Lot’s to think about without telling you what to think!

November 20, 2008
-Thanks to Gary Eichten for the title of this post. The past 6 months I have been listening to a lot of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and National Public Radio (NPR) on my commute to Lakeville in the early morning hours. I always liked their tag-line of “Get out of the car smarter than when you got in”, but lately with all the economic turmoil you end up getting out of the car more frustrated than when you finished reading the Star Tribune. But more about politics, including my thoughts on the election, energy, and the economy later in the blog.

Currently I am in lay-off from Northern Pipeline Construction Company (NPLCC), reflecting upon the season and trying to think of how I should prepare for my next move. Oh Possibilities!! I wish I had someone to tell me what to think/do especially with the bad news on the table about the economy and the ever-looming threat of Unemployment reaching 8 or 9%.

About a month ago my brother Frank and I were talking about my season at NPL, while working on his basement. For example, the major themes I learned and challenges that I was encountering. Before answering him on what I learned, I paused, and then looked him right in the eye and said, “Wow Andrew, you really can’t tie Knots!!” We both erupted laughing and I went into my usual “Oh poor me” routine of which I am famous for. It has been a steep learning curve, diving straight into the deep end of construction, and being “Greener” than grass. Honestly it (Inability to tie simple knots) has been the most frustrating part of the job and something that I will have to dedicate time to in the off-season if I want to continue/survive another season.

The construction industry certainly has agreed with my body. Since leaving my last job seven months ago, I’ve lost over 30 pounds through sheer work and am almost back down to my weight in High School of 180 pounds. It also agrees with me in regards to satisfaction. To see the end result of a days, weeks, or months worth of work and what we accomplished; as opposed to advocating for something that may never come; such as my obsession with bringing High Speed Rail (HSR) to the Upper Midwest.
-A quick side-note on HSR. The California High Speed Rail bond measure on this Historic election season successfully passed!! It may take five to ten years for the results to trickle over to the Midwest, but hopefully California’s investment will have benefits for the rest of the country. As I stated on a message board on election night about this topic, “This is an issue where “Left Coast” envy can potentially be a great benefit”. I am fully willing to let California run quarterback on bringing rail renewal, just please, please, please don’t blow it. A great blogger, Robert Cruickshanks, has done a great job championing this issue, posting almost daily updates right up to the election. Those interested should link over and scroll through his posts.


Typing from the cold Northwoods of Minnesota, just sitting by a lake (Small nod to John Pryne) I find myself in the usual predicament. It seems that every six to seven months I am tired of whatever it is that I am doing and ready for a change. While I am able to find employment in that time period; there isn’t something that holds my interest or passion, and I (like many people my age and in the working world) face the music of paying the bills or going back to school to further my education to land the “passion” driven job that will keep me satisfied.

Fast forward to where this blog picks up, December 3rd 2008, and I am in my favorite coffee shop: Espresso Royal, typing away and getting set to head over to the West Bank of the University of Minnesota. I am considering revisiting my passion of High Speed Rail (HSR), especially with the recent developments that I alluded to above.

Well enough whining “poor me”, onto some topics I have been meaning to write about…

The Election;

About two years ago, I wrote a post on where I thought development in the Twin Cities would progress; this was before I really knew much about Barrack Obama. I quote the following from that post:

November- 2008: The Bush Presidency is over. Democrats reclaim the White House with anybody but the following: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, or Joe Lieberman. In a stunning turn of events John McCain is elected and becomes one of the best things to happen to both Republicans/Democrats by being a great moderate President kicking the evangelicals out of the Republican Party and brining in more allies to assist with Iraq.
(Events are fictional, but I really hope they happen.)

In the fall of 2006, while studying abroad in Norway, on-board a train to Sweden; I listened to Barrack Obama’s book: The Audacity of Hope. I found myself nodding along with everything he talked about: Our need to change our politics, our policies from energy to economic, to social and etc. But mostly that as Americans, and as a people there is more that unites us than divides us. Like most Democrats, he became my Candidate and I am very happy he won the Election.

So what’s the point of posting the quote from 2006? John McCain was not the moderate/Maverick that we thought he’d turn out to be. He aligned himself with the Bush policies of the past 8 years, which now W is trying to say is not his fault, Nytimes or Washington Post, and he poorly vetted Sarah Palin for his VP, when someone (admittedly) like “T-Paw” Pawlenty of Minnesota would’ve probably won him more states. Also, Joe Lieberman has become a "independent Democrat"/Republican Hawk

Anyway, I am excited to see what Obama brings as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Onto Energy. There has been a lot of talk about renewable energy and the need for new power sources, reducing and eliminating foreign oil etc. One of the plans that has become quite popular and heavily advertised is the T-Boone Pickens Plan. The Texas Oil Billionaire has spent large amount of his fortune on wind farms in the Texas Pan-Handle and now awaits capitol for Transmission Lines to distribute the power to supposedly 300,000 homes. A similar problem exists in Minnesota; the need for major investment in Transmission lines to distribute power from renewable energy sources such as the large Wind Farms in Southwestern Minnesota. What ties the two together? That both of these plans should incorporate investment in High Speed Rail Infrastructure to carry the power as well as passengers if feasible. That way, the service would be using power from renewable sources, providing new areas for development and redevelopment, and reducing the need for short-haul air travel all at once.

