HinesSight

Measure 37 vesting cases heating up

After Measure 49 was passed by Oregon voters on November 6, land use issues have largely fallen away from the state's attention.

But now attempts by Measure 37 claimants to show they're vested (basically, "grandfathered" in), and not subject to Measure 49, are heating up the land use burner.

Down Medford way, three property owners have sued Jackson County for more than $20 million, saying their Measure 37 constitutional rights have been trampled.

Medford resident David Smith, a member of the newly formed Citizens for Constitutional Fairness, said the dollar amount that property owners say they've lost after the passage of Measure 49 — the fix for Measure 37 — could be significant.

"I think it's going to be $1 billion," Smith said. "It's basically going to bankrupt the county if they don't do anything."

Well, good luck with your constitutional arguments, David.

A circuit court judge in Multnomah County recently rejected a similar attempt to make an end run around Measure 49, ruling that he was "unpersuaded by plaintiff's constitutional objections to the application of Measure 49 to this case." (Luethe v. Multnomah County) Download opinion_re_luethe_dismissal.pdf

Interestingly, the county on the hook for a billion dollars sought by disgruntled Measure 37 claimants has bent over backward to give them more rights than they were entitled to.

Namely, the right to transfer a Measure 37 waiver to a new owner of the property. Oregon courts have ruled that this isn't allowed. Only the successful Measure 37 claimant gets a pass from land use regulations enacted after he acquired the property. See: Download crook_county_v. All Electors.pdf

But Jackson County passed an ordinance that bestowed transferability on new owners of a Measure 37 claim. Then the county sued itself to find out if the ordinance was legal. Which, it wasn't. Download jackson_county11907.pdf

So this makes getting vested important for Measure 37 claimants who don't want to play by Measure 49 rules (which limit a property to no more than ten home sites, and prohibit industrial or commercial development).

Because anyone who buys part of all of their property can't develop it – build a home, for example – unless the claim is determined to be vested under common law. And it's clear that hardly any Measure 37 claimants will have vested rights.

This isn't stopping some from trying to go the vesting route, however.

I've been playing attorney on a case in Marion County that came to the attention of my wife and me when some neighbors of a Measure 37 claim told us that county staff were recommending that the board of commissioners rubber stamp a "You're Vested!" decision, even though the evidence pointed to an opposite conclusion.

This case, involving a 9.66 acre property owned by Sheryll Ralls, centers on what "use" means in a land use context. The issue doesn't rise to the level of Bill Clinton's "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is," but there's still some unavoidable seeming circularity here.

Consider this sentence from the state order granting the Ralls Measure 37 waiver:

The action by the State of Oregon provides the state's authorization to the claimant to use the subject property for the use described in this report…

Use for a use. Grammatically, we can discern a verb and a noun here. There's a "use" authorized to a Measure 37 claimant, and there's also the "use" they make of that authorization.

In the Ralls case, this was the use authorized by the state: "to divide the 9.66 acre subject property into six approximately 1.6 acre parcels for residential development." So residential development is the action that counts as a use.

This all may sound land use-geeky, but it means a lot to both neighbors of Measure 37 claims and the claimants themselves. Because many vesting cases are going to come down to the definition of a land "use."

Naturally the claimants want the use they make of their property in order to be vested to be minimal.

Over in Baker County, planning officials are taking a position that's pleasing to claimants but legally indefensible: that all you have to do is apply for a building permit or a partition, and bingo!, your Measure 37 claim is vested.

Problem is, this isn't in line with how Oregon courts have ruled on vesting issues. The Crag Law Center prepared an excellent memorandum on this subject that was submitted yesterday to the hearings officer who will decide the Ralls case. Download january_28_2008_letter_re_ralls_m0614.pdf

It's must reading for anyone involved with a Measure 37 claim that's attempting to get vested on the basis of merely having partitioned or subdivided a property.

In short, that's not a "use." It's a preparation for a use, much as putting a blank canvas on an easel is just preparation for painting.

(For the land use geeks, here's some more vesting-related court cases to mull over:)

Download wiley_mult_cty_92507.pdf

Download land_watch_m37_luba_burk_jeff_co_jan_24_2008.pdf

Download frank_v_dlcd.pdf

Flip Video Ultra is my new joy toy

Who says money can't buy happiness? Not me, for sure. Because $179.99 just bought me some considerable gadget-fueled joy in the person (or rather, plastic and metal) of a Flip Video Ultra.

My good karma was kicked off by a recent Mark Morford column. He started off his rant about a bizarre Tom Cruise video with:

Here is something you can do. Set up that nifty little Flip Video camera you got for Christmas just over there next to your couch.

I didn't read the rest of the column. Instead I thought, "Hey! I didn't get a nifty little Flip Video camera for Christmas. What the heck!!??"

My next thought was: "Also, what's a Flip Video camera?"

Answer – a cool super easy to use camcorder that shoots up to 60 minutes of video and stores it on 2GB of flash memory. (The Ultra, at least.)

I've got a fancy Sony camcorder that does a lot more stuff. But it's also much more complicated to use. And it's not easy to upload videos to You Tube with it, or even to get a video onto my laptop.

By contrast, getting shots of me, Laurel, and the dog crooning "Happy Birthday" to my daughter was wonderfully simple.

It took me a bit longer to figure out how to set up an AOL Flip Video account and use the camera's built-in software to upload my work of art to a private video sharing page (accessible only through a link).

As an experiment I also uploaded the video to my You Tube account. The sound quality seemed quite a bit better on AOL.

That was important, because this is a weak spot of the camera. When I spoke while holding the camera, the sound was fine. But talking normally on the couch just a few feet away from it, you can barely hear us. (Except for the "Happy Birthday" – a mixed blessing to the non-tone deaf, given my singing ability.)

Update: My daughter said the audio sounded fine to her. When I played the video on my new Lenovo Y510, which has much better speakers than my ThinkPad, it was indeed clearly audible. So I take back my criticism of the Flip Video microphone, replacing it with criticism of ThinkPad speakers.

