Lincolnite

It's colder than a brass commode on the shady side of an iceberg! Brr, I'm glad I don't have an outdoor job today. I like cool weather, but -20 wind chills just don't do it for me. While letting the dog out this morning, I got to thinking about all of my favorite "It's colder than..." phrases. As it turns out, I could only remember a couple, the one above included. Can you help me fill out my list? What are your favorite "It's colder than..." phrases? Just one thing: let's keep 'em PG-13 or cleaner. (Those of you who know what I'm talking about are giggling to yourselves; the rest of you are probably trying to figure out how in the heck a simple phrase about being cold could be rated R.)

Don't forget about tonight's total lunar eclipse. The show starts around 7:45pm, with totality reached at 9:00pm. The total eclipse will last 52 minutes.

Domain squatting is stupid and petty and lame, and thus, so is the Nebraska GOP. Come on, NGOP, grow up a bit. Are you really so threatened by Max Yashirin -- a 25-year old political nobody who plans to take on the popular incumbent Jeff Fortenberry -- that you have to sink to engaging in junior high pranks to put him down? Give me a break. To be fair, the content the NGOP had originally posted on the site -- photos of Yashirin engaged in a little stereotypical college-style drinking and smoking -- isn't necessarily unfair. Yashirin is young, and raising questions about his age and maturity is appropriate. On the flip side, Nebraska Democrats executive director Matt Conneally's defense that "this is a military veteran that the Republicans are attacking" is a yawner. Military service does not provide any sort of shield in the world of politics, nor should it. Fair questions (in this case about age and maturity) are fair questions. In the end, though, the NGOP wins the Biggest Loser award for this round. Give the man his domain name and play like adults. (And let this be a lesson to all you kiddies out there with political ambitions: grab that domain name long before you make any sort of announcement!)

Brain research has shown that certain portions of the brain that help a person make rational decisions aren't fully developed until the late teens or early twenties, and that boys' brains tend to be slower to develop in that regard than girls' brains. As if we needed research to tell us that, when we can read headlines like Boy falls from Wendy’s ceiling.

The Wilsons went out to China Wall (near Wal-Mart on 87th and Highway 2) on Saturday night. I know very little about Chinese food (or the American version of it), so I'm not really in a position to evaluate it with any depth. I'll leave that to the pros. I don't suppose most of you would think it means much if I were to tell you that it's better than Hy-Vee's Chinese food. Yeah, I didn't think so. What follows is just a quick overview. China Wall is a small, skinny restaurant. If you plan to go with a big group, you're probably not going to sit together. There are perhaps a dozen tables, a pop machine, and the counter at which you order. Oh, and a few chairs to wait for to-go orders. A television on the wall played the Food Network while we were there. The show featured desserts. It would have been a great little subliminal marketing ploy had there been an ice cream shop next door. The woman at the counter was nice and friendly, and she bought herself some bonus points by offering Robbie a couple fortune cookies. (He enjoyed them after his supper, though he couldn't figure out why there was paper inside his cracker.) The menu was large and diverse, with most of the usuals present, plus some items (such as egg foo young) that you don't see every day. Prices seemed pretty typical for fast food Chinese. Our entrees cost around $6.50 apiece for the main dish, rice, and an egg roll. The serving size was ample. The food presentation was nice, though it was weird using plastic utensils on such nice plates. We received our food about four or five minutes after we ordered. Both our dishes were tasty, though my chicken, listed as "spicy" on the menu, could have had quite a bit more kick for my tastes. If you like your food spicy, you may want to ask for it to be taken up a notch. (On the flip side, if you're scared of spicy food, you might not have much to worry about.) Again, I have little experience with Chinese food, so this quickie "review" is really anything but. I was pleased enough with the food and atmosphere that I do plan to return. Maybe one of these days I'll get to enough Chinese restaurants in town that I'll be able to have more of an opinion about each of them.

Mitchell Walton, is a bit of an oddball. He is a fan fan. But hey, who am I to judge? Sure, collecting fans is unusual, but in an absolute sense is it any more ridiculous than grown men fawning over sweaty boys and men who play silly games? This makes me wonder if any of you folks have any goofy hobbies. I used to want a goofy hobby or collection, but so far I've got nuttin'. I don't have any collections, and both of my "hobbies" (soccer reffing and web development) are actually occupations. How 'bout you?

