Lincolnite

I'm glad to see Attorney General Jon Bruning reversed course and will not allow the state to use consent as a defense in a case involving sex between a 12 year-old girl and a 17 year-old state ward. The state had planned to argue that it had no liability since the relationship was consensual. Regardless of whether that argument makes sense in a vacuum, it is infuriating in this context because the state would never allow such a defense to pass if it were on the other side of the court room. Then again I'm no legal analyst. Perhaps this is a foolish move. But to my untrained eye at least the state is being consistent in not using a defense that state prosecutors themselves would tear to shreds.

My brain simply won't let me believe that there are as many as 2,000 slaves in Nebraska. Presumably the UNL professors who came up with that figure know what they're talking about. But ... wow. Let's say they're aiming high for shock value. Even if they're off by a factor of two, that's still 1,000 people. Heck, even if they're off by a factor of 20 that's still 100 people living in slavery in Nebraska today. Yikes.

I suppose I should be flattered, but instead I just feel robbed. Several years ago I wrote a little piece of software for ExpressionEngine called Repeet. For whatever reason it really took off. I suppose the $0.00 price tag helped. The community embraced Repeet as a simple solution to a sticky problem with EE. Fast forward to today. People still use Repeet. Lots and lots of people. That's flattering, but Repeet is ... well, it's old. And not written very well. And it has a couple bugs. And its approach is far from ideal. If it weren't for its wide user base I would shove Repeet into a closet and forget about it. So I was awfully surprised when this morning I wake up to discover that little Repeet has been hacked, wrapped up into a module, and released as a new product. The deed-doers aren't claiming Repeet as their own, fortunately. But they are appropriating my work without permission and releasing it as part of their package. That's just not kosher. Nobody contacted me to get my blessing. Nobody asked me to make clear the license under which the software is available. Nobody spoke with me about working together to apply the fixes they made to the Repeet trunk. And nobody asked if they could take over Repeet and make it their own, or fork it and make a new product based off of it. Incidentally, other people have approached me about Repeet in a much more appropriate way. I have given people my blessing to manipulate Repeet in a couple interesting ways. How did they get my blessing? They asked. They wrote me an email along the lines of, "Hey Mr. Wilson, thanks for Repeet! Here's the problem...". Pretty simple, yeah? As of right now, these people do not have my permission to use Repeet in their product. Please do not use it. And not just because of that. As I said above, Repeet is getting old. If a project demands it, fine. But if you can wait ... Well, the cat is already out of the bag so here goes: I am currently writing Calendar on behalf of Solspace. It's going to rock, and Solspace is being awesome in backing the project. That's all I will say for now. A real Calendar Module is coming and it kicks the crap out of Repeet. You'll love it.

I don't disagree with Governor Heineman that we should reduce expenditures in the face of declining tax receipts. But his analogies could use some work:

When family incomes go down, they reduce spending. When business income is down, they reduce spending.

Actually, when faced with financial problems American families tend to take out credit cards and second mortgages, with a little reduced spending on the side. Businesses borrow cash, declare bankruptcy, or shut down altogether. And both, in modern America, start lobbying like mad for some sort of a bailout. I don't think we want state government emulating families or businesses in our current situation.

So let's say Bryan makes the short move to the former Hawthorne Elementary and becomes the Hawthorne Community. What should happen with Bryan's current facility? I haven't been in Bryan in several years -- not since my mother worked there a decade ago -- so maybe it has changed. But generally speaking it doesn't seem like a particularly useful school building for anything but small groups. It could probably be converted to offices, but the last thing we need to do is encourage LPS to expand its administration. Should LPS ever consider selling and/or leasing the building and land? What else might work in that location?

John F. Bruner says we're wasting money on signs:

The problem is I'm not talking about street signs, nor direction signs. I'm talking about signs to label the creeks in town. Some people might say who cares, what can a few signs cost. When you add up the cost of 70 signs and the labor to install them, we are talking about thousands of dollars. Seems to me this money could be spent in a lot more productive and useful manner.

Mr. Bruner must know something I don't. Is the City going on some sort of signage spree? Aren't many (most? all?) creeks already labeled with signage, at least to a certain extent?

So apparently there's a new Mongolian Grille [sic] in the former daVinci's location near 66th and O. One person who ate there recently described it to me as follows: "Chinese buffet is decent, grill is scaled down HuHot. Overall, nothing spectacular." I wonder if it's this Mongolian Grille, or if it's something different -- local, even. Regardless, the extraneous 'e' is just plain goofy in the context of a glorified buffet. In sad news, it sounds like Roost is dead. The doors are locked and the website is dead. That bums me out. Roost was a great little restaurant that just never quite caught on. Its death was inevitable, especially given the extremely shortened hours it featured over the past several months, but I'm still saddened. RIP Roost. Maybe it will find new life somewhere else.

