SilverCreek78250: Russian Style

This gave me a little shock...

GNWCIA Meeting Report: My Notes...

A quick note: Sorry to be delinquent with the posts this week - I have been overwhelmed with watching TV now that many of my must see shows are on (Lost!) and I have also been doing some work which causes me to have a little less time to fritter away my life banging away notes into the computer and posting pictures of people being goofy. But, I will try to do better and provide those of you who make this Blog a daily visit on your Internet journey, a rewarding experience each day. No, I'm not running for any elected office.

So, then. My wife and I made the short trip down the street to the Lodge of the Great Northwest so we could attend at least the first hour and a half of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association. The audience was , dare I say, packed, with residents compared to normal meetings we attend. I don't have an exact head count, but it was easily triple or quadruple the normal crowd we see. Thank you residents; we need more people to show interest, and mark my words; you will enjoy the show, especially if you are a closet Springer Fan.

But I digress.

Following the fully participated in moment of silence and pledging to the flag, the meeting was called to order and such, then we heard from residents to complain:

Up first, Former Board Chair, Mrs. Kathleen Callahan and a few comments about the the content of letters from Board Chair Besing and Vice Chair Doherty in last months paper. Read it here. I'll save you some time and tell you that she was upset that two sitting Directors made comments in the official paper regarding intentions to run for the board. Multiple theories as to how this was a disadvantage to other potential candidates, and potentially, caused some candidates not to run knowing that they have to run against incumbents.

I don't know how I feel about the first part - is it an advantage? Who knows? Will it keep other people from running? In my estimation, if some potential board candidate made the decision to run based on whether or not an incumbent was running, I'll tell you right now, that person would not get my vote. Either do it because you intend to win and do a good job for the community, or don't run. If announcing their (Doherty and Besing) candidacy via Passages weeded out any crappy candidates, then I'm all for it.

Former (even before Mrs. Callahan) Chairman of the Board of Directors, Joe Martinez gave his concerns about a new GNW Group called The Happenings, not getting fair use of the GNW Lodge. I didn't quite get the full story, so I'd appreciate if someone from the Happenings group could fill me in, but the gist of it was that the Lodge people made the group meet at a smaller venue (Emerald Valley Lodge), which is not fair. That facility is not conducive to meetings, and I can testify. My understanding was that the reasoning was that it costs more money to open the GNW Lodge, so it needs to be for a group large enough to show that it is serving the interests of the community as a whole. I'm gonna have to side with Mr. Martinez on this one (at least the parts I understand). If a group is an officially sanctioned group of the association, let 'em have the good room. I recall my wife and I being the only attendees of a Board of Directors meeting, and our last GNW watch meeting only had about 5 or 6 folks in the audience.

Okay. You may recall the folks in Emerald Valley who had some drunk guy plow his car into their house. The residents spoke before the board to address their concerns and seek assistance from the board and security to help with the problem. This family has already made contact with the city and other agencies to try to address the problem, but you could see the look on the collective faces of the directors and most audience members; this is not an issue that the association can address in any substantive way. The resident made many informative and helpful points, explaining the problems with the street, the fact that vehicles speed and such. But, unfortunately, her suggestions of having the GNW Security basically sit on her street after hours and write down plate numbers of speeders is obviously a no go.

I was extremely proud of how Director Sigrid Long handled the matter in addressing the residents concerns. She made several suggestions on how to proceed and of course, mentioned the fact that the GNWatch group might be a place to start. (I later gave the family my e-mail address and number, and hope they will join the watch soon).

Have you had enough yet? There is more.

We had a surprise guest speaker, Judge Marcia S. Weiner who is the Justice of the Peace for Precinct Two, Place One. If you get in trouble, you will find her over in Leon Valley. It just so happens that my son is doing his Criminal Justice internship in her office, so, needless to say, I have nothing but glowing comments about Judge Weiner and her thirty or more minutes of informative material.

Seriously though, Judge Weiner has an informative pitch involving the the problems associated with truancy and the escalating troubles youth get into. She gave us ideas of the ways she deals with the little criminals to get them back on the right track. Turns out, she often gives the screw-ups community service and that if they live among us, they could perform said service here in the GNW! Sign them up! We need some fences painted.

Anyway, I believe the Passages will soon be running an article written by Judge Weiner, and if you'd like, she left some informative handouts with the office staff.

