The City of Lowell is getting ready to have elections for the city council members today. There should be a good voter turn out as most of the community is upset with city hall.

First, there was the tree trimming which was done under the supervision of Lowell Light and Power. I guess they call it trimming even though they cut down the entire tree. Some streets in town were literally “clear cut.”

Then there was the sale of Lowell Cable, which was also under the supervision of Lowell Light and Power. The cable equipment was declared to be “too old” so the whole system was sold to Comcast who apparently didn’t think that it was too old. This was all done with out notifying the community for their input.

Finally, there is the Boy Scout camp which the city owns. The city wants to sell the land to a developer. The citizens want to keep the land as it is and use it for a park. Once again, the elected officials are not listening to their constituents.

Three of the council members are running for reelection plus there are three challengers. It should prove interesting.

My wife likes tossed salads. I like them too but only on an occasion. And certainly not every night. In short, just plain tossed salads with dressing are boring to me. But, every now and then, I get a craving for a nice Caesar salad.

Normally, I buy the Caesar dressing that comes in that triangle shaped bottle. I can’t remember the brand name but it comes in a bottle that looks like an obelisk.

Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t care for that Caesar dressing. No problem, I’ll just buy a different brand.

Since I had a craving for a Caesar salad, I decided that I would go to the store and try a different brand.  At the store, I quickly scanned the “in store” brand. French, Italian, Thousand Islands, Ranch, all of the standard fare, but no Caesar. No surprise there. They only label the popular, fast moving salad dressings.

Next, I moved on to the Kraft selection. Again, pretty much the same as the “in store” brand. And again, no Caesar.

Wishbone? Pretty much the same as Kraft. Ken’s Steakhouse? Mainly Raspberry Vinaigrette. Ah! Certainly Newman will have a Caesar. Nope.

Out of the twelve brands of salad dressings, only two make a Caesar. Since my wife doesn’t like the one brand, I hope she likes the other.

We are getting a traffic light at a major intersection south of Lowell. It is the intersection at Cascade Road and Alden Nash.

Alden Nash is the main road south out of Lowell.  It is a major road because it provide expressway access for people living north of the expressway as well as people living south of the expressway.

The intersection of Alden Nash and Cascade road used to be set up so that Aden Nash had the right of way and Cascade Road had to stop for traffic. But, some one got the idea that it should be a four way stop.

A four way stop was not a bad idea but it created a lot of traffic backups on Alden Nash. Even though Alden Nash carried 90% of the traffic at the intersection, everyone had to make a token stop.

On some mornings, traffic could be backed up for over a mile on Alden Nash. And in the evening, traffic would be backed up on the expressway as people were trying to get off at the Lowell exit.

Finally, the county stepped in and decided that the four way stop needed to go. So, we are getting a traffic light.

This is where it gets interesting. In keeping with the standard rules and regulations for installing a traffic light, we are also getting crosswalk lights, curbs on the corners, curb ramps for the handy capped, and about 8 feet of sidewalk.

Of course, the nearest adjoining sidewalk and curb is about 5 miles away in Lowell. So, I doubt that there will be much need for the crosswalk lights any time soon. And given the conservative nature of Lowell Township, I doubt that they will rezone all of that five mile stretch any time soon.

So, while the cross walk lights may be useful for those who walk the road looking for bottles and cans, the general public will look at those lights and say “why?”.

Here in cubeville at the State of Michigan, everyone has mirrors mounted on their PC monitors. It is not that we are all vain, it is so that we can see each other.

It is kind of like being in prison I guess. But instead of holding our mirrors out of the doorways to our offices, we just mount them on our PCs.

In order to cut down on glare on our monitors, we move our monitors away from the doorways to our offices. And in doing so, when ever we work on our PCs, our backs are to the door. And, with our backs to the door, we can’t see people standing in our doorway.

So to resolve this problem, we all have mirrors mounted on the monitors of our PC. Thus, when anyone approaches the doorways to our offices, we can see them in the mirror. And, it is not that we are all that socially oriented, it just cuts down on people startling us as we type.

Of course, this isn’t fool proof. You still have to check your mirror regularly. 😉

We had some excitement in the office today. It was a cockroach and to hear people scream, you would think that Godzilla had just entered the building.

One woman got so upset that she jump up onto her office chair. Of course, the office chair swivels and rocks so she wasn’t up there long. In fact, after a couple of seconds, the chair shifted and dumped her off on to the floor, where she continued to scream.

The roach was constantly on the move from office to office. And since our office walls, here in cubeville, are an inch off the floor, the roach could easily move from one cube to the next.

It was interesting to track the movement of the roach. You didn’t have to see him, you just had to listen for the screams.

Eventually, the monster was captured and put on display. At an inch and a half long, people thought that it was huge.

Obviously, these are people who have never watched “Naked Lunch”