Inside Huckleberries (2/14/05)

6 p.m. Why am I still here? (Wife: Bingo!)

5:56 p.m. Good blog numbers again last week, despite the Server meltdown Thursday, which dropped numbers for a strong day to 1325. All the other weekdays were 1802 or better. 7-day total: 10,891. Thanks.

4:40 p.m. I held my nose a bit the other day when I praised Old Bob Paulos for winning state recognition for his Christmas for All program. (Have I told you about the time the underpaid CDA Press workers mocked the program by staging an in-house Christmas for Us program?) Anyway, The Angry Commentator reported the following during a close encounter with Old Bob at a local nursing home: He never reads Brand X columnist Marty Fortier and believes David Bond and I were fired from the CDA Press here . The Press, according to Old Bob “only keeps the good ones.” Wonder if Old Bob knows I never worked for the Press.

2:08 p.m. Speaking of The Duane, commenter John Austin provided a link that allows the general public to covet Hagadone’s manse on Stanley Hill here .

1:52 p.m. Eagle Eye’s Valentine to Mayor Bloem triggered a thought. While I was walking the Centennial Trail along the lake, east of town, I passed The Beachouse, which The Duane , scooped up when the county didn’t follow through on the $5,000 earnest money it’d put down for the restaurant, dock and parking area across the way — to use as a county boat launch. To this day, I believe, The Duane told the commish to back off because he wanted the property. Now, I lament that he’s going to build another condo monstrosity along the trail and congest the parkway with his hifalutin renters.