Lincolnite

Shame on the UNL police officer who booted a petition circulator off campus on Tuesday. University spokeswoman Kelly Bartling said

Bottom line, I believe an officer may have thought our policy was not to allow petition circulators in that area.

That's a pretty big goof. Oughtn't officers be well-informed of their jurisdiction's regulations regarding things like free speech? Sorry, that's a leading question. Still, officers on a college campus should be trained well enough not to make that kind of a goof. UNL doesn't need any lawsuits created by something as simple as this.

Larry Claassen wants you to report every illegal use of fireworks that you notice this summer. In some ways he comes off sounding silly:

Make life as uncomfortable and expensive as possible for those who want to rob you of your democratically won right to a safe, reasonable celebration of independence.

Our "democratically won right"? Hate to break it to you, Larry, but I don't think we ever "won" that "right" via democratic means. Well, not explicitly anyway. I know what he's trying to get at, but his appeal to democracy is trite. Besides, the fireworks portion of Independence Day has very little to do with independence, freedom, democracy, or any other grand theme. It is instead about, in the words of a good friend of mine, "blow(ing) some shit up!" I would know; I've detonated my fair share of explosives of questionable legality over the years, and I have utilized legal explosives in ways the makers never intended. There go my chances of getting elected to public office. Part of me wants to loosen restrictions on fireworks, at least on July 4. It isn't too much to ask to let people let off some steam one day each year, and I'm all for adults being able to decide the number of fingers they feel like losing. But many fireworks are extremely invasive. Even a simple 1/2" firecracker can be heard several blocks away. As a new father facing his first boom-fest with an infant, I'm not looking forward to what I expect could be a very long, sleepless night. I don't know that there is a "perfect" solution. Either you're going to drive people (and animals) nuts with loud noises, or you're going to drive people nuts by squashing their fun. Of course, a good solution would be easier to find if fireworks users weren't so often jerks. (I admit, I was a bit of a fireworks butthead back in the day.) A little civility and courtesy would go a long way toward finding a satisfactory outcome. Not that it matters. I figure it's only a matter of a few years before private fireworks purchases are extremely curtailed. I think it's pretty much inevitable.

Did anybody catch the episode of Treasure Hunters on NBC, in which the capitol building was prominently featured? I picked up the show after the contestants had already made it to South Dakota, so I missed the Lincoln segment. How did we look?

Presenting Robbie's first motion picture appearance:

Looks like I'll be out of town for a while, so I won't be able to get to Planet Sub again any time soon for a follow-up. Has anybody had a chance to check in to see if things have improved? Any positive stories to share yet?

I'm going to cheat and do this Friday Five on a non-Lincoln topic. I give you five annoying things about driving in Boston:

1. Missing lane markings. Is it one lane? Two? Three? How's a guy from out of town supposed to know?
2. Disappearing lanes. The road used to have two lanes, but now it just has one. Quick, somebody tell that truck driving next to me that I was here first!
3. Slow drivers. Boston is the only big city I've ever driven in in which drivers keep their speed 10-20 mph under the speed limit on the freeway.
4. Non-linear roads. It is taking this Midwestern boy a long time to understand why these East Coasters don't build their roads in a grid.
5. Driving on the shoulder. It's illegal to drive on the shoulder in Massachusetts, except when it's legal. Trying to exit while battling through a line of cars that aren't even on the road is a nice challenge.

On the flip side, there are a few nice things about driving out here. Drivers not only signal their turns and lane changes, they signal them way in advance. It takes some getting used to, but boy, it sure does make life easier. Also, they like roundabouts and non-signaled intersections, even at high-traffic intersections. It feels a little "primitive" at first, but those intersections are far more efficient than some of the high-traffic signaled intersections. A lot of the techniques would unfortunately never work in Lincoln, at least not until Lincoln drivers take some driving lessons.

Have you been following the crazy Shakespeare vs. horse racing thing? Long story short, the Nebraska State Fair Board ran a commercial for horse racing that mocked Shakespeare. A local Shakespeare group took offense. The Shakespearians issued a challenge: let us perform at the track, and if we're a success, pull the ad. Now, the challenge has been accepted. It will occur June 17 at around 4:00pm. Y'know, if I were in Lincoln this weekend I might actually go watch. It's about the only reason I can ever imagine myself going to a horse race.

Plane tickets to Boston: Free (thanks to my dad's frequent flier miles!) Staying in Boston for two weeks or so: a couple grand Meeting your son for the first time: Priceless.

