Political Commentary

After reading Nate's blog just a few minutes ago, I got the great idea to respond to what he talked about and bring up some other political ideas of my own. Sorry Nate, but this probably will be longer than would be prudent to fit into a comment box.

First off, I would like to say that I agree with your comment about politics becoming too egocentric for our government to function properly. Remember that Thomas Jefferson (a "founding father" if you will) said that we should have a "revolution" every 20 years or so and replace the current form of government so that the old one could not be corrupted. Well, a revolution may not be what we should do, but the idea I think is still very viable. If it could only work without as much turmoil that it would cause. As for politicians who look out for people not of the upper class, there are some, just few and far between. One died in a plane, as is the case of Sen. Paul Wellstone, or they leave the government because it has become all about money, Sen. Mark Dayton.

I also just read up on the transportation bill in question that you talked about as well. As an environmental engineering major, a major branch of civil engineering, I was at first happy to see the dollar ammount spent since that means there will be a lot of civil engineers who will not have to worry about having enough work and it goes to show that no matter what the kind of financial situation the country is in, there will always be work for civil and environmental engineers. After looking at the article more closely, I am starting to feel like the bill is more than a little wastefull. While I agree that everyone should have new and safe roads to drive on, quite a few of the projects listed under the 1,000 page bill are totally un-related. For example, there is about $3 million going towards making a documentary on infrastructure advancements in Alaska. Wasnt this supposed to be a bill for builing better roads? At least the federal government is not in charge of handling the projects, they're giving money to each state and letting the state's decide which projects need more money and so forth. the downside to this system is that the ammount of money each state recieves is dependant on how much of a gas tax each state has, so the more of a gas tax, the more money a state will get. Good for your state of WI, but bad for my state of MN. I always wondered if we would ever get punished for having less of a gas tax than WI, and now I know that we are. I guess another impact that someone could suggest might happen from the improved roads is more driving, causing the gas prices to go up again. It's a vicious circle isnt it?

I'll try to keep my comments on the energy bill short. Yes, I agree that giving more money to the oil companies is a horrible idea, but in the article it mentions a new generation of nuclear power generators, and then dismisses them. Why?!? Even though I'm an environmental engineering major like I stated earlier, I'm a huge supporter of nuclear power. Its clean, efficient, and doesnt produce green house gases. The only downside is what to do with what is produced. Eventually it needs to be handled, even if you run it through a different nuclear reactor. Even with this drawback, I still feel that it is the best opportunity, and I hope that the country does not miss its chance to do this and greatly reduce our thirst for oil.

That's the news from Rollingstone. Thanks for reading.
Otto III

Busy, busy, busy...not really

So it was raining today, causing work to get done early (11:00), so I went and met Alex and my grandparents in winona for lunch. You'd think that survey crews would work in all kinds of weather, but when the only non technical/electrical thing in the survey truck is you, a shovel, and a hammer, then you usually stop for rain. I should go and practice soon too since I have the time today. I might just make some people jealous about me getting practice time in, even with my usually busy schedule.

Not much else to report actually. I'm still tired from work last week, still broke (anyone want to donate moeny?), and so on. The only really new thing going on I'd say is that I didnt realize how many different places there were to get a domain name with web-hosting. Wow.

Oh! Here's some news: according to msnbc.com/, gas prices should increase by 5-10 cents this weekend. Great, just what I needed.

That's the news from Rollingstone. Thanks for reading.
Otto III

who Carmen is....

well....I just found out that lee does not know who Carmen is, or why she is my "wife." Here's the story for lee and anyone else who might not know.

Carmen is the first violinist in the Carmina Quartet, the one I'm in ;). She is quite smart, and as you can tell from the pic on Kerry's Website, she is equally attractive (my mom saw that pic and asked why she and I aren't dating!). I've known her for the better part of 3.5 years and been very close friends with her for the past year and a half. In CO, Carmen and I were on a hike with all the campers and counselors, it was mandatory. Well, one of my campers was in the slower group with Carmen, and I was off trail blazing ahead of the pack with Elia and Nate, when Nick (the camper) asked Carmen if her and I were involved. A few nights earlier Carmen and I had our night off and went to the Aspen Lodge for a drink and as a way to get away, but Nick thought that meant we were making out, or having hot sex i guess.

So to add to the story, Carmen and I were in town the following wednesday and she wanted to go get a watch and get away from the campers. I went along to keep her company and give her a second opinion on watches. Well, after she had picked one out, I mentioned, since it was 8:30 and we had not eaten yet, that I was hungry and she should hurry up and check out really quick. At this point the woman behind the counter says, "there's the husband saying he's hungry again!" ta dah! we're now married, not just going out.

The following monday, July 4, I was on a hike and realized that I had forgotten to pack a towel for the swimming pool, and decided to call the music camp and ask someone to tell Carmen to bring me a towel. Barb then answers, "ok Otto, I'll go tell your wife." That night Carmen and I were going to get some junk food to eat while the fireworks were going on, and the man put our totals together, at which we told him we were paying separatley. He then said that we were going dutch that night. Finally, or at least the next most improtant event in our "marriage," was when Rictor, our lesson teacher, asked Carmen in her following lesson, if Carmen and I were, "friends, or more than friends."

