"Forgot" one of the worst ones...

I have only one small, out of focus picture from when I was well over 300 Lbs. (136 KG) taken when I was living an almost completely sedentary existence.

This picture was taken in the spring of 2005 when I was still a union local Secretary/Treasurer :

I hate this picture below now but thought it looked pretty good then as I had lost over 60 Lbs. from my worst above. 

April, 2009    234.1 Lbs.   (106.1 KG)

This was taken four months before I left for the bush and was down to 89 KG. Of course, taking it off is, in retrospect, the easy part. It's keeping it off that's the bitch.

November, 2010   168.6 Lbs.   (76.4 KG)

This is where I stand at the end of 2010, cycling between the low one sixties and the high one seventies with 180 putting me into an existential panic that all this effort is being lost. One of my metaphors is that of a leaky boat, out on a pond with my continuously and unrelentingly bail of water or will eventually sink.  The water is like fat, filling the boat and the bailing is burning calories.

Year End Fitness Progress Report (1)

Before I began using the blog to discuss water board issues, I had intended it to post reports on my progress, or lack of it. Since on 10 December, 2009 I weighed 178.4 (80.9KG) and today, after hiking well more than 1,000 miles with a 20KG backpack, I weigh 169.6! 

Not much progress if I look only at weight, which has fluctuated over a 12 pound range for the past 18 months. There are other fitness related issues  to discuss, however.

December, 2007      252.2 Lbs     (114.5KG)  

You can't tell from my expression, but I was rather pleased with myself as I had already lost at least 60 pounds from a high somewhere around (I wasn't weighing then) of 310 - 325 pounds (140.6KG). I had decided that I was going to backpack in the Australian outback and that I had to get into shape for the trip.

May, 2008      240.4 Lbs     (109 KG)  

Here, I was still 85 Lbs. over my ideal weight, morbidly obese, yet feeling pretty good at being at least 75 Lbs. below my worst.

August, 2008      235.6 Lbs.     (106.8 KG)  

While the ground was still smoking, the terrible forest fire which passed just across the river from Tobin led to a great deal of work attempting to reestablish water. I was to hike down the mountain from the Jackass Creek dam, some 450 feet of smoking ash, brambles and burned logs with a variety of officialdom six times. Pretty good means to take off a few pounds, 18 actually.

August, 2008      235.6 Lbs.     (106.8 KG)  

I am now a mere one year before my foray down under and was still way above what I was shooting for before heading into the bush.

April, 2009      217.2 Lbs.     (98.5 KG)  

I decided that I did not want to embarrass myself and by extension all Americans by falling off my horse when on a cattle station. I was concerned about being too heavy for the horse, though.

May, 2009      202.6 Lbs.     (91.8 KG)  

A mere 3 months before my flight, I'm beginning to feel progress is being made.

August, 2009      201.8 Lbs.     (91.5 KG)  

This is about as good as it would get but I managed to be below 90 KG before we jumped from the plane.

August, 2010      168.2 Lbs.     (76.3 KG)  

As a born again nudist I am extremely opposed to the notion that some parts of the body are capable of "indecent exposure" and with the Blog warning that this blog might be unacceptable to some, nonetheless the fig leaf is easier than complaints. 

They and others are posted uncensored on the Tribe website called Fit & Nude: 

http://tribes.tribe.net/fitnessnudism?_click_path=Application%5Btribe%5D.Tribe%5B33015ebb-4d50-48ba-835a-ad9192c10ddc%5D

August, 2010      168.2 Lbs.     (76.3 KG)  

Now, four months later in December most of the loose skin has reabsorbed. 

August, 2010      168.2 Lbs.     (76.3 KG)  

I actually like this picture which was taken on the "clothing optional" territory shared by myself and my immediate neighbors in lower Tobin Hts. 

(7) The Silence Is Deafening

(6) The Viper Demands

I wrote on the "NotTheFRCCSD.orgWebsite"homepage the following this afternoon, completely blowing off for later my further consideration of coincidence in this Blog: 

September 30, 2010 Afternoon Update: 

Today I received a certified, return receipt envelope directly from The Viper herself. Inasmuch as I had earlier discussed these issues with board member John Toboni, who took notes, her comments and demands to my mind either that she is one brick shy of a load or that she understands the situation but is acting duplicitously. You can probably guess which way I lean since I consider her a villain of Shakespearian proportions.  Don't take my word for it. This letter deserves its own page so if you want to take a tangent, just Click Here.

