Saturday. Among the many new features of the building are the public baths and sports arena fashioned after the Colosseum in Rome (Italy). The new library expects to have books, computers, and furniture. Also new, is the entire section devoted to Studio 909's photography, prose, public papers. Tickets will be available on a first come first serve basis.

THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE TAKEN THE TIME TO VOTE IN OUR PALAPA POLL - THERE ARE STILL 7 DAYS LEFT TO MAKE YOUR OPINION KNOWN AND PUT WASHINGTON'S LANDSCAPING ON THE MAP.

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME.

Old School

Through the dust cloud, I pray you notice the swaybacked building. It began life as one of Iowa's one room schoolhouses. I have personal knowledge of this particular building. It was moved to this site in the late 30's to serve as a utility shed, but also became a sort of way station as it was located between two freight lines each less than a mile from the little building. In the days of hobos riding these rails many stopped to work for food and sleep in the shed. Later, it became only a shed and in just the last few years began to sag. The chart above shows just some of the hobo signs that would have been used around the tracks to let the freight riders they could get a meal and place to sleep at the old school.

Please take a moment to complete our palapa poll only eight days left to change the face of Washington in a real way.

Moving on - Clean-up (Trash) Day in Washington

A more sure sign of spring, clearer than tulips blooming, more obvious than new tattoos on spring breakers, is the arrival of Spring Clean-up Day, better known as Trash Day in Washington. That starts this week and trash has popped up all over Washington. The photo above is the beginning of our pile. It is a broken suitcase, a melted garden light, and a broken coffee maker. We later added 200 square feet of old carpet and the pad. Currently, only some of the pad and a bit of the carpet is all that's left. I am glad that someone wishes to fill their garage with this crap, because it keeps it out of the landfill. I have always maintained that it would be much easier to back a garbage truck up to Wal-Mart and just load the junk directly from the shelves into the compactor. This would save considerable money within the community and would save all the fuel it takes to go shop at Wal-Mart.

I would also like to comment on the traditions and rites that have grown up around the event. It is now divided into two groups, these are:

• Dumpers
• Trollers

The Dumpers drag the junk to the curb and the Trollers cruise the streets looking to score broken coffeemakers and dirty carpet. It would seem that this would be a symbiotic relationship, but there are exceptions.

1. Relatively neat piles created by Dumpers are destroyed Trollers.
2. Many times piles are created in such a way that the lighter materials are not boosted about the neighborhood by high winds. Disturbed piles may exhibit kite-like behavior during high winds.
3. Trollers may leave materials which were not put there by Dumpers. While it may make a Troller a Dumper in a technical sense, very few items left by Trollers acting as Dumpers are deposited in a way that they don't exhibit the "Kiting" behavior found in point #2.
4. Trollers may act to spread small bits of trash about causing them to widely deposited about the Dumpers yard. This may lead to Pick-up interuptus, where the items deposited by Dumpers become too widely dispersed to be effectively picked up at the moment of collection.

So, regardless of the 4 points above, Clean-up works for me to rid myself of crap that I accumulate in my effort to support our market economy. I would be sorry, for one, to see the tradition disappear or be ruined by well meaning ordinance. So bring it on, I think I can cope.

Just a little reminder you only have 9 more days to vote in our Palapa Poll, please take a moment to help our yard maintenance program.

Cognitive Dissonance

The residue of market activities are spewn like ashes along the railroad through town. They present many a great photo op and I, for one, am grateful that they are there. I am currently waiting for that call, I am sure is coming, from President Obama. Now that he has toured the Americas I am sure that he will be seeking my counsel for the policy changes, which are sure to come as a result of his Latin American visit. I am more than willing to devote a few hours a day to the cause. I will be glad to travel extensively in the islands and tropics during the months of October through April of each year. I believe that I would accept a small stipend that could be funded by the remaining TARP funds. So Barack, so when you get back home give me a call, you know the number. Call my cell, I may be out taking pictures of the railroad.

Only ten days left to vote in our palapa poll - the first one hundred people who vote will be eligible to help us build our palapa in the backyard.

Until later, hasta la bye bye.

Details

Details, details, details Here is but a bit of the details one can see on our venerable old courthouse. The lady has suffered more than her share of abuse as she has been chopped and muddled by successive generations of Washington officials. Her grand entryway steps had already been chopped off over fifty years ago when I was a child. Later the massive wooden doors were removed and the doorways bricked up with a 1960's picture window inserted as a cruel afterthought. The once almost regal courtroom itself has been slowly turned into a muddle of styles poorly thought out, Stalinesque space use, and crummy artificial light. The ceilings were lowered in the fifties and thank god for the cheapness of those muddlers, the barrel ceiling of the original still arches over the mess below - now hidden by suspended asbestos or plastic or both. It is reported that the original is in mostly good repair and the original paintings are also still clearly visible to those whom have peeked above the tiles. I won't talk about the rest of the interior and the abominations one can find there, as I don't have the time right now. Through all that muddling she endures, and some of the recent works on her were of the restorative kind done with thought, not jackhammers.

