Thursday, September 18, 2008

Time Tracking - Day 4

Rubiks Cube ClockToday was an interesting day off, and not much time wasted today. I expected to find myself wasting lots of time just hanging around the house relaxing, maybe on the computer, but we spent most of the day out of the house doing things together as a family.

I did spend a good deal of time online fighting with the president of my Homeowner's Association about the recent removal of some Mitch Daniels for Governor campaign signs from my yard. Briefly, the placement of any sign in a yard for any purpose other than to announce the sale of a property is prohibited by my subdivision's covenant. This is a common clause in subdivision covenants. However, for several months there have been three campaign signs for Barack Obama on display in the subdivision. Therefore, when the Mitch for Governor campaign showed up to place the requested signs in my lawn, I didn't think it would be an issue (due to lack of enforcement of the covenant elsewhere in the subdivision). Our home is on a corner lot, so two signs were My Man Mitchplaced, one on each street bordering our house. A few days later I found them lying in the driveway by the garage door. I toured the subdivision to see that none of the Obama signs had been removed. One of the Obama signs was in the yard near the house placed in the landscaping against a bush, so I relocated one of my Mitch signs similarly. Last night I came home from work to find the newly placed Mitch sign completely missing. I apparently started a firestorm when I emailed the HOA president asking for information about the removal of my sign. I pointed out that the only campaign signs that had been removed for Mitch for Governor signs from my yard and another yard down the street, and that there were three homes with Obama signs up. I pointed out that there were several fences erected in violation of covenant guidelines, as well as other structures. To make a long story short, the HOA president toured the subdivision again this evening and found two other signs up that she would be having taken care of.

Make no mistake, I will abide by the covenant as long as every resident in the community is held to the same standard of enforcement. However, I fully intend to make my way onto the HOA board and make some changes to the covenants (and the enforcement of them) as well as orchestrating the ouster of the current HOA president.

I also spent a little time on the phone today with a new author who will be releasing his first novel before the end of the year. I will be reading and reviewing his novel over the coming weeks, and hope to have some great things to say about his work. Stay tuned for that.

As for today's Time Tracker -- if you'll remember, I am responding to a challenge from Pastor Derek Duncan of East 91st Street Christian Church by tracking every waking minute over the next week (three more days to go) -- here it is.

Your comments are welcome.



Joe

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