Imported From Livejournal

A long time ago, likely when I was complaining about how generally every candidate I vote for in an election loses, consoled me a bit by suggesting that I think of representatives from other areas as representing me. That is, I still have some representation at the state and national level, even if those representatives aren’t the ones assigned to my geographic area. I thought that it was a nifty way of thinking about things.

The Town of Charlton fiscal year (like for all MA towns) is from July 1 through June 30. So, FY09 was from July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009, and recently ended.

Property taxes for FY09 are based on the assessed value of property as of January 1, 2008, and were due on August 1, 2008, November 3, 2008, February 2, 2009, and May 1, 2009. The two payments in 2008 are “estimated” based on a guess as to what the taxes would be, and then the estimates are made up for on the two 2009 dates once that actual tax rate data is known, such that the total tax for the year ends up being correct. For FY09, the total was $9.05 per $1,000 assessed value of property.

So, on Saturday, Jessi and I went to the Solomon Pond Mall to go to the Wheelmobile Wheel of Fortune tryouts. Basically, they would pick random people from the audience to introduce themselves and play a mini-game on stage, and they would eventually invite people that they liked to the actual auditions in Boston a couple months.

The web site for the event said that there was no reason to show up hours in advance. As far as I can tell, this was a complete lie. The picture in the paper doesn’t begin to do the line justice. The games were scheduled to occur at 1:00, 2:30, and 4:00. We arrived in the parking lot at 12:15, and finally found a place to park and got inside at about 12:30. The line at that point went through the twisty back-and-forth area they had set up, and then stretched entirely down one side of the mall, and about a quarter of the way back by the time we got in line. That was the line for the 2:30 event. I think that the line quickly kept on forming all the way back to the other end of the mall, and I have no idea where they put people after that.

• To adopt Raymond Chen’s terminology, this entry is some macro-tweeting.
• Jessi and I are heading to the Wheelmobile event in Marlborough tomorrow to have some Wheel of Fortune fun and maybe even have an outside chance of getting invited to a real audition for a taping in Boston.
• There are 50 judges (including me) scheduled to work at GP Boston.
• Hannah has improved in her walking skills immensely over the past couple weeks. We now enjoy playing Roll The Ball, which typically turns into Degenerate Catch.
• I now have peter.cooper@townofcharlton.net set up for official Town-related emails.
• While I’m not a big fan of “reality” shows, I personally know one of the contestants on the current season of I Survived a Japanese Game Show.
• We’re planning a trip out to see Jessi’s extended family in upstate New York in July.

You know something is broken with health care when your AAA card gives you a better deal on a prescription than your health insurance card does.

• Jessi got Lyme Disease from a tick bite, although we found it very early and the antibiotics should remove it and there shouldn’t be any problems for Jessi or for Baby.
• Last Saturday, Hannah took her first steps without holding on to anything. She’s been slowly walking more and more.
• This coming Saturday, a bunch of guys from church will be coming over and we’re going to play paintball in our woods. I haven’t played before, and am looking forward to giving it a try. We’ll see how I feel afterward. :)
• My PDA (a Palm Tungsten E2) has been on the fritz lately, sometimes not coming on, sometimes only coming on when I hit the reset button, and once it went into “flashlight mode” where the screen was all white, the power and reset buttons didn’t do anything, and I just needed to wait for the battery to run out. So, I’ve been looking at PDAs and PDA-like devices that call themselves phones, and mulling over the possibilities.
• Magic recently announced a bunch of rules changes that go into effect when the next set comes out, and some of the changes are pretty substantial. I understand what they’re trying to do, but it seems like they could have done a better job at making the game more attractive to new players without alienating their existing player base as much. But, Magic is a game all about changes. I’ll be judging the Magic 2010 Prerelease (with the debut of the new rules) at TJ Collectibles on July 11, as well as Grand Prix Boston on August 1–2.

As I’ve mentioned before, instead of the Social Security tax that private-sector workers pay, government workers (at least those working for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its subdivisions) have an alternative 7.5% mandatory contribution to the “SMART Plan”. This is an actual account, kind of like a 401(k), where one actually has an account balance that slowly grows and one gets at retirement. (Those working full-time for the state have a more complex system, but I’m describing how it works for part-time workers, where it’s just a straight deduction and there are no choices on how it’s invested.)

• Charles Flaherty: Resigned in 1996 after pleading guilty in federal court to tax evasion and admitted to the State Ethics Commission that he received free vacation lodging from lobbyists and business interests.
• Thomas Finneran: Resigned in 2004 and three years later pled guilty to criminal obstruction of justice charges.
• Salvatore DiMasi: Resigned in January 2009 due to allegations, and was just indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

Somehow, my level of confidence in our state government is not increasing.

I’m now done presiding over my first town meeting as Moderator. Overall, it went rather smoothly. There was an odd case that Town Meeting was mad that nobody from the Water/Sewer Commission was there to answer questions, so they didn’t pass the sewer budget at first, but eventually it was motioned to reconsider (once a representative from Water/Sewer was there), and I eventually allowed the reconsideration, which passed. Reconsideration is a tricky thing, as it’s helpful to allow it if a good reason exists to believe that Town Meeting has legitimately changed its mind, but one wants to not let people abuse it to lengthen meetings and try to change things once some people leave and the house is stacked in their side’s favor. In this case, I decided that there wasn’t enough debate and that cooler heads existed at this point in the meeting, and there was good reason to believe that the Town would change its mind, so I allowed it.

On Saturday, I head-judged Southern New England Magic Regionals, which went rather well. The only big issue was needing to re-pair a round after players had been seated and before they started playing, but things went great for the most part. Plus, we certified a new level-1 judge, which is always exciting.

Over the past week, I’ve been talking to, getting phone calls from, and getting emails from people such as the Town Administrator, Town Counsel (Charlton’s lawyer), the Town Clerk, and the chairman of the Finance Committee, all helping me to prepare for moderating Town Meeting tonight. I think I’m pretty prepared, and I’m looking forward to it, but it’s definitely a big step. There’s a lot of unknowns. Everything may get voted on with little debate, or people might get into some very heated discussions about some issues, over which I’ll need to maintain order. It should be an interesting experience, at any rate.