Okay. On to Committee reports.

Chairman of the Scholarship Committee, Mrs. Callahan gave a stirring report on the status of the committee and the resulting happy kids. Then the questions from Directors Garcia and Pucci started. There seem to be two concerns from the board members: Are there any conflicts of interest, and how is the money accounted for?

You should know that I have been sighted by two of the three factions of the GNW community for not giving a crap about all the details of every little thing in our community. But in the GNW, there are actually three factions.

One faction is made up of people who align themselves with former board chairman Martinez. A second faction is made up of people who align themselves with former board chair Callahan. The other 95 percent of the people in the GNW fall into my faction. We are the people who just want to pay our assessments, live in the community and not be inundated with this petty, petty, petty crap.

In this case, if some residents want to donate money to a scholarship fund and they want to take the proceeds of the vending machines at the pool to add to that fund, go for it. Keep it all legal and open, but go for it.

I have a better idea.

Do it, but do it as a private thing and don't even involve the association with it. They got a whopping $35 from the vending machines last year. My son is in college. $35 doesn't cover half the cost of his parking permit for one semester. The association (as far as I understand) doesn't provide any of the funds to the scholarship, right? So just do it on your own, and be done with it.

But, in the mean time, the deadline for this years scholarship is early April, so contact your high school and do whatever it takes to get the scholarship money.

I don't want to sound like I'm in a hurry, but it should not take 20 minutes of my life to hear about some stupid (Stupid is such a harsh and opinionated word - please don't let it taint the meaning of this report) scholarships at an HOA board meeting. What impact does that private group of well meaning neighbors (and I do applaud them) have to do with the running of the association? I'd like equal time for the Line Dancing committee and the Bunco team, please.

I was unexpectedly asked to give a few words about the GNWatch meeting coming up next Wednesday. I didn't expect to be peppered with questions from the board, but I was.

I have mentioned it before. I have a great deal of respect for Director Pucci. He asks everyone who speaks before the board questions that are intended to provide information he needs to make a decision. I'd like to think I had my shit together, but who knows? Bottom line, come out to the meeting next Wednesday, the 27th of February. I'll write more about it next week.

Our community Manager, Mr. Darrin Laraquente broke down a series of complaints he has received from residents and addressed each. I'm going to tell you right up front; Mr. Laraquente has hit the ground running and is doing a fantastic job for this association. He is still getting to know the community and trying to put people's complaints and concerns into perspective. Kudos to him and to how he is motivating the staff to get things done.

What he is facing is a series of things that are happening in neighborhoods all around San Antonio. First, people are tagging and vandalizing The Five Oh (78250 - get it?) daily. If that isn't bad enough, we have otherwise upstanding residents who are doing ridiculous things.

On a recent tour of the greenbelts in our area (also known as drainage ditches and dry creek beds), he got to see first hand how some residents simply dump garbage over their fences into the open area. Imagine this. You cut your tree limbs and you toss them right over the fence. Someone looks at them and can see exactly where the tree in your back yard has been cut, and exactly where the branch that matches the cut limb is laying on the other side of the fence. Hello? This isn't CSI people. You don't need a sperm sample to figure out who the donor is.

Okay. If you are still reading this, this is where it ends. My wife and I had another, more important meeting to attend, so we left promptly at 9PM.

On the way out, one resident stopped me to suggest that I stay for the next round of action. I'm sorry, but I'll wait for the official minutes.

Oh, I did hear from several people who stayed that there was an attempt to censure a few directors, but in keeping with my new policy of not reporting anything that I don't witness first hand, I'll have to read about it in the official minutes, and so will you.

Help me out people. We need more eyes and ears at these meetings. Why don't you come on down on the first and third Thursday of the month and sit in with us. You can pick any faction you want to sit with - there are no assigned seats.

As always, I tend to get things wrong. Don't file a lawsuit, just send me an e-mail or make a comment and tell me how bad I screwed things up. If you were at the meeting, I'll be happy to print your take on events, unedited, with or without attribution. My goal is to get the information out to my neighbors.

San Antonio Menu's...

If you notice down at the bottom of this Blog, I have a bunch of links to useful web pages. One of them I recently added under "Sites For San Antonio" is called The Dish on Food.

A new feature on the site provides menu's to many of the restaurants that you have been thinking about visiting, but weren't sure if they had what you were looking for. Now you'll know.

