jjardine's blog

About three months ago, while reading the paper early one morning, I heard some scratching sounds in the ceiling near the fireplace. I figured birds were on the roof, pecking away at the grit embedded in the composition shingles. They'd done that in the past, forcing me to replace the ridgecapping on an otherwise good roof. I went outside, but saw no birds.

A few days later, I heard something in the wall near the bathroom. Then I went out into the garage and noticed a distinctive odor, along with some chewed up cardboard. And as I stood there, something jumped over my foot and scurried away. It was a rat. A filthy, stinking rat -- one, as it turned out, that had plenty of friends and relatives.

I bought some traps and placed them beneath the house at the crawl space, three or four in the garage and one up in the attic. Within three days, using peanut butter as bait, I had several kills. But the noises continued. The extermination continued. Within a week, the count reached 10. When I went to fill the dog's water dish in his pen, I saw another rat along the fence. So I put traps there, too.

WHO'D HAVE GUESSED?

In June 2007, John McCain made a campaign stop in Modesto. He had breakfast with a few dozen folks upstairs at the old Dewz at the corner of 11th and I streets downtown (Dewz has since moved to 1505 J Street and its old place is now home to the Firkin & Fox pub).

Afterward, he met with the media in front of the war memorial in front of the Stanislaus County Courthouse. At that point, with the primaries coming up and the general election still 17 months away, McCain's campaign was thought to be in trouble. Former Govs. Mitt Romney (Massachusetts), Mike Huckabee (Arkansas) and Rudy Giuliani (New York) all were in the race, and raising more money than McCain. In fact, some political observers believed McCain's candidacy was on the verge of collapse, with former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennesse about to join them in the race. Thompson, many believed, would leap to the front of the pack soon after announcing he was in.

The day before McCain's Modesto visit, Giuliani raked in the donations during a fund-raiser as the home of nursery owner Jim Duarte.

The arrest Thursday of the alleged Band-Aid Bandit in Merced County simply begs for a pun contest. Some of the best ones could appear in my Tuesday column.

I'll start it:

Officers had probable gauze to arrest him.

It was an 8 a.m. class 31 years ago: Urban Geography, taught by Dr. Roger Barnett at University of the Pacific. It was my kind of science class because it required no microscopes, test tubes or dead frogs, yet count toward meeting the science requirement to graduate.

8 a.m. classes were killers because I worked for the school's sports information department, often finishing around midnight after basketball or volleyball games. Coherency was never a gimme.

Somehow, through the fogs of mind and morning, I managed to retain some of what I learned. While reviewing the stories and information Bee reporters Garth Stapley and Michael Shea developed for the growth scorecard series, the neo-traditional neighborhood approach was consistent in the developments or planned developments in the cities that ranked highest.

I remembered Barnett's lectures on neo-traditional development -- the history, the benefits -- because I'd grown up in a town designed the same way. Neo-traditional homes have big front porches, garages located behind the homes or well off the streets. For certain, the garages are the home's most prominent feature, as is the case with the more contemporary home. Some neo-traditional neighborhoods have back alleys so that you don't have your garbage cans out on the street or sidewalk.

I received a call this morning from a woman in Ceres who read my Thursday column. It lead with an item about some bad money being passed at a recent estate sale.

The caller told me she, too, had a recent sale. She said two caucasian men, each standing about 5 feet, 8 inches and between 28 and 35 years of age, came to her sale. One of them found a well-worn radio and tried to pay for it with a $100 bill. The woman had another $100 bill, and compared them. She told him his didn't look right, and wouldn't accept it. The men left immediately.

So if you're having a yard, garage or estate sale in the near future, beware of neat, clean, short guys passing bogus Ben Franklins.  And because they might come in disguise next time -- as dirty, tall guys -- protect yourself by going to an office supply store and purchasing a marker that will detect whether a U.S. bill of any denomination is real. Make a mark on the bill. If the ink turns black, it's a fake.

In talking Wednesday with Rodney Carpenter, who ran the YMCA from Modesto from 1982 until 1987, I asked him about the current Y leadership's failure to provide an annual audit over the past three years.

Carpenter, who spent most of his professional life running non-profits, said audits are vital to the organization's existence.  Did any non-profit he ever headed fail to complete an annual audit?

"Oh, God no!" he said.

Last week, I wrote a column about Bob Davidson, a local artist whose son, Robert Jr., is serving with Army Special Forces somewhere in Iraq. During a call on Bob's birthday, Robert told him military personnel at several bases throughout Iraq and Afghanistan were carving out driving ranges so they could hit golf balls as a way of relieving stress. He asked his dad to collect as many balls, clubs, tees, etc., as he could and ship them to the troops. Bob called several country clubs and got the effort started, and then called me.

I was pleased to see that Channels 10, 13 and 31 picked up on the column because it compelled golfers from the Sacramento area to donate equipment. Bob Davidson received a call from El Dorado County telling him six country clubs are gathering equipment. Al Ford, owner of Cal-West Roofing in Modesto, volunteered his business yard as a staging area to crate the stuff up and ship it out. Davidson has to date over 3,000 clubs and more than 17,000 golf balls to ship to Iraq.