I'd knocked out a quick duplicate of Heidi Oringer's pic for her column and sent it to her, showing her what they'd changed from her original photo.

The danged woman sent it to the ABCNews.com web team, and it's now the one on her column's page!

Free work for ABC? Yeah, that's what it's turned out to be. Am I a bit proud?

Danged straight I am ...

I've become accustomed to reading Heidi's wacky-but-informative column. It's good to be even a small part of it.

Ok, so Heidi Oringer's new pic isn't really her new pic.

In my last entry I'd complained about how much I don't like the new pic ABCNews.com is using on the page for Heidi's column (her old pic can be seen here). After swapping a couple emails with her, in came a copy of the original photo she submitted.

Well, the web gang at ABCNews.com had obviously changed the properties of the new photo. The original is quite nice and they should use it as the photographer intended, without making any changes to detract from it.

Hey Heidi ... next time you send me a pic, at least autograph it first! :-)

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The Tecumseh Herald has once again published a letter from me in their weekly rag (which is definitely a nice publication). That's three letters they've published from me in as many weeks. I wonder how many they'll publish before deciding they've heard enough from me. I'll just have to keep writing to them ... seems I'm on a roll ...

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This has been a rip-roaring week, what with A/V carts needing to be assembled and/or modified, large-format printer training sessions to be given, stage lights to be mounted for student shows, artworks to be carted around, issues at the Faculty Studios to deal with ... I'm not sure I've worked harder than this week in the time that I've been here. And today's already booked solid.

Off to find some java ... but not of the Sun Microsystems variety ...

Sometimes there are things to write about while other times there aren't. How does anyone keep any kind of journal if some days are filled with a literal monotony of nothingness?

Some would say there's always something. I disagree.

It's been a busy few days since Monday. Carts to assemble, instructors to instruct, prints to print and negatives to speak positively of (photographically speaking, of course). But at the same time, there's been nothing newsworthy to talk about, nothinggnawing at my brain. If I'd have been able to find out what happened at the Tecumseh Board of Ed meeting Monday evening, I'm sure there'd have been something. As it is, I'm just kinda waiting for tomorrow's paper to break the news.

One thing though: Heidi Oringer changed the pic for her column, so there's something to comment on. She doesn't look as rowdy now. She looks ... bookish, even mainstream. The sneer is gone. Hey Heidi ... I liked the sneer!!!

So there ... something to complain about. I do have to keep in-practice.

BTW, if you get a chance to see "The Tuxedo", make sure you do so. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to even think about drinking bottled water after seeing the opening sequence. It just doesn't seem right anymore. And if you do take the movie seriously, yer outta yer mind!!!

Ok, I'm going to go off the deep end here ... say what's on my mind and actually keep it short ...

In my humble opinion, this year's Appleumpkin Festival was a dud.

Walking through downtown Tecumseh on Saturday, I expected to see the fun of last year, where every few stores there'd be a booth where the kids could do a Make-It Take-It and there'd be happy kids everywhere. I certainly didn't expect to see carnival-style vendors of t-shirts and posters or the massive (and over-priced) antique markets ($58 for a plastic AT-AT walker from Star Wars 5??) The Make-It Take-It booths had been consolidated into a single tent run by the high school cheerleaders. Granted, the cheerleaders had more fun with my kids than the operators of the previous-years' booths around town. But to park this tent behind the stores ... well, one woman in the Clinton Café later that evening said this placement seemed to treat the kids as "second-class citizens".

The word-of-the-day, unfortunately, was "commercialized". This was how the Festival suddenly felt. Walking through town, there was no festival there. There was a bit of it in that parking lot behind Doby's, but the rest of the town was a great disappointment. Gone were the pie-eating contests and other activities in front of the antique market's depot building. Cars were able to park along M-50 this year, splitting the downtown activities in two and making the area more dangerous than it needed to be. And there just seemed to be a great lack of fun.

There were no rides, no downtown stage for performances, and the haunted house was relocated to the Scout cabin, which is rather distant from the rest of the happenings. Still, there were unfortunately no happenings to be distant from.

I hope the organizers pull this festival back to its roots before it's too late. My parents had come down from the Flint area last year and made a special trip to come down the same weekend this year. Let's hope next year they decide to come down once more and that there's a real festival for them to come to Tecumseh for.