By the way, when you get to the web page, look along the black menu bar just beneath the picture. You see San Antonio Menus. Click on that and you can see the list.

Neighborhood Report: GNW Library Tagged...

We stayed up until almost 2 in the morning visiting with friends and singing (if that's what you call it) a few Karaoke tunes, so getting up well after 9:30 is something totally out of the norm for me, but very necessary this morning. I put on a pot of coffee and checked a few e-mails and before long, our big dog, Gracie was ready to go out and visit the backyard for a little while.

After such a crappy weather day yesterday - you know, when it refuses to just come right out and rain, but keeps misting as if we had suddenly moved to England or someplace wet all the time - it was a stunningly beautiful morning today, with just the slightest of breezes to ease the warm sun. So, my dog and I threw the ball around for a little while. Well, technically, I threw the ball, and in return for a few kibbles from her treat bag, I'd get the slobbered over dirty tennis ball back so the entire process could start again.

I thought to myself how much I loved the mornings like this and how much I appreciated living in Silver Creek and in San Antonio. If the weather would stay like this forever, life would be perfect, at least in my backyard.

But sadly, people all over my neighborhood, and people in neighborhoods throughout our city will eventually leave their homes and be greeted with what I saw as I drove by the local library just down the street. One person; one incredibly inconsiderate, selfish and malicious punk who for whatever reason finds himself to be so self-important, that he must leave his mark in five-foot tall letters on the brand new addition to a place shared by everyone. You might suspect that this kind of thing really gets on my nerve. It does. I do a lot of research on the Internet and participate in discussion boards where Tagging is a topic of interest. I'm so sick of reading that these people with their cans of spray paint are simply future artists trying to express themselves. One guy wrote that we should allow these taggers to use the world as their canvas, and eventually, they will become good enough to have their "art" displayed in galleries. Why is it that people with this forgiving attitude never give directions to their personal privacy fence, mail box and home?If they want to be seen in a gallery somewhere, let's start with their face up on a wanted poster in the Post Office. But that won't happen because, even though everyone agrees that this vandalism is against the law, it is not nearly the infraction that going 5 miles per hour over the speed limit is. That is not a jab at our police either. But it is a jab at our city council and the people responsible for directing the Police Chief in where they want emphasis placed on enforcing laws.

Speeding tickets generate revenue; trying to find some 16 year-old with a can of spray paint tucked in his pants costs money. I get it. But what I don't get is why with all the money spent to build new public facilities, we don't have the sense to add in the extra minimal amount of money needed to outfit each new building (and hopefully retrofit existing buildings) with surveillance cameras that could first, alert someone to the fact that someone is doing something, or if not, at least provide evidence of who the culprit was after the fact?

Industry is already on to this. Construction companies have figured out that it costs them less money to spend cash up front to provide surveillance to construction sites to deter and/or catch the vandals and thieves, than it does to constantly react to the problems that occur when building anew home. So you can imagine that people in the security industry have come up with ways to help.

I drive by Wolfe Stadium every morning on my way to work. On one side of Callahan Road is a neighborhood of older, modest, homes. There was one house, obviously abandoned, that was so tagged up that to tag it any more would require the "artist" to use a roller just to clear off an area before he could then deface the property with his latest work.

On the opposite side of the road, behind the stadium, they have turned an empty field into what looks like some sort of concrete baseball diamond. I really have no idea what it is, but apparently, someone realized that given the proximity to the vandalized homes across the street, they should figure out how to protect this new thing.

So as I drive by one morning, I see this little trailer like thing with tall spot lights, flashing sirens, speakers and cameras. The logo on the side of this thing says "Pro Vigil" and of course, I looked it up. You can too, here. The bottom line is, this equipment can detect movement in the area being protected, then it lights up the place, gives an audible warning that the police are being called, takes pictures of everything that happens and if the intruders do not leave the site, police or whoever (private security) are called to the scene.I don't expect the city to go out and purchase something like this for every public space - can you imagine the outcry from the "This is Big Brother" crowd? But how hard is it to use a little common sense in planning to consider physical security of buildings as a factor when funding projects? Blame it all on 9-1-1 and say you are trying to catch terrorists, maybe that will get us some federal funding to assist. But for how much longer are we going to sit back and just live with the continuous, daily barrage of new tagging everywhere around the city?

