The Clown makes a good cup of coffee.

Joel, I haven't been to either of those places since the first child was born, and I imagine not many people from the Sacramento Suburbs go there for brunch prior to nap time. I also can't speak to their parking arrangements. But your point is taken that unless they stop charging for parking you will have to deal with paying a meter. And if they stop charging then you might not be able to find parking. But allow me to be a bit more specific about what I see as unpleasant about parking in Midtown. - In the last few years the City has become very agressive about parking enforcement. I know I'm not the only one who's noticed this and (correct me if I'm wrong) it was the stated intention of the City to do so in order to raise additional revenue. Some folks may like it and some may not. For me I prefer panhandlers who at least only ask for my money. - There is no apparent rhyme or reason as to when or how you can park in a given area. Some areas it's free after 6PM, others 10PM, some you pay for with quarters and others with meters. They've also changed times in some areas in recent years. This has been the cause of one parking ticket for me. - 12 minutes for a quarter is just stupid. I understand that money has been devalued since then time when quarters paid for 1/2 hour or even an hour but who carries pockets full of quarters around? - The credit card machines are fine (I'll hold my tongue about the User Interface) but making you walk back out into traffic is stupid and irresponsible. Let people put the sticker on the windshield. I suppose it's only tax payer money when someone sues after being struck while putting their sticker on the traffic side. All this adds up to a less pleasant experience for my midtown ventures. If the City is okay with limiting business to childless residents that's fine and I have nothing to say about it. But it seems like the storefronts will have a tough time without that revenue.

I think a lot of folks are missing the point. The businesses in midtown rely on their customers having simple access to parking near their businesses. Many of their customers won't mind the added difficulty of parking but some have a more difficult time. I live in West Sacramento and although I love Midtown I have spent very little of my recreational time there in the last few years since the city has been making parking more difficult. I happened to spend this last Saturday in Midtown and had breakfast there, bought some shoes, and had gelato. In all three cases the proprietors were absolutely wonderful and my interactions with the businesses were great. But in order to have these experiences I had to: - Park my car, unload my two young children, walk half a block away to get the ticket, walk back and hold my 2 year old's hand while we walked into traffic so that I could nervously put the sticker on the street side of my car with cars while cars zoomed by. This while I'm screaming at my six year old not to walk away or walk into the street to follow us. - Having spent more time at the shoe vendor than I expected, I had to grab my children and run back to my car. That wasn't so bad because it gave me a chance to try out my new running shoes before the purchase. But then I had to argue with a meter maid to let me go since my sticker had only expired by a couple minutes. Ultimately she let me go but not before giving me a gigantic sigh. I then proceeded to move my car closer to the business next to a broken parking-sticker-vending machine. Instead of walking another block and crossing the street to the next closest machine I took a picture of the broken machine with my children in the background so if I had to argue to a judge that it would have been unreasonable to expect me to cross the street with both children. I then proceeded to rush through my purchase in order to finish before encountering another meter-maid. - I then brought my children to a wonderful Gelato shop. Unfortunately by that time I only had a couple of quarters left which would only pay for a few minutes of parking. As we sat outside on a beautiful Sacramento spring day my children enjoying Gelato for the first time I eventually spotted a meter maid. Realizing that my time was about up I hurriedly packed up our unfinished deserts and rushed my children to the car. As I was loading them into the car the meter-maid stopped at my car, looked at the now expired meter, and began to walk toward my car. I pleaded "I'm just leaving" and she nodded and moved on to the next car. My overall experience of my day in midtown was bad despite the wonderful businesses I had the chance to interact with. Next weekend I will almost certainly spend my Saturday in West Sacramento where my options are so much more limited on where to go but the city doesn't treat you like a criminal or as a opportunity to plunder when you're a customer at businesses there. I realize that I am probably a minority of the customers who shop at midtown. But even if the cities agressive parking fees don't bother 90% of their customers, the 10% is does bother is a huge loss in business for storefronts in midtown. Obviously the city doesn't care if the businesses fail as long as their revenue increases. One last note, I have to tip my cap (if I ever wore one) to the shop owners in Midtown who are doing such a fantastic job that they are able to stay in business despite the cities best efforts to chase away their customers.

Apparently Sacramento county is much more reasonable than Yolo county when it comes to dog barking ordinances. My neighbors complained that my in-door dog was a nuisance because he barked on the day I moved in and occasionally he would bark at something when I let him out to go to the bathroom (not usually but what can you do about squirrels). The officer (according to her report) came to my neighborhood, interviewed my closest two neighbors who first stated they didn't know I had a dog and that the dog was no problem respectively. She then walked around my house and, having heard no barking, finally knocked on my door. When my dog barked from her knocking she issued me the citation which I had to go to court and fight. Apparently in Yolo county it's illegal to own a dog who will bark under any circumstance.

“There seems to be no question that Mussolini is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.” ~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt “I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.” ~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt commenting on Mussolini FDR seemed pretty fond of fascists. And if you want to talk about abuse of powers. The man forced (drafted) over 10 million Americans into the war to fight and die against their will and imprisoned over 150,000 Japanese American's, seizing all their property with no charge against them or trial. That is FDR's Democratic State.