Well I did it!  Took my friend Joe’s advice and got a set of studded tires.  I thought he should know being an ex-highway patrol how safe they would be.  Could hardly wait till the snow would fly.  Finally it snowed and out I went to try my new tires.  The snow was fluffy and deep, about six inches, and sure enough those studs really held.  I went right through that soft stuff like anything.  Not needing to travel till a few days later when the snow was packed down, out I went, and sure enough those studs really held again.  Although when I looked at the pattern in the snow on the street outside my house I could see that the studs were just digging out a divot and not really getting a grip at all.  Oh well, those studs really work because I had no trouble on that surface.

My first thought was that, from the single mother mired in a Central Oregon recession to oncologist Dr. Linyee Chang, or one of the physicians at Fall Creek Medicine, from COCC’s Rebecca Walker-Sands and Kathleen McCabe to Rachael Scdoris, all these candidates, all you can come up with is a bored housewi...excuse me a “Search and Social Specialist” as Woman of the Year? WOW! Thank you, The Source, for once again harvesting those pearls of wisdom from our lowly, mollusk encrusted lives, leading us into the light, and elevating we the people onto that opulent necklace of humanity. You’re doing Grandpa Hearst proud, The Source, keep it going!

Ah....Rosebud.

Editor’s note: Mr. Balestrieri, I think you forgot Mother Teresa. We’re pretty sure she skied Bachelor once.

Who are these naysayers? Where is the heart of this city. Bend is now a city.

Why are so many filled with doom and gloom, lacking faith and diplomacy? For the same reason we pay pro athletes top dollar and brush aside teachers, firemen, police folk, medical persons in all fields, and your general good worker. The dollars—they don’t add up to me!

I want the best we can do for our children. All children. That’s our job.

If we really put our minds to it, there’s nothing we cannot do. Take the reins, the masses shall be heard. It’s OUR time.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read about Pacific Power’s proposed 20-percent rate hike.  Cry because that’s a heck of an increase for a lot of people already struggling with bills, and laugh because they will probably pull it off. Rebuilding a company’s infrastructure by buying new equipment, for example, is usually transparent to a customer in any competitive business. Upgrades are performed to meet increasing customer demands (and revenues) and to find ways to reduce costs (since volume usually means lower cost). More times than not the result is a reduction, not an increase, in customer prices.

According to Pacific Power, the 20 percent increase equals $470 million that Oregon customers will have to cover for investments (wind farm, coal cleaners, and transmission towers).  I’m guessing that a large part of that is for the wind farm (which includes the transmission towers) and I’m guessing that this new source of electricity is being considered because of additional demand, or to cut electricity generation costs. (Wind is far cheaper than nuclear and probably cheaper than hydroelectric).

I am writing this letter to concur with The Source’s letter complaining about the Trivia Bee competition held February 20th and its procedural, factual and typographical faults. In my opinion, it was actually worse than that. I have played in various trivia competitions for 35 years, and I left the Trivia Bee that night more frustrated and angered than I have ever been at similar games. Not only do I take exception with the poor question writing, but in my heart-of-hearts feel that with all the missteps I have seen at the last two Trivia Bees the event seems [untrustworthy].