Sept 30, 2010

I've had way too much experience with The Viper to even consider writing her a response to her letter. She's demonstrated her predilection for cutting my sentences and paragraphs out of context to use as fodder against me. In a venue of my choosing, however, I will reply on the record. I choose here on this website where I can put down thoughts as I see fit and will probably expand my views on my considerably less restrictive blog.

Anyway, without an explicit and very public apology which I'm not holding my breath on, on behalf of the board and herself in particular, then I will not be lifting a finger to assist her in any way. I'm not a public servant, not a community leader (not by a long, long shot, rather I'm a Pariah ) and while I recognize that to relish the image of the FRCCSD crashing & burning, extremely satisfying as schadenfreude but otherwise disastrous. When it comes to pass, and simple arithmetic says it will in no less than a year from now, should resistance to serious conservation remain, it'll be a Pyrrhic victory. I need an adequate supply of potable water as much as anybody and when the pump to the well does not run, not because it's broken, but because the power bill is three months in arrears, I'll be in distress as well.

As to the Viper's current  problems and angst with such things as the Financial Report, due before the end of September, that is to say TODAY, and as to the numerous other treasurer-type matters that should be covered at the end of a month and particularly at the end of the quarter, I say "tough noogies." I was back in the fold after Laine made it clear that while he seldom, if ever, agreed with my motions, that he, John Toboni and Mike Mondot did appreciate my efforts.This appreciation existed, he explained, in spite of how frequently I shook things up, often disagreeably. I was back until The Viper broke the published Agenda to pursue relentlessly my departure and now she's got it. If she can't talk Ken George into returning then she better get a "Bookkeeping for Dummies" book pretty damn fast.

Now, point by point with my response to her letter in italics.

Remember, this letter came Certified, Return Receipt with all the legal consequence and threat that implies. I sent the FRCCSD my response poster by plain ol' snail mail. Also, to most of these allegations, they were AFTER I explained the facts toJohn Toboni who presumably he passed on to her.

John Keith
It is necessary that you return Quick Books/Quicken software disk and anything else that that has to do with the FRCCSD immediately.

That will be difficult to do inasmuch I never had any disk and did not have Quick Books. I did not maintain FRCCSD books on any Quicken product. Had the Viper bothered to listen at the Paxton meeting where I brought up the subject the gist of what I said was that in the previous month I had made two purchases on my own and because of that had put them on my credit card as I realized that I might have to eat the cost of one or both of them. 


The first was a two year registration of the Internet domain www.frccsd.org which was important to reserve as there could easily be other organizations in the US that happen to have the same initials FRCCSD. This cost the organization $30 and still belongs to it, for about 18 months anyway when it will expire, and can be used by anyone else in the organization who knows how to create websites.


The other purchase was $80 for Quicken Essentials for the Macintosh. It is an extremely advanced checkbook register which would work in the background to log in to the District's Plumas Bank account and download changes. If a deposit was entered or if a check cleared it would throw a widget on my screen showing the change. Another thing it did was to allow me to split payments like the PG&E bill into subsets showing the cost of each system, so much for Hot Springs, Twain etc. All the program did was save me a great deal of time, obviously of no interest to The Viper but of some consequence to me. 


On Friday, August 27th I received a series of increasingly frantic phone calls to my machine as well as emails to my canyongraphics address, that Community Development absolutely needed to get a check from the District for close to $7.5 K for its 10 % administrative fee, not to cash but to have on the books. I could not just write the check, I explained to Dave Keller without a three person emergency vote and a second signature on the check. Dave put that together with Laine and John and since Joan Chandler was bringing The Viper down to Tobin to see its system so that she (Joni) would pick up the check that I would have down at the PO between 9:00 and 11:00 AM. In so doing she could get it in to Quincy before noon which Dave stressed was important. (Why this check was not brought to our attention two weeks before, when it could have all been handled by snail mail, I don't know, but that's another story.) I emailed and called Joni's voice mail stressing how important it was that she not forget that getting the check and getting a second signature and then into Quincy was vitally important that she not forget. 


