Lincolnite

I still wish the Department of Roads would have used the money they are spending on Highway 2 to speed up the South Beltway. But I've got to say that I love one thing about the project: silence. Well, relative silence, anyway. The new road surface is far quieter than the old surface. Using the adjacent Boosalis Trail no longer demands the use of ear protection. It's fantastic! I wonder how long a new road's acoustic benefits last?

I know it is very tempting for the School Board to spend its new cash from the latest county property valuations. But boy, it sure would help LPS's public image if they would cut their tax rate a few cents this year. I encourage the board to spend a little extra money on tangibles like building improvements -- especially in the four older high schools -- and leave some of the less tangible items for another day. If the board leaves the tax rate at $1.05, I fear they risk losing public support that could bite 'em in the butt the next time they try to pass another bond issue.

It's official: State Fair Park is now part of Lincoln.

I went to bed angry last night. I made the mistake of reading journalstar.com before I hit the sack. It was there that I first heard about the City Council's shameful actions. It wasn't their vote -- saying no to the proposed concealed carry ban -- but the method that ticks me off. Long story short, they told Lincolnites to buzz off. They don't need any input from us lowly citizens. Let's be clear here, there is one justification for their actions. If the Council was so convinced that next week's public input process on the proposal would be a waste of time, if they were 100% certain that their vote would be nay, and that any public discussion would be worthless, the members would have an argument for shutting down public input. But it would be a weak argument. The City Council's action yesterday was shameful. It sent a powerful message: the Council knows what's best for Lincoln, and they don't need to bother hearing the whinings of the proletariat. It's a message City leaders have sent before, and it's one Lincolnites need to stop putting up with. Such a message represents a reversal in the understanding of who works for whom in this town. It is a power grab. I don't care about the vote itself. Concealed carry is mostly a symbolic gesture. Permitting it or banning it is more about saying something about the Second Amendment than it is about achieving anything practical. That's not what angers me. What angers me is that the City Council dropped a big turd on the democratic process. Process matters, moreso at the local level than anywhere else. If a citizenry cannot participate in local lawmaking, how can they be expected to feel like they have a voice at any level? How can they have any sense of efficacy at all? The public input phase in local lawmaking is mostly done out of routine, not because it actually changes lawmakers' minds. So skipping next week's public input probably won't make a bit of a difference in the final outcome. But that isn't the point. The point is that allowing Lincolnites to speak publically would have made them feel good, about themselves and about their cause. And about participating in democracy at the local level. The cost to the City Council of letting the public speak? A couple hours of boredom. The cost to the City Council of cutting off public discussion before it could begin? An immeasurable loss of trust, not only in the Council, but in local government generally. Remember last year's City Council election that supposedly shook things up? Wrong. It's the same old City Council, making the same elementary mistakes.

Robbie had his mom and I in stitches tonight. Robbie was on his back on the floor. I had been playing with him for a while, when I decided to do some exercises with him in the form of various sports officiating signals: arms up for touchdown; arms out for safe; a punching motion for out; a chainsaw motion for strike three; arms up and down for double dribble; and arms spinning for traveling. Robbie has always enjoyed having his arms moved around, but apparently tonight he really had a grand old time. So grand, in fact, that for the first time ever, he got hysterical. Now, Robbie has laughed before, but it has always been "tee hee hee" and that was it. This was different. This was continuous, honest-to-goodness, "dad, you're hilarious" laughter. That got me started laughing. The Missus, having observed this whole scene, started laughing. And soon the Wilsons were all giggling uncontrollably in the middle of the living room. Pricess stuff. On an unrelated note, The Missus pulled the trifecta today: she had close encounters with spit up, pee, and poop. Good times!