My parents are down for the weekend for the Appleumpkin Festival here in Tecumseh. I was making dinner last night ... pork chops smothered in cream of mushroom soup with roasted garlic ... when I got to looking at the box of stuffing I was about to make. Kraft StoveTop Stuffing for Pork. Now I rarely look at the Nutrition Facts panels on packaging because it's depressing how little we're supposed to eat according to a bunch of skinny docs who have nothing better to do. There, at the top, it reads (and I'm not making this up):

Serving Size 1/6 box (28g)

Servings Per Container 6

Umm ... er ... ahh ...

Yeah, that sounds about right. You don't think they could have gotten 5 or 7 Servings Per Container with the Serving Size at 1/6 of a box, eh?

Alright, I wanna know who makes this stuff up!

There were five of us. Mom, Dad, Aaron, Ryan and myself. I made two boxes of the stuff and served one plate of food to everyone. There was none left over.

Serving Size 1/2.5 box (67.2g)

Servings Per Container 2.5

Golly, I can do that too ...

Tain't no way I can figure out how much to serve to each person, according to "their" rules, if they've set up the information this way. Give it to me in cups or, if your going to go that small on the servings anyway, maybe teaspoons. I'll still make two boxes, feed five people, and have none left over. Why?

'Cuz that's how normal people eat!!!

People used to eat pert'near a whole cow for dinner and they still stayed skinny. Why's that? Cuz' workin' on the farm gives you good exercise.

So, eat like a human being, but instead of sitting there snacking while watching Emeril make rabbit ragu on FoodTV, get off your duff and on your bike.

Ride like the wind, my friend, ride like the wind. Then you don't have to worry about eating just a sixth of a box of stuffing.

Ah yes, the Tecumseh Herald has come through for me once more. They've printed a second letter from me in as many weeks on the subject of those trapezoids along the roofline of the new high school. One little glitch is that the print version is edited (apparently for page space). In the print version, one of the paragraphs about Marnie runs right into one of my own comments, with parts of both paragraphs missing. However, the online version is complete (so complete there are some funky carriage returns, which were probably in my original email). Hopefully folks will go to the web version and re-read what they thought they've already read.

It's going to be a busy weekend. My folks are coming down and I'll have two of my boys as well, 12-year-old Aaron and 5-year-old Ryan. It's Appleumpkin Festival weekend in Tecumseh which is something my parents really enjoy. We'll also be heading out to see Jackie Chan's new film "The Tuxedo" at the Clinton Theatre.

Once the film ends its run there, the poster from the theatre will be framed and I'll hang it in my spare bedroom. The kids'll love it there. Of course, I'm really not acquiring it for them ... :-)

I sent off the following to the Tecumseh Herald yesterday evening:

To The Editor,



In the past week or so I've discovered lots of folks are irate about the Board of Education throwing good money after bad on the roofline of the new High School. In fact, I've yet to hear from anyone who disagrees with what I wrote in the letter you published in last week's Herald. Obviously, while a majority voted positively for the construction bond, folks are feeling they have no say in how it's used.



Before going any further, let's correct some math as much as possible. There are 18 of those trapezoids on the roofline of the new high school. My understanding (which may be incorrect) was that each of these cost $7,000 to construct. That's $126,000 just to get the nonsense going. The cost to pseudo-finish them with false roofs behind them is $345,000. I think for the sake of discussion (and the fact that the $7,000 figure may not be correct), we can round up to the nearest hundred-thousand.



That's half-a-million dollars, folks. $500,000. One-sixtieth of the entire $30 million-dollar construction bond. More money than I can make in ten years at my current salary. Most of the new homes being built in this country and around the world don't even cost this much.



Earlier in the week I was seeing agreement on the nonsense of the high school roofline issue days before the Herald published my letter. Tuesday morning I was in the Coffee and Cream Café, the great new coffeehouse just north of Adrian Skatery II on M-52. Another customer happened to glance at the front of the previous-week's Herald on the counter where the $345,000 was mentioned. She then began complaining loudly about the project to the gentleman behind the counter.



The letter was published on Thursday and made it to the Herald's web site on Friday. An opinion on the letter was posted on the letter's web page by a Lydia Wilt: "I totally agree Mr. Liske! While different departments and sports go without bare neccessities the board continues to spend money on something purely cosmetic. Have you seen the soccer and football practice fields? Kids are hurting themselves by showing up for practice! And again...we are putting Tennis courts up for the future but not taking PROPER care of needs that we all ready have. Get your priorities straight Board members!!!"



I'd like to see more details on what's going on with these practice fields. Is this another issue that needs to immediately be brought into a public discussion with the Board? How many kids are being injured, what are the causes of these injuries, and what steps are being taken to correct the situation?