Monday morning came and so did Joni. She arrived when I was putting out mail, presumably when up to the treatment and then left without getting the check !?! I couldn't believe it! She told me later that she had yelled to me that she would be back. Maybe so. Inasmuch as I had ear buds in for my iPod podcasts, I wouldn't know. She didn't come back while the PO was closed at 11:00 AM and she did not come up to my cabin either or answer her cell so by noon, I bit the bullet. I rented my neighbor's truck and drove first to Laine's house. When he wasn't there and since I only vaguely know more or less where John Toboni lives, I drove to Paxton where I learned Mike Mondot had just gone into Quincy so I killed 45 minutes, became exasperated, went back to Laine's. No luck as he was actually in the Bay Area. Back to Paxton, another 40 minutes and since it was getting towards 1:00 PM and I was not sure if it had to actually be deposited into the bank that afternoon before closing (it wasn't) I started to leave when I caught Mike coming up his road and got a last minute signature. Then into Quincy to finish my totally FUBARDed afternoon. I go into this detail because this was not my job as treasurer, it was the job of the District's one and only employee, the one making $32 per hour while I make ZERO. I brought my covering Joni's rear as an uncompensated expense on my part, $30 for renting the vehicle plus whatever my time is worth, say what Joni makes that would be an additional $144. So, I suggested to John, that we just call it even and forget about it. I also have the vote, cast by three members not including myself, to purchase this program.


If this does not satisfy the current board and it wants to send me a bill. I'll be sure to cut the District a check as soon as hell freezes over. 


Last point on this issue. I did keep District books on my computer and I used a Macintosh iWork application called Numbers which has the advantage of being convertible to a MS Excel format readable by PCs. This is my program and the District did not spend a dime on it. Furthermore, while the District saw fit to buy our treatment operator her own computer for her Recording Secretary work, I did all my work on my own uncompensated  Macs.

As these items are necessary to file the report you spoke of due Sept. 30, you were well aware of the deadline for filing this report and ample time to have it done in advance of your resigning from the Board. You have cost the board unnecessary time and money to correct your intentional mistake of not addressing this while on the board and then refusing to submit and destroying the report after resigning. Adding that you intended to impose the $1,000.00 fine.

The paragraph above is enough to convince me that this woman is both mean as a box of snakes and a complete whack job. I was well aware of the deadline, the same deadline that her cohort Ken George missed by SIX MONTHS, and not only was I aware but I had finished it and had it at the 13 September meeting for approval of the board. I left that meeting no longer a member, in what the room considered me leaving in disgrace, and thus my report was no longer submittable. Could I have included a copy of my work in the box of stuff? Sure, but why would I. And what the hell does she mean that "I" intended to impose a $1,000.


As I was writing this I got a call from Plumas County Deputy Sheriff Goines asking me about the software I had "stolen" from the District. This woman, the Viper, has actually called the cops on me over an $80 program approved of by the Board for my use !?!  After I spoke to him and explained the same thing I wrote above he seemed to be satisfied but I would not be all that surprised to hear a knock on my door. 

This is not acceptable behavior from someone who is supposed to be doing the community a service.

SHE CALLED THE COPS ON ME AND HAS THE HUTZPAH TO LECTURE ME ON ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR !?!

ANY HESITATION I MAY HAVE HAD TO HOLD BACK ON PUBLISHING ALL THE SKELETONS IN THE BOARD''S CLOSET ARE NOW LONG GONE.

That you for your attendance to this matter.

Rocki Eriksen Norris


I need no further defense on this matter. This woman is, I believe, absolutely NUTS, Joan Chandler is a pathological liar and Ken George is a craven coward and watch this website and my Blogspot blog as well, as I prove this to what will convince any disinterested reader.. 

(5) Calm Before the Storm?