I do know that the city has tried to take action on a small scale. They have already used surveillance cameras to identify and arrest several taggers. Great. Now that you know what works, let's step it up.

If you live in my part of town, or if your part of San Antonio is watching the value of your home drop because of the increased tagging, I urge you to send a message to your district councilperson. We need a little less of worrying about what entrepreneurs do in their restaurants, and a little more concern with the blatant vandalism.

Or you can confine yourself to beautiful days throwing a ball to your dog in the comfort of your backyard. If we don't get a handle on this situation, that's about as good as it is going to be.

Tell me what you think about it.

Cool Campaign Idea...

The other day as we were driving home from the rodeo, we passed this little gem on Highway 90. This guy is apparently running for Sheriff, and decided to use this spiffy old Mayberry R.F.D. looking Barney Fife cruiser as a prop. I wonder if he had a single bullet in his shirt pocket, just in case.

Dinner Report: Chili's on Valentine's Day...

Yesterday - Valentine's Day, I got off work and got home as quickly as possible so I could pick up my wife and zip out to someplace to eat. By 5PM, we were in the truck heading out of the neighborhood and I was on the phone to Texas Roadhouse to do the ol' call ahead deal. It isn't reservations, but they do put your name on the waiting list at the time you call, so for a long wait, you at least have a head start.

Apparently, everyone of you had the same idea! I call and the girl takes my name and then for the first time, reads me some long disclaimer about the circumstances of my call. She tells me that she is putting me on the waiting list, that it isn't a reservation, based on my expected arrival time I was only getting a ten minute head start in waiting and such. I mean, it sounded as though she was trying to talk me out of the whole thing. Finally, I interrupted her and asked, "Well just how long is the wait?"

"Oh" she says as if it was no big deal, "with your ten minutes off, about 80 minutes." Did I mention we call Chili's the ol' standby?

So we walked into Chili's, were seated immediately and I decided that I was going to have something different. I always get the chili and salad, everytime I go. But I figured, tonight, I was going for something different. For the first time ever, I ordered a steak from Chili's. But first, my wife ordered some kind of new version of onions. This isn't the onion blossom, and it isn't onion rings like you'd think of onion rings, these are sort of fried, then sauteed onions, almost like what you would put on a burger.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that we ate the whole order, because these things have extreme gas written all over them. Thankfully, the mashed potatoes we had with dinner seemed to counter any disturbing affects. Or effects, I never can remember.So my wife gets her little steak - it is some sort of Honey Barbecued kind of deal. She likes her steak cooked medium well and is happy if it is closer to well than medium.I got the steak (ordered medium, but got still kicking) and baby back ribs. Now before you get all grossed out at the picture, I didn't take a photo of half eaten food - but the waitress wanted me to cut into everything to be sure it was done enough before she would leave. Of course, my steak is still raw, but there is no way in hell I would send something back to the kitchen. That's just asking for a sweaty guy to do an around the world on my steak, and I'm not interested in what he's servin'!

Needless to say, for lunch today at work, I had a steak cooked in the microwave so as to get it to at least a medium, and it was mighty fine. My ribs were awesome! I swear I inhaled them, sucking the meat off the bones then wildly licking at my mustache and beard in some circular motion with my tongue to get the rib sauce off. I guess it was a scene; some creepy old guy walking by the table winked at me and gave me a thumbs up!

Anyway, that was dinner at Chili's. By the time we got up to leave, the crowd, most likely tired of waiting at Texas Roadhouse had made their collective way to Chili's because the line to get in was backing up outside. Ha!

Rodeo Report: Cows go Moo...

Each year since forever, my wife and I make a trip to the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo on or around Valentines Day. I take off early from work, and usually, with one or both of our kids and a few tagalongs, we get their early enough in the day to avoid the crowds, walk around, eat some fried food, drink some draft beers, look at cows, pigs, horses, and people, and just enjoy the afternoon.

Then, by the time we are ready to leave, we have avoided the flood of people entering the grounds to attend the actual rodeo (bucking broncos, calf roping, fisticuffs) and concert that follows.

Of course, this year, my daughter couldn't join us because she and her husband are off in New Jersey dealing with the cold weather. My wife was none too pleased with this, but we have persevered and to make things lively, invited our neighbors Gus and Ruby to join us for the big walk around the stables.

