Tom Nousaine..... and.... Preventing A Pool From Being Built Across The Street

The guy on the right is Tom Nousaine. He's a good friend and he's perhaps the world's best tester of car-audio systems. He is the president of a company that trains people to be good listeners. He told me about Ruthie Foster, a musician who lives in Austin, and Christina and I have enjoyed two Ruthie concerts (at the first one, I got her to autograph a poster which I sent to Tom). You can learn more about Ruthie at her Website, www.RuthieFoster.com.

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Some people, including the president of the neighborhood association ("The Neighborhood Nazis"), want to have a pool built across the street from my house.

I hate the idea, as expressed in postings I've put on the neighborhood Information Kiosk (which have been torn down by someone unknown).

Stop The Pool!
1. The pool will destroy part of Silk Oak Park… the part closest to Tanglewood Oaks!
2. The pool will double our homeowners’ dues forever from $144 to $288!
3. Trees will have to be cut down to make room for the pool. Too many trees in Austin have been cut down already. Trees are worth more than diving boards!
4. The pool will turn part of the park from its natural state to concrete! Stop natural Texas land from being replaced by California concrete!
5. The pool will increase traffic, noise, violence, and parking problems!
6. The pool will bring strangers into our neighborhood!
7. There are enough pools in the area already; we don’t need another one!

Of course, the pool will be worse for me than most people because it will ruin my view. One of the things that I liked about this house was that there was parkland across the street... not houses. I'd hate to look at a pool instead of a park. It rots my socks.

So, today, my sign was torn down again, which has happened regularly in the past two weeks or so, and............. for the first time..............someone put up a sign saying that the pool was a good idea.

I didn't tear down their sign, but I put up one of mine under it. I've also printed out some flyers (similar to the sign) and left them under car windshields and scrunched between house doorknobs and doorjambs.

Maybe I'm going to lose this fight, and it does bug me that I don't have as much support as I'd like, but it's worth some effort. Maybe I should ask that everyone reading this blog should email the Neighborhood Nazis and say that the pool is a bad idea.

Walked Clyde and Luna twice today. Tense in the morning, and maybe a bit manic in the afternoon. Maybe I should take 2 more Lorazepam.

In January, I told Christina that I hoped the Democrats would throw mud at the Republicans instead of at each other. David Geffen screwed things up by attacking the Clintons. Obama seemed to handle the problem with grace, but I sure wish Geffen and other Democrats wouldn't sink their own ship.

The new Sparks album has tons of vocals and lots of repetition and tons of vocals and lots of repetition and it's not as wonderful as KIMONO MY HOUSE, but it's still great. It's got the hit song "Perfume." It's called something like MODERN LOVE or something.

Good news from Christina: She now has health insurance. She has to wait until April 1 until she sees doctors, however. I hope this is not an April Fool's joke.