We made it to planning!

I submitted our addition plans to Teton County Planning yesterday and we passed the first round of inspections. We have a building permit number but the county is behind 7 weeks on final approval for the permits.

Apparently the county only employs 1 engineer and 1 person to review setbacks so everything gets bottle-necked. I found this surprising because Teton County is the 2nd richest county in the US-- why can't we afford to hire another person in the planning department? Maybe its because of our low taxes which attracts all of the wealthy people.

Cake

Cake
Originally uploaded by krughb

We are going to a friends wedding in two weeks in Moran, WY. The bride and groom asked a few friends to pitch-in and bring cakes for the guests. One of the benefits is that we need to make a few test cakes. We are on our 2nd cake this week and have changed the frosting to a method that uses 4 sticks of butter!

I wonder if we will have a 3rd cake next week?

Lack of Blogging

I have not been blogging frequently during the past month. My time has been consumed by other tasks. First, we are planning to build an addition this summer/fall on our house. I have been working with the architect to coordinate plans and put together all the necessary documentation to submit to the county planning board. This has been a huge time sync. I think my next post will describe my structural engineering mess.

Second, we have been enjoying the early summer weather in Jackson. I have been trying to paddle the river frequently because I know that the big water will not be around for long this year. The river is now up to 11K (cfs) so kayaking will be a blast. I have also been playing golf a few days per week. The course is a short bike ride from our house so it's easy to fit in 9 holes after work.

We are planning to move to Argentina for the summer and I have been spending 1-2 hours a day working on my Spanish. We leave in 5 weeks so I need to hit the books hard ASAP!! The combination of leaving for Argentina and building an addition has been difficult. Here is what is left on my checklist: pick a contractor, get a building permit, move everything out of the back 1/2 of our house, move/sell our shed, pack and leave for Argentina.

I guess it will be a busy 5-6 weeks.

Veggie Kayaking

Last weekend I kayaked with a friend who has a car which runs on a combination of biodiesel and vegetable oil. The car has two separate systems and the fuel source can be changed on the fly. The biodiesel is used for the initial portion of the journey while the engine warms the veggie oil to the correct temperature and viscosity. I was amazed that the car did not loose any performance when switching between fuels. It's too bad that this technology is not widely available and is still on the "cutting edge".

This was my first experience in a car that was not running on fossil fuels. I hope that I have the opportunity to ride in more cars which do not use traditional gasoline fuel. Who knows, if a plug in hybrid hits the market soon I might splurge.

On a side note, I would recommend the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" to others interested finding alternative transportation methods.

US Work Visas

It became apparent to me today that our visa program needs a complete overhaul. The Jackson Hole News and Guide has an interesting article that outlines the problems with the H2-B visa. This visa is geared towards low wadge workers and is used heavily in the service industry. Every season staffing the service jobs in JH becomes more of a challenge. As we near summer the help wanted ads grow due to the lack of potential employees. The current visa situation seems to be a mess and a number of local businesses are concerned that they wont be able to hire any employees through H2-B visas. The problem seems to stem from the "red tape" and slow government response.

On the flip side, the H1 visa program is in even deeper dire straights. The government places a quota of around 125,000 visas per year. The 2007 quota was filled before the close of the first day when applications were accepted. The H1 visa is focused towards knowledge workers - people with college educations - and it's popular in the technology and science fields. At the close of the second day of receiving applications the government tally topped 200,000. Thus a lottery was put in place and people were chosen at random to receive the H1 visas.

I hope that Congress can put politics aside and reform our H1 & H2 immigration programs. This is a challenging and contentious issue, but it obviously needs to be vastly improved. If not, we stand to loose our global competitiveness in the research and IT industries and our service economy (which grows in importance every year) may also be harmed.

A Man Day

I was left alone last weekend and in turn enjoyed a classic Mens Day on Saturday.

- 27 holes of golf with a few friends
- BBQ'd some meat
- Poker Game until midnight

More Snow

Today we awoke to 1-2 inches of snow on the valley floor. It was shocking after a week of 75 degree weather and put a damper on our golfing plans. If I played today I would have lost a million balls in the white fluff blanketing the course.