Otherwise, the Flip Video Ultra looks like it'll be a part of my life from now on. I've already relegated my still digital camera to a drawer in favor of carrying around the Flip Video.

You can generate JPG stills from a video, though the quality isn't great. So I'm sacrificing higher quality snapshots for the ability to make a movie anytime I want.

The day I got the Flip Video I drove around Salem, waiting expectantly for something newsworthy for happen. I figured I'd quickly make my $179.99 back by selling footage of the Worthy News to CNN.

I'm still waiting. But I'm ready…

Regarding the price, you can get the camera cheaper at Amazon and other places. I bought it direct from Flip Video central, partly because of the 90 day return policy.

And I'd noticed that some of the generally highly positive comments on Amazon about the camera had mentioned problems with a firmware upgrade. I was wary when I attempted to download the upgrade, so was happy to find that my camera already had the most recent version. That could be a benefit of buying direct from the manufacturer.

A few tips and observations:

--Video files are large. My five-minute Happy Birthday video started off at 132 MB, if I recall correctly. Not very emailable. The Flip Video software truncated my masterpiece when I checked the "email" option. It might have a size limit on email attachments. So I ended up sharing the video with my daughter via AOL and You Tube.

--Expect the AOL/You Tube uploading process to take a while, especially if your video is more than a minute or so long. The camera's built-in software reduces the size of the video file before it uploads it. That takes time, just as it does on Windows Movie Maker. So don't expect instant sharing.

--Along this line, I thought the Flip Video was stuck when it kept showing its uploading progress at "20%." I thought the program might be frozen but found that the progress bar suddenly jumped when it had finished reducing the size of the video and started the actual uploading. Again, be patient.

--When you set up an AOL Flip Video account, it isn't activated until you respond to an email that AOL sends you to validate that you're a real live emailable person. Not realizing this, I couldn't understand why the Flip Video software couldn't log into my newly created AOL account. Tip: check your email for a message from AOL and click on the link.

--The minimal (because the camera is so simple) instructions should emphasize that the camera needs to be "unloaded" from a Windows computer before detaching it from a USB port – via the Safely Remove Hardware icon. This guy's You Tube review of the camera mentions this, which redeems his cheesiness somewhat.

Bottom line: for $165-180 this is a great way to capture video. What the camera lacks in fancy features it makes up for in smallness and simplicity.

I'm getting my daughter one. She has the same Sony camcorder that I do, but says that she doesn't use it very much – even though my granddaughter is hugely cute and almost a year old. The Sony is too complicated.

Well, after a Flip Video Ultra arrives at her doorstep soon, I'm expecting to see a lot of charming child videos. I'll return the favor with what probably will be an endless series of cute dog videos.

Tax cuts don’t pay for themselves

All of the Republican presidential candidates are competing to see who can spout a big lie about tax policy most convincingly: tax cuts pay for themselves.

Common sense says that's absurd. So does economic research. But that doesn't stop the Republican know-nothings, some of whom also disbelieve in evolution, from ignoring the facts.

What got me going on this was hearing disgraced former Rep. Tom DeLay holding forth on conservative talk radio today. He claimed that tax cuts generate increased revenue for government.

I thought, hogwash. But I hadn't done much research on this, so fired up Google this evening for what I figured would be some myth-busting.

I was right. Reputable economic research doesn't support the ridiculous notion that cutting government revenues somehow increases government revenues.

TIME magazine's business and economics columnist, Justin Fox, blogged about this subject in 2006. He adjusted for inflation when evaluating the effect of Reagan's tax cuts. Bottom line: it's false that tax receipts rise as a result of tax cuts. Check it out.

Recently Fox put up another post, "To repeat, tax cuts haven't increased revenue," citing Paul Krugman's look at the effect of population growth in addition to inflation.

Even economists who serve in Republican administrations don't believe in the voodoo economics crap. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities provided more evidence of this in 2006.

Now a Department of Treasury analysis presented in the Mid-Session Review itself confirms what outside experts have consistently said — tax cuts do not come remotely close to paying for themselves.

In this study the Center shows that economic growth was about the same in the 1980s (Reagan tax cuts) and in the 1990s (Clinton tax increases). But growth in government revenues was much higher in the 1990s.

I've got a granddaughter now. I don't want her saddled with paying for the massive deficits that the Bush administration is financing with a U.S. Treasury Credit Card – borrow now and pay later.

Clinton left this country a huge budget surplus and good economic growth. Bush is about to leave us with a huge budget deficit and poor economic growth.

His tax cuts have been a disaster. The last thing the United States needs is another Republican president who sticks his head in the sand and ignores economic reality.

As a Washington Post columnist said about politicians' propensity to believe that tax cuts increase revenues:

Politicians are always speechifying about how the United States must lead the world in research to maintain its edge. But having the world's best economics research isn't particularly helpful if those same politicians are silly enough to tune it out. The truth is that American business excels at turning university research into world-beating products; the paranoia on this score is overdone. But American government is often lousy at turning research into policies. That's what we should fret about.

Behold: my sacred supplements list

OK, I don't actually worship the supplements that I consume every day. So it's arguable whether they're sacred to me. But I sure spend a lot of time genuflecting in their health-giving direction.

I've decided that it's time to share my supplement list with a not particularly interested world. However, likely there are some supplement geeks in the blogosphere who share my fascination with finding just the right combination of concoctions for optimum well-being.

Which sort of is like the quixotic medieval search by alchemists to turn base metal into gold, because no supplement can hold back the inexorable tide of aging and death.

Still, this 59 year-old male and his wife want to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible. Thus we've been researching the pros and cons of various supplements for many years.

We've added to and subtracted from the pills and capsules that fill several plastic boxes, neatly divided and labeled, which accompany us wherever we go. I won't attempt to justify what's included on the list below. The links usually lead to my purchase source – and more information about the product.