City traffic engineer Randy Hoskins' job is on the line in the latest budget discussion. I'm not sure if it's personal, as has been alleged, but I have to think something is behind such an odd move. Money alone doesn't seem to me to be enough to dump the position. Lincoln needs a traffic engineer. Our community is too large not to have one. There are too many roads, too many signals, and too much planning to do to not have somebody guiding that work under one vision. Getting rid of Hoskins' job would be a tremendous mistake. I'm neutral, however, on the question of whether we ought to, instead, get rid of Randy Hoskins himself. He has done somethings I have liked, and he has done some things I don't agree with. If I were king I would probably have a chat with him to see if he could change a few of his ideas, and if not I would look for somebody else to take over. But for now the (limited) evidence I have shows him to be competent enough. I only bring this up because Karl Fredrickson, Director of Public Works, has made the accusation that Councilman Jon Cook wants to dump Hoskins for personal reasons. Scrapping an entire position just because of a personal spat would be a tremendous error. But if the move isn't at least partially personal, why would the Council suggest getting rid of such an important position? Why would a city Lincoln's size want to try to operate without a traffic engineer?

• I survived the college soccer referee physical on Saturday. The physical consisted of four parts: (1) a 12-minute run; (2) a ten-meter "box drill" involving sprinting, sidestepping, and back-peddaling; (3) a linear sprint-sidestep-sprint-sidestep drill; and (4) a shuttle run requiring you to run 30-30-30 meters, rest for up to ten seconds, and then do another 30-30-30-30 meters. I only made it 2,750 meters in the 12-minute run, short of my goal of 3,000 meters, and I didn't do too hot in the box drill. But I broke the scale in the shuttle run. Overall I think I ended with either the highest or second-highest score. That says less about my fitness than it does about the other referees' fitness.
• Robert has been semi-regularly sleeping 6-7 hours at a stretch overnight. He has a ways to go, but he's getting closer to making in through the night.
• In other Robert news, he's still a big talker. Lately he has been adding many new sounds to his vocabulary, and sometimes you'd swear he's trying to mimic you.
• A good friend from high school is moving back to town after a few years in the D.C. area. Welcome back, Katie!
• On the other hand, another good friend is moving out west to Imperial. Sounds like he has a great job opportunity out there. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say more than that, so I'll just stop there for now.
• The garden is pumping out veggies these days. Especially my two Hungarian yellow wax pepper plants; they're going nuts. Guess I'll have to whip up another batch of my stuffed peppers. Cream cheese, cheddar cheese, turkey sausage, and a blend of spices. Mmm.
• I need a big stump removed. Anybody have a recommendation for a good stump remover in town?

It's been a while since I last visited Ali Baba's Gyro joint with Mr. Wilson and Swoof. Today, I was pleased to see that Ali's has recently introduced a marinated beef kabob to its menu, and couldn't help but order this new item. Like their famed chicken kabob, for $5.99 you get the grilled, marinated beef kabob, a salad, bread, potatoes and dip. The heavenly scent emanating from the cellophane carton was driving me mad as I took this home, and someone I found the will power to take a snapshot of the meal before tearing into it. Verdict: The beef kabob - which was cooked to about medium - was very good, albeit not as tender as I would have liked. I am not sure what kind of marinade they use, but it gave the beef a nice hint of flavor. Perhaps a bit more salt could have been used to retain some of the natural juices. Regardless, it was pretty good and I am not unhappy for ordering this new item, and my coffee table now is littered with greasy napkins and the remnants of this fine meal. However, in my opinion Ali's chicken kabob (with the brushed on "tandoori" spice) is still the king of their menu.

I led a mass act of civil disobedience last night. About a dozen other Lincolnites and I all broke the law together. It was great. Highway 2 is being resurfaced, and portions of the road are closed from 6:00PM to 6:00AM. That's all fine and dandy. But as is typical of Lincoln's transportation planners, nobody bothers to change the timing of the traffic lights. The result? A backlog of vehicles on 27th Street at Highway 2 waiting for ... nobody. 27th Street traffic received 20 seconds of green light (I timed it), then sat around for 60 seconds while nobody traveled on Highway 2. After waiting through a few frustrating light cycles, I found myself at the front of the line waiting at a red light. Next to me was a large pickup. We apparently had the same idea at the same time, because we hit the gas simultaneously. What I saw next in my rear-view mirror was beautiful: car after car streamed through the intersection. It was civil disobedience at its finest. And amazingly, not a single vehicle was damaged by the non-oncoming non-traffic. Eventually two goody-goodies made their way to the front of the line and waited patiently at the red light. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Seriously, though, what's the deal with leaving the traffic lights on their normal pattern? That just breeds disgust for road work, road workers, and transportation planning in general, and there's already plenty of that going on in Lincoln. Assuming that construction vehicles may have needed to cross the intersection occasionally, a four-way stop (flashing red all four directions) would have made the most sense.

