It's difficult to believe that I began blogging at the beginning of 2003. When I go through the archive it is about as close to a diary as I have come in years. Elayne was the big one for diaries, but I never had the attention span. Probably why I do so well with Twitter and Facebook where I'm limited and my mind doesn't wander in the middle of a tweet. Why not unless the TV or radio is on and I hear something else I want to rant about.

If you aren't Following or Friending me I thought I would take a few minutes to fill you in a bit on what has been happening at Chez Chaput and at work.

My attempt to set up a couple of bird feeders for all the finches, sparrows and smaller birds in the neighborhood backfired. It started with the pair of ducks (Ozzie & Harriet, as Donna dubbed them) and quickly expanded to close to a dozen geese visiting our patio everyday for the feed dropped from the feeders. If that was the extent of it I wouldn't have minded and initially we loved watching the parents and goslings coming by each morning. Unfortunately, we discovered that goose poop does tend to accumulate pretty rapidly and I was out cleaning the driveway, patio and sidewalk at least twice a week, if not more often. Now the feeders sit in our shed in hopes that when the flock flies off in a few weeks (according to our neighbors who have lived here for years) I can put them back up, at least until late in the year when the bigger birds return.

On the work front, the City is in negotiations with the bargaining units for all City departments. We might not know what a new contract will contain until August at this rate, so we are all working minus a contract. If you have followed the news you probably know that California finances aren't in the best of shape, thanks in no small part to the ex-Governator and the Republicans in the legislature. Not that the Dems, who have a majority in both houses are blameless, nor current Governor Brown. A lot of this goes all the way back to Prop 13 and the refusal of any in the GOP to allow any hikes in taxes for the wealthiest. Pretty much the same crap we are seeing on a Federal level. Better to cut funding for education, fire, police, parks & recreation than get another few thousand from some banker making millions in bonuses this year.

That's my rant on that for the moment, but you can expect more I'm sure as we get closer to the 2012 election and that whole circus.

I expect to post something tonight, if possible over on Shot's Shack, about my recent reading (comics & prose novels, plus things on movies). That does it for me here, but expect me to be changing some of my links, adding and deleting stuff I no longer find useful or entertaining.

Hope you are all doing well and gearing up for the Independence Day weekend. Hard to believe that almost half of 2011 has passed and The Rapture didn't hit yet, huh?