About ten years ago I had a good-natured argument with my family physician at the time, a man my age. When I told him about some of the supplements I took, he said "But those haven't been proven to be effective."

I told him, "Well, there's considerable evidence that they are. If I wait for scientifically exact double-blind studies to be conducted on everything I take, I'll be dead. So I'll take my chances on persuasive, though not proven, information about the supplements' benefits."

Nothing since has changed my mind about the wisdom of this approach. I'm in generally excellent health. At my last eye exam, my optometrist said, "It's amazing that you don't need reading glasses at your age. You must be eating something that's causing your eyes to stay so flexible."

Could be the lutein. Or bilberry. Or maybe the DHA and EPA. I don't know. Could also be the luck of the genetic draw. I'm not particularly concerned about which supplements are doing what for me. Just the end result: better health.

Not highly scientific. But practical. And good for the bottom line of the companies that make and sell the supplements below, because I'm reluctant to stop taking any of them even though I've got doubts about the efficacy of some.

Do your own research. Make up your own mind. Here's my list:

Acetyl-L-carnitine 620 mg
Alpha lipoic acid 100 mg
Aspirin 81 mg
Bilberry fruit extract 120 mg
Celadrin 1050 mg
Co-Q-10 60 mg
DHA, algae oil 400 mg
DHA and EPA, algae oil 345 mg
DHEA 25 mg
Garlicin 350 mg    
Gingko biloba 60 mg
Glucosamine, vegetarian 1000 mg
Green tea extract 725 mg
Kyodophilus 3 billion cells
Lutein 12 mg
Melatonin 200 mcg
Multi-vitamin ("Doctor's Choice for 50-Plus Men," I take 1/2 of recommended)
Pomegranate extract 500 mg
Pygeum 200 mg
Resveratol 100 mg
Saw palmetto 320 mg
Vitamin D 400 IU

How Yugoslavia reacted to King’s death

I was in a communist country when Martin Luther King died on April 4, 1968 – Yugoslavia. Back then it was called the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Tito was in power.

Along with a couple of dozen of other San Jose State College students, and a few professors, I was spending my second sophomore semester taking classes in Zadar, a picturesque town on the Adriatic sea.

As you can imagine, it was quite a culture shock. For both us and the locals.

Into a regimented traditional society comes a bunch of hang-loose long-haired hippie college students from the epicenter of Flower Power. (OK, we were some forty miles away down the peninsula, but when asked where we were from, we'd always round off the geography and say "San Francisco.")

There were some tensions, but overall we got along fine with the Zadarians. Even better, after news of King's death reached us.

Total strangers would come up to me on the cobblestoned streets of Zadar, shake my hand, and say "I'm so sorry." (Almost always Yugoslavs' English was much better than my limited Serbo-Croatian.)

Those were the days when the United States was still respected in Europe, even with the Vietnam War. People were genuinely moved by King's assassination. The same thing happened a few months later when Bobby Kennedy was killed.

This county was a shining light to the rest of the world, even (or especially) to those living in communist nations like Yugoslavia.

What a difference forty years makes. Now we're a bad example, not a good one. We wage war based on false premises. Our economy is tanking. The only dream most American politicians have is how to get re-elected.

I'm hoping that whoever ends up as the Democratic candidate for president will rekindle my '60s the times they are a-changin' optimism.

The deaths of King and Kennedy dampened the spirits of my generation. But lots of us are still revolutionaries at heart. We've just been waiting a long time for an a-changin' leader.

Barack Obama strikes me as much more King and Kennedy-esqe than Hillary Clinton is. So my 1968 soul hopes that I'll be able to see President Obama elected in 2008.

Clinton has a bit more momentum than Obama at the moment. Bob Dylan, though, tells us what can happen to frontrunners.

The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

I only hope.

Measure 49 forms being mailed out

You know you're a land use junkie if…you spend a Saturday night pouring over forms being mailed to Measure 37 claimants, so they can choose what to do under Measure 49.

Yes, that describes me. I had to see whether Willamette Week spoke truly when reporter Nigel Jaquiss said the form is "29 pages long, and not what most claimants are likely to regard as simple."

I found that Willamette Week is way off base. The packet being sent to Measure 37 claimants apparently is indeed 29 pages long (can't be sure, since "draft" is stamped on the copy WW posted).

But actual forms, the sort you fill out, total 4 pages. And if there aren't any non-claimant owners of a property, only 3 pages need to be dealt with.

A cover letter, instructions, and a 14 page Measure 49 guide comprise the rest of the packet. Looks simple enough to me, just as the proponents of Measure 49 promised. Check it out (sorry dial-up users, it's a 1.7 MB PDF file): Download DraftM49StatePacket.pdf

Five options are available to Measure 37 claimants: Express, Conditional, Vested, Withdrawal, UGB/City Withdrawal. Only if the Express (up to three home sites) or Conditional (four to ten home sites) option is chosen will additional information possibly need to be submitted.

Under the other three options, the state Measure 37 claim is closed.

With Express, the required information may already have been submitted with the original claim. Ditto with Conditional, though much less likely, given the need to supply appraisals that demonstrate an actual loss of value due to a land use regulation.

Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action is trying to spin Measure 49 as a victory for his organization, since it allows claims to be filed if new land use regulations reduce the value of certain types of property.

What he didn't mention, though, is that compensation now is limited to the amount of an owner's loss. No more wholesale waiving of regulations if a claimant can demonstrate even one dollar of loss. That's a big improvement over Measure 37.

An interesting wrinkle is on page 8 of the PDF packet.

Claimants who choose the Vested option (where they try to prove that they're far enough along with their Measure 37 development to be "grandfathered" in to the old law) can't move to the Express or Conditional options if it turns out that they aren't vested.

So the choice for some will be whether to snap up a virtually guaranteed three home sites, or roll the vesting dice and hope for more – knowing that zero home sites also is a possible outcome, if the Measure 37 claim is determined not to be vested.

It's good to see that the Department of Land Conservation and Development is moving ahead expeditiously with the transition from Measure 37 to Measure 49.

