Lincolnite

Raise your hand if you heard the loud-as-loud-can-be thunder clap at about 3:31am this morning. I happened to have woken up about two minutes earlier so I got the full, teeth rattling experience. If it wasn't the loudest thunder I've ever heard, it was pretty darn close. When I tweeted about it this morning I found out that five of my followers were also knocked out of bed by the boom. I don't know all of their addresses, but combined our homes cover a fairly broad swath of south Lincoln. I'm curious how many of you heard (and felt) it as well. Did any of you on the north side of town hear it?

When I first saw the headline I cringed: Redevelopment to move ahead without Windstream warehouse. I thought to myself, "Ugh, a plan that sounded great this spring has been significantly pared down, probably to the point of utter blandness." Fortunately my initial reaction was off. Instead, the relatively large project that will construct 100 housing units and a long-requested Downtown grocery store is mostly intact. The only part that didn't survive is the renovation of the Windstream warehouse at 21st and L. Windstream couldn't come to an agreement with the developer. That's not so bad. The remainder of the project can go forward, and the warehouse deal could still go through at some point in the future. It's nice to know that areas near Antelope Creek aren't being forgotten, what with all the hype in the West Haymarket. Now if we could just get some momentum going in South Downtown. All in due time, I suppose.

Yesterday, NAI FMA Realty tweeted that Cause for Paws is going to move into the former Blockbuster building just south of 48th and Normal. Thank goodness. I thought for sure a check cashing place was going to move in. Cause for Paws is currently located around 57th and Old Cheney. My guess is that they're moving for higher visibility. My hope is that the building gets an exterior facelift prior to their early 2014 opening, although just having an active business on the premises is better than nothing. This gets me thinking about other former Blockbuster locations around town and whether or not the vacancies have been filled. The 27th and Pine Lake location was quickly replaced by HuHot. The location at 16th and Q is now Egg & I. Did Pancheros go into the East Park location, or am I thinking of the wrong building? All in all, though, it seems like Lincoln isn't exactly missing Blockbuster's dwindling numbers. I'm not sure how many Blockbusters remain open in Lincoln. If I had to guess I'd say there are three: 16th and South; 27th and Superior; and 48th and Leighton. I could be wrong about any one of those. I tried to check via Blockbuster's website but their store locator threw an exciting error message my way: "An error occurred while processing your request. Reference #102.aac402cc.1380721364.5a52ca6".

We found out a while back that The Missus would lose her health insurance at the end of the year due to the Affordable Care Act. That's right; the law that's supposed to help insure more people is responsible for The Missus losing her coverage. Ugh. No worries though, right? We would just hop on healthcare.gov on October 1, explore our new options under the "Healthcare Marketplace", and choose a new plan for her. Except for one little detail: the website is completely hosed. Sigh. If any of you out there are facing the same frustrations as we are, well, you're not alone. As a web developer I'm sympathetic to the problems plaguing the website right now. But as a customer, I want the damn thing to work so I can know what our options are going forward. Who else out there is in the same boat today? Anyone?