Samoa project gets BOS ok.

Samoa Master Plan gets nod from supervisors and so moves the wheels on this project. The first draft of the master plan was made public in 2001 and it looks like it will be another 7 years before this project gets anywhere in any form. There will be other issues to traverse, such as a proposed/threatened lawsuit on CEQA: The California Environmental Quality Act guidelines not being followed properly, Historical building code violations and Traffic issues that need to be mitigated.

I was excited to hear the original plans and Robin and I have homesteaded our house to have the opportunity to purchase this property. (Dan Johnson publicly promised renters who were in each house would get the first chance to purchase if they stayed in their homes.) We live in a 4 bedroom two bath house that was probably worth $50,000 in 2001. I would guess it is worth 4 times that now, and there has been little upgrade and much deterioration. Fortunately, we bought a house in Henderson Center as an investment at a good time.

As far as the traffic issue, Manila has pretty much been ignored about their complaints of increased traffic due to the "safety" corridor on 101 between Arcata and Eureka. People are blatantly bypassing 101 and the 50 mile an hour limit with lights on, and taking 255 as an alternate route at 55 MPH plus and no safety lights. It has become a speedway through residential Manila. (Yes, real people live out there.) The increased traffic from the Samoa project will be mitigated in the tune of $180,000 for infrastructure purposes.

Just an added comment: In the early 80's there were over 1,000 more jobs and people on the Peninsula south of the bridge. The closed Coast Guard housing, two plywood plants, sawmill and pulp mill had many people driving back and forth off the dunes each day.

RIP Jeff Jones.

Jeffery Jay Jones played basketball out in Samoa for years. He was a mainstay on Jerry Gabriel's league team for the LP Men's Adult Fall Ball league I directed for many years. Jeff was around 6'4" 350 lbs. But he was light on his feet and a fair player. No cheap shot artist. Always congenial and funny. He will be missed.

One funny story about Jeff, I was throwing batting practice at the Samoa Ball Field to Barry Oliver and a crowd gathered in the Samoa stands to watch. Jeff was one of them. Barry is all of 6' 0" maybe 175 lbs. But he is a Left Handed hitting freak. He told me to just put the ball over the plate and he would hit the balls over the fence, left, center right, left center. right. He asked me where I wanted him to hit the ball, so I picked the farthest part of the park with the 280' sign. The next pitch he broke off the sign at the 280' mark! Needless to say, the people who were watching were abuzz. Jeff came down to home plate and asked Barry for the Bat. He swung and lunged at the ball but could not duplicate the smaller ball player. Jeff's buddies hooted from the stands. He was a good sport. It was funny to see at the time.

Last Meal. O-H's wise.

O-H's Townhouse to shut its doors. And I will be there tomorrow with Robin celebrating and remembering good times. I have positive memories with my entire family there. We went there with friends, family, banquets and many positive social events in our life. They were a constant. At a time when dinners were a special event. I always sent people there for a good prime rib. I hope for the best for all the past workers.

Barack attacks Hillary over NAFTA!

Looks like Obama is going to try to manipulate the NAFTA issue to try to pull out Ohio next week. Barack Obama Continues to Attack Hillary Clinton's NAFTA Support It is estimated that 50,000 Ohio workers lost their jobs directly to NAFTA policies. Hillary has past public history on her support of NAFTA in the mid 90's. Her quote was along the line back then of, "Shouldn't we all want free trade?" Maybe Ohio won't be a lock for Clinton after all. It is getting nasty, isn't it.

Lenny Escarda.

Leonard Escarda The Eureka Reporter For a few years I was fortunate to talk with Lenny at Cal Courts about politics and softball. He seemly was "invincible" during his marathon workouts. And that includes this last period he was fighting cancer. He was a good man who ran the race well. I hope he is ripping line drives to the gaps for doubles in that never ending ball game upstairs! RIP.

Hey! Maybe they are listening!

No left turns on Third street off of Highway 255! I fully support this move. I have witnessed and participated in way too many close calls!

Leave Richardson's grove as it is and extend the exemption to the few cattle trucks. Been doing this for years. What else would we need the longer trucks for? What product? The weight limit on the trucks is always going to be 80,000lbs. Larger trucks without larger weight capacities are not needed.

Waterboarding my buttocks! I have a better way of interrogation.

Let’s send a couple of people from Humboldt County with this Humboldt Crud and expose terrorists, and threaten to expose them again if they don’t cooperate. A few weeks ago I had stopped hacking and was feeling fairly good and then I had to work with a person on Wednesday that literally hacked and blew his nose all shift and was all over my work area. Sure enough, the next day he called in, and I was coming down once more with the Crud. Last time I just had a chronic hack but it did not bother me when I went to bed. This time it is deeper in my chest and I wake up hacking and feverish. I hate to be this way when the weather is so cold. Anyone else out there having an encore of the flu?

Paul Gallegos is not another Bobby Knight.

I saw Paul Gallegos coaching the Quality Body 3rd and 4th Grade girls Hoopsters basketball team with Doug Frey. He really did a good job with his team. I like his style of encouragement over yelling. He was always clapping and quietly signally his girls where to stand. They beat a bigger Tetrault team by passing better and hustling. I hope Paul and Joan took Daughter Sofia and the rest of the team out for pizza afterwards.

Evergreen buys Cosi Pulp Mill!

Evergreen is in the late stages of finalizing a purchase of a pulp mill in Cosmopolis, Washington. The Daily World. This is a great thing for the people living around Gray's Harbor. Weyerhaeuser had closed the pulp mill and also a sawmill two years ago with a total of nearly 600 directly losing their jobs and hundreds more vendor wise in a small manufacturing market. The economic waves hit the area hard. It sounds like Evergreen is willing to negotiate with the AWPPW for a union contract for the new Evergreen workers.

