The World According to "Aaarrgh!"

Yet another tractor trailer overturned on the U.S. 60 curves in west Nowata county.  On my way to Bartlesville at 645 AM, my route on EW 20 was blocked at 60.  A westbound tractor trailer took the curve too fast and overturned onto 20, blocking both roads.  When the missus went through an hour later, the overturned truck was still blocking EW 20.

It seems that this is becoming a common occurrence, as the amount of truck traffic on 60 has skyrocketed since the opening of the Wal-mart Distribution Center on U.S. 75 at Co. Rd. 3000 south of Bartlesville.

This bad highway is choking out development in Nowata county.  Part of that has to do with the uncertainty of exactly where the new highway is going to go.  There has been property along the existing highway that has been on the market for many many months, but without knowing exactly where the new highway is going to go, it would be a huge gamble for the buyer.  What if you buy property that will be part of the new highway right-of-way?  Meanwhile, western Nowata county is in a holding pattern until ODOT finalizes the design, whenever that is. 

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, it seems that the “official” Nowata blog is on life support, if it even has a pulse at all.  The last two posts are from places like Maine and California that have nothing at all to do with Nowata.  The king is dead; long live the king!

Be prepared for a media circus in September.  They have moved the trial of former Washington County Treasurer Stephens to Nowata County, as if Nowatans don’t know what happened.  (Maybe they don’t..)  Well, let’s just say that due to the sensational nature of the case, expect lots of media from Tulsa, including the television stations.  Since we will be the eye of the storm, we will be under scrutiny as well.  We need to clean ourselves up and look our Sunday best!

I was happy for Nowata when I found out that Nowata Ford was reopening.  It’s been a rough couple of years for our town, and it was nice to finally hear some good news.  Except it wasn’t.

As you may or may not know, Nowata Ford is no more.  Whatever vehicles were owned by Ford credit, and others have been confiscated by the Sheriff’s Office.  One of the owners is nowhere to be found, and is wanted for fraud, one of those things being identity theft.

When I was looking for a vehicle, I went to Nowata Ford.  What struck me was how expensive all of the vehicles were and how little negotiation was possible.  (I ended up getting a great deal on my Expedition in Bartlesville.)  While I was there, I filled out an entry form to win a prize; I hope that it doesn’t come back to haunt me!  Of course, having recently been a victim of identity theft (I am still trying to cobble that part of my life back together…), I don’t like giving out much personal information, so the information I gave was no more than my address and a telephone number, information that you can find on the Internet.  (It’s on the website, actually…)  I also have a credit monitoring service that alerts me when there are any changes to my credit report.

There was something about the owner that didn’t sit right with me that day.  I asked around to a few others about him, and of course got the usual tripe, “He’s a good Christian man.”  Some good Christian!  I feel for those who have been his victims.  to be victimized is not something that you get over easy, as you tend to become just a tad bit paranoid and untrusting.

So here we have a jerk who sets up shop in a poor town desperate for business, and then proceeds to steal from it.  Let’s steal from the poor, let’s bleed them dry.  I just hope that the city, county, or chamber did not give him any financial support in his dastardly deed, although I suspect that if one does a bit of deal, that taxpayer money was used to lure the business here.  This is a question we need to ask.

I’ve noticed some tree trimmers cutting down some of the brush on the south side of EW 20 between NS 407 and NS 405.  Since all of the work is on the south side of the road, the same side as the overhead power lines, I assumed that they were hired by VVEC to keep the lines clear.  Now, I don’t think that is the case.

Driving through this morning, I noticed that they didn’t clear all of the trees under the lines, just the trees at a few selected locations.  With the tree truck was a truck full of survey equipment.  It looks like the tree trimmers were hired by the surveyors to clear areas around survey benchmarks, or at least that is my educated guess.  It is also my guess that the survey has something to do with the relocation of U.S. 60, because the design engineer did tell me that they were going to flatten out those curves between 405 and 406 by going north of the existing roadway.  A year or so ago someone who owned one of those properties along the existing 60 told me that ODOT was surveying on the back of his land, which would indicate that the new highway will follow 20 for a little while before meandering to the southeast to rejoin the existing alignment at 407.  Stay tuned.

Speed humps are probably the most divisive issue that I deal with.  If I don’t put them in, I hate kids, etc. (I have seven kids, but I hate kids.) When I do, the conspiracy theories abound.  I put them in near a mosque, and so I am anti-Muslim.  I have been told that I am working for the United Nations and the Chinese, that speed humps are a plot to force us to give up our cars and buy Chinese bicycles.  Not to be outdone by the Right, I’ve had a left-wing nut tell me that I must work for the oil companies, that I put in speed humps to force us to consume more gas and make the oil companies richer!