To Whom it May Concern,

I am not able to attend the public hearing because I have to work, but I wanted to make my thoughts known about establishing a transportation benefit district.  It is pretty simple, I am against establishing this district.  The purpose is a good one on the surface, but the method is quite frankly underhanded and absolutely skirts around the idea of a transparent government.  The very fact that the summary states that “A transportation benefit district is a quasi-municipal corporation and an independent taxing authority” is a major red flag.  The summary mentions the $20 starting fee and states that it can raise it to $100 dollars with a vote.  What it doesn’t say in the summary is that the state law authorizing TBDs allows much more than that, including the levying of property taxes.  That is way too much power for a board that is not elected and has no responsibility to the constituents of this county.

I would also point out that when council reached out to cities within the county there was a large percentage of incorporated populations that did not want to participate in the district.  This should also be a red flag as to the desire of constituents to be put under yet another taxing district.  I realize that as of last year I’m no longer in unincorporated Snohomish County and so would be technically not affected by this district, I still feel I must speak up.  That is because creating the district for the unincorporated parts of the county provides a stepping stone for eventually pulling in everyone in the county, for the benefit of the people of course.  It is my feeling that it is best to just not start down that road.

I thank you for your time,

Michael Turner

Dear Editor,

I wrote an earlier letter regarding the lowering of the speed limit along 20th and was surprised and intrigued by the responses.  I have read many of them and felt I should respond to some of the points that were brought up.

It sounds like the main issue was safety along this road.  I have four children of my own, so I get that.  Unfortunately, “children’s safety” ends up being an easy excuse and I feel this is one of those instances.  How about a show of hands from those people whose children weren’t walking, but are now because of the speed change.  Anyone? This is a serious question because it was the basis for most of the responses I saw. If there is no change in behavior, then the basis for that reasoning is invalid.  And do people believe that LSMS, Skyline, Hillcrest, and Glendale really have children walking to them from 20th?

That does leaves Cavelero.  A quick satellite scan shows the sidewalk ends around 88th leaving about 1770 feet without much protection.  That is a legitimate concern, so let’s break it down a bit.  Based on the number of homes combined with the schools location, it appears to me that the number of homes that would be in the mandated walking area is going to be fairly small.  Combine that number with the chances of an 8th or 9th grader being in those homes, there probably is not going to be many walking at all. Since I drive my kids to Cavelero every morning I do see kids walking the Cavelero driveway, but is usually less than half a dozen and most are actually coming down 83rd rather than from 20th.  So while safety is important, there doesn’t seem to be a serious issue in this instance.

Regarding noise, 20th is now easily twice as wide as highway 9 which has a 55mph speed limit.  Where are the noise and safety issues with that road?  There are more schools on that road and many houses as well.  Regarding the small increase in travel time.  Say your commute increases by 3 minutes, no big deal right?  Well I travel 20th twice a day so that is 6 minutes.  But I travel 20th twice a day every day for a year, so that is now 2190 minutes or 36 hours of extra time per year for me.  But I’m not the only one doing that same commute.  Let’s say conservatively that 2000 people are the road with me each day.  That’s 73,000 extra hours on the road for our community.

So am I saying that we should all be flying down our city streets with reckless abandon?  Absolutely not!  I’m saying that as citizens we need to think deeper about the potential repercussions of the decisions being made for us by the city.  While I don’t like the actual speed change, I am just as unhappy that the change was made without input from you and I.  I will leave you with this.  I hope each of those who have responded to this paper have also voiced their opinion to the city as well and will continue to be involved.  That’s how it works even if in this instance I do not agree with the result.

And the one that I resubmitted:

I wrote an earlier letter regarding the lowering of the speed limit along 20th and felt I should respond to some of the points that were brought up.

It sounds like the main issue was safety along this road. I have four children of my own. First, though, I would really question that LSMS, Skyline, Hillcrest, and Glendale have children walking to them from 20^th. But how about a show of hands from those people whose children weren’t walking, but are now because of the speed change.

That does leaves Cavelero. A satellite photo shows the sidewalk ends around 88th leaving about 1770 feet without as much protection as a sidewalk. But a look at the location of houses around the school and the chances of an 8th or 9th grader being in those homes. It seems it would be a small number. I drive my kids to Cavelero every morning and I do see first hand kids walking the Cavelero driveway, but is usually less than half a dozen and most are actually coming down 83rd.