Please take the time to vote in our palapa poll. We really do value your opinion as much as Wal-Mart, Target, or an absentee landlord. We can't plan our landscape without your assistance and support so please vote today.

Thank you in advance for your support - Shoes for Industry Comrades.

The Morning After

This is another in the same series as yesterday -- what more can I say about this. This rainbow of excess greeted us one morning after the tattoo boys had closed the bar. We didn't see much of them that next day. Surprised? I think the large version of this I will name "Morning Rainbow" -- what do you think?
Please take a moment to vote in our palapa poll before you leave - thanks.

Natural Pollution

The pictures above are two more in the series of "What more do I need to say about these". Since it is the fiftieth anniversary of Stunk and White's I thought I would include the second because we all do not want to thron anything. Also, I want to remind you all to look over to the right and vote in our palapa poll. We want to remain cutting edge in our lawn ornamentation and your vote is key to this.

Unhelpful Punctuation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everybody! Today I am going to use the KIND of punctuation, found, in, many, of our local letters to the editor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As You may notice it is annoying and doesn't REALLY help "you" sympathize with the WRITER!!! The picture above self explanatory and doesn't need any explanation!!! So I am not going to explain it here, or anywhere, as, a, matter, of, fact;!!!! I WOULD ALSO, like to, remind you; that is, ALL of "You" -- to please vote in the poll that you find to the RIGHT of here -- since we are sensitive 21st century type people we would like to run our lives on the basis of polls, the more "MEANINGLESS" the better!!!!!! So I am relying on you: so will you HELP???????????????????????????

Yes We Have No Bananas

Yes we have no bananas - this is a shot of our backyard here in Washington. The rain has brought out the flowers and banana trees, which are the real sign of spring. Soon we will have mushrooms poking out of our mushroom bed and native palm trees shading the front yard. When I lived in Vermont I had a dooryard, but I can't find one here. Speaking of Vermont, the captain who was rescued by the navy was from the same town that I lived in. It is strange to see that little town on the national news, but there you go. Anyway, back to spring. We are adding a deck to our backyard this year and wondering if we should build a palapa out of switch grass. I will include a poll for you dear readers to let you vote on this important issue.

Thanks and hasta la bye bye.

Better Days

1,000,000 butts, 10 coats of paint - gee you just don't get any value anymore.

Meet Chaac

This guy is Chaac -- he was the Maya rain god and you can buy him on any manner of ashtrays, and plaster plaques to hang in your den. Here you see him in his own milieus hanging around on Maya temples and providing photo ops for millions. Here you see him in old Chichen Itza, if you was to see more of him go to Uxmal.

Later...

This is not Charon

You might need an obolus under your tongue to get a ride from him, but I'm not sure that you are going his way. My poor Spanish is greatly challenged by the name of the boat but I can sort of interpret it very very loosely as "Robber I", but I may be all wrong. The back of the boat indicates that it is from Progreso Yucatan, which is 300 miles away. I imagine the story of how it got where it is a bit interesting.

Enough for now...

Friggin' Birds

Above is a female Frigatebird. They are also called pirate birds in some places -- they can have wingspans of over 6 feet. These friggin' birds were everywhere around the coast of Quintana Roo. The are able to sustain hours of staring by imbecilic American tourists. It's kind of like Animal Planet without the cute dialogue and the jarring camera cuts. It's all on the largest HiDef screen you will ever see.

Another Town Square

Here is the town square on Isla Mujeres - it is a bit different than the one here in Washington. Although it has a central fountain and a bandstand, I should tell you that just on the other side of the street there are a few ruined buildings from the last hurricane a few years ago. Oh, I forgot they also have pigeons.

Home but not forgotten

One Morning we woke up to no wind, when I say that I mean it was as still as an abandoned strip mall, as active as a federal bureaucrat after lunch, it was as windy as the surface of the moon. This little catamaran was begging me to come aboard and unfurl that mainsail. It was promising me that the wind would come up if I would just get aboard. I didn't and it didn't.

All the tattoos were still asleep at this point so that it was muy tranquilo and there you go.

Hasta la bye bye pochos

Chichen Itza

Here we are looking up the stairway of the pyramid at Chichen Itza. That was yesterday`s trip. Today is airplanes and more. I hear it is warm in Washington so we are wearing Tshirts and shorts home. That`s it for now...the keyboard is too weird for me!!!!!¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