Lincolnite

I'm was a little slow to discover it -- it originally aired on April 1 -- but the KLIN morning show's spoof of the State Fair in Grand Island gave me a chuckle this morning. (Holdrege Senator Tom Carlson isn't a fan.) It easily falls into the category of "it's funny because it's true", and not just because of its portrayal of Grand Island.

UNL's Student Union has hosted a number of different restaurants over the years. Currently the lineup is: Sbarro; Imperial Palace Express; Subway; and Burger King. But the lineup will soon get a shake-up. Burger King is leaving, to be replaced by Runza. That swap makes sense to me. On the other hand, the thought of Planet Sub replacing Subway boggles my mind. Maybe I'm just biased because I can't get my disastrous first visit to Planet Sub out of my mind. But even on a good visit the food takes a few minutes to prepare. Can that work in a busy food court? Notably, this opens the door for Burger King to locate somewhere else in Downtown. It has always seemed weird to me that there wasn't a BK or McDonald's Downtown. I could see the former Taco Bueno location hosting a BK in the near future.

The Lincoln Children's Zoo opens today. You can be darn sure Robbie will hit the zoo a few dozen times this year. Last year he was really into it, but he didn't really understand what he was looking at. This year it will be a lot of fun to watch as he learns names for all the animals. And considering his fascination with the elephant scatology and clean-up process at the circus ("Elephant poop! Scoop! Trash!"), I'm sure #2 will get some attention. Boy, will he ever be embarrassed by that when he's a teenager... Anyway, check out the Zoo this summer. Maybe we'll see you there.

I admire politicians who literally go door-to-door trying to drum up votes in an upcoming election. It's long and tedious work, and I'm sure you come across some real characters. I've always wanted to sit down and chat with a politician who comes to my door, but usually I just get lawn care companies and Boy Scouts selling popcorn. Until Saturday, that is. On Saturday, Susan Scott stopped by 625 Elm Street for a chat. Unfortunately, she caught me in the middle of a power nap between my niece's birthday party and two soccer games I had to go ref. By the time I woke up and gained some coherence, Ms. Scott was already back on the sidewalk, making her way to the next house. Did any of you have a chance to chat with Susan Scott this weekend? (She was in the vicinity of Zemann Elementary on Saturday.) Do any of you know much about her?

Matt Olberding notes an important milestone in Lincoln's history:

One of the homes being built as part of the Journal Star's Ulimate Home Delivery contest is in Waterford Estates and its address is 401 N. 100th Circle. It's my understanding that's the first-ever three-digit street inside the Lincoln city limits.

I remember being wowed by addresses in the 7000's.

Apparently Lancaster County will soon have an automated phone call system in place to warn people in the path of a tornado. It's one extra measure -- in addition to sirens, television and radio warnings, and, you know, those scary looking clouds -- to let people know they need to take shelter. It could be particularly useful for nighttime tornadoes. Details are slim, though. The linked piece and a quick blurb in the Journal Star are all I've heard about it. I have a bunch of questions. Where do they get the phone numbers? How do you add a phone number? How do you opt out? What circumstances trigger a call? Will the program succumb to feature creep? The system is supposed to go online in a month, so presumably most of the answers will come then.

I don't know if John Q. Hammons' proposal is the best option. But I do know I like the fact that Hammons' company is interested in Lincoln's arena / hotel / convention center project. Why? Because Hammons is a very successful businessman, and he is no dummy. He's not going to work hard to get involved with a doomed project. Indeed, it may be telling that Hammons backed out of the "Catalyst One" project early, focusing instead on the Haymarket project. Also interesting to note is that Hammons' proposal includes a convention center up to 60,000 square feet -- the size desired by City officials, but double the size recommended by a consultant. It's comforting to know that the people with money on the line think a bigger convention center will succeed. Then again, a big chunk of the funding for the convention center could very well come from us, so it's easier for a developer to be willing to gamble. Now to sit back and see if the Scott brothers reveal any details about their proposal.

Long-time Lincolnite regular Foxspit contributed the following piece: A much-anticipated lunch outing to Wasabi with my co-workers was stopped dead in its tracks today when we discovered that the restaurant is only open for lunch on Thursdays and Fridays. It's still open in the evenings. I noticed that they were loading out a big screen TV and some other things, so I'm led to believe this may be the beginning of the end for Wasabi. I hate to see any local business suffer and I can't help but think that Wasabi has never fully recovered from the move foisted upon it by the City's impatience to replace the restaurant with a parking lot. I can see why they were in such a hurry, it is a pretty sweet parking lot. Thank goodness we aren't bothered by those pesky, taxpaying local businesses anymore. Speaking of which, did China Inn (is that what it was called) ever relocate anywhere? Anyway, a co-worker made a pretty astute observation. If a sushi restaurant is struggling, he doesn't want to eat there. It's never good to cut corners with raw fish.

