Nose to the Grindstone

Well, the photoshopping of vacation pics continues apace. I took almost 200 shots at the golf tournament and have been spending about six hours a day the past three days working on them. It takes time to crop each pic and fiddle with the exposure, contrast, and so forth. And then there is the "cosmetic surgery" that is often needed - my goal in this instance to assure that the subjects do not look any more dissipated online than in real life. With any luck, I will finish the Redmond pics today so I can then copy them to a CD for Barb Whiting who can sort through them and decide which ones to put on the Juneau Golf Club website.

Otherwise it's been a fairly quiet week. I still have a drippy schnoz and a cough and have stayed away from the elders in order to avoid contagion. I did go up to Aunt Emilie's on Tuesday and mowed her lawn - for the last time this year, I expect. The grass hadn't been cut since before I left on vacation and it was quite wet, so it took a couple of hours to get the job done. And the damn bugs were the worst I've seen all year - there hasn't been a hard frost a sea level yet this fall.

Last night I watched the Biden/Palin debate. Unfortunately, I thought my Governor did quite a good job - although the bar was certainly not set very high given her recent foibles. Most of what she said was palpable nonsense, of course, but her chirpy brazenness will certainly allow her to live to fight another day. Indeed, most of the pundits concluded, and I agree, that although the debate most likely did little to improve Mr. McCain's chances in the election, it certainly did a LOT to assure Sarah Palin's future as a Whim Wham in the Republican Party in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the Congress continues to fiddle while Wall Street continues to implode; although this morning what passes for the Congressional leadership is suggesting that sufficient votes have been secured (that is to say purchased with taxpayer money) to gain House passage of the bailout package.

Among the more esoteric inducements are a tax break for manufacturers of wooden toy arrows (sought previously by both Oregon Senators) and tax credits for developers of auto race tracks (no specific sponsor has yet been identified; but I am willing to bet he/she lives somewhere deep in the Pellagra and Hookworm Belt). And of course there are the more general sweeteners of energy tax breaks, increasing the FDIC insurance limit, and limiting the application of the minimum income tax.

In other words, the bill that failed to pass on Monday - presumably because of Republican objections to the profligate use of taxpayer money to bail out greedy Wall Street Bankers - will likely pass today because it slathers an additional $100 billion or so of taxpayer money on other worthy causes - a number of which, on the face of it, lack any connection whatsoever to the financial meltdown.

In saying this, please do not mistake me for one who has shed any tears over greedy Wall Street bankers. Indeed, once the immediate crisis has passed, I would be more than happy to lead a patrol into the financial district to bayonet the wounded. And I certainly expect that the court dockets, both civil and criminal, will be well populated with folks in pinstripe suits for a number of years to come.

But enough rambling for one day. Time to go to work in photoshop...

Coming next week...my years at the Division of Legislative Finance.