Lincolnite

Ladies and gentlemen, today we reached a milestone. At 10:46am Gene left the 10,000th comment on this blog. That deserves a prize, don't you think? I think so! If only I had thought to buy balloons and confetti. While I was counting comments I decided to see who has been Lincolnite's most prolific commenter. No surprise here: Fletch leads the way with an impressive 843 comments, 90 more than second place. I don't know about you all, but I think that deserves a prize, too. Gene and Fletch, drop me an e-mail at mrwilson at lincolnite dot com with your mailing information (including your real names so I don't confuse the USPS) and your choice of (a) a POGO Card, or (b) a $20 gift certificate to a locally-owned restaurant of your choice. Congrats, guys, and thank you!

If I were you I wouldn't expect to receive this kind of treatment. It's bad enough this stuff happens at all, though it isn't surprising when people with power abuse that power. It reinforces the notion that law enforcement officers get to play by different rules than the rest of us, even when they are off-duty. It's all the worse when the involved parties aren't named and the law enforcement agency brushes aside the infractions, saying only that "appropriate steps were taken". Right.

... You calmly sit by while your child vomits onto his dinner plate, telling him to "get it all out" and "don't worry about the mess". Sheesh. And yes, he's fine. He was fine five minutes later, in fact, after he had a quick bath and brushed his teeth. What can I say? Sometimes you just need to puke.

I've picked on the Journal Star's weather page before and I'll probably do it again. But come on, shouldn't the weather page somewhere make mention of the fact there is a Winter Storm Warning in effect today? Yes, I know that information is available elsewhere in the paper. But isn't that like having to turn to CNN to get information that you should be getting from The Weather Channel?

Today's winter storm will be a good test for the road crews at Public Works. So far this winter they've survived on excuses. (My favorite was the Thanksgiving incident.) Today's storm, if it occurs as forecast, should be favorable for them for several reasons:

• The storm was predicted well in advance.
• It comes just one day after the anti-icing solution was applied.
• The bulk of the snow is supposed to occur during daylight hours when crews are rested and available.
• We are supposed to get a decent amount of snow, but not a ridiculous amount of snow.
• The snow is supposed to end tonight, giving night crews as much as 12 hours to have streets spiffed up for traffic on Saturday morning.

We wish you well, road crews! Just to be clear, I'm not picking on any of the people at Public Works, just their often less-than-satisfactory outcomes. I get frustrated when, for example, my parents call and tell me their cul-de-sac is being scraped clean while major arterials are still a mess. That's a tactical problem, not a crewmember competence problem. UPDATE: At noon and again at 1:30pm things looked decent. At noon, 17th Street between South and A was bad, but the other streets I hit were in ok shape. At 1:30pm a couple spots Downtown were particularly messy and portions of Capitol Parkway were rough. On the other hand, I drove between 30 and 35 miles per hour on 40th Street between Normal and Highway 2, though the downhill leading toward the light at Pioneers almost got me.

The long awaited MoPac Trail bridge over North 27th Street is in place. The new section of trail should be open by May -- just in time for our summer enjoyment. I've got to say I'm a little surprised the City didn't take the opportunity to dress up the bridge as part of ongoing North 27th Street prettification efforts. Surprised, but not necessarily disappointed; the wrong decorations could really create an eyesore we're stuck with for years. Maybe plain Jane is best.

I don't often follow County issues very closely. Maybe it's because County issues seem a little boring, on average. Or maybe it's because I already have plenty on my plate. That should change. All of us need to pay closer attention to the impressive incompetence associated with Lancaster Manor. For example:

County Deputy Administrator Gwen Thorpe, who was recently appointed interim administrator, told commissioners the manor never billed residents’ private insurance for care because the staff did not know how.

