KyKurmudgeon

A reader suggestion: www.thedud.ick.

A couple for consideration: www.tangledwebbs.ego and www.vanishingpointe.uho. Join in the fun, people.

With the H-L editorial board a bit short-staffed going into a holiday weekend, I won’t be writing a mid-week or Sunday column this week. I may get in a bit of blogging, if anything exciting happens. But otherwise, I’ll be helping out with the routine chores of producing the opinion pages on a daily basis.

Oops! Got my Republican members of Congress mixed up in Sunday’s column. I mistakenly wrote that Patrick Neely, now the executive director of the Kentucky Equine Education Project, was once an aide to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. Although Neely volunteered in a couple of McConnell campaigns, he never served on the senator’s staff. He did serve as an aide to former U.S. Rep. Anne Northup and ran a couple of her congressional races. My bad. Senior moments are hell.

After six months of dealing with legislative sessions and/or the run-up to legislative sessions, the ol’ Kurmudgeon feels the need for some fun time. Thanks to Jerry Richardson for suggesting a way to have that fun, assuming you all help me out a bit.

What we’re looking for is an appropriate, albeit fictional, Web site name for the Webb site, that block of downtown Lexington where historic buildings got razed to make way for something or other that, as yet, shows no signs of materializing.

I’ve been spending most of my time in Frankfort lately, so I’m not current with the Lexington street chatter on this issue. But I understand some folks in town now refer to the block as Centrepit. So, we’ll start the conversation by suggesting www.centrepit.ugh as an appropriate name for our non-existent Web site.

Get the idea? Well, ramp up your creativity and send your suggestions to lkeeling@herald-leader.com today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. Or whenever that oh, so perfect idea pegs the needle on your giggle meter. I’ll be sharing the best of them with readers in days to come.

There is no deadline for this little contest. No prizes either, except for the laughs.

Conference committees trying to figure out if anything can be salvaged from the General Assembly’s special session haven’t made much progress yet. So, I’m pushing my midweek column, which usually appears on Wednesday, back a day this week to let things sort themselves out.

My best guess? A budget agreement could come without a lot of huffing and puffing. An economic incentives package may be doable. An agreement on mega-projects probably won’t happen. And Senate President David Williams’ bailout approach to helping the horse industry has no traction whatsoever with House Democrats, Gov. Steve Beshear or the industry itself.

A lack of agreement on mega-projects could be the end for the proposed Louisville bridges. Indiana has plenty of uses for the more than $1 billion it has set aside. And the offer of federal help for the Kentucky share of the project could lapse due to the General Assembly’s inability to get its act together on this issue.

UPDATE 4:55 P.M.: Agreement apparently reached on the budget, although the final document still needs to be prepared.

My midweek column, which normally published on Wednesdays, will appear on Thursday this week. Wanted to take a little extra time to look at Gov. Steve Beshear’s slots proposal before commenting on it.

A holiday weekend trip to Western Kentucky turned into a costly disaster when two seals decided to retire from their job of keeping my car’s transmission fluid from spewing all over the highway. Repairs continue in Hopkinsville, also known to some natives as Hop Angeles. Consequently, I decided while stuffing my face with the decadently delicious collection of cholesteral known as the Ferrell’s double cheeseburger that I should blow off the rest of the week.

As expensive and disruptive as this experience has been, I must say I feel a certain empathy with those two seals, since the recently altered nature of my job at the skeleton of a once great newspaper has me rethinking my own retirement plans. Any pro shop in need of a dependable old kurmudgeon to take tee times and peddle golf balls should feel free to get in touch.

With all the recent cutbacks at the Herald-Leader, I’ve had to spend more and more time at the Mother Ship in recent weeks helping with the routine chores of getting the editorial and oped pages out every day. That’s the reason the posts and columns have been few. This week, a colleague on vacation has further reduced our warm bodies. So, I will be spending most of the week editing copy, putting the pages together, etc. Even a Sunday column is doubtful this week. Hope to get back to some semblance of a regular routine in the near future.

After the General Assembly session and a couple of weeks of helping with the routine chores involved in getting the H-L editorial and oped pages out on a daily basis, it’s time for some R & R. I’m devoting next week to chores at home, golf, a day or two at the races and some relaxation. I expect to be back on the job April 20.

My Sunday column should post on the blog automatically early Sunday morning.