Keep your nose clean, boys and girls, because Supernanny Jo Frost is coming to town. No word yet on the identity of the out-of-control littles ones or their desperate parents. Supposedly the show featuring the local family will air before the end of the season, so be on the lookout for Ms. Frost's nifty black eurowagon.

Now that we know that Mayor Beutler wants our help establishing budget priorities, Lincolnites should start thinking about which city services are most important to us. The following list is by no means all-inclusive. It's just intended to start some conversations. Your task: put these items in priority order. There are no ties; you must decide for each items whether it is a higher or lower priority than the items around it.

• Libraries
• Police
• Fire and ambulance
• Parks
• Trails
• Streets
• Traffic management
• Public transportation
• Planning and zoning
• Building safety and inspection
• Recycling
• Animal control
• Health promotion and information
• Workforce development

In honor of Valentine's Day, in no particular order, my non-exclusive list of 14 things I love in Lincoln:

1. Pioneers Park. Ahh, the fond memories of cross country races, sledding, and family picnics.
2. The capitol building. Sure, you may giggle at the shadow it casts, but that place is awesome. Good job, Bertram.
3. Bike trails. You can get almost anywhere in town, and they're plowed even before most streets are cleared.
4. The variable weather. Consistently inconsistent is fun.
5. Lincoln Children's Zoo. What parent with young children doesn't love this place?
6. Lincoln Children's Museum. Ditto.
7. Oso Burrito's fish burrito. Yum.
8. Avante Card. You'll never buy Hallmark again.
9. The carousel at Gateway. Everybody smiles at you when they see your kid having a good time on the carousel.
10. The Huskers. Yeah, sometimes it gets a bit over the top. But with football, volleyball, baseball, soccer, and basketball (et al.), my sports needs are met.
11. My family. What can I say, I'm a momma's boy.
12. Val's, Runza, Amigo's, Taco Inn. It may be mediocre chain food, but it's our mediocre chain food, darn it!
13. Lincoln Marathon. It's so cool how so many people show up to cheer for wacky, sweaty people.
14. The people. Sometimes they're awesome, sometimes they're turkeys, but they're always entertaining.

Thanks to a $1 million gift from Ed and Mary Copple, LPS will build a new "student-athletic development center" at Seacrest Field. The new center will supplement the existing cinderblock building on the north end of the field. This is good news for LPS's (student-)athletes, and I certainly don't want to imply that the Copples' gift isn't fantastic. It is. But I can't help but feel like it would be pretty darn cool to hear that LPS (er, the LPS Foundation) is generating some nice headway toward building Seacrest 2. I wonder how much of a dent $1 million would make toward supporting a new multi-purpose district-wide athletic facility? Then again, "Copple Student-Athlete Center" has a better ring to it than "Copple Field". The latter is a tad too close to "cop a feel", which is probably not the sort of message LPS wants to associate with any of its facilities.

Contrary to what the gripers in the article's comments say, UNL's number 6 "popularity" rating is something for the U to be proud of. The ranking is determined by dividing the number of students who enroll by the number who are admitted. In UNL's case, 66% of students who are invited to enroll actually do. In all fairness, there are some reasons for this that have little to do with the Admissions staff's efforts. For example, for many Nebraska students, UNL is not just any college, it is the college. Even with offers of admission from other colleges and universities around the country, lots of cornbred types don't look beyond the scarlet and cream. But there are lots of places where that mentality applies (though in most places it's more of a regional attitude rather than a statewide one). Let's face it, in the competition for college students, getting 2/3 of them to stay by your side is a pretty substantial success. UNL's Admissions office has made a plethora of innovations geared toward keeping students interested in UNL both before and after admissions letters go out. Good for them that their efforts are paying off.

Ouch, nearly twenty percent of the Lied Center's 31 employees have gotten the ax as the Lied struggles with declining ticket sales. Furthermore, they want to chop artist's fees by 30% to 40%, which means lower-quality events or fewer events (or both). I know The Missus and I haven't been to the Lied Center in ages. We used to go to a few shows each year. Now we average less than one per year. In our case, it's hard to say what led to the change, though having a kid obviously plays a big role. Cost is another biggie; a 2-hour trip to Gateway with Robbie costs under twenty bucks, and that includes exciting food court food, a carousel ride, unlimited escalator rides, and plenty of people-watching. That may not sound interesting to many (or most) of you, but I assure you that time spent with Robert is never dull. Do you attend fewer events at the Lied than you used to? Why?