I'm sure there will be moaning and crying from Oregonians in Action supporters about the DLCD packet. They need to keep in mind, though, that Measure 37 was so poorly written, it spawned hundreds of lawsuits. That's a lot of paperwork.

Measure 49 is much clearer. And fairer.

Last November Oregon voters overwhelmingly affirmed that they wanted our state's farm, forest, and groundwater limited land protected from over-development. They didn't want the rights of a few to pave over the rights of the many.

It'll take a bit of form-filling to implement the people's will. No big deal, especially compared to the really onerous forms that every taxpayer will have to wade through before April 15.

Playing attorney on a Measure 37 vesting case

It's fun to play make-believe, even (or especially) when you're 59 years old. Yesterday I tried to make a Marion County hearings officer believe that I knew as much about Measure 37 vesting as a real attorney.

And I did a pretty darn good job. My wife, Laurel said so, which proves it. "You sounded like a lawyer," she told me after I testified.

Ordinarily I wouldn't take that as a compliment.

But since I was arguing that a Measure 37 claim wasn't far enough along to be exempted from Measure 49, which fixed many of the flaws in Measure 37, I was glad to hear that my legal arguments sounded, well, legalish.

I labored for most of Tuesday on my "brief," an eight page marvel of logic, clear writing, and analytic brilliance (I figure that attorneys have big egos, so I need to play the part). Humble admission, though: genuine attorney Ralph Bloemers of the Crag Law Center edited my masterpiece, improving it quite a bit.

For the reading pleasure of land use junkies, here it is.
Download ralls_testimony_fomc_final.doc

Still, as much as I enjoy exercising my brain cells on coming up with legal arguments, hopefully helping to stave off Alzheimer's, I'd prefer to be doing something else with my time. However, what can you do when a government agency seemingly is playing loose with the law?

That's what Measure 49 is now: the law of the land in Oregon. Last November voters overwhelmingly approved this strengthening of protections for farm, forest, and groundwater limited land.

Yet it seems to us that Marion County is dragging its feet on implementing both the letter and the spirit of Measure 49.

In this case, a woman filed a Measure 37 claim because she wanted to be exempted from a regulation (passed after she bought her property) that upped the minimum lot size in her rural residential area from 1.5 to 2 acres.

This allowed her to adjust a lot line and partition her property into four 1.5 acre lots and one 3.66 acre lot. These five lots are in a groundwater limited area that already has well problems.

Measure 49 limits Measure 37 claims in such areas to three home sites, which is what the claimant will end up with if her claim isn't determined to be vested (meaning, basically, that she's "grandfathered" in to Measure 37).

The hearing was held open for more submissions for another twenty days. So it'll be a while before we know the outcome.

Whichever way the ruling goes, I've made progress on refining my attorney persona. Near the end of the session, the real attorney who represented the Measure 37 claimant and I were called up to the witness table by the hearings officer.

I'd asked to keep the record open so we could respond to new information in favor of vesting that had been presented. The hearings officer said, "I'd like to suggest seven days for the appellant and seven days for the applicant."

My make-believe attorney brain whirred away.

I remembered a previous land use hearing where the lawyer representing our neighborhood group, Jeff Kleinman, was in attendance. The same question had come up about how long to keep the record open.

Jeff had said, "Let's make it two weeks." So I channeled him: "How about fourteen days?" The hearings officer said, "Why?"

"Because we're representing ourselves," I told her, "while the claimant has real attorneys to do the work. It takes time to go online and dig up case law when you don't have access to legal documents like lawyers do. We might be able to get some help on this from a lawyer, but that isn't certain."

The claimant's attorney leaned over toward me in a collegial manner, showing me his Blackberry's calendar. "Here," he pointed, "how about we split the difference and make it ten days – that'll give you until the 28^th to get your submission in."

"Sounds fine," I told him, thinking, My first attorney to attorney negotiation went fine! And I'm not even out of law school! (Nor, in it.)

Buyer beware with Penguin Windows

Thank God, or Tao, for Oregon's "Buyer's Right to Cancel" law.

It just saved us from a pushy Penguin Windows salesman, who somehow talked us into signing a contract for some vastly overpriced (though seemingly high-quality) replacement windows.

I wasn't going to mention the company's name in this buyer beware post. But after reading a bunch of comments from people who had remarkably similar bad sales experiences, I decided to say it like it is:

Penguin Windows engages in annoyingly high-pressure sales tactics.

Which, unfortunately, are pretty damn effective. Laurel and I generally are resistant to salesman B.S. But the guy who spent over four hours in our house last Saturday was good. Real good.

Yes, I said four hours. When Laurel called Penguin to get an estimate she was told that this would take an hour to an hour and a half.

I only wish. When Jay (not his real name) arrived promptly at 11 a.m., I figured I'd be back to my usual Saturday activities, like a nap, by early in the afternoon.

Nope. Jay had a seemingly endless series of sales pitches that he unveiled both before and after he measured our windows.

We saw frame samples from Penguin and other companies. We had the temperature in various spots in our living room measured by a nifty laser pointing device (I learned that our dog's exterior is about 80 degrees, while Laurel is considerably cooler). We watched a heat lamp experiment where Jay showed how much radiation passed through several types of single, double, and triple-pane windows.

In the end I was getting both really hungry and bored. And we weren't sold on the Penguin Windows, which struck us as (1) wildly expensive, and (2) vinyl'ly unsuited for our almost all-wood interior.

So Jay smoothly shifted away from an estimate to replace all of our ancient aluminum-framed windows, to just those downstairs. That reduced the cost considerably. We thought it might be OK to try five windows as an experiment.

I won't bother to describe all of Jay's sales tactics, many of which were irritating. They're described in the litany of complaints from other people, which are headed by titles such as:

Don't waste your time…LIES AND BROKEN PROMISES…sleazy is too kind of a word…BUYER'S BEWARE! LIES! LIES! LIES!...STAY AWAY RUN AWAY AND HIDE…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!RIP OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...I just kicked the sales weasel out of my house…Stay away Run run run…Terrible windows and service

One comment came from a guy who used to work for Statewide (now called Penguin Windows).