The Friday evening after the letter was published I was happily accosted at a Scouting event by one of the Scout leaders. He vigorously shook my hand and told me he agreed with me 100%. At that point it began to be apparent there is a large number of people who feel the same way I do.



In an email from Marnie, the woman I was married to for sixteen years, she had this to say: "I hope the Board listens to some of these comments. I would rather my tax dollars be spent on needed things and programs. Who cares how pretty the building looks? That won't improve the quality of education the kids receive. I'll have to really consider whether I'd ever vote for another millage increase if this is how the money is going to be allocated. I hope others feel the same way. Maybe if the board wouldn't have spent all that money on the high school, the kids wouldn't have to do these ridiculous fund raisers. Do they have so much money that they can just, in a sense, throw it away? I know that all the comments in the world won't change what has been done, but I hope to prevent any additional funds being used for nonsense, like tearing the things down."



Many years ago Marnie bought a wonderful t-shirt (which she still has) that fits this situation regarding the schools having so many fundraisers. It reads, "It'll be a great day when the schools get all the money and the Air Force has to have a fundraiser to buy a bomber."



Can we build an auditorium with the sum of $500,000 the Board plans to spend on roofline cosmetics? Probably not, but we could get one started. Looking around the web at a few high school auditorium project sites, some are being renovated with a budget of $500,000. Of course, I'm a high school theater animal from the late 1970's who never played sports, so I'm partial to this kind of project ...



What about an athletic field? Again, looking around the web we find a number of athletic field projects. One of the more prominent projects is a $100 million public-private effort to rebuild 52 public high school sports facilities in New York City.



Could the $500,000 be used to seed one of these types of new-construction projects? You betcha. Of course, $126,000 of the $500,000 sum has already been completely and utterly wasted. But remember, the $126,000 amount I've listed may very well be low if the trapezoids cost more than what I remember being told.



To raise the money for these projects, Mr. Anthony Rebottaro is chairing a group known as Performing Arts & Athletic Complexes for Tecumseh (PAACT). I remember looking at a web page they had up a couple months ago. Unfortunately the site, which should be at http://www.paactinfo.com, isn't working right now. However, they have a purpose that should have been taken care of by the construction bond in the first place. 



Frankly, having a high school with no auditorium and no athletic field is unheard of unless you're dealing with one of the nation's remaining 450-or-so one-room schoolhouses.



The $345,000 could very well go to PAACT to seed the needed funds. Even if it doesn't, flyers for donating to PAACT are available next to the copy machine in the Tecumseh Public Library. Anyone can donate to this cause and people can give in any amount they're able to. Complete instructions on how to do so are on the flyer. 



One discussion this week bothered me more than most as it illustrates how misplaced the Board's actions are. A woman standing with us at the Scouting event on Friday mentioned that she understood the high school heating system is having trouble getting to temperatures above 55 degrees F. She also mentioned that there are other issues with the new building that have nothing to do with external cosmetics. Rather, they have to do with student comfort and the quality of education. The $345,000 could also go toward these issues.



Something everyone can do is to contact the Board of Education on this issue and not let up. I'd like to be at the Board meeting at 7 p.m. on October 14th at the Middle School and raise serious concerns about this but I won't be available. If folks can be there and let their displeasure be known in a calm and articulate manner, I hope they feel compelled to do so without thinking "I'm sure enough people will be there if I don't go."



The Board needs to know immediately that members of the community aren't happy about this mess. And if this project continues without even a comment from the Board regarding the feelings and opinions on this issue within the community, then maybe members of the current Board shouldn't ever be re-elected.

I'm starting to get feedback on my letter to the Tecumseh Herald of the other day. I'm hoping the Board's paying attention ... but at the same time, I'm wondering how to get them to pay more attention. Is it already too late? Is the Board already doing something more constructive? (No pun intended.)

Yesterday evening I was accosted at a Scouting event by Pat McPherson. He vigorously shook my hand and told me he agreed with me 100%. It feels good to be agreed with publicly on this. The Board does need a bit of straightening out and it's good to know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Even earlier in the week I was seeing agreement on this days before the Herald published it. Tuesday morning I was in Coffee and Cream, the new coffeehouse just north of Adrian Skatery II on M-52. Another customer happened to glance at the front of the previous-week's Herald lying and complained loudly about the project to the gentleman behind the counter.

Lots of folks are irate about this. Obviously, while some people voted positively for the construction bond, folks are starting to feel they have no say in how it's used.

BOARD MEMBERS ... WAKE UP!