I can't help but feel that all of this praise for Nebraska's Democratic caucus -- such as the LJS' enthusiastic editorial -- is overdone. It apparently was a huge success, and from the sounds of it, most participants had a great time. (But not Cindy Wieger.) Perhaps more importantly, Nebraska even managed to be talked about in the national media. It has been a while since anybody gave a hoot about Nebraskans' choice for presidential candidate. Still, I'm not ready to declare the caucus a long-term winner. A big part of its success was due, not to the process, but to the candidates. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are having an energizing effect on voters, whereas the Republican candidates are, well, boring, and the fact that John McCain is the front-runner is causing the right wing of the party to sink into depression. It's easy to make the news when you're making news. The difficult part is sustaining the momentum. If Nebraska's Democrats can one day be competitive in November ... well, that'd be something to really talk about. The LJS makes the claim that:

... there’s little doubt that the [Democratic] party found new energy and connected with people who only days ago were outside the system.

That's likely true. But what about the 34,000 people who voted in the 2004 primary but who didn't participate this year? Who are those people, why didn't they participate, and what effect did their absence have on the outcome? Few people seem to be publicly asking those important questions. It's entirely plausible that certain demographic voting patterns were skewed by the caucus. If I were a party person, I would want to know more about those missing participants, and what effect they might have in the general election. (Then again, maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion. Surely long-time caucus states have looked at such patterns of participation and non-participation before. I wonder what they found?) In the end, I do think the Nebraska Democrats deserve a pat on the back for bringing a little enthusiasm to the state in this looooong election season. Beyond that, in my opinion the jury is still out.

Mayor Chris Beutler today announced a public input process that will include a telephone survey and deliberative discussion, along with some sort of online comment-gathering system. The data will be gathered and analyzed by the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center [PPC] and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bureau of Sociological Research [BOSR]. I, for one, am glad this is going to happen. It's a good sign that Mayor Beutler not only says that he is interested in receiving public input to support the budget process, but that he has followed through with a plan to gather that input. The methods chosen are relatively inexpensive, and the resultant data -- assuming the survey instruments are solid -- should be useful, both to the City and to its residents. On the point of the robustness of the survey instruments, I have faith that the PPC and BOSR will do an excellent job. Both organizations have many years of experience in many types of data collection and analysis. I don't know who else was in the running for the job, but it seems natural that the resources available from NU and UNL should be utilized for this sort of thing. And there's the first problem. Many Lincolnites will object to University involvement in the collection of opinions on topics that may include those that benefit NU and UNL. I'm not talking just about UNL expanding into the State Fair Grounds; UNL could benefit from other projects -- such as a Haymarket arena -- as well. Skeptical Lincolnites will say that stinks like a conflict of interest. I understand their concern, but I'm cautiously optimistic that such concerns are overblown. One of the best ways the City can reduce skepticism is to make public all of the gathered data and survey instruments promptly following the completion of the process. Mayor Beutler will need to have the data quickly in order to use it for his budget preparations later this spring. In order to truly build public trust, Mayor Beutler should release the data around the same time he receives it. Remember, almost any entity -- public or private -- could very well come with similar conflicts. Mayor Beutler could have outsourced, but doing so comes with its own share of backlash. Another potential problem is the cost. The City's press release makes no mention of the amount being paid to the PPC and BOSR, nor does it say from which of the City's "pots" the money will come. Considering that we're spending money in an effort to better allocate resources in the next budget cycle, I think it's a mistake not to have mentioned these things. It's certainly not an accidental oversight -- nothing in these press releases is accidental -- so therefore it feels like the information is being hidden. Why? Both parties -- the City and the University -- are public entities. The funding mechanism should be transparent. Look for a City Council member or two to have a few choice words regarding the money. Speaking generally, if this process proves successful I hope it is repeated periodically. Elections are an imperfect means of gathering public input, and public meetings are poorly attended, and rarely are the attendees representative of a cross-section of the city. A telephone survey or any sort of polling process that gathers input from a random selection of the population helps fill in the information gaps. I could easily get behind a biennial process of some sort. [Disclosure: I used to work for the PPC]

Did any of you get bit by the Aquila billing bug? Apparently an Aquila employee misread a bunch of meters, causing some customers' bills over the past three months to be too low. Now Aquila has to catch up, and it's biting customers in the behind with a surprisingly large bill this month. I wonder if that employee still has a job?