Weezy at almost 9 months 
Coastal View Responses
A couple of weeks ago, I responded to a letter to the editor (LTE) in our local paper, the Coastal
View News. My expanded commentary can be found here.
In the first issue following my letter, David
Chamlee wrote a response to Bud Fink’s ‘Slippery Slope’ memo (“Bigoted, racist
and offensive”, the last LTE on the page). In
this week’s Coastal View, Bud Fink responds (“Dont play the racist card with me”) and James E. Finch also comments (“God bless freedom of speech”).
Although I won’t be sending a letter to the editor on this topic to respond to the responses, I want to state that I stand by my initial response. I fail to see any valid comparison between the ‘faults’ that Bud Fink ascribes to our Gov. (using the phrase ‘Girle Men’, increasing state debt, being a successful fund raiser, failing to commute the death sentence of a lawfully convicted murderer), and the ruthlessness with which Adolf Hitler set about to exterminate an entire ethnic group and other groups with which he disagreed. I also was amused at the back tracking that Bud Fink did with his first point. In the original LTE, Bud Fink originally stated that the Gov. ‘wants to disband the legislature …’ But in his response, Bud Fink tones down his rhetoric and instead makes the more accurate claim that the Gov. ‘Pronounce[d] the legislature unnecessary or at best part time’. A part time legislature sounds like a great idea to me, no matter which party controls it.
The public debate has sunk to name calling, so I am bowing out.
Bloody Tears
Today Max fell off a swing at Ehling’s
Park and hit his face on the hard dirt underneath. There was a stick on the ground
that he might have hit (or the swing came back and hit him, nobody actually saw him
fall). When his screams of pain brought Mom over to him, she saw that he had blood
mixed in with his tears coming from his left eye. After speaking to Max’s doctor,
the incredible Dr.
Polito, Toby decided to take him to the ER at Cottage
Hospital to have it checked out. Toby called me to get Weezy from the other mom’s
in the playgroup and then I went to the ER to see them. When I got there (> 1 hour
after being seen by the triage nurse), Max was very chipper, laughing and telling
me how he fell off the swing. Toby and I made the decision to *not* have him seen
at the ER, but to take him to the Urgent
Care in Carpinteria. Then Toby had the brilliant idea to call Dr. Polito again and see if she could squeeze Max in to check him out. Max and I waited less than an hour to see her, and she checked him out and pronounced him fit as a fiddle.
Thank you, God. Max didn’t have to be seen at the ER, Toby has helpful playgroup friends and Dr. Polito and the nurse Tracey were very flexible.
Disappointing Survey
On the west side of our property, the property line was not clearly marked. We had a fence in the front yard, but there was some question about whether that fence was on the property line or not. When our plans went
to the Architectural
Review Board a couple of weeks ago, our neighbors to the west brought up the question
of the property line and the position of our new addition, relative to the mandatory
setbacks. Our original goal was to put up new walls on the east and west sides of
the house, about 18 inches out from the existing structure. The idea was that this
would give us the ability to live inside the house while the construction was going
on, with a minimal amount of impact (yeah, right). In deciding on the 18 inches on
the west side, I measured from the existing house to the existing fence in the front
yard and found the distance to be 6.5 feet. Since we are required to have a 5 foot
setback on that side, we had 1.5 feet to expand, and still be within the required
setback. Well, the disappointing news is that after splitting the cost of a survey
by Simpson
Land Surveying of the property line with our neighbors to the west, we found that
the property line was 1 foot closer to our house than the fence in the front yard
indicates. For the front yard this is not really a big deal. For the side yard and
the effects of the setback, this is a HUGE deal.
Now since we only have 6 inches to expand instead of 18, there is no possibility of building a wall outside of the existing structure. We now need to tear down the existing wall and replace it with a new one to support the upper levels. This is a major impact on our plans to live in the house. Obviously, we can’t continue to live in the house while the walls are gone.
Upon hearing this news, my dad very graciously (among all the rest of his generosity) offered a plan to take some extra, continuous time off work so that we could do the demo and get a shell of a wall up as soon as possible.
I am not sure what God’s reasoning is in making the property line end up where it is, but I know that His will is perfect. So I am counting on that perfect will to produce something great, because right now, I am extremely disappointed in the way things turned out.
June Lake Vacation (28 May – 4 June 2005)
We have traded our lovely MiniUnit at San Luis
Bay Inn in Avila Beach, CA via RCI for
a 1 bedroom unit at the Heidelberg
Inn (second
website) in June Lake, CA. 
We love our timeshare. We especially love the fact that our MiniUnit transfers up
to a 1 bedroom unit at almost every other resort.
Toby did a great job in finding this resort. We have never been to June Lake. If anyone
knows of some must experience activities in the area, please leave
a comment.