July Jamm is done after this weekend. A lot of Lincolnites are mourning the loss of a big community event, but they don't mourn the loss of July Jamm itself. Why do you think that is? Why is July Jamm seen as unfriendly (admission fees, fences make attendees feel like cattle), while Ribfest remains so popular? And the big question: how would you design a community festival to replace July Jamm?

Five things Lincoln can do to begin moving up from sixtieth place:

1. Ditch the "we're Omaha's kid brother" mentality
2. Make economic investment in the community easier;
3. Actively promote and support local entrepreneurship;
4. Build feelings of ownership and responsibility for local (neighborhood) parks and other public goods;
5. Improve civic engagement and increase ownership of public decisions.

Those are just a start. What's on your list?

Does anybody remember the tamale lady? The Missus was telling me last night that when her family first came to Lincoln (circa 1992), they used to buy homemade tamales from a woman at Russ's on 33rd and Highway 2. But there was a catch: the tamale lady was a secret. She quite literally sold her goods out of the back of the store, and only at specific times. She quickly sold out to her regulars. Then one day the tamale lady disappeared without explanation. Russ's employees only said "She doesn't work here any more" when asked about her. Does anybody remember the tamale lady? What happened to her?

Inspectors have found fifty two problems with Lincoln's new fire trucks. Some of the problems are less serious than others. Hang on to your butts, the roller coaster continues. I wonder: why isn't it standard procedure for the actual instructions to the manufacturer to be sent to the City for verification? Seems like that could have headed off this problem. If Lincoln said to EDM, "Build it this way," but Lincoln found out immediately that EDM told the manufacturer "Build it some other way", alarms would have gone off. And if they didn't, well, the City should have been paying better attention. Or is that how things work and the process failed in this case?

Is it just me, or is Melissa Lee's celebration of Lincoln's sixtieth place finish in a CNNMoney poll of the best places to live a little ... off? Sixtieth place just doesn't sound all that exciting to me. It's not bad, mind you, but Ms. Lee's gloating seems a bit over the top. Actually, it sounds like another example of the Journal Star's ongoing insecurity over Lincoln in comparison to Omaha. Since Omaha was way down the list at 97, this gives the local rag a chance to strut. That's fine, I guess. (On second glance, Omaha isn't number 97 at all. Omaha came in 7th in the list of cities with a population over 300,000. To me that sounds like they scored better than Lincoln, not worse, although a direct comparison is difficult since we're talking about two different lists. Omaha typically scores better than Lincoln on these lists, so I'd be very surprised if Lincoln actually topped Omaha by 37 spots.) In any event, I'm not all that impressed by a Top-60 finish. Even though this is just a goofy little analysis with some arguable methodological decisions, it still is a decent rough indicator of how we're doing. I think it says we're doing OK. We can, and should, do better than OK. I'm not saying we have to hit #1, but reaching Casey Kasem territory would be nice, don't you think?

What do you keep your thermostat set at during these hot summer days? Some businesses keep their buildings really blasted cold, which makes me wonder if they are trying to freeze out their customers so they can all go home. It's the outdoor to indoor temperature difference that really gets me. For example, if it's 100 degrees outside and a business has their A/C set to 72 degrees, I darn near freeze my buns off. And I like to be cold. But give me a 30 degree temperature swing when I'm covered in sweat and I start to feel hypothermia coming on. The Missus and I keep our place at 78 degrees in the summer. That, plus a couple ceiling fans, keeps things comfortable (and affordable). What's your setting?