Lincolnite

This is a long shot: Did you or somebody you know lose a wad of cash over the weekend at Westfield Gateway Mall? If so, contact me. I can help reunite you with your money. My brother-in-law tried to chase you down, but you vanished. I didn't understand the big fuss at first because when I heard "[he/she/they] dropped some money" I pictured a couple dollars. Ha! Turns out it was more than just a couple dollars. Don't bother trying to claim the money if it isn't really yours. There are several unique characteristics about the money and the circumstances in which it was lost, not to mention the fact that we can describe the person or persons who lost it. Don't waste my time making wild guesses.

A little bird on facebook said that Lincoln juice stop locations will be celebrating their 10th anniversary this coming week with lots of specials, including: Monday, April 20: Buy a 24 oz Smoothie and get one Free Tuesday, April 21: $1 OFF any 24 oz Smoothie Wednesday, April 22: Buy a 24 oz Smoothie for $3 Thursday, April 23: Buy a 24 oz Smoothie and get a MUG for $1 Friday, April 24: Buy a 24 oz Smoothie and get one FREE

I don't know if the decision to fire Jeff Jensby was correct. I do know that if slacking off and giving students better grades than they deserve is cause for termination, a whooooole lot of higher education instructors -- not to mention K-12 teachers -- just went on notice. And the rest muttered under their breath, "It's about damn time!"

I can't say I follow state Senators' desire to get more panhandlers into Nebraska's streets. The law (LB278), in a nutshell:

Current state law prohibits the use of roadways for volunteer fundraising activity. LB 278 would allow municipalities, through the adoption of a city ordinance, to allow pedestrians, except for persons under the age of 18, to solicit contributions on roadways within their corporate boundaries, at specified times and locations, if the contributions are to be devoted to charitable or community betterment purposes. The bill would prohibit such solicitation from occurring on roadways that are part of the state highway system.

Generally a law should solve a problem. What problem is being addressed here? And how is this a good solution to it? Are we so lacking fundraising ideas that our next best option is to let people walk in traffic? Not that it matters much. I can't see many municipalities in Nebraska legalizing this sort of thing. Lincolnites would pitch a fit. Wouldn't they?

I feel sorry for the birds who wander too close, but it sure would be nifty to see a few hundred wind turbines pop up out west. Unfortunately, the developer says it could take a decade to complete. That means 15 to 20 years. Shoot, we could have my favorite source of power up and running by then. I realize wind power still makes up a pretty small proportion of overall power generation in the U.S. But I wonder at what point, if ever, all these wind power projects that keep being announced will start to have a depressive effect on coal power costs. Not that coal power is going to disappear any time soon. Wind power has that nasty habit of going out when the wind stops blowing.

Being a blogger, it kills me when I can't write about something relevant to my blog. During the soccer season that "something" is very often soccer-related, since as a referee I watch or officiate quite a few matches. Sometimes I want to write about specific teams or individuals, or do an analysis of certain aspects of the season, or talk about Brent Wagner's latest ratings. No such luck. This morning, however, I got a chuckle out of comments on the Journal Star's website and I just have to share. I am, ladies and gentleman, according to "Omaha Soccer Fan", a proud member of "the twilight zone that is Lincoln officiating". Fortunately "What" came to my defense, calling Omaha refs "unreal" (and not in a good way). I hope a good back-and-forth breaks out in the comment section. I get a kick out of a lot of things fans do and say. The "your town's refs suck" canard is an oldie but a goodie. Not that it's never true. It's just usually not true, and usually not in the way the spectators think. There certainly are local and regional differences in how officials officiate. That's true in all sports, or at least all sports I've been a part of. Usually the differences are less about quality than about variations in style and expectations. And of course there's selective memory and selective blame. A referee in my town who misses a call made a mistake; a referee in that other town who misses a call is incompetent, a homer, or both, and so are all the other refs from that town. This topic was already on my mind thanks to a bit of an opposite experience. Following a match earlier this season the visiting coach tracked me down to thank me for not being like the referees from his local area. And coming up in the next couple weeks I will work three games where the referee -- an upper-level ref in each case -- is not from the town of either of the teams; spectator outbursts about referee quality during those matches tend to be particularly amusing. I wish I could say more. In particular, I have lots to say about the referees who help generate much of the fuss. There is lots to critique there. But I had best keep my lips (fingers?) sealed. I'm curious what the prevailing stereotypes are these days. What are your impressions of officials from particular regions of the state in various sports? Have you ever seen an honest-to-goodness, indisputable case of homerism?

Good news for my son Robbie and all the other animal-loving little ones out there. The Lincoln Children's Zoo is open for the season. I can't even begin to guess how many times Robbie and The Missus will go to the zoo over the next several months. A couple dozen, I'd wager. The zoo also has a new website address, http://lincolnchildrenszoo.org/ (formerly it was just lincolnzoo). Update those bookmarks.

Apparently the Nebraska Democratic Party doesn't like Ken Svoboda. Be careful, the disembodied Ken head is kind of disturbing.

This is a gag, right? "Authentic Kurdish and Mexican cuisine"? Seriously? Maybe there's a Middle Eastern / Central American fusion movement out there I'm not aware of. After all if Greek-Mexican fusion works, why not Kurdish-Mexican?

Good news, Lincolnites! We have finished paying for the Catalyst One Memorial Monument, aka the patches of blacktop on 14th & Q and 13th & P. Best of all, they only cost us $5 million, plus four chunks of lost property tax revenue! Sigh.

I haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but Chief Casady announced that LPD's 2008 Annual Report is now available online -- and only online. Kudos to LPD for saving a few of my dollars by not printing a bunch of copies that few would ever pick up and even fewer would actually read.

I took these two photos over the weekend. The audience of people who would know where these were taken is probably fairly small. Then again, you folks never fail to impress me. Can you guess where these photos were taken?

I'm still wary about certain aspects of the Antelope Valley Project, but at least one big milestone is getting closer to reality: Assurity's new headquarters has been approved by the City Council. Assurity's building will be the first major new construction in the area. Now there are two new questions: Who will be the next business to join Assurity? And will an influx of development in Antelope Valley help or harm development efforts elsewhere in the city?

My niece had her fifth birthday party on Saturday at Solid Rock Gymnastics. While there, Robbie tried out the zipline: I never would have done that when I was Robbie's age. Robbie ended up doing it about a half dozen times. He would have kept doing it all day had we let him. Such a little daredevil.