Back from Colby and my morning hike to the top of the quarry (44.39), I start this post at 8:00 AM, an hour before leaving for the PO and in the calm before the expected storm. The mail from Tobin should have made its way down to the West Sacramento hub before turning around and arriving this morning in Twain and Quincy. One copy for FRCCSD, no doubt opened by the Viper and the other two, one for a friend who will post a few.  However short lived, they will be placed on community bulletin boards at the Twain PO, Twain Store and on the drive into Old Mill Ranch on the board for the neighborhood home owners association. The poster does not need to be up long as once one person has the web address, I expect other interested parties will get it as well. (I see that one neighbor was at the "Not the FRCCSD Website"  for nine minutes last night and it's easy for me to imagine the phone lines buzzing between Tobin and Old Mill.)

I suppose if there is NO response, probably a wise move on the part of the Coalition of Unrepentant  Water Wasters, I can move on to other concerns, like the visit from my 90 year old mother after 30 years on 5 November. No response, though and I eventually will activate numerous other pages of documents already FTPed to the cloud and a mere open link away.

 Even better than no response would be a very public, an ad in the Feather River Bulletin for instance, apology for the outrageous allegations, explicit and implied by Ken George and Rocki Norris, but the despicable silence by the pathological liar and extremely flawed Joan Chandler. 

I also hope to work more on the "Not the FRCCSD Website" on water issues that I was unable to complete on the FRCCSD website, for instance the very interesting National Geographic special issue on water. Also, I've never had a chance to discuss what I learned about serious water conservation in my visit to Victoria, South Australia and NSW, Australia where many areas were into their tenth year of drought.

Time to suit up for the PO.

(4) Coincidence

Tuesday began with me officially throwing down the gauntlet with a poster. I emailed it to a couple of county administrators and a few others who have known my history. I realize, and wrote to one, that I recognize that they need to keep a professional distance form such a fracas. Furthermore, I mailed a few to a friend who lives up the hill and hope they will be posted and stay up a while at the Twain Store and Post Office, perhaps even stay up for an hour or two at Old Mill Ranch. So there can be no misunderstanding, I also sent one by mail to FRCCSD at its new box in Twain.

An interesting event happened last Friday and I've been toying whether it constitutes a coincidence or an example of an extremely unlikely, hence notable and remarkable as incident. That afternoon I was writing my second blog entry "Bloody Coup at the Feather River Canyon CSD (Part 2)" and was discussing the image of The Viper as she glared at me in a manner that I associated with the nurse in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I went to my shelves, eventually found the DVD, and was reminded that her name was Nurse Ratched.

With that name, Google Images quickly gave me 15 to 20 images.  I found exactly the one I was imagining and modified it for the blog. Unless there was some reference on TV or the net which was completely subliminal  then I think I can say with some assurance that I had not thought of that film or that character in many years, perhaps decades.  Three hours after I posted to the blog my neighbor got home from work and brought over her copy of the San Francisco Chronicle, which I appreciate getting seconds. Being Friday I eventually arrived the entertainment section. Inside, an interview withLouise Lasher about her role as Nurse Ratched and WITH THE VERY SAME PICTURE I HAD CHOSEN !!

Were I not of a skeptical frame of mind, I might easily imagine a number of paranormal explanations but even so, it was a Twilight Zone theme music moment. The word " CO-IN-CI-DENCE " is descriptive but not explanatory. Perhaps this character or actress had mysteriously risen to the surface of the zeitgeist like other current mysteries like Betty White or, even stranger Lady Ga Ga. I suppose that's old fogy thinking.

I want to distill the above incident and send it of to Steven Novella, moderator of my favorite podcast,"Skeptic's Guide to the Universe". He's also a neurologist and  president  of the New England Skeptical Society. I'll see if he'll discuss improbability and how that is or is not the same phenomena as coincidence. 

