A few personal tidbits:
Today my wife and I are celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary. On this day in 1994, we vowed to love, honor, and cherish each other until death do we part, and we are no less committed to each other today. I’d like to say we’re going to do something exciting to celebrate, but we have three kids, so, maybe if we’re lucky we’ll get to go out to dinner by ourselves for an hour.
I’m taking this week off from work to get some projects done around the house. With the electricity rate hike looming, I suddenly have a new motivation to insulate my attic. So that’s the biggest project I have on tap. Still, it will be nice having some time off work; I haven’t taken a vacation week since my son was born, about a year and a half ago.
On Friday I logged onto the city’s website to see the agenda for this Tuesday, as I usually do. As I was scanning down the consent agenda, I got a big surprise — I’m on it! Several months ago, I applied to be a part of the Heart of Peoria Commission at the suggestion of my city council representative. Shortly after that, they put a moratorium on commission appointments while Van Auken, Sandberg, and Morris did a thorough review of all the commissions. Sometime in the past few weeks, that moratorium was lifted and the mayor began making appointments again, and I’m being recommended for appointment to the HOP Commission. I have to admit, I’m pretty excited about it. It’s no secret that I’m a die-hard fan of new urbanism in general and the Heart of Peoria Plan specifically. This is an opportunity for me to make a real contribution to the implementation of the plan. There’s only so much you can do with a blog.
Finally, I’m hoping once again that the Cardinals can beat the Padres tonight behind Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter and advance to the NLCS to face the Mets. I’ll be honest, I’m very hopeful that the Cards can knock off the Padres, but I’m not very hopeful that they can beat the Mets. Of course, I want them to make it to the World Series, but realistically, the Mets this year will be awfully hard to beat. They can’t afford to have Chris Duncan miss a routine fly ball in left field against the Mets. Go Cardinals!
Congratulations, C.J. – both on your anniversary and on your selection for appointment to the H.O.P. Commission. Do they vote on your appointment at the next council meeting, or how does that work?
Outstanding !!!
Thank you. Yes, they’ll vote on it at the next council meeting, which is at 5:00 Tuesday night. My appointment is part of the consent agenda, which means it’s on a list with a lot of other unrelated items and the council votes on them all at once. Any council member can request something be taken off the consent agenda to be voted on separately, but I’ve never seen them do that with commission appointments.
That is great news — you will be a great comissioner. I also give two thumbs up to New Urbanism.
It’s good to see your work being rewarded, but when all is said and done, your greatest accomplishments will be the family you’ve built. Congrats and well done.
m.
So … you’re one of THEM now …
Heh. And congrats to the entire Summers clan for the anniversary.I mention something I heard on the Dr. Dean Edell show this afternoon: “Hot sex is a family value.”
CJ:
Congratulations on both of these accomplishments. You will be an outstanding commissioner! 🙂
Is this a stepping stone to an at-large council seat run?
PI — No.
They all say ‘No’ in the beginning.
Happy anniversary, CJ. Best wishes. 🙂
Congratulations on everything, its good too have someone who knows what they are talking about get a seat in such an operation. And congrats to you and your wife!
Go CJ Go CJ It’s your birthday! Or anniversary as the case may be!
Congrats on the commissionship! It makes me most happy to hear that you shall serve to promote new urbanism and the HOP plan – in all your level-headedness, IMHO.
And I get to celebrate my 8th anniversary next week – proud to join this little October anniversary club!
And congrats to the Cards! Although, I’m from NY originally, and need to root for the Mets. Although either team rates in my book, really.
Congratualtions and thanks for you willingness to get involved with HOPC. That commission has some very challenging tasks on their plate and forward thinking, reasonable commission members will insure that they continue to make progress.
congrats on being allowed to get married to the person you chose to love, honour, etc
I hope you enjoy all 1138 federal benefits which you are entitled to based on your legal right to marry.
Thanks, but getting married to the person I chose to love, honor, etc., was really nothing out of the ordinary — people have been doing it for thousands of years. As for the federal benefits — do you mean the marriage penalty? The first five years I was married, I had to pay more in taxes, not less. I didn’t start getting benefits until we started having children. You don’t have to be married to have children (although you should). You do have to have a man and a woman to have children, though.
Some scientist in India will disagree with you on that one. He is cloning donkeys as we speak.