So am I saying that we should all be flying down our streets with reckless abandon? Absolutely not! But, we need to be aware of the potential repercussions of the decisions being made for us by the city. To be honest, while I don’t like the actual speed change, I’m also unhappy that the change was made without input from us. I will leave you with this thought. If 2000 people travel a road each day and that road adds 6 minutes a day (3 minutes each way) it will add an astounding 73,000 extra hours each year that they are on the road.

Should be interesting.

Since what I do is really just a hobby, it is pretty simple and all the gear is used.  Here is what I currently have.

• Ibanez Black RG 270 DX
• Fender Squire Blue Stratocaster
• Boss GT-8
• Ibanez TS9
• Tech21 Power Engine 60

Like I said pretty straight forward.  It gives me a ton of flexibility with my tone so regardless of style I can use it.  In addition, the couple of times I’ve jammed with other people it has been really easy to setup and take down.  It also works well for recording along side the Toneport UX1 I’ve had for a while.  For accessories I have an M-Audio UNO USB-MIDI cable that I used to connect to the GT-8, a 1SPOT pedal power adapter, and of course a bunch of cables to tie it all together.

Even though I’m happy with my current setup I’ve been thinking about where I want to take my rig.  Again keeping in mind that this is currently a hobby, I don’t have huge changes in mind just some substitutions with a couple small additions.  They are in rough order of importance.

• Replace GT-8 with Avid Eleven Rack (combining Protools with the rig would make things even simpler)
• Add some type of MIDI foot controller, though leaning towards Voodoo Labs Ground Control
• Add a 7-string guitar, either an Ibanez RG series or Music Man JP series
• Add select pedals like an MXR Phase 90 or TC Electronic delay, that kind of thing.

Realistically, some of the pedals may come first, since I can incorporate those into the effects loop on the GT-8, but it gives a sense of the “plan”.  In addition I can see extending the life of my Ibanez by changing out the pots and pickups.  I currently have Seymour Duncans and would like to switch out to the Dimarzio Liquifire and Crunchlab.  So there it is, my current rig with the outline of where I want to go.

[Update: I've added a quick youtube video "tour" of my rig and other equipment.]

Warm-up – 15 minutes:

• 5 minutes – main CAGED pattern scale in C up and down the fretboard (my pick up the guitar “riff”).  Might add in pentatonics in all patterns as well.  Just want it to be a muscle memory thing.

• 5 minutes – simple stuff like chromatics or something from Petrucci’s Rock Discipline warmups.

• 5 minutes – go through a song I’m working on playing…nothing too hard, just to do something more musical

Theory – 15 minutes:

• 5 minutes – Pick a key (maybe spend a week on one) and go through the CAGED pattern naming all the notes and modes as I go.
• 5 minutes – in the key above go through the chords naming and number. This is definitely the weakest part of my game, it’s time to know this.
• 5 minutes – in the key above go through some common chord progressions so I can hear what they sound like.  Then try random progressions, maybe I’ll write down chord numbers to go through.

Technique – 15 minutes

I’m thinking I’ll focus on a technique each day and do 3 exercises pertaining to that technique.  For the moment I think I’ll rotate between the following: alternate picking, arpreggios (not sure if this is really a technique, but oh well), legato picking, sweep picking, and all techniques combined.  I think it might make sense to do the exercises in the same key, but we’ll see how that goes.

• 5 minutes – exercise 1
• 5 minutes – exercise 2
• 5 minutes – exercise 3

Transcribing – 15 minutes

• 15 minutes – work on the current song/riff transcribing in Guitar Pro.  I’ll be starting with John Denver’s “Take me home country road” so I can work it into a recording.

If I end up having more time, I’ll look to focus on either my own material or more play alongs.  That way I will hopefully be totally focused for the hour and then be able to start to incorporate those things learned into my playing.

So lastly, a practice log…I’ll start logging what I did above and any speeds.  Realistically, that will probably be mostly in the technique section though the progression wouldn’t hurt either.

I’ve compiled this from some great resources on the net, though I’m sure I’m not doing them justice, so check them out yourself: mainly Tom Hess, Dave Weiner (ROTW), and lately Justin Sandercoe.

With that said I have some specific goals that if nothing else force me to accomplish something even if the end product isn’t mind blowing.  So in no particular order:

• Record 3 songs: 2 originals I have half baked and 1 cover, John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads”. (hey, it was one of my dad’s favorites)
• Create a practice routine:  theory (notes, chords, progressions), technique (alternate picking, arpeggios, sweep), play along (songs, licks), and transcribing.
• See if there is someone in the same place musically (1-2 years keys, guitar, bass and is into Dream Theater,  Satch, Porcupine Tree type stuff ) to jam with.  Can be in person or remotely (maybe google wave / pro-tools)

So there we go, the gantlet has been laid out.  I think they are all complimentary and force me to take some measurable steps.