I need help interpreting this USPS package tracking information:

Date	Time	Location	Event Details
October 26, 2009	01:40:00 PM	---	Arrival Scan
October 23, 2009	03:07:00 PM	---	Arrival Scan
October 18, 2009	08:03:25 PM	Fernley NV US	Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit

Where the heck is my package and when will it get here?

I admit it, I'm not a very prompt leaf raker. I just don't see it as very important. Right now the maple leaves covering my yard have created a beautiful yellow and orange blanket. Why would I want to get rid of that? It's silly. But does that make me a bad neighbor? I do feel guilty when, after a particularly windy day, I see all of our trees' leaves piled against a neighbor's fence. So I ask you, Lincolnites. How long do I have before failure to rake my leaves makes me a bad neighbor?

I may have been hallucinating, but did I see signs of construction on the new Staples near 48th and O when I was in the area a few days ago? I could have sworn I did. Yet this Journal Star article implies that Staples doesn't even own the land yet:

The Lincoln City Council unanimously approved the designation of two parcels of land at 48th and O streets as surplus, continuing to pave the way for a CVS Pharmacy and Staples to grace the intersection.

I think the LJS is in error, conflating the status of CVS (still in the air) with that of Staples (a done deal). But this whole 48th and O situation has been such a muddled mess I could be the one who is wrong. Can anybody with knowledge of the area confirm that construction of Staples is already under way?

A quick poll. Rank the following projects in order of "best bang for the buck" for Lincoln:

• Haymarket Arena, $350 million
• Antelope Valley Project, $240 million
• Innovation Campus, $220 million (Phase 1)

I don't know about you, but in my mind Innovation Campus is by far the best value among those three projects. (I'm ignoring the question of whether Innovation Campus ever should have happened. That ship has sailed, despite Roger Yant's sternest protestations.) It's not even close. When I first read the estimate of Innovation Campus's Phase 1 costs I was surprised that the tone seemed to be "we know this is a lot of money, but it'll be worth it, we swear". Shoot, $220 million is a helluva bargain for all Innovation Campus promises, especially compared to the other two projects I listed above. Compare, for example, the sorts of jobs created by Innovation Campus versus the other two. The arena creates a bunch of relatively low-paying, mostly part-time hospitality jobs. The Antelope Valley Project doesn't create any jobs on its own, though it does open up land for development that could lead to good jobs (e.g. the new Assurity headquarters). In contrast, the research and entrepreneurial opportunities promised at Innovation Campus bring excellent, high-paying jobs to town. It's really too bad Innovation Campus had to come about as the result of such an ugly battle over State Fair Park. It's a great, extremely promising project that should have widespread popular support. Here's hoping the reality meets or exceeds the hype. There's no good reason Innovation Campus shouldn't become a gem in Lincoln.

Many of you have already noticed this, but Lincoln is now almost entirely covered by "Street View" on Google Maps. So far all my browsing hasn't turned up a single instance of anybody acting goofy. But please do let us know if you find something! It looks like Google visited Lincoln on a very beautiful day, giving the entire city a very pleasant feel. I did find one big glitch, though: O Street is labeled "S 66 St" on Google Maps right now. Maybe it's some sort of Route 66 thing since O Street is the main drag.

Matt Olberding points out that several restaurants have closed recently in Lincoln. They include: Billy Brown's; Bennigan's; Cici's; Lina's west location; and Popeye's by Southwest High School. I have already blathered on about how much I'll miss Lina's so I won't rehash that. I never made it to Bennigan's so I won't miss that one. I had never been to Cici's either, though I did have their pizza once at an event. Won't miss it. Popeye's? The one on South 70th Street is closer to my house, so if I ever get a craving I'll go over there. That leaves Billy Brown's. Frankly I'm surprised Billy Brown's lasted this long. Theirs was such a small space. I didn't see how they could serve enough food to pay the bills. I enjoyed what I had the times I went there, although service was downright terrible on our first visit. I'm bummed not so much because of the loss of that specific restaurant as because it was a relatively unique local restaurant. Have any other restaurants closed recently?

I am told we are currently in the Great Recession. It may be true that the current economic climate demands its own title, complete with the leading superlative. But it sure is difficult to get into the spirit of things when the unemployment rate is a mere 4.1% in Lincoln and 4.9% in Nebraska. Which of course isn't to say that Nebraskans haven't been affected by any of what's going on. We have. But wow, 4.1%? We're pretty lucky as a community, yeah?