Is this thing on?

I'm back!

I should start writing again.

I also need a job.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Biggest Hide Ever Tanned in Milwaukee

There was some good stuff at the postcard show.

"Bag check! We have another sausage search!"

Save yourself some time when you travel: take your beef/pork sausage out of your carry-on and put it in one of those little dog dishes they use for watches, keys, chains, etc. You'll have to wait while they check it for explosives anyway, but you won't have to wait for them to root through your whole bag.

(The screener at MKE knew what it was from the X-ray silhouette; I'm not sure if that makes me feel safer or not.)

In which I solve budget deficits again, albeit temporarily

There's a ton of money to made by some level of government if they just listen to me:

1) Send cops to the General Parking lots at Miller Park about an hour before home games. The anti-cruising task force would be well-suited.
2) Write tickets for underage drinking/serving to minors, drunk-n-disorderly, vandalism, etc.
3) Continue while people are stumbling back to their cars after the game and throwing beer bottles at passers-by.
4) Profit.

A DUI checkpoint, with big buses to hold people for mass processing later, could be helpful, but I think DUI costs more to prosecute than the fine, and we're trying to make money here.

Somehow yesterday we got funneled into the worthless twit section of the parking lot at Miller Park. While initially there was something amusing about hipster douchebags at a sporting event, they wore thin quickly. On the plus side, they were disgusted by old fat people in reclining camp chairs quietly eating bratwurst within visual range of their so-cool garbage cans of jungle juice.

Someone needs to explain to the state's Democrats that underage drinkers and chronic alcoholics don't drink just beer; if they're actually serious about collecting revenue (instead of just wanting to punish people for liking hops), there are better ways to do it.

Milwaukee Mystery Photo Revealed

Chinese Stone Lion, one of a pair that guards the entrance to the Zeidler Muncipal Building. They were a gift from the city of Ningbo, China.

Never noticed them until I walked by with a camera.

Milwaukee Mystery Photo

I took this yesterday, somewhere between the lakefront and Water Street. Feel free to leave guesses here or at Flickr.

One of those things I'd walked by a half-dozen times and never noticed until I walked by with a camera in my hand...

I really don't want to have to move.

Walkers Point/Third Ward photo walk.

Can they even get started for $91M?

This seems unnecessary:

Congress authorizes "downtown streetcar loop"

I can walk from one end of downtown to the other in about half an hour if I don't dawdle with my camera. But even on Friday nights, I can park sufficiently close to my destinations for less than Portland charged for two (I assume most people don't dine out and go to shows alone) all-day streetcar tickets. Usually for free, since I don't mind walking six blocks.... Why would anyone drive downtown and pay twice?

About 6% of Portlanders--they of smug self-congratulations about their eco-awareness--actually use the light rail and street car on a regular basis. And it goes well past their downtown into other parts of the city.

But, $91M? Seems like just enough to fund some "feasibility studies" done by political supporters.

I have wasted my life.

I could be pulling down big money doing nothing, if I had had babies.

*sigh*

Change I can believe in

More snow fell during the past two winters in Milwaukee than at any time in the past century.*

I moved here in 2006. You're welcome. :-D

Meanwhile, change I don't believe in: Barry's going to tax all forms of energy to "save us" from "warming." Well, yeah, it's really to cripple what's left of the economy, make more people dependent on the government for their daily needs, and limit the freedoms of those few who aren't, but a spoonful of "save teh planet!" helps the central planning go down.

I wish I understood why so many people feel they need to be "saved" from the future, let alone that a bumbling jug-eared Marxist is their Savior. Oh, wait, he plays basketball and waxes his chest. *snort*


* Note that there are no records of yearly snowfall before the evil white people moved in. You can get some overall climate info from tree rings and oral tradition, but not "inches of snow in February." I'd love to know how much snow fell on Milwaukee during the last Maunder Minimum, compare it to snowfall since the sunspots went dead last year...

Juxtaposition

Hrm.

No good news in
economic numbers

Brewers on brink of single-day sales record

Maybe someone can explain this to me, 'cause I got nothin'.

"this money isn't free."

Scott Walker in the Wall Street Journal.

Key point:

The stimulus is a classic bait-and-switch. Once the highways are built and social-service case loads have increased, Wisconsin will be left with the bill to maintain the new roads and services.

Once you start providing "schoolchildren" and their parent(s) with three meals a day (plus "after-school snack"), any cut "hurts the children."

It's so friggin' obvious, I don't understand the objections.

(I've posted the link to Facebook, just to see how fast the Obamatrons who know me from high school unfriend me. Hee hee hee.)

And now for something completely different

A refreshingly non-Obama story from Jim Stingl about a family adopting a baby given up via the Safe Haven law. Good on the mother. I hope she knows her baby is well and happy.

Aha.

Now I know why there were squad cars blocking my usual route home from work yesterday. Murder, with mayhem.

I have lost track of how many people have been murdered along my commute in two years.

Lake Michigan

I'm still fascinated by the lake in winter.

What's this?

There was a building under all that scaffolding!



I think my goal for 2009 will be "try to take pictures that aren't at wonky angles."

Party like it's 1994

Last night when I was driving home from work, I saw a guy waiting for a bus wearing a Buffalo Bills OJ Simpson jersey and no coat. (I did a triple take, just to make sure it was OJ and not some other Simpson who played for the Bills.) 28 degrees, wind, light snow--there's someone with a statement to make. I interpreted it as "I'm an idiot"--less for the OJ and more for the no coat.

Signed OJ jerseys are now on sale!

I was going to write a rant about cleaning the snow off your damn turn signals, but then I remembered no one uses them anyway. I'm starting to be impressed when people clean the snow off their windshield before they start down the street.

I'm partway through Season 2 of the X-Files (I've been re-watching the series in order) and there's a lot more Janet Reno and Bill Clinton than I remember. And there was footage of OJ's white Bronco in one of the episodes last night. Everything old is relevant this week. Except Scully's shoulder pads.

Memo missed, Milwaukee edition

I was told the election of Barack Obama would bring HOPE to millions in the inner cities, that life wouldn't go on as usual, blah blah change blah $1000 check blah etc.

And yet, this week another employee at work got mugged--the annual November mugging, apparently. People have been diligent about taking the parking shuttle after dark, so the perp did it at lunch time.

So much for change--contra Michelle, life is going on as usual.

OTOH, being in prison will get you out of "Barack Obama will require you to work." Hrm...