Category: General commentary

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The Great American Trailer Park Musical

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.   Call the theater, get your tickets, and prepare for an hour and 45 minutes (no intermission) of real, honest-to-goodness fun.

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Lied Lodge in Nebraska City

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.

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Are we having fun yet?

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??

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The power is out again.

We had a pretty good storm move through here tonight, and the power is out.   Of course we’ve still got Internet connectivity, though I did power off the server to keep the UPS from dying too early.   Got to get some more emergency lighting, and maybe a small generator might not be too terrible of an idea.   Overall, we’re OK…   some LED lights, candles, cell phones, laptops on battery power.   We’ll survive until OPPD gets around to us.   We’re just hoping the Scouts hit by a tornado at Little Sioux aren’t hurt badly.

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Things We Learned On The Road

After riding over 2600 miles over the course of our 10-day road trip to Charlotte and Charleston, there are a number of lessons we learned.

Double-check the mileage between your hotels.   Nothing sucks quite like having reservations 50 miles past where you planned to make them, and 45 miles past your comfortable riding limit.

GPS is nice, but it’s also a good idea to print out or write down directions just in case.

When your route takes you through a major city, allow some extra time (and hassle) for detours.   Try to avoid arriving right at rush hour, it sucks. Continue reading “Things We Learned On The Road”

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One partial solution for airline security

I have an idea that I think would greatly improve the safety and security of air travel. Why not deputize a large number of ordinary, non-professional law enforcement people who travel regularly as auxiliary Air Marshals? Take people who fly regularly and shoot regularly, can demonstrate superb accuracy with a handgun under realistic conditions, can pass a training course and qualify. Give them the training they need to handle hijacking and terrorism situations in the air — make sound shoot/no-shoot decisions, when to engage and when to shut up and sit still, that sort of thing. Allow them to fly armed with concealed weapons and special ID. Now you have a significant possibility that any given flight, especially those on heavily traveled routes, will have at least one trained, armed person aboard who is able and willing to prevent a hijacking or terror attack. Continue reading “One partial solution for airline security”

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It’s officially Spring

I went out this morning to check the fruit trees in the back yard, as I try to do every couple of days.   We have hundreds of tiny little apricots starting to form!   Right now they’re about half the size of a healthy grape, oblong and green…     but it looks like we’ll have a bumper crop of apricots this year.

The apple tree is in full bloom, and should be following along in a few weeks!

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My rant about the economy

I’ve been harping on this for years. What we are seeing is the exact same thing that happened over 30 years ago. The economy was good, so we (collectively, the American public) got lazy and stupid. Cars got bigger and bigger, because that’s what was selling. To hell with gas mileage! I’ve got money, so that 10 MPG monstrosity (3-ton sedan then, 3-ton SUV now) isn’t a big deal. Make my car bigger, faster and louder; I want to see horsepower numbers, not fuel economy. So the auto makers follow the money, and for some unfathomable reason think it will last forever. Short-term thinking sets in, no one looks past the next quarter or two, and they keep churning out F-150s and Escalades instead of looking to improve the smaller, cheaper, more efficient vehicles. That market is left (now as it was then) to the Japanese, only now the Koreans are in the game as well.

So, our Arab brothers decide to jack up the price of oil — why? Well, because they can! If you see that your biggest customer will buy whatever you offer, at whatever price you demand, it follows that you’re able to do whatever you want with the prices. Besides, we’re just a bunch of filthy infidel that will eventually be converted or killed anyway (in case you missed it, these people are not our friends). Throw into the mix that China is finally waking up from a 60-year sleep and starting to rub its eyes, look around and see that there is business to be done and money to be had. The cheap labor market has shifted from the Japan of the 50s and 60s to China (along with other places like India), and the standard of living in those places is rising. As a result, their demand for oil, steel, and other commodities is rising sharply.

All the while we’re blissfully cruising along at 80 MPH in a 4-wheel-drive pickup or SUV sucking down gas like there will never be an empty tank. Wind power? Too expensive to develop, coal is cheap (never mind those nuke plants starting to age out). Hydroelectric? God forbid we build any more dams! Solar? Again, why bother when gas and oil and coal are so cheap. Oh, hey, wait. Now they’re not, and now we’re 30 years behind where we should be. We wasted three entire decades when we could have been weaning ourselves off of foreign oil, because we were too short-sighted to see that the oil problems of the early 1970s would be back, without fail. Why? Well, for pretty much the exact same reasons there were back then, I guess.

And where was our government during all of this? Well, I guess we get the government we deserve. Don’t try to lay the blame at the feet of any one administration or political party; not a damn one of them did anything significant to help move us in the right direction. It’s not politically wise to tell people during good times that there will be bad times at some future date, and to prepare for them. We could have had strong leadership pointing the way to energy independence and the use of renewable, ecologically sound fuels and energy sources, but we didn’t. We could have had policies that encouraged American businesses and consumers to think long term instead of short term, globally instead of locally, but we didn’t. We still don’t. I don’t know that we ever will.

I have very little sympathy for American car manufacturers, or for Harley-Davidson for that matter. It should have been blindingly obvious all along that the ride couldn’t last forever, yet all of them have been pretending that it would. Now, when things are looking a little bleak as they were bound to, they act like it’s a huge surprise. Gee, they say, why aren’t people buying our behemoths any more? Must be that pesky ol’ economy, we’ll just make some more Yukons for when things turn around. Yeah, that will work.

And the Harley crew… my God. Did they learn nothing from watching the cigar boom of the last decade? Dealers building new, huge showrooms well after the market peaks and starts to decline? How incredibly obtuse can you be, to not see what is so obvious to even a casual observer? I watched American Chopper last night; the Teutels are building a new plant and expanding their operations. I wish them luck, but my prediction is that in a few years you’ll be able to rent space in that place for indoor tennis courts.

Don’t get me wrong; I think the economy will pick back up. Historically, it always has. I’m not frantically selling off stock right now, I’m buying at cut-rate prices (just not Ford, GM, or Harley). But I do wish that some day we might collectively, as a nation, wake up and remember that we’ve been here before, and maybe figure out that we might want to address some of these problems before the next crisis. If we don’t, these recessions will just continue to get worse.

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Anticipation…

Man.   I have parts arriving today & tomorrow from two different sources.   My new helmet is due in some time this week.   According to FedEx, my shipment of circuit boards is in town, so I should see them today.   It’s like freakin’ Christmas morning here!       🙂