I know I know, enough about the HSR but I had to get it off my chest. :-D

Not much to say about the economy except that we are officially in a Recession and have been for at least a year…Big surprise there I guess. Good deals on HDTV’s if you can afford them, I am hoping to snag one this year if given the opportunity.

Keep your heads up and ears to the ground when it comes to deals.

That’s all I got for now, got to get moving to the West Bank, and I have to walk or take the Campus Connecter because I no longer have a U-Pass :-(

Be it resolved

Today the Minnesota Senate District 47 DFL held their district convention this morning at Oxbow Elementary School in Champlin Minnesota. The convention started at ten this morning and things came to a close around three this afternoon.

I attended the convention as a delegate for SD 47B in Brooklyn Park’s w-e-p 06 along with my parents. This was the second step in my first caucus, that was held in February and had record breaking attendance on Super Tuesday , and involved sub-caucusing for delegate nominations to the state DFL convention which will be held later in April. We got to hear support from all of the major DFL candidates including Franni Franken who was campignging for her husband Al Franken (our family is supporting him), and former state senator Steve Kelly, who spoke on behalf of Mike Ciresi. In all honesty, I wish Steve Kelly was running this year, but I am glad to have had the opportunity to meet him and thank him for his support for Gopher Stadium and his continuing support of Minnesota Transportation issues. Many of the other regulars and die-hards attended and spoke as well.

I was extremely impressed with the impressive number of People Ashwin Madia was able to have come out for support. It will be an interesting battle for the third congressional district as Madia, Bonoff, and the republican candidate Erik Paulsen (source Wikipedia) face off for this seat. In my personal opinion, Madia possesses an impressive record and with his military training would make him a great Mayoral candidate for any of the cities in the Northwestern Suburbs of Minnesota. However, I , along with my parents, will be supporting Terri Bonoff In the race for the 3^rd District for her ability to defeat Republicans in two heavily conservative cities; Minnetonka and Plymouth.
Most exciting for me today was that my resolution from the caucus was included for the 2008 Resolutions to be voted on for approval:

Be it resolved that Mn/DOT fairly and promptly ensure that the traffic problems of the northwest metro, and the ongoing barriers to economic growth and development that go along with them, are not ignored; and, in particular, that it address without further delay the “Devil’s Triangle” (the intersections of 85^th Ave., US Hwy 169, and CR-81) and the completion of Hwy 610.

I will have to check and see how the voting went later on this weekend.

Been meaning to post on a number of topics, yet it is funny how the time slips away. Glad to see that the KU has returned to blogging, and is in the job search mode. Like many of the Minnesotan’s I am also looking forward to Spring and am in the process of planning a trip to the Grand Canyon and Arizona with my Dad around Mid-March (so a few weeks, not much time to plan!!).

Tonight, Kristen and I are planning on hanging out with some friends and then seeing Teeth at the Uptown Theater at Midnight. I hope to post about the film later in the week.

When the professionals are kicked out of Government…

…The results can be tragic.

I have not written in a while, and I have not posted my own photographs of the site because I have not been there to document it. Personally, I didn’t feel the urge to rush down to the river crossing (at the time of the collapse I was at my cabin in Northern Minnesota with my mom and Kristen) and take photographs while first responders and survivors risked their lives to get as many people out of harms way. In fact, a part of me is ashamed of all the people who flocked to the bridges, or to buildings with the best views for glimpses of the tragedy; at the Riverfront Guthrie in DT Minneapolis, staff began asking people if they had tickets for the evening performances, it was getting that crowded in the many observation decks and viewing areas of the theater. It was as if on-lookers were trying to become the next National Geographic photographers and the assignment was to document a catastrophe in your local community. I cheered when I read that two photographers were arrested by Minneapolis police for jumping security fences. I am sure that if one were to check Flickr by searching I-35W Bridge collapse, they would find close to 1,000 pictures. /End of Rant.

