Lincolnite

I'm jealous of the employees at Duncan Aviation, where they have their own on-site fitness center. My employer's fitness amenities are pretty crappy. I'm going to talk to my boss! ::mutters under his breath:: My boss says I'm lazy, and that if I wanted to stay in shape, I shouldn't have eaten all of that ice cream and all those Doritos -- mmm, Poppin' Jalapeno Doritos -- last night. He has a point. How common are the sorts of health incentives Duncan offers at employers around town? Do you have the opportunity to get buff at work?

Police Chief Tom Casady would like to introduce you to Kevin. Kevin is on pace to break a rather astonishing record.

Mayor Chris Beutler has proposed 8 alternative sites for the State Fair. Fair Board member Tam Allan isn't impressed. Allan seems to have two major concerns. The first is that, in some cases, the land isn't even for sale. The second is much more substantial: each of the sites is little more than an empty patch of ground. There are no buildings or services on the sites, or, in some cases, even nearby. Although a blank slate is a great way to reinvent the Fair, it also drastically increases the costs of the move. Contrast Lincoln's 8 proposed locations with those in Grand Island, where amenities already exist. In terms of the attractiveness of relocation sites, Lincoln is way behind. Lincoln's one strength at this point seems to be that we are closer to the largest population centers in the state. I may be wrong, but I have a very, very difficult time believing that a Grand Island State Fair would draw, over the long run, the same number of visitors as a Lincoln State Fair. It just doesn't seem likely. But I digress. Ignoring for a moment the question of whether we should move the Fair at all, what do you think about Mayor Beutler's 8 proposed relocation sites? Do any of them strike you as seeming better or worse than the others? My least favorite is the 84th and Yankee Hill location, for accessibility reasons. I don't think I have a favorite at this point.

It's colder than a brass commode on the shady side of an iceberg! Brr, I'm glad I don't have an outdoor job today. I like cool weather, but -20 wind chills just don't do it for me. While letting the dog out this morning, I got to thinking about all of my favorite "It's colder than..." phrases. As it turns out, I could only remember a couple, the one above included. Can you help me fill out my list? What are your favorite "It's colder than..." phrases? Just one thing: let's keep 'em PG-13 or cleaner. (Those of you who know what I'm talking about are giggling to yourselves; the rest of you are probably trying to figure out how in the heck a simple phrase about being cold could be rated R.)

Don't forget about tonight's total lunar eclipse. The show starts around 7:45pm, with totality reached at 9:00pm. The total eclipse will last 52 minutes.

Domain squatting is stupid and petty and lame, and thus, so is the Nebraska GOP. Come on, NGOP, grow up a bit. Are you really so threatened by Max Yashirin -- a 25-year old political nobody who plans to take on the popular incumbent Jeff Fortenberry -- that you have to sink to engaging in junior high pranks to put him down? Give me a break. To be fair, the content the NGOP had originally posted on the site -- photos of Yashirin engaged in a little stereotypical college-style drinking and smoking -- isn't necessarily unfair. Yashirin is young, and raising questions about his age and maturity is appropriate. On the flip side, Nebraska Democrats executive director Matt Conneally's defense that "this is a military veteran that the Republicans are attacking" is a yawner. Military service does not provide any sort of shield in the world of politics, nor should it. Fair questions (in this case about age and maturity) are fair questions. In the end, though, the NGOP wins the Biggest Loser award for this round. Give the man his domain name and play like adults. (And let this be a lesson to all you kiddies out there with political ambitions: grab that domain name long before you make any sort of announcement!)

Brain research has shown that certain portions of the brain that help a person make rational decisions aren't fully developed until the late teens or early twenties, and that boys' brains tend to be slower to develop in that regard than girls' brains. As if we needed research to tell us that, when we can read headlines like Boy falls from Wendy’s ceiling.

The Wilsons went out to China Wall (near Wal-Mart on 87th and Highway 2) on Saturday night. I know very little about Chinese food (or the American version of it), so I'm not really in a position to evaluate it with any depth. I'll leave that to the pros. I don't suppose most of you would think it means much if I were to tell you that it's better than Hy-Vee's Chinese food. Yeah, I didn't think so. What follows is just a quick overview. China Wall is a small, skinny restaurant. If you plan to go with a big group, you're probably not going to sit together. There are perhaps a dozen tables, a pop machine, and the counter at which you order. Oh, and a few chairs to wait for to-go orders. A television on the wall played the Food Network while we were there. The show featured desserts. It would have been a great little subliminal marketing ploy had there been an ice cream shop next door. The woman at the counter was nice and friendly, and she bought herself some bonus points by offering Robbie a couple fortune cookies. (He enjoyed them after his supper, though he couldn't figure out why there was paper inside his cracker.) The menu was large and diverse, with most of the usuals present, plus some items (such as egg foo young) that you don't see every day. Prices seemed pretty typical for fast food Chinese. Our entrees cost around $6.50 apiece for the main dish, rice, and an egg roll. The serving size was ample. The food presentation was nice, though it was weird using plastic utensils on such nice plates. We received our food about four or five minutes after we ordered. Both our dishes were tasty, though my chicken, listed as "spicy" on the menu, could have had quite a bit more kick for my tastes. If you like your food spicy, you may want to ask for it to be taken up a notch. (On the flip side, if you're scared of spicy food, you might not have much to worry about.) Again, I have little experience with Chinese food, so this quickie "review" is really anything but. I was pleased enough with the food and atmosphere that I do plan to return. Maybe one of these days I'll get to enough Chinese restaurants in town that I'll be able to have more of an opinion about each of them.

