Lincolnite

We didn't see a lot of hail at 625 Elm Street last night, and the hailstones we did see were pea-sized. Maaaaaybe dime-sized. But I've seen reports that some places around town saw hail in the golfball and baseball range. Did any of you see hailstones that large? Do you have any photos? As for the rain, I hope all your basements stayed dry. Ours did, or at least has so far. Knock on wood. Happy first day of summer!

It frustrates KLIN's Jack Mitchell (of Jack & John in the Morning fame) that a local newspaper likes to cite the show in articles as "a radio talk show". That's it. Not as "a radio talk show on KLIN", nor are any other descriptors provided so you could actually search out the source if you wanted to. Just "a radio talk show". He's right to be annoyed. It's particularly obnoxious when you consider that Jack's show forms the entire foundation for the local newspaper's front page, above-the-fold article today. This isn't a minor piece of news buried on B5. This is something important. The message is that a columnist at the newspaper is willing to let others do a big chunk of her work, but she isn't willing to credit them for it. I'm not sure what journalistic ethics say about that, but in the world of blogging such a thing will get you widely chastised. And rightfully so. I have always used local media sources as the foundation for much of the content I publish here on Lincolnite, and I have always tried to give credit where credit is due. Perhaps I've been too generous. Perhaps as an experiment I will begin referring to some of my sources as, for example, "a local newspaper". It's worth a try. If it works for a local columnist and her employer, it can work for me.

Well yes, the City Council could focus on whether or not to allow liquor sales on the morning of July 4. (Currently booze is off limits in Lincoln until noon on Sundays.) But that focus is too narrow. Rather than periodically having to make an exception to a bad law, let's just erase the bad law from the books. I can't fathom why such an antiquated, moralistic law is still on the books. Well, I suppose in fact I can. Nevertheless, it's time for the law to go. Who's with me?

I don't really have a problem with Mike Foley's office auditing the Haymarket arena project from the start. The increased oversight will be welcome, in fact. Foley made the same point I have made that the so-called independent oversight board keeping watch over the project isn't really independent at all. I do wonder, however, why the State Auditor is so concerned about a local project like this one. Did he find things during his Antelope Valley Project audit that suggested this project wouldn't go well? Does he have a beef with the project? Does he have a beef with one or more of the major players? Is he worried he wasn't getting enough camera time? Those questions sound accusatory and really they aren't intended to be. I'm just trying to understand why this project merits such strict scrutiny so early in the process. Foley's decision indicates a lack of trust. Whom doesn't he trust, and why? Perhaps some of you have some insight into this. What's your take?

I joined my family out at Mahoney State Park last night where, to close the evening, we scaled the tower overlooking the Platte River valley. It's not often you see nary a single sand bar in the Platte River. As I thought about all the towns across Nebraska bailing out right now, I got to thinking about Lincoln's current water status. We've had some rain, but so far we seem to have avoided any major flooding issues. Even my basement is sitting dry. (Knock on wood! Knock on wood!) Have you faced any flooding problems yet in your neck of the woods? Have any creeks misbehaved or basements gotten soggy?

This post was originally going to be about how a neighbor's dog's barking had finally driven me to take action. I was going to write about the steps I took -- talk to the neighbor; speak with other neighbors; call the authorities; and so on -- once I decided I was sick and tired of hearing barking all day and night. And then something unexpected happened: on the day I decided to kick the plan into gear, the barking stopped. I have to assume somebody else beat me to the punch. It has been a week and, with only a couple minor exceptions, the dog has barely made a peep. Well then. There goes a perfectly good blog post, but at least I got what I was after. Even though I can't share with you my specific experiences of what I did to halt a barking dog, I still want to provide you with some information you can use should your neighbors not raise their pups correctly. Let's start with city ordinance 6.08.160 (PDF):

It shall be unlawful for any person to own, keep, or harbor any dog which by loud, continued, or frequent barking, howling, or yelping shall annoy or disturb any neighborhood, person, or persons. Provided, however, this section shall not apply to the humane society or the business premises of licensed veterinarians. Any person convicted of violating this provision shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed three months or by a fine in a sum not more than $500.00, recoverable with costs, or both such fine and imprisonment, except that each person so convicted shall be fined in a sum of not less than $50.00 for the first offense; not less than $75.00 for a second offense; and not less than $100.00 for the third offense and each offense thereafter.