I wrote before about acupuncture where I assumed the phenomena I have observed, of more than two weeks now, of my hardcore cigarette smoking neighbor ceasing smoking is an example of placebo effect:

Reason: Ask The Skeptic
Email: beanmaster@hughes.net
First Name: John
Last Name: Keith
Location: Feather River Canyon, northern California
Subject: Placebo Effect
Message: I have watched with interest my neighbor, 52, who has been a heavy cigarette smoker since he was 12, often 5 packs of unfiltered, and claims that the only time he has gone more than 24 hours without them was when he was in jail. Now, with emphysema and COPD he's getting desperate and asked my views of acupuncture. I said that I thought that since needles were apparently stuck anywhere over hundreds of maladies never thought of by the ancient Chinese, that I considered it bogus. However, I acknowledged that many who believe in the practice often report positive subjective results.

He went to a guy who affected the persona of a sixties hippie, complete with long white pony tail, tie dyed T shirt and scented candles. He said with the first treatment (for $60.00) my neighbor would stop desire his desire to smoke, that in fact the thought would be repugnant. The guy asserted that with the second and last treatment he'd stop smoking forever, though as an "herbalist" he had no problem with him continuing to smoke his Prop 215 legal pot. The acupuncturist even has a life time guarantee: if he should be one of the very, very few who relapse, further treatments are free. This guy has run his practice out of his home office in a small city of 70,000 for 30 years so he's no over night charlatan and really does honor his guarantee.

It's now been three and a half weeks. He has had two treatments. His wife, who now smokes outside, is going next. He claims zero desire, indeed, that the thought makes him sick. He has no reason to deceive me and I have no reason to doubt his subjective report.

I do not find it very meaningful to say that this is "merely" placebo effect, even if it is. You have probably discussed this subject many times but it's hard for me to see if this sort of magic can convince those prone not to be skeptical with beneficial effects, what's wrong with it. The nicotine patches did nothing for him and mainstream medicine, he told me suggested 12 step programs.

John Keith
(530) 283 0960
www.canyongraphics.net

Steve wrote back the same day:

John,

The problem is not that acupuncture "works" on smoking cessation through placebo effects. The problem is that acupuncture does not work for smoking cessation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19735853

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16437420

Bloody Coup at the Feather River Canyon CSD (Part 3)

All references below can be best explained by a view of the "Not the FRCCSD Website" which can most easily be reached by going to www.canyongraphics.net.

I'm trying to decide if I should put a link on my Not the FRCCSD Website to this Blogspot. Here, since I checked the adult content warning, I feel free to write that, for instance that "Ken George screwed the pooch" and that "Chair Rocki, the Viper, fucked up when she didn't first call for a treasurer's report." I'd much rather to write so loosely but on the website I'm going to be somewhat more circumspect.

OK, I've decided. If someone wants to go through that warning, fine with me. I don't really believe in the notion of dirty words. Many perfectly good Anglo Saxon words of bodily function became unseemly and a "swear" word only after the Norman conquest, while the avoidance of words of a sexual nature are the sick notion that the world is burdened with by the obsessions of the three monotheistic religions. The hangups with display of the human body which Jews passed on to both Christians and Muslims, who arguably made it worse, is one of the big three's worst legacies.

By ten minutes after six, I'd guess the Viper had turned to her folder of my emails where she had yellow markered those words she could use as fodder against me. She started with the last few paragraphs of my famous "non negotiable and irrevocable letter of resignation, which I had emailed her some two weeks earlier. 

(At my earliest opportunity I will archive the all the relevant email traffic but the resignation letter is found bellow.)

What led up to that was that on the previous Wednesday and Thursday, both beautiful, gorgeous afternoons, I was stuck inside doing work for Plumas County Community Development. I was as disgruntled as a kid stuck in summer school while others are out swimming and fishing. Then I get this sanctimonious and supercilious  email from Rocki, who had just arrived on the board, about how we are (this is paraphrase) how we are all public servants and must not act like children. Believing I was out of any allies and feeling totally blocked in pulling this organization against great resistance into the 21st century, I did resign in a snit. I did shut down the <frccsd@hughes.net> email address (which was on my dime) and the www.frccsd.org website (which was completely on my numerous dimes). I deleted all the water related numbers on my speed dial. I wonder if going through a divorce these days is like this times ten. In other words, I was pissed off on Thursday afternoon and it took Laine driving down to meet me at the PO on Monday morning at the post office to change my mind.