Mitchell Walton, is a bit of an oddball. He is a fan fan. But hey, who am I to judge? Sure, collecting fans is unusual, but in an absolute sense is it any more ridiculous than grown men fawning over sweaty boys and men who play silly games? This makes me wonder if any of you folks have any goofy hobbies. I used to want a goofy hobby or collection, but so far I've got nuttin'. I don't have any collections, and both of my "hobbies" (soccer reffing and web development) are actually occupations. How 'bout you?

Keep your nose clean, boys and girls, because Supernanny Jo Frost is coming to town. No word yet on the identity of the out-of-control littles ones or their desperate parents. Supposedly the show featuring the local family will air before the end of the season, so be on the lookout for Ms. Frost's nifty black eurowagon.

Now that we know that Mayor Beutler wants our help establishing budget priorities, Lincolnites should start thinking about which city services are most important to us. The following list is by no means all-inclusive. It's just intended to start some conversations. Your task: put these items in priority order. There are no ties; you must decide for each items whether it is a higher or lower priority than the items around it.

• Libraries
• Police
• Fire and ambulance
• Parks
• Trails
• Streets
• Traffic management
• Public transportation
• Planning and zoning
• Building safety and inspection
• Recycling
• Animal control
• Health promotion and information
• Workforce development

In honor of Valentine's Day, in no particular order, my non-exclusive list of 14 things I love in Lincoln:

1. Pioneers Park. Ahh, the fond memories of cross country races, sledding, and family picnics.
2. The capitol building. Sure, you may giggle at the shadow it casts, but that place is awesome. Good job, Bertram.
3. Bike trails. You can get almost anywhere in town, and they're plowed even before most streets are cleared.
4. The variable weather. Consistently inconsistent is fun.
5. Lincoln Children's Zoo. What parent with young children doesn't love this place?
6. Lincoln Children's Museum. Ditto.
7. Oso Burrito's fish burrito. Yum.
8. Avante Card. You'll never buy Hallmark again.
9. The carousel at Gateway. Everybody smiles at you when they see your kid having a good time on the carousel.
10. The Huskers. Yeah, sometimes it gets a bit over the top. But with football, volleyball, baseball, soccer, and basketball (et al.), my sports needs are met.
11. My family. What can I say, I'm a momma's boy.
12. Val's, Runza, Amigo's, Taco Inn. It may be mediocre chain food, but it's our mediocre chain food, darn it!
13. Lincoln Marathon. It's so cool how so many people show up to cheer for wacky, sweaty people.
14. The people. Sometimes they're awesome, sometimes they're turkeys, but they're always entertaining.

Thanks to a $1 million gift from Ed and Mary Copple, LPS will build a new "student-athletic development center" at Seacrest Field. The new center will supplement the existing cinderblock building on the north end of the field. This is good news for LPS's (student-)athletes, and I certainly don't want to imply that the Copples' gift isn't fantastic. It is. But I can't help but feel like it would be pretty darn cool to hear that LPS (er, the LPS Foundation) is generating some nice headway toward building Seacrest 2. I wonder how much of a dent $1 million would make toward supporting a new multi-purpose district-wide athletic facility? Then again, "Copple Student-Athlete Center" has a better ring to it than "Copple Field". The latter is a tad too close to "cop a feel", which is probably not the sort of message LPS wants to associate with any of its facilities.

Contrary to what the gripers in the article's comments say, UNL's number 6 "popularity" rating is something for the U to be proud of. The ranking is determined by dividing the number of students who enroll by the number who are admitted. In UNL's case, 66% of students who are invited to enroll actually do. In all fairness, there are some reasons for this that have little to do with the Admissions staff's efforts. For example, for many Nebraska students, UNL is not just any college, it is the college. Even with offers of admission from other colleges and universities around the country, lots of cornbred types don't look beyond the scarlet and cream. But there are lots of places where that mentality applies (though in most places it's more of a regional attitude rather than a statewide one). Let's face it, in the competition for college students, getting 2/3 of them to stay by your side is a pretty substantial success. UNL's Admissions office has made a plethora of innovations geared toward keeping students interested in UNL both before and after admissions letters go out. Good for them that their efforts are paying off.

Ouch, nearly twenty percent of the Lied Center's 31 employees have gotten the ax as the Lied struggles with declining ticket sales. Furthermore, they want to chop artist's fees by 30% to 40%, which means lower-quality events or fewer events (or both). I know The Missus and I haven't been to the Lied Center in ages. We used to go to a few shows each year. Now we average less than one per year. In our case, it's hard to say what led to the change, though having a kid obviously plays a big role. Cost is another biggie; a 2-hour trip to Gateway with Robbie costs under twenty bucks, and that includes exciting food court food, a carousel ride, unlimited escalator rides, and plenty of people-watching. That may not sound interesting to many (or most) of you, but I assure you that time spent with Robert is never dull. Do you attend fewer events at the Lied than you used to? Why?