Dysmey Post Archive > Pages for 2003 > Mid-September Edition
Fall is here. The farmers are out harvesting their corn and soybeans. Already most of the crops have been gathered in. And the leaves are changing from green into their autumn colors: red and gold and orange and purple.
The two backyard trees have already dumped most of their leaves. It seems I will be devoting this week to raking them up. I already cleared the side yard Sunday afternoon. I plan to rake the backyard Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.
I have raked up nine bags of leaves so far. Now that I know that the street department is picking up leaves, I will leave the bags out for them sometime this week.
Folks, there are large paper 'leaf bags' sold at Wal-Mart and Lowes. Each holds as much as a plastic garbage bag, and they come in packs of five. Unlike a plastic bag, the street department will accept your leaves in leaf bags. Just make sure there are no sticks among the leaves.
Every time an upgrade or a new program is handed down to the Company from the data farm it contracts with, it is our LAN specialist who go to each branch and installs the upgrades or programs. She's also teaching the other Company employees on how to use new programs. She's not supposed to do that: The Company already has someone hired specifically to do training. But her complaints are to no avail.
At least her relatives aren't calling her at all hours of the day, like they usually do. Evidently she spread the word that she would not be available to answer her phone during October, when the Company will have to adjust to the new program.
This time is worse than most, because the new program from on high is a Web-based application which works in a way counter-intuitive to how my coworkers are used to. People keep locking themselves out of the program because they log into it in all capital letters, the way the old program required.
On another note, the chief executive of the Company is retiring after thirty-six years with the firm, including nine as its president. There will be a big suit-and-tie dinner in his honor on the last Saturday of this month. I plan to be there.
I attended another town board meeting. There were fifteen people there, including myself; and all but one of the town board with the town lawyer.
The president reminded everyone that whoever wishes to speak must come to the microphone and first identify themselves by name and address.
Small items discussed included where the funds would be to fix up the shelterhouse roof before winter set in; the need to remove some of the pines around the James Dean Memorial (the local kids can hide there); progress on the new water well at Playacres Park; and a ten-year plan to comply with a IDEM request to examine televisually the town's seventeen miles of sewers.
There were two big items on the agenda tonight.
The first one was an extension to the tax abatement for the factory across the tracks from my house. Business is starting to pick up there after three hard years. They are buying more equipment (for which the factory wants the abatement extension) and hiring two more people. The town board was impressed by how the factory had maintained itself despite the recession, so the abatement was approved.
The other item was my next-door neighbor's request for a rezoning of her house, so that she can set up a small bed-and-breakfast inn, 'small' meaning no more than three people. There were concerns about parking (the streets are somewhat narrow), but my neighbor assured them that there was enough parking for three. The rezoning was approved.