Or the short version: if your dog annoys your neighbors, expect to pay a fine. That seems fair enough. But how do things progress to that point? The first thing you, as the annoyed one, should do is contact the dog's owners. Let them know there's a problem. (They may not know!) Don't make threats, just let them know their dog's barking is excessive and that it's disturbing your household. If they're cooperative people, then try to work with them as much as possible. There's no sense causing a bigger fuss than absolutely necessary. Next you may want to speak with other neighbors. You'll have an easier time going forward with more neighbors on board. You may also want to let Animal Control know what's going on. They may give you additional advice. Then you and the other neighbors should keep track of the barking. Note date, time, duration, and any other relevant details. For example, I documented that one evening my neighbor's dog barked non-stop from 9:30pm until at least 11:15pm, which was the last time I looked at the clock before I finally fell asleep. During that time I witnessed two other neighbors try to get the dog to shut up -- one nicely, one not-so-nicely. That's all relevant information. You can collect audio and video evidence as well, but be careful that "careful documentation" doesn't turn into obsessive stalking. After several days you can go back to Animal Control with your collected information. And then, well, hopefully your outcome is positive. I didn't make it this far, fortunately. Every experience I have had with Animal Control has been positive (several found dogs over the years) so my expectation is that they will do a good job to help resolve the situation. Keep documenting until you don't need to document any more. Have you dealt with an obnoxious barker in your neighborhood? How did you and/or your neighbors deal with the situation?

Recyle, recyle, recyle now! There's nothing to it if you just know how. So tell your mama and your daddy and your sister, too. Recycling is the thing to do!

Raise your hand if you learned that awful tune back in elementary school. Anybody? Anyway, I just wanted to report briefly on the recycling efforts going on at 625 Elm Street. We've been using RecycleLink for several months now. We keep two trash cans in our kitchen these days: the regular ol' trash variety, and one dedicated to recyclables, complete with a green recycling logo hand-painted by The Missus. Likewise, outside we've got our regular trash bin and our RecycleLink bin. It's very difficult for me to guess what percentage of our disposables now gets recycled, but I'll say approximately 40% by volume. I don't know about you, but to me that seems like a lot. We could do better, of course, but compared to the zero percent we recycled previously I'd call this a win. Having a dedicated recycling can in the house is a huge plus; I know folks who keep their recycle bin in the garage, but it's just too easy to forget about it out there (or to be lazy and not walk the few extra feet). The only downside about RecycleLink is that they still don't accept glass. I didn't realize how much glass a family goes through until we started up with RecycleLink. I can understand why glass is a pain for a recyling company: when people have to sort through the material by hand, you don't really want broken glass lurking among newspapers and milk jugs. I wouldn't mind if RecycleLink collected glass separately from other items. There could be some kind of container that clips on to the side of the main bin. Anything that keeps me from having to make a trip to the City's recycle centers. Why? Because I'm lazy, that's why. How do you like your recycling service these days?

Lincoln Symphony Orchestra won't play background music for the fireworks at Lincoln's annual Uncle Sam Jam at Oak Lake this year. They cite money problems as the cause. That isn't surprising. It's a tough time to try to raise money, and LSO has other priorities they have to think about. I have to wonder how badly they really wanted the gig, though. Their participation costs about $60,000. It seems like one sappy Cindy Lange-Kubick article could have gotten them to that level. I'm not sure how much money an average CSK article pulls in, but this is America we're talking about here. Surely a patriotic soul or two would have come forward. Then again I shouldn't suggest that LSO didn't try hard enough. They may be even farther behind on their fundraising than just that $60,000. In that case a column by Cindy might still be a good idea. Or you could just take the initiative to send them some cash on your own.