So there, I hope that clears things up for a lot of people, especially Lee.

That's the news from Rollingstone. Thanks for reading.
Otto III

no more argentina trip...

Well, I got an e-mail from carmen today, actually, it was a forward from Carina. I no longer have the option of going to Argentina anymore in October, since the RRMC (rocky ridge music center) board basically killed the option before it even was able to get off the ground. :'(. I was looking forward to going. I guess now I'll just be trying to figure out if I can afford getting a new instrument through Ralph Rabin in Madison at the beginning of the school year. I "need" to find one between $5,000-$10,000, at least according to Rictor Noren (my teacher at RRMC). I cant say I disagree, but the major question becomes if I can afford anything higher. I need to pencil that out when I get back and have all of my finances all in a row. I might be surprised and can afford something in that range, but probably not.

In today's news: I worked for 9.75 hrs or so. Made some money. I was in a small town outside of rochester by about 30 min today called Grand Medow (there's nothing grand about it though). What a hot and humid day. I suppose I prolly lost some weight though. That's good right? Finally, everyone should feel sorry for Sarah. She had all 4 wisdom teeth taken out yesterday morning, and is probably feeling like crap today.

Anywho, I need to go outside and make sure that there's nothing going on outside since there's green clouds outside from the severe thunderstorm.

That's the news from Rollingstone. Thanks for reading.
Otto III

Start of another week...

Well, today was rather boring for the most part. I got up and worked for 10+ hours in the hot blazing sun and humidity. I swear for the life of me that god has a funny sense of humor. I might just need to move to Alaska or someplace like that so that I dont have to worry about heat ever again. I've heard it's quite nice up there and the northern lights is something that I have not seen in a while. I like this idea. It's becomeing like "I win." hehe.

So Nate informed me on his blog that he went out on a date with two girls last night. You'd better watch out Nate, next thing you know, bam! you might be dating one of them. Oh wait, that's what you want. My bad. I know most people would feel jealous, but you have to remember there Mr. Nathan, I was the one who got a letter from Sarah Bins that contained a very nicely drawn picture from a coloring book for me. Oh! and that she did that was so cute you said you wanted to puke because of it. I win! Either way, I think that you and I are doing a rather good job with our female prospects at the moment. Let's hope that what I want comes true and you find yourself a good girl too.

Speaking of good girls, or lack thereof: Mike, I'm so sorry that Jill is doing this to you. You are so much better than this. Just do what I said in my comment and move on.

Anyone have any suggestions for where I can find the best place/way to start our own web-domain for the quartet? I was doing some research yesterday afternoon and found some great places, but I don't know if I should keep looking further into them or not. Basically the best places I looked were GoDaddy.com/ and Webdomain.com/. I just don't want to go through a place like geocities and have a bad server name. I've looked and carminaquartet.net is available. Nate, you have any ideas? Let me know in between loads of hay.

Finally, I got sick of saying "heart" before I sign off of my blog, so I'm going to change it to something that hopefully has a little bit more charm and maturity to it.

That's the news from Rollingstone, thanks for reading.
Otto III

just doing my thing...

So its sunday again. Time to start gearing up for another week of working outside and getting exhausted. At least I get paid good money and it's great job experience if I do end up going into the engineering field. If I'm going togo into the engineering field depends to be seen though. If all goes well, I would be playing professionally with Nate, Carmen, and Brice somewhere as a chamber group.

Speaking of the group. I went out last night in winona to the bars and Rachel, Ed's fiance, was talking to me about all the people that she knows up in the Eau Claire and Twin Cities area that are connected with the music business and asked if I wanted her to make the connection for me. I was surprised that she knew all these people, but not at the same time I guess. Rachel has always managed to surprise me from time to time with random tidbits of info that she just happens to know. So naturally I told her yes and gave her a few of our business cards that have contact information on them. We usually only give out cards for things like weddings, but we need to start expanding outwards from there. Rachel did mention that there was a women's choir in the cities that one of her contacts was in charge of, and that they were looking for a chamber group to play with them from time to time. That would definatley be a good place to start getting our name out in the Twin Cities area at least, and get paid at the same time. I just need to wait about a week for Rachel to get back to the Cities and talk to her contacts up there. I tried to get the point accross that even if they dont need the Carmina Quartet in the near future, to give me a call anyway so that we can start planning ahead now and not over book or anything along those lines. That, and it would be nice to have the contacts established up in the Cities sooner than later. Oh! I need to thank Ebo and Jeff. They gave me a start on what to do for designing a website for the group. Now we just need to find a web-domain, which I can find out since I have several friends that have made their own websites, and get to work on it. I'm hoping that we can get it all together before the end of the month.

In other news, Nate: I hope you're doing ok? I ask because i get the feeling from your blogs and when I've talked you as of late that something might be up. I dont know, maybe its me looking into things too much and that when you've been posting you've been tired and in a mood to sit and contemplate, which is cool and I dont want to be intrusive. I'm just trying to be a good little compadre. :D

Lastly for today (i think), I got an e-mail the other day from Jessica. she was one of the other counselors at rocky ridge music center. If anyone wants to see her pics from CO, here they are: http://community.webshots.com/album/409348156EUdXVI

Have a great afternoon everyone! As my father would say, "its a great day to be making hay!"

Heart Otto