Dale's blog. Why would you care?
So I’ve got a new toy, and the weather has been absolute crap since it arrived. I need to get out to an outdoor range to try it out, get it sighted in, test some hand loads, and generally play with it. I have so far had a choice between mud, wind or snow.
Oh, well. I suppose it could be worse; I could live farther north.
Lisa & I saw the Doobie Brothers at Stir Cove (Harrah’s in Council Bluffs) on August 31st. They rocked the joint! I was a little surprised that they didn’t do a couple of songs, like Minute By Minute or What A Fool Believes, but they did spend a good hour and a half or so doing most of their really good material. I could easily have stayed and listened another hour.
I like the venue, though now they have one of the sillier ordinances I’ve heard of lately. You can’t smoke in this open-air venue now… they have another area, no more than three steps outside the gate, where you can smoke. Of course the smoke still drifts everywhere else – like I said, it’s just silly. Further proof that professional politicians as legislators are probably not the best idea we’ve ever had. What rational person would dream up such nonsense?
Of the four concerts we have been to there (George Thorogood, Allman Brothers, Violent Femmes and Doobie Brothers) three were outstanding shows.
Thanks, Mom! 🙂
So a couple of weeks ago I traded my Motorola Razr for an LG Dare (VX9700). Suh-weet. It’s a touch screen phone with all the toys — micro SD card memory slot, 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus, video, flash (kind of), MP3 capability, full HTML web browser, accelerometer for detecting screen orientation, you name it. Of course the coolest part is the whole touch screen thing; it’s nice having a huge LCD that for the most part does what you want it to do. The fact that it’s supported by BitPim makes it even more usable.
It does have a few shortcomings, but they’re minor and geeky. I can’t send a wallpaper as a pix message, for whatever stupid reason. Handling of MP3 playlists — well, it’s buggy as a roach motel, and basically unusable with anything I’ve tried (Windows Media Player, Rhapsody, or just transferring files in USB mode). The web browser is a little lacking, but usable for the occasional gotta-have access. It’s got handwriting regocnition, but like the Palm you’ve got to learn the oddball way of entering text to use it — and no, of course it’s not the same method the Palm used. Still, though, it’s really nice to be able to turn the sucker on its side and see the QWERTY keyboard pop up on the touch sensitive LCD! I can even type with my thumbs, making text messaging super easy.
All in all, I’m happy with it. I’m looking for hacks to be able to change the theme and do some of the other little things that you presently can’t do, for whatever reason. Support on the web seems to be pretty good, and there are a lot of people hacking away at it — so I’m sure things will continue to get better.
So I’m down here in Charlotte… again. And, like it once did every time I came here, it’s been raining. Not just an occasional rain, it’s been a pretty much constant downpour from Monday morning on. I htink I’ve seen it stop twice, for no more than an hour or two each time.
Of course I remembered to bring my sunglasses, which are still in their case in my laptop bag. Didn’t bring an umbrella, though. There are 2 or 3 of them sitting at home; there may even be one in my truck. Parked a the airport.
How wonderful.
Well, yes, for the most part… but I haven’t been blogging much. Let’s do a quick recap…
The high school reunion went well. It was really good to see some old friends, make a few new ones, and generally reconnect with people. It’s too bad some weren’t able to make it, and even sadder that one died on the way up to attend.
Pete’s back in school, getting ready for football.
I got a new phone. It’s an LG Dare, and it’s just… well, it’s cool as hell. Why not an iPhone, you may ask? Well, let’s see. The Dare isn’t WAY overpriced, it’s not tied to uber-sucky AT&T, it’s got the features I want, it’s hackable and not tied to Apple’s cash extraction machine… in short, why would I even consider an iPhone?
We’ve been out on the bike a few times, but not nearly enough. The seat came back from Mean City, and it’s much, much better now. The lawn is surviving, no thanks to me. Have not had the Vespa out at all this summer — I need to find some time to do some engine work, again. I’m building a new replacement for our server, which has been running Fedora Core 3 (or is it 4?) for way too long.