It seems UNL's move to the Big 10 is all but a done deal, or so the media hype machine would have us believe. So far everybody seems to be in favor of the move. I wonder, though, if there are Husker fans out there who are opposed to the change. Are any of you opposed to it? Have you heard of people who oppose it? Personally I haven't heard a peep of opposition. Are we really unanimous on this?

My diet changes have continued to go well. Whereas I began my experiment back in January by eating meat no more than three times per week, these days I eat an almost exclusively vegetarian-plus-seafood diet. My non-seafood meat consumption is down to about once every ten days. I eat seafood maybe three times per week. Not bad for a guy who was easily in the 90th percentile among picky eaters for a good two-thirds of his life. My mom still does a double take when she sees what I eat these days. My weight loss has plateaued at between 11 and 12 pounds. I'm fine with that. Although this was never about my weight, I did feel like my body fat percentage was creeping too high for my tastes. I think my weight has stabilized because now that I've burned off a layer of fat, any additional fat losses are being replaced by muscle gains. The muscle gains come from my newly-rediscovered love for running. I loved running back in high school, but throughout most of my twenties it was something I just did now and then because I felt like I was supposed to. These days I run because I want to. It has been hard to accept that I'm not 17 any more, but I think I have settled on some goals that are realistic, yet very challenging. I achieved my first goal this morning, and that's where the title of this post comes in. The Holmes Lake dam is a hair over one mile across -- 1.06 miles, according to my measurements. My goal for this morning was to run the dam in six minutes or less. Believe it or not, I reached the end at exactly 6:00 on my watch. If you do the math, that comes out to a 5:39 mile pace. I'm very happy with that. Extremely happy, in fact. It gives me hope that my other two goals are actually achievable. They are: run two miles in under 12:00; and run a 5K in under 19:00. Considering how gassed I was after this morning's run I have a lot of work to do before I can reach those goals. But if I keep having fun like I am now, they're both possible. Now it's your turn. What about yourself are you proud of today?

I hadn't really thought about it this way until now -- I don't know why it took me so long -- but what's with the push to expand alcohol use in Nebraska? There are two concurrent pushes going on right now: the possibility of extending bar closing times from 1:00am to 2:00am; and the possibility of permitting alcohol in state parks. I'm generally an anti-prohibitionist so neither of these two proposals is particularly offensive to me. My interest is piqued not by whether or not these two things will happen, but rather why they've been proposed at all, and why they're being proposed at the same time. Is there a tax incentive to sell more booze (notwithstanding the additional enforcement costs that come with these two proposals)? Is this part of a greater relaxation of attitudes about the use of chemical intoxicants, the likes of which is easing marijuana prohibitions across the country? Did the alcohol industry make a particularly large set of donations to politicians this year? I'm stumped. Where is this push coming from?

While jogging on the Rock Island Trail this morning I noticed that several metal poles have been erected alongside the trail beneath the Sheridan Boulevard bridges. I couldn't tell what they were going to become. I can think of two possibilities: The first possibility is that they're going to attempt to somehow "seal up" the underside of the bridge. Kids have messed around under there for years. Perhaps the City is finally tired of cleaning up their messes. In the past 20 years I've never noticed anybody doing anything particularly bad under there, but it's not like I've ever had reason to linger. The second possibility is that they're going to build some sort of canopy over the trail to protect trail users. Protect them from what, though? Are pieces of the bridge falling off? Are pooping pigeons a problem? Do any of you know what's going on under there?

Looking for a reason to fly out of the Lincoln Airport but you can't justify the higher cost or limited flight selection? If you're the shy type, you've got a new reason to fly LNK: Eppley has a full-body scanner. You know, the ones that can see everything. I can see the new slogan now: Lincoln Airport - Fly the Prudish Skies! Hey, it could work.