I have not written for a while for a number of reasons: In my last post I had a job with the City of Minneapolis and that job has since come to a close in Late July/Early August and I have been spending the last few weeks job hunting for the fall. On July 15th, my Grandfather Wallace J. Wambach passed away unexpectedly at the age of 82 from a heart attack. My brother, has a great post about one of the many memories with “Umpa”. I have been slow in deciding what to write about for my memory of my Grandfather, recently we had been chastising each other about the condition of the Cabin’s sanitary septic system and that I should be the one to inspect it.
I have been spending as much time as I can with the KU, who at the time is also applying for jobs. So far this summer we have been rollerblading quite a bit at the Three Rivers Park Recreation area (also known as Elm Creek Park), Kristen has been brushing up on her tennis skills in an attempt to teach me, and enjoying some of the mid-summer blockbusters including Transformers (my favorite), Harry Potter: The order of the Phoenix; but more on that in another post.

Onto the topic of the post:

While the reasons behind the I-35W Bridge collapse are still to be determined by the NTSB, and perhaps will be for some time, the blame and finger pointing is in full swing. I can’t believe the sheer number of cries from Anti-Tax citizens taking shots at Light Rail and Mass Transit projects as the number one culprit in this disaster. This is particularly interesting, considering that LRT and Mass Transit often REDUCE the number of cars on the road by providing ALTERNATIVES for those to get to and from their destinations.

However, the problem that plagues American government has persisted since the Republican take-over of the early to mid 80’s; when Moderate/Conservative Republicans made alliances with powerful Anti-Tax/Anti-Government entities (namely those who would lead the Neo-Conservative Republican Hi-jacking of the party) and removed professionals from many of the large departments in State and Federal governments. These professionals were replaced with Political appointees to enforce the agenda of the sitting administrations.

Recently the Star Tribune published a great editorial describing this very problem.

Another Bridge, a different outcome
August 22nd, 2007

Braun, a professional civil engineer, headed the Minnesota Department of Transportation from 1979 to 1986, serving Republican Gov. Al Quie and DFL Gov. Rudy Perpich. In 1982, he said, he saw corroded steel plates at the Smith Av. High Bridge, and heard the same thing from inspectors he'd heard for three or four years running: "There is oxidation on the plates, but it is no worse than last year."I just decided by myself that I was going to close the bridge," he recalled. The decision came out of the blue. "At that time, we had no funds programmed for the bridge; it was not on any priority list."
Nevertheless, the decision stuck. The old bridge was closed and a new bridge was built in its place. "Do what you think is right," was how Braun remembers the response of Quie, his boss, in the face of opposition by business owners adversely affected by the closure. "Quie was an absolute straight arrow," he said.
The shutdown began on a Tuesday. "A reporter asked me how the bridge could be safe on Monday but not safe on Tuesday," Braun related. "A good question. I responded that I could not predict when the bridge could fall down. It could be this afternoon, next month, next year, five years from now or never, but I was closing it on Tuesday. ...

But Braun exemplified other desirable traits in a transportation leader. He was an engineer, able to question inspectors and analyze data as only a professional can. He was decisive, and had earned the trust of the governor who backed his decision. And he was courageous. When a lawsuit was threatened over the High Bridge closure, he said in effect, "bring it on." A judge who ordered the bridge kept open would be shouldering the responsibility he bore as commissioner, and "I could sleep a lot better at night," he said. No lawsuit ensued.
None of Braun's successors at MnDOT's helm have had civil-engineering backgrounds. (Today, none of the department's three top leaders is a civil engineer.)

Star Tribune Editorial Board
Copyright 2007 Star Tribune.


August has been a very tragic and trying Month for the officials and citizens of Minnesota: to paraphrase Don Shelby of WCCO TV; we have endured draught, a bridge collapse, and now damaging floods in the South East of the state. With luck, these tragedies will lead to a galvanizing movement to fully invest in America’s declining Infrastructure.

I should also note, that the State of Minnesota should consider itself lucky that there were only minor casualties (13 confirmed as of August 21st, 2007) though many would argue that this tragedy should have never occured in the first place. It could have been far worse, and the low number reflects the excellent first responders and citizens this state has.

I have always been, and will continue to be proud of being from Minnesota.

Marty Seifert’s (R-Marshall) Top 5 “other places to get money before taxes”

From Todays Minneapolis Star Tribune: Gas-tax shift poses plenty of pitfalls; Representative Marty Seifert was mentioned near the closing of the article:

House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, who labored to hold his tiny caucus together against a gas- tax increase last session, maintained Tuesday that "there are other places to get money before taxes."

In response to that statement, here is our short list of alternative revenue sources; enjoy.