These days, it seems kind of gross, what with people so health conscious and such, but for some reason, we always seem to have this hankering for that fried onion blossom. It sounds so good when you get there and you can just smell the trans-fats floating through the air. Now if you go to Chili's or probably the Outback (I wouldn't know since we stopped eating there years ago), when they serve up one of those fried onion blossoms, it comes with some sort of horse radish sauce or some crazy concoction that tastes spicy. We immediately fix that problem by ordering some honey mustard on the side. And usually, this is not a problem at the rodeo.

First thing we do as soon as we get in the rodeo is order up an onion. The booth you choose is a critical factor in how your onion experience goes. We chose wrong.The blossom we got had clearly been cooked a few weeks ago (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little) and was not even close to warm. They did not have honey mustard or even the standard horse radishy stuff that we don't like anyway. What they gave us was Ranch dressing. It is the rodeo, after all. Hey, I love Ranch Dressing. But not on an onion. Especially a just this side of cold onion.

I went down to the next booth selling onions and sheepishly asked the nice lady there how much would she charge me for a cup of honey mustard, and she just gave me some without a thought. Situation averted.When you walk around the rodeo grounds, you get to participate in sampling of foods, and they issue you a big plastic bag (this year, provided by Country station Y-100), and you fill it with all the crap they are giving away. We got lots of fruit cups, almonds, Grill Mates, some coupons, and not much else. Pretty disappointing actually. I only whine about it because in previous years, we have loaded up big time. But what the heck.
There are a group of cowboy characters who put on little shows and to be honest, they are quite entertaining. I often wonder what these people do when there isn't a rodeo for them to perform in. I mean, let's face it, this isn't the type of look that fits in at bank, even in Texas. Though you can surely get a job selling papers on the corner every weekend, and this attire would be perfectly appropriate.We looked at this exhibit called "Birds of Prey". Holy crap. I kept thinking some of these things might make a tasty bar-b-q, but I have always been partial to yardbird.The main focus for us is going inside the old Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum which is located just next to the AT&T Center. For those readers not in San Antonio, The AT&T Center is where our beloved San Antonio Spurs play. During the rodeo (which requires that the basketball court be removed and the floor covered in dirt) the Spurs go on what is called the Rodeo Road Trip. More info than you will ever need if you are not a basketball fan or a Spurs fan.Anyway, we go into Freeman Coliseum because it is filled with vendors selling things that would appeal to people who go to rodeos. Everything from boots to country-fied clothing to turquoise jewelry (yeesh), to paintings of cowboys and just all sorts of stuff that I never buy. But it is nice to walk around there and observe the fancy cowboy duds that people have put on for the big trip to the rodeo.I'll try to put this delicately so as not to create consternation with my wife on Valentines day, but if you are a man, you should be aware that many of the ladies who come to rodeo dress to impress. I'll leave it at that.After walking through aisle after aisle of vendors, surely you will want some guy to give you a personality test, right? I wonder why it is they need your phone number and e-mail address to do the test? Could there be some future Spam or a few phone calls coming your way just when you sit down to eat dinner? Can't make it 8 seconds? Why not climb aboard a huge plastic bull and get a photo made so you can tell all your friends you didn't just go to the rodeo - your were the rodeo!
But for those people really into it, you can raise a real cow, get him all fattened up, brush his hair real perty, then parade him around the gorunds like these kids do. San Antonio Stock Show is one of the biggest put on for school aged kids to compete in. And when they are done, the winners get purchased, slaughtered and served up as steak! Yum!For my wife, one of the highlights is this big, huge, really tall horse named Thor who shows up every year. Thor is some sort of Flemish breed horse that stands 20 hands tall. To give you a frame of reference, the Budweiser Clydesdale's look like Small Horse, Big World characters compared to Thor. He really is beautiful. Oh, I took some pictures from another angle - strange how it was my wife who noticed that Thor seemed pleased to see her, but I wouldn't want to publish them for fear that a San Antonio city Council member might try to shut down the rodeo due to the prurient nature of things.Anyway, you aren't allowed to ride Thor but my wife was able to jump on for a little entertainment, if only to experience what it could be like to be a real cowgirl. I on the other hand prefer to stick with things a little more my speed. You know I could eat yard bird everyday of the week, but as healthy as it sounds, I tend to resemble the Pillsbury Doughboy!