Have you visited any businesses near 48th and O lately? Perhaps it's time. Construction is taking its toll on the many businesses in the area. In reality, the area is pretty navigable. Just follow the signs and you won't have any problem getting where you need to go.

Does anybody like Nebraska's current marketing slogan, "Possibilities...Endless"? Ugh, it grated on me the first time I heard it, and I still think it's awful. But Nebraska has a history of bad slogans. Personally, I haven't been crazy about any of our state's slogans since "Nebraska...The Good Life" from the 1970's. But that's just me. What would your slogan for Nebraska be? There are plenty of snarky answers to that question, sure, but some of us really do like this state. How would you sell Nebraska to outsiders? To Nebraskans?

A couple photos from tonight's performance at Southpointe by The Mac Five with Annette Murrell: The band faced a hot June sun: The crowd was a little smaller than the previous week, but there were still quite a few music-lovers around:

What does it take to prepare for the arrival of a new family member? A whole heckuva lot. The Missus and I have kept busy over the past week trying to get ready. The Missus in particular has been doing a lot of the work since she is home every day. She has been on the phone more this week than she has in the past year. The travel arrangements have been particularly tough. How do you plan for a trip with no end? Right now we are set up to stay in Boston for eleven days. Ugh, but there isn't much we can do about it. We just have to sit back and let Massachusetts and Nebraska do their thing with each other. Hopefully they've heard of e-mail, or at least FedEx. Lord help us if they communicate via USPS. (Case in point, The Missus received a package from her mother yesterday that had been sent Priority Mail. How much more quickly did it arrive than a normal package would have? Zero days. And it was two days later than the lady at the Post Office in Albuquerque promised.) A huge thanks to my dad, by the way, who donated enough frequent flier miles that our flights will cost exactly $20. You can't beat that with a stick. I just realized I haven't told you our son's name. We are calling him Robert Solomon. Robert is a family name from both sides; Solomon is the name his birth mother chose. We aren't under any obligation to use Solomon -- especially since the birth mother wants a closed adoption -- but we like it, and we had decided a while ago that we would try to take the birth mother's wishes into account when naming our child. It's tough to say right now since we haven't even met him, but he will probably go by Robert and Robbie. I have a hunch "Poopmaster" might also sneak in there a time or two. Daisy has finally relaxed a bit now that the flow of new baby gear has slowed. There for a while I think she was getting overwhelmed. She's still mad that we screwed up "her" room, though. Now she can't hide from the vacuum in there any more. We leave on Monday and we "officially" become parents on Tuesday. Then we'll have to live in a hotel until Massachusetts says we can leave. If anybody has any connections in HHS in either Massachusetts or Nebraska, feel free to help speed things along. I'll even buy you a burrito at Oso. I'll be blogging throughout the trip -- and working on the new version of Lincolnite, by the way -- so keep checking in here. Expect the first photos (and videos?) Tuesday evening.

The last line of Joel Gehringer's Planet Sub "review" in today's Ground Zero struck me as awfully funny:

...between the food, the atmosphere and all the other elements that make Planet Sub what it is, something told me to sit down and stay awhile.

In my experience, that's a given.

Lincoln is on a roll in designating areas as blighted. Which areas are next?

1. Cornhusker Highway. Talk about an unattractive strip through the city.
2. Downtown. It's too hard to just pick and choose which blocks to declare blighted. Let's just get it over with and cover the whole area.
3. The I-80 corridor. What better way to spur investment on the city's northern edge?
4. State Fair Park. Let's steal it from the state and put in an amusement park. Disneyland Midwest, anyone?
5. South 27th Street. It would be so much easier to widen 27th Street if we could declare the Country Club blighted.

*Yawn* Another big chunk of Lincoln has been declared blighted. Before long we'll all be living in slums in the local government's eyes. Snarkiness aside, what does Lincoln's blight mania tell us? There are a whole bunch of possibilities, including:

• Lincoln is aging, and blight designations in older areas are a natural way to assure those areas are not neglected;
• Parts of Lincoln are an economic wasteland;
• Taxes, fees, and regulatory hurdles make "natural" economic development difficult or impossible. A blight designation is the only way to clear those hurdles;
• There is too much money to be had on Lincoln's outskirts for developers to pay attention to lower-profit areas in the city's core.

And so on. My preferred explanation for a large part of the problem is the taxes and regulatory hurdles explanation. After all, one of the major purposes of a blight designation is to remove those hurdles. It is also consistent with what we have heard from developers over the years, namely that Lincoln can be a tough place to do business. It's certainly not the only valid explanation, though. Pick your favorite and make your case in the comments.