If more fast food chains would try this, the obesity epidemic would reverse itself in no time:

Culver’s, 4940 N 27th St., March 21: Employee taking non-prescription medication in preparation area; and SlimQuick tablet found in customer sandwich.

Sadly, this isn't some ploy by Culver's to help its customers lose a few pounds. The Journal Star adds: "Note: Joyce Jensen of the Health Department said an employee accidentally dropped the non-prescription pill in the food prep area, searched for it unsuccessfully and hoped that it had fallen on the floor."

If I piqued your interest yesterday with the post about Tokyo Steak House, you will want to check out the Wiscos' review.

I hadn't really looked at it on a map until this morning, but now I see that the first continuous north-south street east of 84th Street is 112th Street. It extends from Highway 6 on the north (good) to Pine Lake Road on the south (bad -- ideally it would stretch to Highway 2). Are any of you familiar with the length of 112th Street? If I wanted to take that road from, say, Pioneers Boulevard to Highway 6 in order to bypass 84th Street's traffic, is it a good enough road that I would save time? How much of it is paved?

Deena Winter sounds a little annoyed by the City in her most recent column as she walks us through her efforts to get the City to release information about the Haymarket arena proposals. The Journal Star went all the way to the Attorney General, but they came away (mostly) empty handed. City officials are keeping the proposals locked up tight. One of the developers no longer in the running for the job has said he's surprised by the City's stubbornness; most cities, according to Greg Garfield, open up records to public inspection, or at least limit less of the materials. Ms. Winter also notes that Dr. Tom and the City are "very, very close" to reaching an agreement that would place the Huskers in the new arena. That's consistent with what a little bird is telling me. In fact, it sounds like the Huskers are much more likely to be tenants than not. That is huge, huge, HUGE news for the arena. A whole host of fence-sitting voters would be much more likely to vote to fund the arena if the Huskers will play there.

I have heard exactly zero, zilch, nada about Tokyo Steak and Seafood House since it opened in March. The new restaurant is located in the Bishop Heights shopping center at 27th and Highway 2 in the former location of Bob's Gridiron Grill and Jax -- both of which I miss -- where it's easy for folks to forget about it. For example, word of mouth is what helped Bob's take off, and the loss of it -- plus the fact that they switched to fake mashed potatoes! -- hastened its doom. Have you been to Tokyo Steak and Seafood House? Do you know anybody who has? What's the buzz out there?

I don't know how many other Lincoln households get excited about Tuesdays, but we here at the Wilson house sure get bubbly. Today was no different. Why the excitement? Why, Tuesday is trash day, of course! I know, that doesn't sound like cause for jubilation, but I assure you it is. For many weeks now Robbie has taken to stationing himself on the back of the couch, watching out the front window for the arrival of the big white Uribe Refuse truck. And when it arrives ... "BIG TRUCK TAKE TRASH!" Robbie gets so animated you'd think Clifford the Big Red Dog had just strolled through the yard. For the past two weeks, a younger guy has noticed Robbie in the window. He always takes a second to stop and wave, which really gets Robbie going. "BYE!" he'll holler while waving like mad. As the mornings get warmer, I'm sure Robbie will want to station himself on the front porch to watch the action. That will really be a thrill. The joy of trash day lasts throughout the week. Over the past week, each night as I said goodnight Robbie reminded me "big truck take trash". "Today is Thursday," I would tell him. "Trash day is on Tuesday." And Robbie would drift off to sleep, no doubt having fantastic dreams a la "Trash of the Titans". Yesterday, Robbie and The Missus went to the Y, as is their routine. Inside the childcare area, Robbie's friend Ty looked glum. "What's wrong, Ty?" asked The Missus. "It's Monday," he replied. "I wish it was Tuesday, cuz then my dad would be home". Robbie's ears perked up. "TUESDAY?! BIG TRUCK TAKE TRASH!" As you can see, Robbie often speaks in capital letters. And so, with yet another trash day gone by, we anxiously await the next one. Come back soon, trash men!

Place your wagers: Will it snow again this spring? Or are we going to make it through April (and May) without any more flakes?