There. All caught up.
The torrid tale of a group of trailer park neighbors whose lives are disrupted by a home-wrecking stripper, a big storm, a false pregnancy (or is it?), a crazed ex-boyfriend, a marginally functional electric chair… did I miss anything? This is high drama worthy of, well, at least Jerry Springer, and you’ll never look at your Magic Markers and Pam cooking spray the same way again.
OK, I admit it. I usually only see community theater productions that my daughter Allison appears in. Still, when I do go I’m usually really glad I did and enjoy them for the play or musical itself, not just seeing my daughter shine (which she always does). Some of these productions are really, really good. Das Barbecue was hilarious, as was Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Lucky Stiff and others. I have to say that if you have never been to a production at Bellevue Little Theater, Omaha Community Playhouse or one of the others, you really should. It’s not terribly expensive, the crowd is generally casual, and you’ll likely have a really good time. Last night we attended a pre-opening night show of the latest show at the BLT, The Great American Trailer Park Musical. It was a hoot… I got a decent workout just laughing.
Uniformity of talent is usually not the real strong point in these productions; some people are great actors and actresses, but so-so singers. Some can dance like mad, but can’t act all that well; some can sing but can’t dance, etc. (I say this with the disclaimer that I am good at NONE of these, and have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone who can get up on stage and do what these people do, and do it for free.) In this case, the whole theme is cheesy enough that any variations in talent are immaterial – plus the cast are all pretty good to begin with! The acting was good, with a couple of real standouts. There was no one who couldn’t sing; the quality was pretty uniformly good with (of course) one clear standout.
I suspect the tech crew is still dialing in the audio details, and there was one place where stage hands making a scenery change kind of distracted from the tale. Since it was pre-opening night (I think it was “tech night” or the final dress rehearsal), I would expect the actual public performances to go even better.
All in all, I would recommend this musical to anyone who appreciates comedy. Â Call the theater, get your tickets, and prepare for an hour and 45 minutes (no intermission) of real, honest-to-goodness fun.
We spent the past weekend at the Lied Lodge in Nebraska City. My side of the family had our family reunion there, and I have to say we’ll be back!
The lodge itself is beautiful, well maintained and well staffed. Natural timbers are used throughout, and the huge lobby and quiet veranda are a couple of very relaxing spaces to sit and read, talk with family and friends, play cards or whatever. We also spent some time wandering through some of the many trails, visiting the Morton house and carriage house, playing some games on the lawn, etc.
The restaurant puts on a pretty good buffet for breakfast. In fact, after a large, late breakfast we skipped lunch both days. I don’t think we ever had dinner at the hotel restaurant. We wanted to do the free wine tasting (Sat & Sun. nights) but the timing didn’t work out right either evening.
All in all, it’s a beautiful place and one we’ll visit again. I could see an annual stay there, in fact.
Oh, how I do love remodeling… we’ve got the downstairs bathroom torn pretty much apart, working on getting the last of it ripped out now. When it’s done it will be all new from the drywall inward. New vanity, counter, sink, mirror, lights, fan, toilet, the works. It’s not without challenges, from the inadequate (for what we wanted to do, anyway) wiring to the lack of water shutoff valves under the sink. Seriously, who does that??
Today the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the DC v. Heller case. What we now have, for the first time, is agreement by the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution protects each individual’s right to keep and bear arms, not just the government.
This is truly good news. While the Court didn’t go any further than striking down DC’s complete ban on handguns, nor did I expect it to, at least there is a decision that makes sense. I can foresee a long path of suits to nudge our rights back into existence in other areas like Chicago, where bans like DC’s have created what amount to safe free-fire zones for criminals and gangs.
I think I’ll go to the range this week and celebrate.
This has been a long, wet Spring. The grass is loving this rain, but enough is enough already, at least for a couple of days! At least the lakes are up, the new sod I put down the other night is happy, and I don’t feel TOO badly about having the motorcycle seat shipped off for a rebuild & new padding. Unfortunately, it looks like Continue reading “Noah, build me an ark…”