Lincolnite

One thing I like about Deena Winter's column in the Journal Star is that her style presents the news, but she also tells a story. Take her column in today's paper. As I read it, I couldn't help but feel uninspired by the Council's approach to solving the City's budget problem. Ms. Winter could just as easily have summed up her entire article thusly:

The Council met on Tuesday to discuss the City's impending $9 million budget shortfall. The Council took no action and will meet again on the topic in two weeks.

Fortunately she didn't go that route. Instead, through quotes and her own use of language ("The council got distracted..."), those of us who can't attend the meetings get a good feel for the quality of discourse at the meeting. By the way, kudos to Dan Marvin for his handout describing how he might go about finding the missing $9 million. My praise isn't contingent on his ideas being any good; I just appreciate that he went on record and put real ideas on paper. Good for him.

Nobody lives there and nobody has an address there, but the strip of pavement formerly known as Capital Parkway West is now called Rosa Parks Way. I don't have any feelings one way or the other about the name of that stretch of road, so this is basically non-news to me. I do, however, get a kick out of listening to and reading comments from people who are, for some inexplicable reason, adamantly opposed to the new name. I don't understand the need to spend so many calories calling it, in the words of one LJS commenter, "the stupidest thing I've seen yet". Methinks that commenter walks around with his eyes closed too often.

The blight train keeps on rollin', this time in the vicinity of 9th and Van Dorn. I'm not opposed to blight designations per se, but the City Council needs to get real. Surely at some point the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in. Is Lincoln really better off with so many blighted acres? I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that it is.

A hearty congratulations to the Lincoln Children's Zoo, which won one of six prestigious National Awards from The Institute of Museum and Library Service. The Children's Zoo may be tiny, especially in comparison to its much-larger cousin in Omaha, but it is a tremendous community asset. Good job, folks!

If you were left cold by the city's sub-stellar snow removal performance last week, you may be warmed to know that changes have been made. And not just small "we'll do better next time" changes. Public Works Director Karl Fredrickson actually yanked oversight of street maintenance away from City Engineer Roger Figard and assigned it to Antelope Valley Project manager Wayne Teten instead. "We will have new direction in street maintenance," according to Fredrickson. Talk about a vote of no-confidence in Figard. Ouch. One gets the feeling that this shake-up is about bigger things than just this one event, and that it was a long time coming. Or perhaps I'm over-analyzing. In any event, I have had only limited interaction with Wayne Teten, but the interactions I had were positive. Short story even shorter, I requested information about the Antelope Valley Project a couple times, and I received prompt and thorough replies each time. That doesn't say much about his ability to manage his new 135 full-time employees, but it's a positive data point nonetheless.

It's awfully annoying to me as a taxpayer to see a regular stream of articles describing school break-ins and the items stolen each time. I wonder how much it would cost to set up a small network of webcams at each school that broadcast live video, 24/7. Then anybody, anywhere could check in on the schools and report trouble as appropriate. With some basic equipment and a little programming skill, a security system could be assembled on the cheap. Or we could unleash some very angry, underfed dogs in the hallways of the schools every night and weekend.

It must be very annoying to walk outside in the morning to find out that your car has been shot up with a BB gun. The only vandalism my car has ever experienced was having its plates stolen. (They were found a couple weeks later in an alley in a town in Kansas. I actually got a phone call from the town's police chief to see if I wanted them back.) Have any of you been victims of the latest rash of BB gun vandalism? Would anybody be opposed to punishing the perpetrators by allowing their victims to shoot at them with BB guns?

Today's Friday Five is a simple game. I will name the features at (or near) each corner of an intersection except one. Your job is to tell me (1) what's at the remaining corner, and (2) which intersection it is. I will go clockwise around the intersection, but I won't necessarily start at the same corner every time. Example:furniture / bulls eye / chicken Answer: Best Buy (48th and R)

1. burritos / onion rings / groceries
2. movies / campers / pancakes
3. dirt / barber / bank
4. yoga / gas / popcorn
5. phones / cars / insurance

Here's an interesting Top 10 list: Lincoln's top 10 yellow pages headings in 2006 on windstreamyellowpages.com. The numbers in parentheses are the national ranking for each heading:

1. Restaurants (1)
2. Apartments (60)
3. Employment agencies (41)
4. Tattooing (>130)
5. Heating and Ventilating Contractors (54)
6. Doctors offices and clinics (2)
7. Insurance Brokers (12)
8. Hotels (28)
9. Hospitals (9)
10. Movie Theaters (17)

Most of the items look reasonable enough, but what's with #4? Are Lincolnites obsessed with tattoos relative to the rest of the country? A tip o' the hat to Simon for the list. Thanks, Simon!

