Is it Friday Yet?

This is one of those weeks where you just hunker down and move through it. Monday evening was a meeting in a small town about 90 minutes from here. It was a good meeting, but a reality check. It was a feedback meeting with a bunch of building owners concerning revitalizing their declining downtown. Here we were prepared to talk about big funding schemes involving big matching money from the owners, and they were talking about how it takes all their profits to fix a leaking roof. One guy found it cost $500 to rent a bucket truck for one day, so he used it to paint his building in nineteen straight hours - a second day's rental was not in the budget. So we are toning down our recommendations. No pie in the sky -more along the lines of how to save a buck or two here and there by pooling resources, etc.

Tuesday was one of those meetings where you get thrown the proverbial curve. I call the Village Administrator to make sure the meeting is on that night, then I tell him "OK, I'll be there, but I'm not preparing anything - I will just be there in case people have questions." The Administrator says that will be fine, and very helpful. So at 7:00 I show up for this meeting where they are going to discuss, with the new committee of volunteers, whether to revise their old master plan or develop a new one. After some procedural stuff, selecting a secretary, etc., the guy running the meeting says "Now I'm gonna turn this over to Ben who is going to tell us all about what we need to do." So it's my show, thank you very much. The Village Administrator is not even in attendance. I wing it - sort of long-windedly, I fear - take some questions, and get outta Dodge.

Then today all I had to do was pick up the Mayor of my City at 5:45 (I had not been conscious, let alone driving a local dignitary, at such an hour in a long time) for a meeting down in Columbus, 100 miles south. It was a pretty interesting meeting, with the Governor and various legislators and private sector types and bureaucrats, all talking about how Ohio needs to step up and compete in the global economy. Lots of research findings, papers, etc. We will see how this translates into "real change", which seems to be the mantra of the moment.

As they say, "change is inevitable, except from vending machines".

Anyhow, there has been a dearth of pictures on this blog lately. I think it has to do with my not being home except to eat, sleep, maybe read a little. So, feeling all incomplete, I just went out in the dark and took this picture - with a flash - of our crazy sweet autumn clematis that totally takes over a host bush or two toward the end of every summer and flowers out with these little blooms. If it were sunny, I would have also taken a picture of our goofy grape vine that now extends all over a nearby lilac tree. It is fairly interesting to see bunches of grapes draping down from a lilac tree. Hmm...a WOF in the offing?

Tomorrow is a regular eight hours in the office, then home for supper. Sounds pretty normal, even boring, but I am looking forward to it.

I'm not really whining - the meetings I attended have all been interesting, and it is always sort of fun to see how people think (or...not) and interact. I hope your week is going well.