When Rocki read my email beginning with "...so much for approbation." she made sure not to read any of it that might actually reflect positively on me. Therefore, with the beauty that this is my forum, here's the entire post and I'll admit upon reflection it sounds a bit self-pitying and is for sure the hissy fit of a stereotype of a  single, old foggy, curmudgeon. 

Here it is in full:

From: FRCCSD

To: rocki eriksen norris

Cc: Chandler, Joan ; Keller, David ; Lehman, Laine ; Mondot, Mike ; Robinette, Rob

Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 2:06 PM

Subject: Off The Bus

 

It may have gone over your head but during the May meeting I absorbed continuous sarcastic, hostile and insulting remarks from Laine Lehman while we were on the record. I realized he was defending, at some level, his friend Joni's honor for the embarrassment and distress my remarks apparently caused her at the June 12th Caribou meeting. I decided that that would be the one and only time I would accept such attacks on my character. Life is too short and who needs it?

When you first joined the board, I had some hopes that I'd have an ally in bringing us into a high tech and green response to our otherwise almost hopeless situation, with declining revenues and increasing expenses. Now that I see that you are yet another who sees fit to attack me personally, the final straw has been reached.

I hereby resign from the board of the Feather River Canyon CSD effective immediately. This resignation is non negotiable and irrevocable. 

I have already pulled down the FRCCSD website and it will never be seen again.

I will have everything boxed up and ready to go by 11:00 AM, Friday, August 27th. The paperwork will be in much better order than when I received it but still needs a lot of work and there is a financial report you better deal with before the end of September or you will face another $1,000 fine. I suggest you have Joni come by  tomorrow to pick this stuff up as it should not be in the home of a non-member.  It will be up to you to take my name off the check signing card, to change the board mailing address back to Twain and to find a sucker dumb enough to accept the extremely time consuming job as treasurer.

I will not be accepting any water related phone calls as I've now put the whole sorry episode behind me. At least I got a well out of the deal though I have serious doubts about this organization keeping it functioning.

Now that you have succeeded in getting rid of me, you might want to look at the harsh and insulting tone you frequently have taken with Joni. If you drive her away too, there will be no one who has any idea what to do at a technical level.

John Keith

PS: This is my last board related communication. I am also pulling down the <frccsd@hughes.net> mail address and hence forth I will be turning to other interests. 

When she read this she made her first motion to to accept my resignation. Liane wanted to know who she was to make that call as she was not REALLY chair; that she had not been actually be a board member yet, not having taken the oath of office when she had (illegitimately) been elevated as Chair. Then the whole conversation spun into a totally off point death spiral until in crashed without a second and Rocki making a snippy point where Laine and John always hang together (in spite of the first paragraph of the resignation letter describing how Laine had given my a ration of shit at the previous meeting.)

The point that she had ignored our published agenda in contravention of the Brown Act in order to take me down first was missed by all. I hope with a bit of research to show that in he very first action that she broke the law. I'll be sure to pass on my research so watch this blog.

My worse, in my view is that her assault to humiliate me (and Laine as well, which I didn't remember in the fog of war until he reminded me how Rocki called him"a bully") in public and further, to imply malfeasance as treasurer, she demonstrated, as did Ken George, that both lack honor. 

(I thought of Michelle Backman, wackjob congresswoman from Minnesota, who accused Nancy Pelosi of spending 500 K of the tax payers money for her flights home to San Francisco. Facts be damned. Fox'll push it in spite of the fact that 1.) Pelosi does not drink and 2.) no alcohol is served on air force flights.)

As the conservation sputtered to a meaningless stop, the floor was passed to Ken George, the treasurer who I succeeded and the board member Rocki replaced. How many times will I regret forgetting that I could have recorded the conservation with my camera. If I live long enough it may be as many as I regret that I had an opportunity to go to Woodstock from Cleveland, Ohio and I chose to work that weekend instead.

(The above picture was taken many months earlier at a Paxton Lodge meeting, not at the one being discussed here, the character assassination meeting.)

