Delmar DustPan

Susan on the firing range

Susan reloading the 22 rifle

My daughter and I went over to Delmarva Sporting Clays today to fire some shells thru the shotgun. It was the first time I have been there and it isn't bad. It cost $10 a person. They have 55 stations, most of them covered. They give you hearing protection and some targets to use while you are there. It was nice since it was about 9:30 in the morning and no one else showed up until about 10AM. It is located just before the Vienna bridge heading West on Route 50. They say they are open 9AM to sunset, 7 days a week. Their phone number is 410-742-2023.

As those who read this blog are aware, in September my father died. Now if you have been personally involved in a death and burial of a loved one you are only to well aware the people that handle this aspect of life are vultures. The funeral home charges you for every little thing they do, the newspapers (The Daily Times) charges you to print the ob, the Department of vital statistics come in for their share, the cemetery company company has a range of things they want to sell you and the tombstone company wraps up the rip off. After my father was buried, in October, we went to the Salisbury Monument Company in Salisbury to order a bronze marker from them. At that time Mr Disharoon said it would be installed in 5 to 7 weeks. We were looking at it being done before Christmas, well here it is January and still the marker has not been set at the grave. Apparently our mistake was paying him the full price upfront or maybe our mistake was dealing with him. Anyway he will get no references from me.

UPDATE: I spoke to Wanda, of Salisbury Monument,and she said they had ordered the wrong size bronze marker and had to reorder it, than they found they didn't have the right size stone to put the marker on. Today (1/24/07) I rode by the grave and I saw the marker had been set. About 13 weeks after we ordered it.

Does anyone believe the bullshit the Ocean City Police are putting out as to why they did not arrest Delaware State Representative John Atkins on a DUI? Lt Brian Cardamone was quoted as saying "You do not simply pass or fail (sobriety) tests, they simply provide the facts and circumstances to make a reasonably prudent person believe is drunk, not just probably drunk". What a line of shit. What got John Atkins out of a DUI was the flashing of his Delaware legislative ID to the police officer. No doubt it was cheaper than slipping the Ocean City Police a twenty dollar bill to get out of the DUI.

I came across this in the book "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts and thought I would share it.

"The world is run by one million evil men, ten millon stupid men and a hundred million cowards...There are only one million of them, the truly evil men, in the whole world. The very rich and the very powerful, whose decisions really count -- they only number one million. The stupid men, who number ten million, are the soldiers and policemen who enforce the rule of the evil men. They are the standing armies of twelve key countries, and the police forces of those and twenty more. In total there are only ten million of them with any real power or consequence. They are often brave, I'm sure, but they are stupid, too, because they give their lives for governments and causes that uses their flesh and blood as mere chess pieces. These governments alway betray them or let them down or abandon them, in the long run. Nations neglect no men more shamefully than the heroes of wars....and the hundred million cowards..they are the bureaucrats and paper shufflers and pen pushers who permit the rule of the evil men and look the other way. They are the head of this department, and the secretary of that committee, and the president of the other association. They are managers, and officials, and mayors, and officers of the court. They always defend themselves by saying that they are just following orders, or just doing their job, and it's nothing personal, and if they don't do it, someone else surely will."

I noticed the price of a loaf Wal Mart White, Sliced, enriched bread (The same bread that sets Outraged Richard off on torrent of abuse) has increased from 78 cents to $1.07. As I recall last year at this time it was 58 cents a loaf, so bread has effectively doubled in a years time. So lets see, I received a 3 percent increase in my social security this month, throwing me in total to an income of over a thousand a month, and the price of bread has doubled. Sounds like a step backward doesn't it?

The members of the Delmar Police commission (Mayor Outten, Mayor Niblett and Councilperson Diane Buckley) met last night for their quarterly meeting. Some items addressed in the meeting were and not in the order they occurred;

The Police Report, that gave a summary of citations issued, money and vehicles seized.

Burglaries in the area, not just in the town limits. Police Chief Saylor said there was about 40 breakins over the last 4 months. They were mostly daytime breakins where no one was home. They would verify no one was home by coming to the door, knocking and if someone answered they would ask if a fictitious person lived there and leave. If no one came they would figure the house was empty. Diane Buckley asked me not to publish the 40 burgaries number until the number could be verified. I called the police chief this morning to verify the number but he was out. When I receive a better number I will update this post. UPDATE 1/19/07 the Delmar PD called to tell me the number was 19 breakins, not 40, in the Delmar area.

The new police officers have finished Maryland Police Academy training and will start the Delaware Police Academy training shortly.

The police department have started work on their budget.

Jill Braungart, from Wood Creek, gave a brief talk about adding speed bumps to Executive Club drive. She said there was a two tenths of a mile section of Executive Club Drive that was straight and people were speeding up when they came to it. She said golf carts used that public road and they run the risk of being struck by a speeding car ( Is that legal to have untagged vehicles on a public road?). Jill Braungart gave the commission material that showed a selection of speed bumps and she said they were temporary in nature and could be removed later. Diane Buckley said she was concerned over doing it for one development, as other developments may request the same thing. Jill Braungart said there was a 15 mph speed limit on the street. Chief Saylor said altho the developer put a speed limit sign of 15 mph on the street it was not enforceable. He could however look for speeders that exeeded 25 mph (25 MPH I guess is the standard speed limit for residential areas).

Diane Buckley inquired about stopping the transit buses from parking in the fire lane in front of Food Lion. It will be looked into.

The Police arrested 3 under the age of 10 children for vandalism in state street Park.

Happy Birthday Gail!!!

In todays NewsJournal there was an article about Mayors in Delaware. I did not see the story in Delawareonline so I guess it was just in the printed edition. The gist of the article was; they aren't paid very much, they spend a lot of time on the Mayor job, and they do a of different things. Who was not included in the story was our very own Mayor John Outten. I guess when you are Mayor of the "town too big for one state" people aren't sure which state Delmar is in. Certainly, when it comes to Delmar receiving Delaware grants etc the State of Delaware doesn't seem too know we are in Delaware. Other Towns such as Bridgeville were not included in their salary list. Almost all the Mayors have a day job, regretfully about half of them have day jobs that are government related either direct or indirect thru grants and non profit associations. Having experience in government is both a help and a hindrance. On one hand you have contacts that will help smooth out requests for help and on the other hand you are use to slowest, bureaucracy and your original thought process has ben crippled.

Now I have always thought that it was every citizen's civic duty to run for an elected office. I also feel anyone who keeps an elected office for more than two terms has other reasons for doing so than doing their civic duty. After two terms I think they cross the line from doing civic duty and become a politician.

Just summary of the pay the Mayors receive;
Wilmington Mayor James Baker, $100,003
Dover Mayor Stephen Speed, $45,000
Newark Mayor Vance Funk, $8,400
Laurel Mayor John Shwed, $1,920
Henlopen Acres Mayor Wanda Davis, $0
Lewes Mayor James Ford, $4,000
Blades Mayor David Ruff, $2,100
Georgetown Mayor Michael Wyatt, $750
Milton Mayor Don Post, $ 900
Rehoboth Beach Mayor Samuel Cooper, $999.96
Wyoming Mayor Hans Riegle $0
Hartly Mayor Raymond Morris, $0

As I recall the Mayor of Delmar, Delaware receives a $1,000 a year. The salary structure was originally developed so the councilmembers would receive enough to pay their Town Taxes and the Mayor would receive enough for his/her Town Taxes and compensation for the many dinners and events he/she was expected to attend without reimbursement from the town.

In today's News Journal there was an article School lunches about how early schools are having to begin their lunch schedule. It mention the Central High School in Philadelphia first lunch shift is 8:20 in the morning. Cab Calloways School of the Arts in Wilmington starts at 10:20. It is of course ridicules to have a lunch time before 11AM. I can remember when my children went to Delmar High School and they had lunch shifts that started before 11AM. They were never hungry that early so they bought snack food to eat. When they got home after school they would eat everything in the house because they were hungry. This in turn messed up supper for them because they were not hungry again when supper was served. Now it is not abnormal for kids to come home from school and eat, but if they had a decent lunch they usually eat snack food. When they had the early lunch shift they were eating serious food after school. It certainly contributed to weight gains in both of them. In Delmar the reason for the early shifts was because the cafeteria was built to small for the number of students they have. If you ever ask them why it was built too small you have the maximum amount of finger pointing going on. No one accepts responsibility, which is the way it is in the school system.

The Georgetown Department of Motor Vehicles

I donated a car to the Salvation Army a couple of weeks back and finally got around to turning the tags into the Department of Motor Vehicles. I am always so amazed how well they handle titles, tags etc. About 30 years ago I lived in Maryland and it was just a disagreeable experience to go to the motor vehicle office in Salisbury and even worst to go to Glen Burnie. I don't think I ever got a single thing done that did not require two trips back to that office. When I moved to Delaware and went to the Department of Motor vehicles I just couldn't believe it, everything done in one trip that was under an hour. It verified that I had done the right thing moving to Delaware. Todays trip into the office to turn in the tags was under 10 minutes. The new office they have in Georgetown is a great looking place, no doubt it contributed to the budget overruns that department has.

Rebecca Mae is 67. Happy Birthday!!!

I was reading Jeff the Baptist blog today and he mentions that Taiwanese born Momofuku Ando died today at age 96. Ando invented Ramen noodles and saved millions of college students from starvation.

Well I rode by Delmar Commons, the shopping center in Delmar East of Rt13, today and I see the "Canton Inn" billboard is still there. Back in July, Robert Wittig of Delmar Commons told the Delmar Delaware council the billboard would be down by January 15th. Now that is still a week away, but we wait to see if he is an honest developer or just another lying ass developer.