Legalectric

Xcel’s annual meeting was last week, seems they’re holding it out of town these days.   Amarillo, Texas???  Whyever for? From seekingalpha:

Xcel CEO Hosts Annual Meeting Conference – Transcript

Xcel Annua

l Meeting Conference Q&A

This year, NSP-Minnesota is down 3 cents/share, “weather had an adverse effect.” Here’s their “Investors” page with all the poop:

Xcel Investors Page

And on the right, check out the Xcel Energy 2011 10-K.  Here’s the bad news (from my perspective):

Xcel Energy 2011 10-K

So if this money talk is making you glaze over, check this one:

Yesterday was Syttende Mai, and I missed it — was on the road all day, out to Sioux Falls and back for a funeral, and here it is, May 18… well, it’s my anniversary today, but that was several lifetimes ago, I’d rather celebrate Syttende Mai.

And that triggered a post by a friend dedicated to his Norwegian grandmother that I must steal, well, can’t very well steal the Norwegian anthem, but it’s worth a listen because the words are so important today in the US (other than that blue-eyed part and lame characterization of women’s role):

Longstanding problems at the Public Utilities Commission, no need to look further than the Power Plant Siting Act Annual Hearing dockets to get the specifics:

Thursday – Annual Power Plant Siting Act Hearing

And it seems the PUC is now trying to get a handle on it!  In a transmission docket, where Xcel requested “alternative review” which is short, 6 months, with only cursory environmental review (see Minn. Stat. 216E.04, subd.2(3)).

Staff Briefing Papers – 11-948

The main recommendations of the Staff Briefing Papers are these doozies:

But wait… there’s more!

In light of the way Xcel has been inserting new routes at the tail end of the process, and noting that Commerce has been allowing that despite objections from parties and landowners alike, that paragraph just makes my day!  Look at the “Myrick Route” in the CapX Brookings-Hampton route docket, added during the evidentiary hearing after all but the New Prague “blizzard make-up” hearings were held?

That trick was repeated in the CapX Hampton-LaCrosse route docket, where a route was added near Cannon Falls when, as Applicants admit, their Preferred route was not feasible, so at the last minute, the day before the public hearings were to begin, or the day of, depending on which document you’re referencing, they sent notice to landowners that they may be affected, and called them too!  This came out at the Cannon Falls hearing, at which point I quickly filed a Motion to extend the deadline to intervene for the people who didn’t get notice until then, oh well, that went over like a lead balloon…  Here’s the route they proposed:

So we’ll see what these changes really mean…

WARNING – SORTA GRAPHIC CONTENT!!

Well, there’s good news and bad news… it’s probably cancer, likely mast cell cancer, and the good news is that last night I unwrapped it so that she wouldn’t eat the gauze and sock, and she cleaned it out really good, got rid of the white parts, the swelling is way down, and she can walk on her own!  Even get into the van by herself!  I’m SOOOO relieved.  We got some antibiotics, and pain pills, and stinky ointment to smear on it so she doesn’t keep worrying it.  But she can walk!  She’s our hospice doggy, so we’re not doing anything extreme, and presuming it’s cancer because doing a biopsy and knowing for sure wouldn’t really change our treatment of it — palliative care is where it’s at.

From this to the cleaned up version in the next photo:

She’s one happy dog today, her attitude reminds me a lot of Kenya, smiles in the face of perversity:

Update: Tuesday evening it was pretty gross, bleeding and weepy, but today it’s “in the pink” again:

The two “S & S Grrrrrrls” are even getting along better:

Summer’s been a bit unsteady on her feet lately, and today, she couldn’t get up.  We had to get Kenya’s sling and I had her by the harness and Alan brought up the rear.  We got her outside (FIRST thing we do every morning) and nada… so we took her in.  She laid down in jail for a while and then got up and wanted to go out and walked out, limping on her rear driver side, but peed and came back in. She ate, and then went out, mission, errr, emission accomplished.  Then I moved downstairs to work so she wouldn’t try to go up and down the steps.  She’s sort of doing OK getting out the back door, but it’s a struggle for her.  My thought was she’d wrenched it in jail during yesterday’s storm, that when we were out, she’d freaked and got her foot caught in the cage.  Looking at her foot, it’s nearly twice the size of the other.  But that doesn’t seem to be it, because this afternoon she started worrying it.  We gave her some aspirin and while I was off baking bread, she started licking it and where there were some scuffs earlier,  it opened up, licked the skin right off… I looked and eeeeeuw, oh my, it looks like the benign toe sized growth Kenya had, about the same place.  This isn’t sticking up as much as Kenya’s, that looked like someone glued on a mushroom cap, but it looks like a tumor or ??? and it’s so swollen.  It sure looks like it would hurt!  YEOW!  Now she’s snorin’ and fartin’ — the pain must have lessened.  Maybe she needs some beer?

So she’s had aspirin again, and I found the leftover “prednisone poof” stuff for Ken, it’s neomycin sulfate, isoflupredone, acetate and tetracaine HCl… the “caine” part she’ll probably appreciate, and I hope this helps.  Now, to send this link off to the vet, and see how his diet’s going — I’ve been doing pretty well, but I can’t figure out what the grand prize should be, not a clue!

Meanwhile, she’s getting some quality time: