Lincolnite

I am looking for some old carpet for what will soon be our son's play room. We don't need anything fancy, but obviously since kids will be playing on it we want something that can reasonably be cleaned. Ugly is not a problem! Size-wise we're looking at approximately 10' x 12'. Do any of you have some old carpet laying around you want to get rid of? Barring that, which stores in town could make us a good deal on this sort of carpet?

After my trip out to Boulder to watch the Huskers take on the Buffs back in November, I got to thinking about which roads in Nebraska would do well as toll roads. (A toll road outside Denver got the topic rolling in my mind.) Two candidates I came up with were Lincoln's mythical South and East Beltways. Coincidentally, not long after that The Platte Institute made some noise on that very topic. My gut suggests that Nebraskans generally don't like the idea of toll roads. I don't see why not. I think it has something to do with taxpayers' collective delusion that roads ought to be "free". But roads most certainly are not free -- just like health care isn't "free" in any country in the world. Toll roads charge the users of a road for the construction and maintenance of that road. A gas tax, in contrast, disproportionately affects drivers of low-mileage vehicles and drivers who primarily stay within city limits (because of lower fuel economy in city driving). Each type of tax makes sense in particular contexts. I wonder what you Lincolnites generally think about the concept of toll roads. Could a toll road work in Lincoln? What would it take for you to buy in to the idea? Edited to add: If you're curious about traffic volumes in Lincoln, check out this map (PDF) and this list of other traffic volume data.

I learned three important lessons last night:

1. I was never a great roller skater. Age has not improved my skills.
2. Helping a toddler learn to roller skate can be very rough on one's back.
3. Robbie is a surprisingly good skater. The little turkey hardly seemed to flinch with wheels on his feet.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Skate Zone hasn't changed a whole lot since I was last there over a decade ago. There are a few more coats of paint on the walls -- and some of those walls have many coats of paint on them -- but beyond that it's basically the same place. They still do the limbo, they still play the number game, and skaters still dance the YMCA. A good time was had by all.

We were invited a party at Skate Zone (48th & Q-ish) recently, and that got me thinking about the skating rinks of Lincoln's past. Can you help me remember the skating rinks that have come and gone? Two perished relatively recently:

• The one on West Van Dorn
• The one in the former Hy-Vee location at 40th and Old Cheney

I remember the interior of at least one more -- they had Kangaroo -- but I can't for the life of me recall where it was located. Up around Gateway somewhere? What other skating rinks of Lincoln's past am I missing?

I'm a little surprised more Lincolnites don't get worked up over events like this:

Mario Kart BRAWL Tournament Students in grades 6-12 are invited to come to Walt Branch Library on Tuesday, December 15, 2009, from 3:30 to 5:00 PM to show your skills playing against other teens for PRIZES!

Doesn't that seem like the sort of thing that would get certain populations in a lather? A video game tournament isn't exactly a traditional city library activity, and "BRAWL" just sounds so violent! And yet I can't remember hearing anybody complain or seeing any astonished letters to the editor or anything. It must be difficult to be a librarian these days.

City Councilman apparently watched too many John Wayne movies over the weekend. How else can you explain his insistence that the City not "go hellbent for leather and do a slapdash job"? There's just one problem: What the heck did he just say?

Fantastic news this morning in that the City Council approved Randy Acher's plans for the block he owns just south of the Gold's building downtown. This despite opposition from the Downtown Lincoln Association, whose board members care less about Downtown Lincoln than their own interests in downtown. We've seen plenty of project proposals come and go downtown, so until the final nail is pounded I'm not going to get too excited over this. Still, it's fun to think ahead. Square-block parking lots have no place in a vibrant downtown. Mr. Acher plans to replace his lot with a hotel, apartments, an entertainment center, and a parking garage. That's a heck of an improvement. Now, as a certain gentleman from southeast Nebraska is prone to say, let's get 'er done, Mr. Acher.

Howdy all! What glorious weather we're having today, yeah? Today is a big project due date for me so I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. That means I probably won't have a chance to post anything substantive today. Unfortunately, it also means no Where In Lincoln post since Mr. T is on a different continent and I'm supposed to be covering for him. But since I'm slacking off today, I'll make it up to you later. Make sure I do!

When it comes to winter weather, I can't help but feel like LPS takes No Child Left Behind a little too literally. Having just spent an hour on Lincoln's roads -- talk to Mr. T if you want to know why -- I don't see what all the fuss is about. I'm sure -- no, I know -- there are plenty of residential roads in need of some serious TLC from City snow plows. But is that enough reason to cancel school? I say no. More and more it seems like LPS administrators think that if some children will have a difficult time making it to school, nobody should go to school. That's a flawed mentality. My experiences this morning suggest that most kids would make it to class with a tolerable amount of inconvenience. That's good enough for me. As for the rest: if they want to fight hard enough to show up on time, great. If they want to take it a little easy and show up late, great. If they want to skip the day, great. That's up to the individual student, or more accurately the student's family. For many kids in Lincoln school is the best place to be on a cold winter day. Not having school is a huge inconvenience for them. It may mean they don't get as much to eat today. It may mean they don't spend the day some place warm. It may mean they spend the day with no adult supervision. I don't have a problem with Tuesday's or Wednesday's class cancellations. Today's closing, on the other hand, feels unnecessary at best, irresponsible at worst. Lincoln's kids should have been given the option of going to school today.

I'm trying to figure out who, besides the County Board and Hunter Management, is celebrating the sale of Lancaster Manor. There was a time I could have been happy about it, but not any more. Not after all the bungling and the unanswered questions. If the residents aren't happy, the employees aren't happy, and I haven't found anybody in Lincoln who is happy -- the best I've come across so far is indifference -- who are the happy ones? If nobody is happy, will Board members have jobs after the next election? Or are locals so lazy when it comes to voting for the Board that they will have forgotten about this mess?

I took a gamble last evening. Despite the windy forecast, I went ahead and cleared my driveway and sidewalks. I figured that would make for slightly less work today. Wrong. My sidewalks are completely blown over and I think much of my driveway actually has more snow on it today than yesterday. ::sigh:: I still love snow, though. Isn't this stuff awesome?

Dear Mr. Acher, If your project is torpedoed by the City, I respectfully request that you instead bulldoze the parking lot and saturate the ground with RoundUp. Bonus points if you surround the entire block with ugly recycled fence sections and tacky "No Trespassing" signs. A community that can't find a way to make work a project such as the one you've proposed deserves nothing more than a giant, barren patch of dirt and mud. Respectfully, Brent C. Wilson P.S. If the project is approved by the City but it falls through on your end in such a way that the folks who oppose it can say "I told you so!", I reserve the right to flick a booger at you. It's only fair.

Hi folks. I apologize that the posting frequency has dipped around here. I'm approaching an important deadline with work and spare time is sparse. I've spent far more hours than I like to admit in this basement man-cave of mine. So what's the big project? I am writing something called Calendar and, not coincidentally, it's a calendar module for ExpressionEngine. Believe it or not, despite all the years ExpressionEngine has been around nobody has written a dedicated calendar module yet. I have thought about this project for years, even starting it and making good progress a couple times. But I never had the time or resources to finish it. Then Mitchell Kimbrough and Paul Burdick from Solspace came along and said "If you build it, we will pay", or something like that. So I got to work. That was around October 1st. At that point Calendar became important, but it still wasn't my top priority. It was just another project, until a couple weeks later. At that point Calendar received escalated priority thanks to ... well, I can't say why, but Calendar became top dog for me. It also received an internal due date of December 14. And thus began a series of late nights. Calendar is currently in what I would describe as "alpha" status. By next Monday it should be in an advanced beta stage -- not finished, but close. If all goes well the public release will come relatively soon after that. And that's what I'm up to. I know most of you aren't interested in the nuts and bolts, but I will probably show off the final product one of these days. Now ... back to the cave!

A great big "Yikes!" to the news that the average student debt load for folks graduating from college in Nebraska is right around $20 grand. News like that really wakes me up to how lucky I was to make it through both an undergraduate and graduate degree program with far less debt than that -- debt which included living expenses and which I paid off in full this fall. And to think I pondered going to Washington University where $20 grand would have looked pretty darn nice after four years. I wonder what college will look like by the time Robbie gets there?