Lincolnite

Lincolnites enjoy complaining about traffic signals around town. A traffic engineer responds: Go View the entire strip.

I have way too many things on my mind right now. It's causing me a bunch of stress (some good, some bad), and I need to get it off my shoulders. So here's a quick mind dump: Robert is awesome. I know I've said that before. I'll say it again. (And again.) I really enjoy spending time with him, and I know The Missus does, too. He is gradually beginning to pick up some new words, which is nice. He has always been a vocal and communicative kid, but not much of a verbal kid. To hear him say "buh!" while pointing at birds in the sky is a lot of fun. (But geese waddling on the ground, according to Robert, are most definitely not birds.) He is also finally branching out in his food choices. For so long the poor kid gagged every time something with a funky texture went into his mouth. Now he is able to try a variety of different solid foods and find the ones he likes based on taste, not based on whether or not he upchucks. The biggest surprise so far: he likes onion rings. Work is going well. I'm busy busy busy. That's great, but it's also a source of significant stress. It's a good stress, though. Working on several different projects for several different "bosses" really taxes the brain. I love it, and if I can keep the money coming in, I'll keep doing it as long as I can. The big stressor of the week comes from an incident in a college soccer match on Tuesday. Over 89 minutes into the game -- that's less than a minute left -- there was a foul. Then a chest bump. Then a tackle. Then a really hard tackle. When all was said and done, one player from each team was ejected for fighting, and two other players were cautioned (yellow carded) for related offenses. I have very few qualms with how my assistants and I handled the situation. I was positioned exactly where I needed to be positioned on the field. My AR and I quickly identified the offenders and prevented others from joining in. Once everything calmed down, we stepped back and extremely carefully broke down the situation to make sure we "cleaned up" by the book. We reviewed the sanctions with the captains and each of the coaches. All in all, our response was nearly textbook, and I have been told so by the athletic conference commissioner and my referee chapter's president. So why am I so stressed? I think it's just my nature. I don't like messiness in my soccer matches. Ejections are messy. Ejections for fighting are even messier (harsher penalties). A thousand people could tell me I handled the situation as well as could be expected, and still I would review the situation over and over in my head. Plus, it's just plain stressful having to so carefully review the situation and report it to all the people I've reported to. First, the other referees and I talked for nearly 30 minutes after the match. I have spoken twice with the athletic conference commissioner. I have filled out forms and written supplemental reports. I've sent and received a bunch of e-mails. Goofing up during the administrative phase can be just as damaging to my career and to the teams as if I had goofed up during the match. One big positive item is that the incident was caught on video, and I now have the video in my possession. I've never before seen myself on video in a "crisis" situation. The video is short (some parts of the "clean-up" are edited out) but very helpful. For example, I mis-remembered how the whole thing started. It's a great lesson in perception, memory, and reality. My positioning on the play was as good as could be expected, given the context of the play at the time. I closed the distance quickly when trouble first started. At the time the last player earned his ejection, I was literally one foot away from the action. I don't like the way I show cards to players, though. I look too angry, like I'm trying to bop them on the head with the card. I'll need to change that. Then there's the injured player laying on the turf in the middle of all the action, sprawled out, not moving. It looks bad on the video, but no way was I going to let trainers come onto the field until I knew the situation had calmed down. The last thing I needed was trainers getting into it with players. Anyway, that's enough of that. There's my mind dump. Time to get back to work!

This doesn't really have anything to do with Lincoln, but I'm posting it because I'm tired of seeing people fall for these scams. Why would any normal person write a check for thousands of dollars extra -- using a check that doesn't even have their name on it, I might add -- and then ask you to send them the difference? What possible explanation can you come up with that would cause that to make sense?

Yesterday it was Mexican fast food of questionable quality. Today: Downtown sandwich shops. The Journal Star's "The 402" section features a dozen Downtown sandwich shops today. How would you order them, from your favorite to least favorite? My order:

1. Bison Witches. OK, #1 and I'm already cheating because this isn't even on The 402's list. But c'mon, they sell sandwiches, they're Downtown ... what's the deal, 402?
2. Highnooners. I don't get there very often, but it's a nice little, local, simple sandwich joint.
3. Doozy's. The place is almost always packed. They must be doing something right.
4. Danny's. I haven't been there in years, but when I worked nearby I used to love going there for a small sandwich and some soup on a cold winter day.
5. Brown Baggers. Their new location is very cozy, and I love the brown bag lunch.
6. Planet Sub. I like the indoor/outdoor seating area.
7. Subway. I've eaten more than my fair share of meatball subs at Subway.
8. Roost. The sandwiches are good, but I'm not a big chicken salad guy. If I were, this would be higher on the list.
9. Quiznos. I've tried to like Quiznos, but it's just meh fo rme.
10. Jimmy John's. Sorry JJ's lovers, but this just isn't my thing. The new JJ's on 33rd and Pioneers looks like it's nearly ready to open, by the way.