So as first as Ken George began to I thought maybe he would have some sort of pep talk so he was several sentences into his talk when I realized he had been listing how I had be a detriment to District, how I had been "horrible" in my treatment of Joni, our treatment operator, perhaps even exposing the board to criminal liability !?!  He was resurrecting charges he made against me that I had "yelled" at Joni, our operator, and that I should berate no one like that, much less an employee. I insisted, against Laine's numerous requests that I attend, so that Joni could talk without intimidation IN CLOSED SESSION. I said before the meeting that should she allege that I was in any way improper or mean or anything else reflecting poorly on the board that I would tender my immediate resignation. Rocki to use this against me at the last meeting when she exclaimed with a sneer that I had already quit three times. 

What a sucker punch!! How cool in a hyper real event like this one must be to function properly. I did not. I was poleaxed. Oh the things I should have said after having stood up, taken the floor and looking right at his pinche pendejo face. I did not, but rather sat there with what I'd guess was my bemused and frozen face. 

Like an annoying horse fly the guy sitting next to me, who I later learned was John Galehouse of Old Mill, began an intense inquisition as to WHO did I think that YOU are to TAKE down the BOARD's website? Who was I indeed! Only the creator, publisher, editor, webmaster, content provider and the sole contributor to its cost to exist. I grabbed on to this thread, perhaps because a bit of solid ground remained there. I could be amused (or I hoped appear to be) asking this guy where he thought the website existed (me thinking on my bloody server, mate) and him responding that it's on the Internet. 

To make it completely surreal, as I slowly looked around the crowded room, I fancied everyone was glaring at me with sadistic smiles seeing the apostate driven from the group. By then some had left the room. The guys from Dickens Drilling, whom I consider close to being friends, and who were there to discuss the huge leaks at Old Mill went to stand outside during my stoning.

Going into this meeting I thought there might be a culture war, the gated home owner association middle class snob contingent against my bunch, the rough, ragged poor or of modest means hippies. Before the meeting I had stopped at Laine's house and, oh it looks so naive now, but we discussed how Rocki would be a good and different opinion for the group. We foolishly thought that if my resignation letter came up, that either the board would vote to not accept it or, otherwise, re-elect me back onto the board if absolutely necessary. I still thought, which shows what a shallow thinker I can be, that with me presenting my charts of water waste running our power bills to stratospheric levels

I thought I entered this fray with allies. John Toboni on my right flank, Laine Lehman on my left and Mike Mondot covering my six. What I expected was that one or more of them would jump to his feet exclaiming that all these charges had been covered eighteen months before in closed session and that not only had I been completely exonerated but the yelling incident had been explained. I know now this is not the true explanation. My belief and explanation  is that Ms. Joan Chandler is a pathological liar and outrageous sycophant who says whatever she thinks whoever she's with wants to hear. I believe she gave Ken George every reason to believe I had been mean to her. Indeed, not only did I not hold his protection of her against him, I appreciated the effort even though I was made uncomfortable by vague and baseless charges. Nonetheless, I did not hear any of my fellow board members defend me, saying that they had attended the meeting wherein I was exonerated. Laine, in a latter conversation, says he did address Ken but was to say I had indeed been completely cleared but he was either unheard or ignored. Nonetheless, I reflected ruefully as I drove home, still in shock, how perhaps having an alliance with a buncha guys, myself included and all of who had California Prop 215 certificates and used them.

( This is Joan Chandler, the FRCCSD's sole employee, a water treatment operator with a T-1 certificate and who is, as I believe and I intend to prove in exquisite detail is a practiced and pathological liar.) 

What was the "mean" thing I kept bugging her and making her cry about? That I wanted her to document properly her work, to keep a bound, hand written journal and to let me scan it at least once a month. All board members have a fiduciary responsibility to oversee the work of its one employee but the treasurer most of all. Every check written by the board must have two signatures, one the treasurer' s and attached to the invoice for the check there is a cover page which is actually an affidavit, the first paragraph of which states "under penalty of perjury.. and the second which states that I know and can testify that the goods or services being paid for for with this check were actually provided. For power, lab tests, and fees I had an invoice but what Joni was doing, for her $2,000 per month and for which we asked her to put in sixteen hours per week or ($2,000/64 = $31.25 per hour, which is pretty good, no very good wages for a part time job in Plumas County and particularly in the Feather River Canyon. I learned decades ago when I first arrived, the Canyon is  often called, perhaps correctly, the Appalachia of northern California. Fortunately for us, the Canyon lacks the coal or even cost effective gold to rip it apart as they've done back east.............

Every two months I wrote a check to Bequette & Kimmel to cover Joni's wages and social security plus other checks to cover such items as worker's comp. I realized that I had written more than 10 K in checks without vetting them, in spite of my attempts to do so. When this came to one on what would be four or five heads in the summer of 2009 I'm told she cried for three days because I had said, not for the first time, that she did not have it.  One truly amazing story was how her journal, covering the past six months work had been "stolen" from the cab of her truck and was irretrievably lost. It does not matter what I thought then as, while still hoping to come up with a procedure that would work and simultaneously  cover her ass, mine and the rest of the boards, she and Laine sat down in the office of the post office after it closed and had a big meeting, a fresh start and she and Laine both took notes. They both agreed that my request, no by now my adamant demands that I see documentation of her work before I cut her a pay check could not be construed as unreasonable. She, for the umpteenth time looked me in the eye, promised to deliver and then did not do a damn thing. At the famous June 13 Caribou meeting I had tried and tried and begged and threatened and had gotten nothing for my troubles except a real concern, which I still wonder about, if I was indeed guilty of misappropriation of funds, district funds saying I knew what services she was providing when I did not. I'm not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV but back to that "Under penalty of perjury" affidavit which I signed with every pay check. The county also made the point to see that each board member raised a right hand and swore or affirmed the same or very similar to the oath the president of the United States takes including the paragraph covering preserve and defend the constitution of the United States. That got my attention also and, however unfashionable in this cynical world, I took my obligation seriously. Thus, I was in a continuous dysfunctional relationship with our operator. An intractable part of the problem is that we are so so small with only around fifty water connections (@ $586.00 per year per connection) that we (I mean the District, not me - I'm outa there) cannot afford an office manager thus out treatment does not have a true boss and she's become adept at playing off one board member, none of whom are supposed to have day to day oversight, against another while lying to all of them. Without authority she over her she has exploited her niche, and took until August 2010 to finally provide me with her revised, sanitized and easily seen as bogus work journal wherein she claims the work she's done for the FRCCSD. 

(Here is Joan Chandler at my place a few days before she betrayed me with her outright treachery, through a lie of omission, as she sat in the meeting, head down as Ken George libeled me in her name. She said she wanted to start fresh and with hope springs eternal, I again believed her. Is it over the top for me to wonder if she was wearing a wire, that is a miniature tape recorder in the hopes to catching me saying something that could be used against me. Perhaps too strategic for Joni but I wouldn't put it past the viper.)

ASIDE: Should any possibly concerned party now entertain a notion to break into my cabin to steal my computer's HD, let me assure you that all the documents I need reside in the cloud and under 128 bit encryption. END ASIDE

There's more, concerning how I reached the last straw when Mike Mondot, completely oblivious to the seriousness of what had just gone down, began some blather taking me to the woodshed suggesting that by my tone, I was harrassing the customers (remember this is before I was able to give a treasurer's report) and I realized that Rocki semi-accusing me of misappropriation of funds for the $80 purchase of the Mac version of Quicken Essentials. Other than save me a lot of time (of no concern to the Viper) and to improve my accuracy, it served no legitimate purpose as so was suspect. The other expenditure was for securing the domain name for two years of the URL www.frccsd.org. Rocki apparantly believes that this somehow benefits me personally.

The most amusing criticism came just before I stood up, my entire speech being "Goodbye!" and her snapping "Be sure to leave the treasurer's report..", which I did though I knew it would be incomprehensible. Her most amazing criticism was that to her notion that the board meetings beheld in different venues, from Hot Springs to Tobin. Such a plan would be great for me with a walk to Tobin Resort and a challenging but doable 10.5 mile hike to Caribou but my view was that the location should be where it would be the most convenient for the most people, thus well uphill and at least 25 miles from me for a meeting. Somehow my concern for the greatest good over my own self interest had, in her mind devoted to twisting my every word and action against me, into a complaint.

#end