The Cosi plant specializes in acetate pulp for clothe fiber and cigarette paper. Maybe we can open a paper processing plant here in Humboldt County to replace Zig Zag. Call it "Evergreen Natural." We have so much of the "natural" product, we might as well take financial advantage. Just saying.

Political Rumor Mill.

John Woolley thinking of running for 1st District Assembly seat? Mark Lovelace running against Mike Wilson for 3rd District Supervisor seat? Who is thinking of running against Jimmy Smith in the 1st? It is time for the parties to get moving! Who else are possible to run for these positions?

Update: Paul Pitino, Elizabeth Conners, Bob Ornelas, Mark Wheatly and Lee Ulansey in the mix? Come on Dave Meserve! Lets make this race one to remember!

Republican feels he can only vote Democrat!

Saw a truck driver who is a conservative Republican today at work. He liked Mitt before, so I asked him who he was backing now. "It doesn't matter, either way I am voting for a Democrat." Another right winger mad at McCain. Thanks Rush for all the help!

Arcata sweeps Eureka in BB for 2008!

Arcata beat Eureka 70-67 in front of a huge crowd at Eureka. Wow! What a rowdy game! These two teams are really well matched. Greg Allen just played out of mind in the 4th Quarter. With about 2:00 left in the game, Greg stole the ball and drove the ball to the hoop on fellow Junior Tim Couch and went over the top of him for a slam dunk! Then Tim one upped him with about 1:30 left by cutting off Greg’s lane for a charge.(Samoa resident Couch had 14 points in the 2nd Quarter alone.) Just a really aggressive game. Scott Rotherham and Rollin Trehearne did a credible job in referring this fiasco. The only real controversy was the warnings on both “6th” man crews in the stands. I have picked on the Arcata “6th” man crew in the past, but they were on good behavior tonight. Both teams should have learned by this time of the year that free throws are important. Both did not shoot them well in the 4th.

Greg Allen is the best player in the county. But you can’t expect him win a game like this on his own. But he almost did.

Alternative to rails or trails.

Finally a reasonable solution! Instead of rail banking around the bay or tourist train, how about just using landfill on top of the rails and having a multi use motocross/trail bike/hike trail? This is the cheapest solution yet proposed. Just think of the calories ate away while diving off the trail when a huge ATV comes flying by. Or how about the excitement of jumping off your bicycle in mid air to avoid a head on with a Yamaha. The danger of rails with trails can not even compete with this adrenaline rush! Come on! Let’s make this happen!

Have's, have nots. The spread is getting bigger.

There are almost 300 billionaires in the United States. Japan is the next on the list of over the edge wealthy people at 29! You either have way too much or struggle to make it here. Sad that this recession/depression times seem to shine upon the problem of our economy, and no one cares. If I were a 20 some odd year old, I would be way vocal about my economic future. Not good.

Coach Purcell passes on.

My old wrestling coach at Zane Jr. High Times-Standard Online -. Coach Purcell was a great teacher and seemed to love his job. I remember a time he wanted me to demonstrate some wrestling techniques to the "scrubs" or seventh graders when I was in 9th grade. I weighed 67 lbs when I was in Junior High, so I was small but quick. (I graduated High school right about 100 lbs.) He brought onto the mat a seventh grader named Andy Lowenthal for me to wrestle. Andy tore me up big time! Here I was the older mentor and was laid out on the canvus wrestling for my life. Needless to say I was embarrased. But it was kinda funny.

Mitt Drops out! Or does he?

The waffle man can't even seem to close down his campaign in order. Romney Suspends Presidential Campaign . Instead of dropping out of the Republican presidential race, he "suspends" his campaign, meaning he is holding his delegates ransom for the time being. The waffle man strikes again!

Frogs and Dogs.

Man, the frogs and dogs were filling the air with noise out here on the Peninsula today. Is Spring on the way? I sure hope so. Two weeks before pitchers and catchers report!

Speaking of dogs, you all see where Mike Vick gets to keep his bonus money? Judge rules Michael Vick can keep $16.25M in bonuses - USATODAY.com

Gotta love the good old USA justice system.

Did you take my advice on the Giants covering the spread? Giants 17-14!

If you did, send me some loving in the form of cash! I was fortunate to win my fair share in the form of 3 figures (Ok, in the 1 dollar increment) and made 10X more than I invested.

Following tradition, Robin and I went to my buddy Doug's house to watch the big game. There was Tri Tip, chicken wings, hot sausage, shrimp, tortillas, three kinds of bean dip by Linda, veggie treys, mini corn dogs, poppers, salsa, every kind of chips and dips, breads, sodas, wine and tons of Coors Light and Millers High Life. People from age around 5 to 70's. Good time. One of my buddies of nearly 40 years pulled his pants down to show off his red shorts that said "Hot Stuff" and then proceded to moon the older of the crowd at the time. Yep, I am just a real Humboldt County Okie. And I like it.

The Eureka secrets we all know.

If everyone in Eureka knows, Why is it…..

We all know prostitutes walk the street in front of the library in Eureka.

Maybe as many as 50% of the drivers in our city do not have car insurance. (In Los Angeles County 75% of drivers do not have insurance! Information from SB 60.)

We have a needle exchange program, but you can find discarded needles in front of Burger King and city parks.

People are illegally panhandling across the street from the Sheriff’s department.

People wander the 101 corridor crossing 4th and 5th disregarding crosswalks and without even looking out for cars.

Drugs are being used out in the open in Old Town.

There are hundreds of homeless people living behind the Bayshore Mall.

And yet Law enforcement and the public continue to ignore the reality of problems that seem to cross everyday people’s lives. This is not the Eureka I grew up in.