Dang, the LJS is committing highway robbery with its upcoming Bundles of Joy insert. The annual BoJ insert features photos of babies born in Lincoln in the past year. They will print a photo of your precious little one for the low (ha!) low (ha!) price of 40 bucks. Ouch. But how can you not send in a photo of your child when you have grandmas and aunts and friends of friends harassing you about it? It's extortion, I tell ya. Anyway, look for Robert when the insert comes out. He'll be the cute one. 😉

A family of seven with lots of love but very little space in their house and who, as a result, have been living separately for years, will finally be reunited.

That's the description of this Sunday's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition broadcast featuring the Fullerton-Machacek family from Lincoln. I'm thinking about live-blogging^* the show. I've never done live-blogging before, but it could be fun, and this would be a perfect time to try it out. Would anybody join in? ^* I'm not sure if it would be easier to post live updates here in the blog (where non-registered people can post comments) or in the forum (where only registered members can post). It's possible that instead of live-blogging we'll actually be "live-foruming", but that lacks a certain je ne sais quois.

A couple weeks ago I wrote that The Missus and I planned to use (our interpretation of) the Ferber Method to help Robert sleep through the night. Things were going well initially, but then Robert got an ear infection. We halted the program temporarily. Now, though, we're back on track. In fact, this morning's 5:30am wake-up represented the third straight all-nighter for Robert. He goes down around 8:00pm and wakes up between 5:00am and 6:00am. I won't go so far as to say Robert is "cured" of his middle-of-the-night wakings. Only time will tell if that's true. (And even then, there will always be the occasional 2:00am waking.) I will, however, say that having a plan and sticking to it makes nighttime wakings incalculably more manageable. The Missus and I knew that all along, but we were, as so many parents are, hesitant nonetheless. I guess it's the stress of listening to a baby cry, combined with the discomfort associated with changing "the way we've always done it". I'll let you know if things suddenly take a sour turn. Cross your fingers!

This is my first day back at work since December 15. Here is a look back at some of the things that happened in that time:

• For the second time ever, I completely shaved my head. I even managed not to remove large chunks of skin like I did last time. The main difference this time is that I plan to keep it shaved for a good while. So far I've only noticed one annoyance: everybody seems to think it is their duty to inform the bald guy that he "really should wear a hat" on a cold day.
• Robbie fought off his first ear infection like a trooper. It really sucked seeing him not feel well. He's normally such an active, bubbly, friendly kid. While he was sick he hardly smiled or laughed, he didn't babble very much, and he didn't really want to play. Blah.
• Feeling in a grumpy, un-Christmasy mood? Spend Christmas with babies, boxes, wrapping paper, and bows. That's all you need.
• Robert changed so much in the past couple weeks. He's starting to figure out that crawling thing, slowly but surely. He has always been a stander, but now he really loves to stand. He learned how to pull himself up to standing. (The first time he did that was in his crib. Quite a surprise to The Missus when she walked in.) He has even learned how to walk, very very slowly, while pushing a little cart thingy. He's seven months old and he can walk himself across the room. Crazy! Still no teeth, though. Just lots of drool.
• Robert is entering the phase in which he freaks out when mom leaves the room. When dad leaves the room it's like, "Hey, that goofy guy left. Oh well". But when mom leaves the room, it's "Dear God, where did she go?! Mom! Mom! Come back!" Which, of course, really makes The Missus eager to go back to work. Fortunately he chills out after a few seconds. For now.
• I've been working on Lincolnite behind the scenes, along with some freelance web development work. I now have clients in Toronto, San Francisco, and upstate New York. Once I get a few items crossed off my to-do list I hope to start on some local projects.

I'm not typically one to pile on Lincoln's snow removal crew. In fact, more often than not I wish they would do less snow removal, not more, especially in residential areas where the plows are known to create more problems (e.g. blocked driveways) than they solve. But their latest efforts have really disappointed me. Public works director Karl Fredrickson claims that "all of the arterial streets had been plowed four times" by Tuesday. Given the back-breaking state of many of Lincoln's arterials, that's awfully depressing to hear. Fredrickson blames the meteorologists, and he has a point. Ken Siemek and company really goofed, and they continued to misread the storm even as it progressed. While it was obvious to everybody and their dog that the storm was putting down more than "2 to 4 inches", every weather source I checked continued to present a remarkably inaccurate picture of the situation. Still, it would be nice to hear Fredrickson say "You know what, you're right. Some of the roads do suck right now. Here's our plan..." Instead, he acts like there isn't a problem at all. Many Lincolnites have unrealistic expectations in regard to snow removal, that's true. But Karl Fredrickson's message to the public is insufficient, and he deserves the heat he gets as a result.