I used to work for statewide and I agree that it's a S***ty company. Not only are the people high pressure but the atmosphere in the office is high pressure. If you didn't get a certain number of people scheduling appointments each week they would first verbally warn you, then write you up the next week and then they would fire your a** for being "incompetent" if you didn't meet the quota of appointments three weeks in a row. I worked for the Vancouver division for a few months and I will never do that again. Apparently they have been in the same territory for up to five years in some places, which is just stupid for the marketing tactics that they use. I would warn you to stay clear of these people. The next time you see someone in a baby blue shirt with a clipboard heading your way do the smart thing and turn tail and RUN! Dealing with this company is not worth the hassle. Cheers!

Over the weekend we came to our senses. I emailed Penguin Windows and told them we'd changed our mind, but might consider having just one window installed as a test. Laurel also left a message for Jay, who we talked to on Monday.

He said that it wouldn't be possible for us to get a single window. Jay wanted to meet with us again today, and to bring his boss along. We figured, why not? Wouldn't hurt to talk some more – so long as it wasn't for anywhere near four hours.

But today Laurel checked out some other window options. She realized that our woody home would look much better with wood-clad frames. She phoned Jay and told him he'd almost certainly be wasting his time if he came out, that we were strongly leaning toward cancelling our contract for the downstairs windows.

However, Jay insisted on coming out. Which, he did, promptly at 6:00 pm this evening (I'll have to give him this; he's punctual).

This time it just took us about 45 minutes to get Jay out the door. He was exceedingly reluctant to take "no" for an answer. We had him outnumbered (his boss didn't show up) and we both rank pretty high on an assertiveness scale.

Yet there were moments when our cancellation resolve started to weaken a bit in the face of Jay's relentless rear-guard Save the Sale manipulation techniques. Emotionally he went from cheery, to determined, to grumpy, to sadly put upon, to (thankfully!) resigned to his non-sales fate.

Someone single, lonely, elderly, and/or eager to please could easily have fallen prey to the slick Penguin Windows sales tactics. Jay reminded me of car salesman as they were several decades ago, complete with "Let me talk to my supervisor and see if he's willing to give you the discount that I want to offer."

Give me a break. We got several thousand dollars off of our estimate for being willing to have Penguin Windows put a sign at the end of our driveway when they did the work (which, now, they never will). That's just one of the many Penguin gimmicks.

Tomorrow the "Buyer's Right to Cancel" is being mailed to Penguin Windows, comfortably before the three business day deadline, and by registered mail.

The horror stories I read (along with some positive comments) make me feel good about escaping from the Penguin's clutches. We'll end up saving a lot of money when we go with another window company.

And we won't have rewarded obnoxious sales tactics.

Two days with a Chinese laptop, the Lenovo Y510

Ah, how things have changed. I remember when "Made in Japan" was a synonym for "Piece of Crap." Now two hybrid cars from the land of the rising sun, a Toyota Prius and a Highlander, are our trouble-free transportation.

And China? It used to be several large rungs below Japan in the quality category. Just a few years ago I never would have guessed that my new laptop would say "Made in China" on the bottom of it.

But it does. I just bought one of the first U.S. computers that are newly available in Lenovo's "IdeaPad" lineup. As I noted about a month ago, India had the cool IdeaPad Y510 first.

I was envious. It didn't take long, though, for the IdeaPad lineup to come on sale here. I got my 15 inch laptop from TigerDirect, which also is selling the Y710, a 17 inch powerhouse – especially the high end model.

It's been a pleasant two days with my new Chinese friend. We've communicated well, aside from a few mild language surprises when I perused the Y510 setup poster. Such as:

To bring you more convenience and make a better use of your computer, Lenovo provides a package of helpful software at purchase time.

When your computer comes with malfunction, OneKey Recovery restores the C drive to default status.

The illustrations in this manual may differ from the actual product, please take the actual product as standard when you purchase.

Nothing that I can't understand. Yet how much trouble would it be for a Lenovo employee in China to email a draft of the setup poster to a U.S. colleague for a last minute language check?

That minor quibble aside, so far I like the Y510.

It's got the same great keyboard as my IBM ThinkPad Z60m (Lenovo bought IBM's personal computer division, but is continuing to use the IBM name for a while until people get used to the well-regarded ThinkPad as coming from China.)

The sound quality is far superior, though. The best I've heard from a laptop. I usually have to strain to hear the sound from DVDs on my ThinkPad, but when I used the Y510 to take a look at a dance instruction video that just came in the mail, the maxed-out volume was almost too loud for comfort.

The "infinity" screen is a bit of a disappointment, since it doesn't actually go all the way to the edge of the frame (it just lacks a bevel, or whatever the plastic thingie is called on most laptops).

And I'm having to get used to some Windows Vista Home Premium eccentricities after being familiar with XP Professional. For some reason it has this thing about wanting me to repeatedly confirm that I'm really myself when I try to change some system setting, even though I already logged in as Brian the Exalted Administrator.

Still, that doesn't bother me a whole lot because I've decided to embrace the love-hate relationship that I have with Windows.

I had an Apple II+ way back and stuck with Macintoshes for a long time. Then I crossed over to the Microsoft dark side and haven't returned. I thought about jumping to a Mac this laptop purchase time around, but decided that it's better to stick with the enemy I know, than the enemy I don't.

Meaning, I have friends and family with Macs, and their computing experience isn't trouble-free either. So I felt more comfortable getting a laptop that has familiar operating system quirks, recognizing that I might well be suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.

Hurt me more, Windows. It feels so good.

I haven't installed the package of helpful software that I got at purchase time. After I do, I'll have the option of using my face as a log-on via face recognition software and the built-in webcam.

Somehow I don't think that I'll want to look at a close-up of myself first thing in the morning when I turn on my computer. Still, it's a neat security feature.

Bottom line: check out the IdeaPad line if you're looking for a new laptop. The U.S. trade balance with China is already way out of whack, so you might as well have a Chinese computer in your home, along with tube socks.

(For more information, here's a video and the technical specifications.)

Update: Just thought of a few other likes and dislikes. Like: the lack of annoying trial software. So far I've only had to uninstall Norton Antivirus, because I use SystemSuite 8 as a competent all-in-one security/maintenance package. I appreciate having a trial of Office 2007, since I'll probably end up buying it.

Dislike, sort of: the reflective screen, which is coffee shop unfriendly if overhead lights abound. The matte screen on my ThinkPad shows a fuzzy oval when I point it toward my office ceiling light; the Y510 IdeaPad reflects the light annoyingly clearly. Wish Lenovo offered an option on the screen, but I'll probably get used to it.

Colbert and Stuart are better without writers

After four days of seeing how Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart fared without writers after returning to the airwaves, I can issue my review:

The Colbert Show and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (now called A Daily Show) are more entertaining without the writers.

So even though my progressive sympathies are with those on strike, my TV watching sympathies say, "Stay away; let Colbert and Stuart keep on doing their own thing."

I've always enjoyed The Colbert Show more than The Daily Show, because Stephen Colbert is more of a natural improvisational comedian. His interviews are terrific, filled with witty spontaneities.

But now The Daily Show is almost equally pleasurable for me to watch without the irritating, and often infantile, sketches featuring other members of Stewart's fake news team.

This week the only time I reached for the fast forward button on my DVR was when John Oliver returned for a sketch about global climate change. Dreadful.

Colbert and Stewart clearly are capable of coming up with their own material – which I assume is what they're doing (some are suspicious about this).

If I were their writers, I'd be nervous after watching this week's "unwritten" shows.

Now that Colbert and Stuart are free, or forced, to make the content of their shows more purely reflect their own sensibilities, we're seeing that these guys can carry their own comedic water.

And that it's actually better tasting than what the writers had been pumping out for them.

(Some other opinions about the return of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are here, here, and here.)

The one place where men always lead

From my male perspective, it's nice that there's still one place in this modern, egalitarian world where men always lead and women always follow.

The ballroom dance floor. At least, that's the way it's supposed to work, as Lora (our RJ Dance Studio instructor) explained to us a few days ago.

We're taking a beginning Foxtrot class. Laurel and I have taken quite a few classes from Lora, but most of the other Foxtrotters were new to dancing, so she went over the basics.

Including this weird and wacky notion: the woman should do whatever the man wants – unless you're about to crash into someone or something , then she can bail. Otherwise, Lora said, relax and go along for the ride (unless he's acting like a jerk).

Even if your man is going in the wrong direction. Which happens all the time with me and Laurel. And just about everybody who ventures out onto the hard wood.

Lora drew a distinction between the carpet in her entry way and the ballroom floor. "Once you step back onto the rug, ladies, everything is back to normal." Meaning, your guy is back under your control.

I find this whole leading – following thing the most fascinating aspect of dancing. In another post I tried to answer why men lead and women follow. Don't know if I succeeded, but I had fun trying.

And that's the purpose of dancing: fun. Laurel and I haven't been practicing much, but we went to the weekly open dance at the studio last night and enjoyed ourselves.

When RJ, the DJ, called out a dance we didn't know, like rumba!, at first we shrugged our shoulders and remained in our chairs.

But RJ came around and offered to show us and another clueless couple the basic rhythm and steps. So what the heck – we got out on the floor and did something that maybe once in a while looked something like rumba, if you squinted your eyes and didn't stare at us too long.

Yet throughout, even when I knew next to nothing about what I was doing, I was still expected to lead.

Though in practice, as this informative Wikipedia article on leading and following says, a woman can hijack the lead, or backlead. There are more acceptable and less acceptable ways of doing this. It's generally undesirable, though, especially if the hijacking or backleading is obvious.

Lora spoke to the women in the class ("girls," as dance instructors like to say) about the joy of being a follower. She said that this was an opportunity to relax, to relinquish control, to feel your partner's movements and intentions without thinking.

As I talked about in my "Tango, where men lead and women follow," there's a simple Me Tarzan, You Jane attitude in partner dancing that's an appealing counterpoint to the complexity of modern male-female relationships.

Yet there's a tender aspect to leading and following also. It's all about communication, the main point in this overview of the subject offered by BallroomDancers.com.

I liked the description of the connection between partners:

According to this definition, a connection can be any point where you actually touch your partner. While this is technically correct, it's not entirely accurate. Normally, when we think of a connection, we think of a point through which you lead or follow your partner. So it's not enough to simply touch your partner or hold their hand. In order to lead or follow, your connections must do more. For example:

A connection must have TONE.
In order to function properly as a transmitter of signals, the connected body parts should maintain a certain degree of muscle tone. If the connection is limp or weak, the lead-and-follow signals will not run through it.

A connection must be ACTIVE.
A working connection is a living, breathing thing. It must be alive, responsive to the situation, and ready to transmit and receive signals. In addition to being toned, it must also be flexible, and ready to change to accommodate any situation.

A connection must be MUTUAL.
It takes two to have a conversation. Both parties must do their part to maintain the connection. When one person falls short, the conversation dies, no matter how much the other may try to compensate.

As in dance, so in life.

Argentine Tango could spice up Salem

[Update: Since I wrote this, Frank and Karen Davis have begun to organize an Argentine Tango community here in Salem. Check out their website for info about the Tango classes being taught by Elizabeth Wartluft of Portland. On September 3 the Salem paper had an interesting story about the classes.]

Fellow Salemites, even though we live in Oregon's boring capital city, there's untapped passion in our rain-drenched souls.

That's why we need to bring Argentine Tango classes back to town. Thanks to Peter Gysegem, of Corvallis, weekly classes were offered during 2006 – which Laurel and I started taking in February with initially tangled results.

The past year was a hiatus, as Peter's classes had stopped, but now Lora of RJ Dance Studio is hoping to schedule some Argentine Tango workshops. And maybe regular classes.

Here's what Lora said in a recent email newsletter:

A good friend and teacher from Portland has offered to bring her partner and come to Salem to do a group of one-day workshops in Argentine Tango. She has been teaching Argentine Tango for 10 years, and is very good at it.

There have been several inquiries regarding Argentine Tango classes and dances here in Salem. These workshops would be a testing opportunity to actually see who really wants this. If there is enough interest, a set of regular classes could be formed along with a monthly Tango Only dance. We'd need at least 10 couples to make this fly. 20 couples would be better.

Argentine Tango has a different posture, dance hold and characteristic than American Ballroom Tango. Because of its extremely close hold, I suggest you come with your own partner, or with someone who you don't mind being VERY close to. But please remember, this is still just a DANCE!

The date and times are to be determined by the availability of the teacher. You, meanwhile can let me know what day (or evening) of the week would work best for you and we will try to coordinate as best we can.

If you live in the Salem area and are interested in learning Argentine Tango, contact Lora directly.

Wikipedia has a good description of this dance. It can be addictive. Argentine Tango is quite a bit more spontaneous and unpatterned than other couple dances.

As the Wikipedia article says, in most other styles the follower has a good idea of what move is coming next from the leader. With Argentine Tango, though:

The ballast of previous perceptions about strict rules has to be thrown overboard and replaced by a real communication contact, creating a direct non-verbal dialogue. A tango is a living act in the moment as it happens.

This is why it makes sense to speak of Tango Zen and the Tao of Tango. We're talking about more than dance here, if you want to get all philosophical about the dance (which, let me assure you, you don't need to).

For a hot example of professional Argentine Tango, check out the video at the end of this post.

New Hampshire, give us the gift of Obama

It's been a long time since any presidential candidate has turned me on. I'm tired of saying about the Democrat, "Well, at least he's better than _____."

That sort of faint praise, which is what I'd offer Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, isn't what this country needs or deserves after putting up with eight years of George Bush.

Barack Obama is.

So New Hampshire voters, please, pretty please with an Oregon fir tree on top, give my state and the rest of the county a tremendous gift next Tuesday.

Another impressive Obama win.

I've tried to get enthusiastic about Clinton. I really have. I can do it for, oh, an hour or so. I'll hear her give a speech and like what she says.

But then the thought of her trying to win over independents and Republicans in the general election fills me with dread. Heck, she's having a tough time winning over me – a progressive with moderate leanings.

Clinton is too familiar, too predictable, too much a chip off of the old Bill block. Been there, done that. It's time for a real change.

Which is the problem I have with Edwards also. He's a political retread who still has some miles on him. But not as the Democratic presidential candidate. Vice-president? Sure. Bring him on, as Obama's running mate.

Plus, I heard his second-place "victory" speech after the Iowa caucuses. It sounded horribly old-fashioned, all that talk about his parents and grandparents working in the cotton fields, or steel mills, or wherever.

"That's nice," I kept thinking. But bashing corporate America and praising the working class isn't going to cut it come November 2008.

I'm tired of divisiveness. Much of the rest of the country is also. I don't like Bush's "you're either with us or against us" attitude. I also don't like it when Democrats or Republicans take the same polarized stance.

I just watched Obama's Iowa victory speech (transcript is here for the broadband impaired). It's easy to see why so many are so ready to get behind this guy and propel him into the White House.

You [Iowa] said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that's consumed Washington; to end the political strategy that's been all about division and instead make it about addition - to build a coalition for change that stretches through Red States and Blue States. Because that's how we'll win in November, and that's how we'll finally meet the challenges that we face as a nation.

We are choosing hope over fear. We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.

Another reason I like Obama: he's the only candidate who can say "give it up for Michelle Obama" (his wife) and not sound ridiculous.

No wonder he got the youth vote.

How to make time slow down

Time speeds up as you get older. Almost everyone I know says this is true. I sure do. And it's damn unfair.

Why should children, who have their whole lives ahead of them, experience time moving more slowly than semi-geezers like me (I'm 59), who don't have anywhere near as long to live?

I frequently feel like screaming, Hey life! Flip things around! Those kids should be the ones who sense time flying by, while older people get to string out the days they have left.

One of my best friends from elementary and high school died recently. He was, obviously, my age. I was sad to learn about his death from cancer. And I was jerked into a realization that what happened to him could happen to me.

Dying anytime. You never know how long you've got. So slowing down time to make my remaining moments seem like they're lasting longer strikes me as an excellent proposition.

So today I ventured onto Google, figuring that it would be easy to take my first step: learning why time speeds up the older we get.

Once I knew that, I'd be closer to understanding how to slow time down. But I was surprised by the dearth of solid information Google's results brought me.

I found quite a few references to the obvious notion that when we're three years old, another year adds a third to our life experience, so it seems like a long time. But by the time we're fifty, a year is just 2% of the life we've already lived, so it isn't noticed to nearly the same degree – flitting by as a mere 1/50^th would.

However, even though there likely is some truth to this, there's nothing that can be done about it. I can't change how long I've lived. So I Googled on.

And came to a promising-sounding book title: "Why Life Speeds Up as You Get Older: How Memory Shapes Our Past."

You'd think that the author would have an answer to the "why." But another review of the book by a physician said:

So why does life appear to speed up as we get older? This is a perception that most of us who are older than 50 regularly experience—particularly at anniversaries of varying sorts such as birthdays, holidays, weddings, and residency graduations. The author acknowledges that this question, which involves two highly complex and ephemeral concepts—memory and time—cannot be answered with certainty.

Oh, great. Even an expert on time can't tell me why my life is speeding by faster and faster. Disappointing, but I didn't give up on Google.

I was rewarded with a blog post by someone who, like me, had made the rounds of Internet theories concerning this question. "The Speed of Time" ended with a suggestion that mindfulness – being here now in the present – is a way to make time slow down.