I have never been to:

• Erbert and Gerbert's
• Manhattan Deli
• Bread and Cup

For some reason this morning I got to thinking about how the arrival of the Taco Bueno chain in Lincoln makes it hard to know where to go if I want fast "Mexican-like" food of questionable quality. Help me put these in order, from best to worst:

• Taco Bell
• Taco Bueno
• Taco Inn (local)
• Taco John's
• Amigos (local)

Should any others be on the list? One might argue that King Taco and DeLeon's should be in the list, but my experience places them in a category above these five. What does your order look like?

I'm not at all surprised that the Journal Star received letters complaining about the Spanish language article they printed about the Maria Rosario Moreno murder. I am, however, disappointed in the level of pig-headedness displayed by the letter writers. The Journal Star printed one Spanish language article for a very specific purpose. That's hardly a sign that the evil brown-skinned horde is chipping away at our precious English language. It's certainly no reason to go into nativist paranoia mode. Besides, is the language of one article really the thing anybody ought to get jumpy over in this story? A woman is dead. How about a little outrage over that?

I can't help but think that the changes StarTran has proposed lately are too little too late. The fact that some members of the City Council are eager to cut StarTran's budget supports my suspicion. StarTran sat back and relied on a crummy route system for 20 years. Although only one of several reasons for public transportation's weakness in Lincoln, it was a very important reason. In five years will StarTran be little more than the minimum system required by Federal law? I won't be surprised. Incidentally, the City's Comprehensive Plan says quite clearly that transit funding should be increased, not decreased. The City Council that may cut StarTran's funding is the same one that adopted the most recent version of the Comprehensive Plan in November 2006.

It's easy to panic just a little when a consultant team throws out a number like $175 million. That's how much we've just been told it would take to build the "ideal" fairgrounds at a new location. But as with nearly every consultant's report you're ever going to see, that's not the whole story. It's not even most of the story. Consider that the consultants haven't simultaneously told us what it costs to maintain the Fair at its current location in its current condition. Nor how much it would cost to upgrade the current facilities to "ideal" status. Nor how much it would cost to build new facilities that are less than "ideal" but still superior to the current fairgrounds. And so on. For comparison purposes, consider that the Antelope Valley Project's price tag, at last check, was approaching $250 million. Without appropriate context, the $175 million price tag is mostly meaningless. This sort of decision can't be made on a single price tag alone. Indeed, that's how policymakers try to scare people, and that's exactly how this report will be (and already is being) used. There are a lot of perfectly valid reasons to keep the Fair where it is. One price tag, standing alone, is a pretty weak one.

How 'bout that wind over the weekend, and the rapid temperature change yesterday afternoon? That was fun, wasn't it? Ugh. Often soccer matches are pretty much impossible in that kind of weather, but I was proud of the kids in my two matches yesterday for mostly ignoring the wind. The parents on the sideline sure weren't enjoying themselves. I see it's 47 degrees right now, and the calendar flipped to October today. I'm not ready for October.

The article is headlined "Local man has some struggles with bus system". Frankly, everybody has "some struggles" with Star Tran. Tag Jackson's problem is he sometimes can't get drivers to notice him. That's a big problem when the bus is your only way around town. Having been a daily bus rider for five years, Mr. Jackson's core complaints -- that drivers sometimes don't see people waiting, and some drivers are jerks -- are valid. StarTran's rules allow riders to wait at almost any street corner in the city. That's a lot of territory for drivers to scan. It's not surprising that drivers miss a person or two now and then. I've been missed; I've seen others get missed; if riders are awake, they usually holler out to the driver, who then stops a block or two late. And as for a couple of them being jerks? Well, yeah, some people are jerks. A few drivers are naturally jerks, while others only become cranky after an especially rough day filled with more-annoying-than-usual riders. It happens. One things gets me, though. StarTran's drivers know "the regulars". Not just daily riders on a particular route, but riders with unique characteristics who rely on StarTran to get around town. Mr. Jackson is one of them, and I could easily name two dozen more. Spend a month riding the bus and you'll be able to pick out most of them. "The regulars" are easy to spot around town once you have met them. If drivers are, as Mr. Jackson asserts, missing those folks, something is wrong. StarTran head honch Larry Worth is unapologetic. He blames Mr. Jackson's woes in part on Mr. Jackson's large scooter. What that has to do with drivers not picking him up, I don't know. I do know that I don't want public officials making comments like this: "He’s kind of a hard-headed guy, to be honest with you." Come on, Mr. Worth. That's just tacky. Let's try sticking to the issue and not resorting to name-calling, shall we?