As a technical person, I am capable of actually doing some of the things and as a social media consumer I understand some of why it makes sense to engage.  However, as a grunt, I do not know how to verbalize that how and why to management in a way that makes sense to them.  What I do not want to do is make an attempt that is not correctly targeted and end up doing more harm.  I cannot be the only one in this position and it makes me wonder how others have approached this issue.

The upside could be incredible and building products with end user feedback would be an enormously powerful tool to help set us apart.  I just wish I knew how to start.

Pros: It looks pretty cool.  This is the first time I think I’ve used a WPF app and the ribbon across the top is very clean.  The amount of functionality they have put in is pretty sweet, along with the different windowing layout possibilities.  The search has some intriguing possibilities, because you enter a keyword and it gets back hits from twitter, flickr, and others.  Another benefit is that this is the first one that gets all my networks in one place (friendfeed, facebook, twitter).

Cons: It takes a ton of memory, though I’m not sure if that’s because it’s beta or not.  The data is confusing as it pulls out different information from facebook than say seesmic desktop and I’m not sure why that is.  Also I’m unable to comment on the friendfeed portion and that is the main benefit of friendfeed.  It could be that I just can’t find it.  One other issue is that media isn’t displayed, so if a photo is posted in friendfeed it shows up as a gray bar instead.

Overall, I want to like it, but there are still some things that need to be addressed before it would become my view into my social world.  Until then it’s sessmic desktop and a browser window pointed at friendfeed.

For testing purposes I find that if you create the appropriate POAs with the PO tests you will be covering the vast majority of possible scenarios.  So we’ll revisit those and what I look for with the POA.

• One line – As with the PO just want to get an easy one out of the way to make sure the connection is being made and that the related PO is being found on Ariba.
• Multiple line – At least 3 lines for checking any line assumptions that make have been made.
• One line with backordered product – The POA should let the client know that while the order was processed, it may take some time.  Also makes sure that the a status other than “accept” is working.
• One line with discontinued product – First POA where the full order is being rejected.
• Multiple line order with a backordered product – making sure that lines with different statuses are being processed correctly.  Depending on your system this may be the first place where you are specifying allDetail and calling out lines individually.
• Multiple line order with discontinued product – again making sure individual line statuses are processing correctly especially with a rejected product.

Next comes multiple location POAs.  Basically, if your system creates multiple sales orders for multiple locations, or really for any reason, then you will want to make sure you are processing multiple POAs for one PO correctly.  Again you’ll want to be checking Ariba to make sure the linkage between POA and PO is good.

• 2 location one line each – simplest case just to ensure it works
• 2 location 2 lines each – making sure no line assumptions are being made
• 3 location order – again making sure no assumptions are being made about how the POA is being tied to the PO.
• 3 location order with the same product – this one will probably depend on how your system processes the order.  If it combines them then you’ll want to make sure the POA gets applied to the correct lines.  If your system doesn’t combine like products, it essentially becomes the same test as the one above.
• 2 location with non-sequential locations – once again confirming that all lines are getting confirmed, regardless of their order within the PO.

Having the Ariba network really does help with these scenarios, because they are essentially double checking your work.  If you do it wrong there is no linkage.  Once it is correct it helps because the site will then show the line status in the UI along with any messages.  For me I usually do the POA checks once I do a good pass with the PO tests.  In that way I’m doing even more PO tests and I don’t have to worry about POAs until after I know the orders are processing correctly.

I’m getting through the various CXML transactions, probably next up would be the ShipNoticeRequest or what I call the Advanced Ship Notice (ASN).  Unfortunately showing my age once again!  I’ll be skipping the PunchOutOrderMessage (Order Quote) as that one is just a collection of line items.  After that, I’m not sure.  Maybe I’ll start hunting through the DTD to get deeper into the CXML specification.  I’ll have to admit that at this point I know a lot about the common uses, but haven’t done much else beyond that and this could be just the excuse to do that very thing.

Second, I’m curious if the labels/musicians check out zune marketplace for listeners of their music.  I’m not sure how iTunes works so the same thing might apply.  Seems like it makes sense that they should.  They could use those metrics to help build listeners or maybe even reward those who like them.  Could be as simple as recognition on the artist’s website or maybe first dibs on tickets when they tour.  Obviously I’m not an insider, but these types of things seem like easy things to embrace and musician and fan closer instead of making the fans work so hard and then berate them at each turn.  End of the rant…for now.