5. Replace the bridge bake sale

4. Republican Talent Show…oh wait nevermind

3. Tolls on ALL Minnesota Bridges…It’s a fee, in keeping with Pothole Pawlenty

2. Carol Molnau Dunk Tank at the Minnesota State Fair

…and the Number 1 “other places to get money before taxes” for Minnesota’s Transportation crisis is....

1. Naming rights for the I-35W bridge.

You can create your own list at home for alternatives sources of revenue and send them to Marty Seifert c/o fixourbridgeonthecheap.com and your state representatives.

Update: August 9th, 2007

Other great ideas that we have had submitted to us:

"Win a date with Norm Coleman!" silent auction. His wife could take the photos.

Raffle tickets to the governors fishing trip

and lastly

"Bridge Rememberance Christmas Wreath" And in an especially sentimental touch, $35 for each one

A Response, A Response!!!

From a previous letter/post.
From the Office of Governor Schwarzenegger:
Monday May 7th, 2007.

Thank you for writing to Governor Schwarzenegger to share your thoughts and concerns about highspeed rail. The Governor appreciates hearing from people who care about the important issues facing our great state.

In November 2006, California voters approved one of the largest bond packages in the state's history. This money represents a considerable down payment on repairing and building our infrastructure and boosting the public services necessary to preserve our quality of life. And, with the tremendous population growth expected for California over the next two decades, the Governor has put forward an even broader proposal that will include funding for flood control, schools, courts and the correctional system.

Because of the critical need for funding these other forms of vital infrastructure, California has a limited ability to borrow money for a full high-speed rail bond measure right now. Governor Schwarzenegger's comprehensive Strategic Growth Plan, and its varying bond components, cannot happen simultaneously with the high-speed rail bond without putting the state into a position of spending General Fund dollars at too-high levels. This approach instead protects California's credit rating and support for other important state programs.

But the Governor's proposed budget does recognize that high-speed rail is a viable transit option worth exploring for the future, and so it includes $1.2 million for staff support of the High-Speed Rail Authority. He is also willing to consider other potential payment options for such a rail system, including private financing.

Again, thank you for taking the time to write and share your thoughts with Governor Schwarzenegger. He welcomes any comments that can help improve the future of California.

Sincerely,


Office of Constituent Affairs

-I am very impressed that I actually got a response, and related directly to the topic that I inquired about. While I am a little disappointed that the Governor can not fully fund the measure, I am pleased that he is including funding for the High Speed Rail Authority. Now it will be up to Rail supporters to vote on funding the plan a priority along with the measures in the Governor's strategic plan.

A letter to the Terminator of California...I mean Governor

Having recently read that Governor Schwarzeneggar plans to cut funding for the California High Speed Rail plan, I wrote him a letter asking him to reconsider:

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,
My name is Andrew Wambach, I am a senior Urban Studies undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. This semester I am writing on the topic of High Speed Rail for the United States, specifically the Midwest. During my research, I stumbled upon the California High Speed Rail Authority's presentation on developing High Speed Rail to link California's major city centers by 2030. It is my hope that you will support this plan and be the true moderate Republican you have become.
I have to admit, I was skeptical when you took office. Not being a resident of California it was easy for me to tease and mock along with other Democrats "oh watch out for the Governator", then again our state did have Jessie "the Mind" Ventura, and he helped build our first and so far only Light Rail line.
It was when you began to distance yourself from President Bush and to address the issues of global warming and how California can innovate and prosper by creating new High Tech jobs and leading the way for the rest of the country in solving these problems that you should hope to be a good politician.
In a similar way, High Speed Rail accomplishes this and fits into your plan of renewable energy and sustainable development for California and the next 20-30 years.
While High Speed Rail exists in the Northeast Corridor between New York and Boston, California's plan could have rammifications for the West and Midwest and truly lead to passenger rail rebirth, not under Amtrak, but under the for-profit State High Speed Authoritys.
We need the first one that connects the lartgest state of the Union Governor Schwarzeneggar; California's is the best in regards to ridership, benefits to buisness and redevelopment, and protecting California's environment. Think of the boon to tourism as well.
California is the 5th largest economy in the world, don't be Jeb Bush and slowly kill a project by reducing funding or repealing amendments.
I hope California continues to prosper under your leadership and that the goodwill you have shown to the green revolution was legitimate.
Thank you,
P.S. Have always been a fan of your films, Commando is an all time classic as well as your signature role: The Terminator.

Regards from Minnesota,

Andrew Wambach
University of Minnesota

-We'll see if I get a response. Coming down the the wire in regards to the thesis, seems to be all I can talk about lately. Had a job interview for the summer with the city of Fridley in their Code Enforcement Department as an intern. I should hear back from them tomorrow whether I have received the position or not.

Hoping to have some employment after graduation, so that I can buy a new camera and take some more pictures with the Kristen and myself.