Didn't know how? Isn't that something somebody should have figured out? Anyway, the result of the troubles going at 9th and South Streets is that we may have to dig into taxes to support Lancaster Manor, which should be capable of supporting itself. I don't imagine residents of Lancaster County are eager to see a property tax increase for such a thing. Now a tangent: Speaking of Lancaster Manor, I spent a fair amount of time there in my teenage years. As part of my Confirmation process I, along with a friend, "adopted" a resident and her husband. Each week Jeff and I would spend an hour or so talking and watching Wheel of Fortune with Eunice and Harvey Bauer. I started out going because I had to; I didn't want to hang out with "old people" for the same reasons most teenagers don't want to do such a thing. Over time I began to look forward to the weekly meet-ups and I gained a deep appreciation for Harvey and Eunice and the lives they had lived. They both passed on several years ago, but I still think about them and the time we spent together.

Woo hoo! Easy for me to say. I don't have to drive anywhere this weekend. The timing of this news amuses the heck out of me. Just yesterday I was complaining to a friend in Minnesota -- who has seen so much snow this winter he has had to shovel his roof several times -- that we hadn't had any "good" snowfalls in Lincoln yet this winter. I defined a "good" snowfall as 6-10". The prediction for tomorrow's storm? Six to ten inches. I'm also amused because I washed my car yesterday for the first time in months. I should have known a storm was coming by the lack of a line at the car wash on such a nice day. If we do get a good snowfall I think I'll take Robbie out for his first sledding expedition on a real hill. He'll love it, and so will I.

Well bummer. It looks like a web host I have used for several websites over the past couple years -- not including this website -- has sold out. That in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, their move has come with a complete shutdown in communications with clients and customers all over the web are complaining about a host of problems. My sites haven't been negatively affected ... yet. But I can't take chances. I am shopping around for a new, reasonably-priced hosting service. I need to be able to manage multiple sites from a single control panel, and each individual site needs to have its own control panel with management options for e-mail, ftp, mysql, and so on. All of the sites I will place there are relatively low volume. Do any of you folks have recommendations for hosts that may meet my needs?

I have pretty much stayed out of the debate over moving the Matt Talbott Kitchen because it is, in large part, a NIMBY problem. That is, folks are generally supportive of the facility unless it wants to move next door to them. There's no winning that kind of debate. The facility has to go somewhere. That "somewhere" is often the first "not bad" location that becomes available. In this case: the old Carnegie library on North 27th. Had the timing been different it could just have easily been any other reasonably accessible location in the city. I hope neighbors of the new facility can find ways to work with it rather than against it. Otherwise they're going to find a lot of stress in their lives in the near future. Even bigger news than the Matt Talbott move, in my opinion, is the reason it had to move in the first place. Assurity Life Insurance Company will begin construction on their new building in 2010. That is exciting news for the Antelope Ditch Valley Project. As much as I scowl at some parts of the AVP, I do very badly want it to succeed. If this community is going to put a billion bucks into something I don't want that cash to go to waste. Seeing that first major private investment in the area begin construction will be a wonderful thing to see.

Deena Winter introduces us in passing to Mike Morosin,

a frequent flier at city hall, where Monday he showed the City Council and Channel 5 viewers photos of people he says he shot in and around Trago Park.

Yikes!

Chief Tom wishes more Lincolnites would sign up for crime alerts. Far be it from me to disobey the Police Chief. I signed up last night using a 0.2 mile buffer zone around my house. Anything beyond that distance, though close in real terms, doesn't really feel like part of my local neighborhood. I look forward to seeing the first e-mails come in. No, wait. Scratch that. I hope I never receive any alerts.

While chatting with DMB tonight I got to thinking about the possible brand names that could be slapped on the side of Lincoln's (currently mythical) Haymarket arena. What are some of the most likely names we could see glowing in neon in a few years? I came up with a few possibilities:

• Verizon Center. Alltel has been a major player in Nebraska for years. Now that Verizon has consumed Alltel, and thanks to Verizon's office on I-80, Verizon seems like a natural candidate to buy naming rights here.
• Con Agra Center. Well, really any large agricultural company is a possibility.
• Gallup Arena. The punks may have moved up the road, but you know they still love us.
• Ameritrade Arena. Oddly enough, the first time I ever saw (or heard of) Pete Ricketts was outside Qwest Center.

What do you think?