Wednesday March 16, 2016

Log time: 1723

Breakfast Club Wednesday: Up at 0545 and head downtown in rain and high winds. BC continues to lose members. I think mainly due to age.

Today the speaker was the Superintendent of the GR Public Schools. She gave an interesting talk. The GR system has major problems especially with retention of students and a graduation rate slightly above 50%. GR is now the seventh largest system in MI. The system has experienced large white flight in the last 25 years. In 1990 whites made up nearly 50% of the student population and now it is 20% even though the white population of GR is 67%. The school system is now 33% Hispanic and 32% black. They appear to making progress.

After BC I stopped at Starbucks in Gaslight Village. I scanned the WSJ. I was glad to see Gov Kasich win Ohio.

I am looking for some good khakis. Stopped at Fitzgerald's, Orvis and Bill and Paul's but had no luck. I did stop at Russo's and bought a bottle of Irish Whiskey, Red Breast single pot, recommended by my high school classmate, Bill Foster. I will have a sip on St Patrick's Day. I have to celebrate my Irish heritage.

Our internet went out last night. We had some intense thunder storms roll through last night and they probably caused the outage. I unplugged all the connections to the modem and router and then plugged them back in. It worked.

Took a short nap and then Ms P and I went on a 1.5 mile walk. We had to walk into a 50 mph wind the first 1/2 of the walk but we had the wind at our back on the way home.

Nancy worked at the Gardens this afternoon. She said a tree was blown over in a parking lot and damaged three cars.

Light dinner and then after the news I will walk around the block. Sunset is now near 2000.

Trivia from the past: I attended McPhee grade school in Alpena, Mi. At this time of year all the boys would play marbles. The school had a nice brick vertical wall. We would dig a small hole in the dirt about three feet from the wall. The players would each put a marble in the hole. Each player would bounce a marble off the wall in hope of getting it in the hole. If it went in you got all the marbles if not you put your marble in the pot. Sometimes as many as 10 marbles could be in the pot. I suppose this game would not be allowed now because it is a form of gambling?

One March I asked my Mother why it had been so windy lately. She said it was always windy near the equinox. Of course I took this as fact because my Mother told me.