Makes sense. As did the best writing I found on this subject, Steve Taylor's "The Speed of Life: Why Time Seems to Speed Up and How to Slow it Down."

When you've got time, read it. Taylor is a good writer. I liked his take on the "proportional theory" that I mentioned above (as we grow older, every additional period of time is a smaller proportion of our life).

There is some sense to this theory – it does offer an explanation for why the speed of time seems to increase so gradually and evenly, with almost mathematical consistency. One problem with it, however, is that it tries to explain present time purely in terms of past time. The assumption behind it is that we continually experience our lives as a whole, and perceive each day, week, month or year becoming more insignificant in relation to the whole. But we don't live our lives like this. We live in terms of much smaller periods of time, from hour to hour and day to day, dealing with each time period on its own merits, independently of all that has gone before.

Seems true. As does Taylor's preferred explanation for why time speeds up with advancing years:

In my view, the speeding up of time we experience is mainly related to our perception of the world around us and of our experiences, and how this perception changes as we grow older. The speed of time seems to be largely determined by how much information our minds absorb and process – the more information there is, the slower time goes.

He says that things around us come to seem more and more familiar the longer we live. We travel the same streets, go to the same places, talk to the same people, engage in the same activities.

With all this sameness, we begin to ignore perceptions that used to be oh so fascinating. Familiarity breeds disinterest, if not contempt.

One way of increasing the flow of information into our psyches is to do new things. Travel to a different location; take up a fresh hobby; shake up old habits. Good ideas, but the way I see it, this runs the risk of making us a slave to time.

We end up dashing from newness to newness, addicted to the rush of unfamiliar perceptions. Look, the Louvre! I know how to waltz! Golf is fun!

I prefer Taylor's mindfulness approach:

A second way in which we can slow down time is by making a conscious effort to be 'mindful' of our experience… Poets and artists often have this kind of 'child-like' vision – in fact it's this that usually provides the inspiration for their work. They often have a sense of strangeness and wonder about things which most of us take for granted, and feel a need to capture and frame their more intense perceptions.

Read the end of his piece for more on mindfulness. Good stuff. As more perceptions, more information from the outside world, courses into consciousness, time slows down.

I hear the crisp clicking of my ThinkPad's keys. I feel my hands resting on the palm rest. The sound of the heat pump going on outside our kitchen window enters my awareness as I watch these letters appear on my laptop's screen.

Life is always happening all around us, and within us. To pay close attention to it, here and now, that's key to slowing time down.

Mindfulness means stopping thinking and starting to be aware, to live in the here and now of your experience instead of the 'there and then' of your thoughts. It stretches time in exactly the same way that new experience does: because we give more attention to our experience, we take in more information from it.

In other words, to some extent we can control time. It doesn't have to speed up as [we] get older. Some of us try to extend our lives by keeping fit and eating healthy food, which is completely sensible. But it's also possible for us to expand time from the inside, by changing the way we experience the moment to moment reality of our lives. We can live for longer not just in terms of years, but also in terms of perception.

I’m the DSL King of the World!

Step aside, Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm the new king of the world – unashamed to appropriate one of the cheesiest movie lines ever.

Because I deserve it.

I, me, myself, Brian the Hines, was responsible for bringing Qwest DSL to our rural south Salem neighborhood after many would-be kings (including moi ) had tried and failed for years.

At this very moment I am praising myself in a blog post that will be uploaded via wireless DSL, a vast improvement over our dreadfully unreliable Wild Blue broadband satellite service, which never saw a raindrop that it wasn't afraid to send a signal through.

Wild Blue also suffered from slow upload speeds. I could download at over 1000 kbps most of the time, but frequently I'd get a 30 kbps upload speed, not much different from our old 24 kbps dial-up connection.

Our DSL started functioning (after some load coil problems were resolved) yesterday. Retrieving information rich web pages like the NY Times and Google News now is happening five times faster with DSL, even though the download speed (1239 kbps) is about what I was getting with satellite.

It must be DSL's much faster upload speed, 711 kbps, that's keeping a web-surfing smile on my face. Yes, cable and faster speed DSL users, I realize that what I've got is run-of-the-mill broadband; but beggars who live in the countryside can't be choosers when it comes to broadband options.

Many of my neighbors are deeply grateful that I've brought the potential of DSL to some 240 homes in our area. Quite a few are trying to run businesses out of their homes. That's tough to do with a dial-up connection, and satellite is expensive.

I've been thinking that a bronze statue of me, commemorating my DSL triumph, would be a nice addition to one of our local streets. Which could be renamed after me also.

The statue idea hasn't taken off yet, except in my own mind. But I've got a rough design pictured. I'd be gazing out over cyberspace, holding a laptop in one arm and the letter that I sent to the Qwest CEO in the other.

It was the letter that apparently did the trick, because my entreaties to Congresswoman Hooley, and through her to the FCC, didn't go any good.

Nor did an exasperated blog post directed to the previous Qwest CEO. A few weeks after writing that post, an acquaintance offered up the bright idea of writing an actual personal letter to the CEO. I did just that. Download qwest_dsl_letter_shared.doc

And the rest is south Salem DSL history.

Early on, after a Qwest manager called me saying "let's get this done," I joined the company's Refer A Friend program. I'd get $25 for every customer in the area who bought DSL after signing an "I'm Interested" sheet that I shopped around our neighborhood.

I ended up sending over 80 names to Qwest. So far about 24 have gotten DSL. I'm over halfway to paying for a new multimedia computer.

My involvement with Qwest hasn't gone totally smoothly. Nor has the DSL roll-out process. But some glitches are to be expected, especially when you're dealing with a large communications company (which, I learned, doesn't always communicate all that well).

I'm a happy DSL camper now. So if you've got satellite broadband and have a chance to switch to DSL, do it. Paying less than half the money for five times the speed is a no-brainer.

And now Oregon raindrops can fall on my head without me thinking, "Oh god, there goes my Internet connection."