A little math

1 five year-old + 1 nineteen month old + 1 collision + 1 sidewalk = 3 skinned knees, 20 minutes of uncontrolled wailing, and 1 shitty evening.

Some tulips and a Lily

This photo is a couple months old, but I love it a lot. It's just taken me a while to post it. Clearly the Lily is gorgeous, but it is worth noting that the tulips did very well this year.

I Saw the Sign

Iowa Public Radio opened into its permanent Des Moines office and studios on February 1st. Phones were connected two months later. The studio is almost fully functional. Now, we have a very nice sign (literally) that this is the real deal:


The east side of the building is now adorned with the Iowa Public Radio sign. So now there is something on the outside of the building that indicates we are inside. The "monument" style sign that will placed out in front of the building should be installed by the end of the month. Still, hopefully this sign will help eliminate some of the need to tell guests "it's the red brick building right before MLK passes under Grand Avenue. There is no sign, but were in there on the first floor." I'm told the lighting works, and it turns on at night. Hopefully I can get a nighttime pic up soon.

We're better because we stole it first

It came to my attention over the Independence Day weekend that some folks in Peoria were upset that Springfield has started calling it's Independence Day fireworks display, "Red, White and Boom." The allegation is that Springfield, lacking originality and desperate to find something cool, lifted the name from Peoria, which has been using that name for a number of years. "Come on, Capital City! Show some originality!" was the cry.

Unfortunately, Peoria has little room to criticize someone else on this issue. "Red, White and Boom" was (as far as I can tell) first used by radio station WNCI, TV station WCMH and the city of Columbus, OH in 1981. Since then, dozens of cities have adopted the name. I'm not sure, but it might even be copyrighted by a specific fireworks show company.

Still, it's clearly not Peoria's name to be protective of. But why should that stop anyone? There are a hundred reasons to be proud of Peoria, and to champion the great things that happen there. Laying into Springpatch on this smacks of small time, small town misplaced boosterism. As my good friend and fellow former resident of Peoria Dave Dahl liked to say when such things came up, "We can't be Raleigh, but can we at least be Mount Pilot?"*

* click here if you don't get the reference

I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing

Today while working in Iowa City, I ventured out to the Hamburg Inn for lunch. This is the quintessential, family-owned, long-standing, greasy spoon diner. It is a standard stop for politicians running for office. There are mini shrines set up at the booths where Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton sat during their courtships of Iowa voters. I had the mushroom Swiss burger, and a rhubarb pie shake. (Yes, a pie shake is what you think it is: a shake with pieces of pie blended in). Following lunch, we made the 3/4 mile walk back to the IPR Iowa City office. Here's what I looked like afterward:


Good food and a lot of it, but I suggest holding off on a brisk walk immediately afterward. Or, just be in better shape than me, and it would hit you as hard. (Photo courtesy of my staff that likes to make fun of me sometimes.)

Art Fair Smack Talk

Over the weekend, the family went to the Des Moines Art Festival. I blogged about this last year, but this year was a lot different. Last year we went mostly to escape the maze of unpacked boxes that jammed our new Iowa home. This year, things were much more relaxed. The kids had a great time, the weather was great, and we bought a piece of art.

Anita and I spied the painting by Nathaniel Mather early on, but walked around the festival to think about it, and returned on our way out to purchase it. While we were buying it, another couple came into the booth, saw the blank spot on the wall, and the woman said, "Oh No! They sold it!"

Anita asked if it was wrong to feel good about beating these other buyers to the punch. I said I didn't think it was wrong to think it, but it might have been inappropriate to turn to the woman and say, "IN YOUR FACE! You snooze, you lose!"

WCBU Present and Past

It's been a year since I left Peoria and WCBU, but I still keep up with the station. From afar, it seems like things are going well. I give a lot of credit to Tanya Koonce for taking over the news department, and moving forward. It's been a blast talking to her, News Director to News Director. She remains a valued colleague and a great friend. Tanya is the subject of the latest member profile on the PRNDI web site. I think it would also be an interesting read for WCBU listeners to get a little insight into how that newsroom clicks.

In a completely different vain, former WCBU Executive Director Anthony Dean is facing a lawsuit for gender and age discrimination from the wife of civil rights icon James Meredith. At the end of this article, there is a reference to a sexual harassment suit filed against him that was settled. That's where the Peoria connection comes in. In the course of that lawsuit, the plaintiff obtained a subpoena for Dean's employment record at Bradley. But Dean fought the that, and Judge John Gorman quashed the request.

Every person is innocent until proven guilty, but I think its pretty obvious that nobody would go to the trouble and expense to attempt to quash a subpoena in another state unless there was something in there they didn't want other people to see. It's important to note the lawsuit related to this was settled out of court. Still, for WCBU, Bradley University, and people in Peoria, I think this asks more questions than it answers.

When did I start hating Huey Lewis and the News?

When I was in junior high and high school, Huey Lewis and the News was one of my favorite bands. I had all their albums, two of their live concerts on VHS, and if "thou shalt not hang anything on the walls of your room" wasn't one my parents commandments I would have had a poster on my bedroom wall. So when I got an iPod for Christmas, I loaded on a few songs from Sports and FORE!.

Now six months later, HL and the N is at the bottom of the play list. I never choose them, skip over them when they come up on shuffle.

I'm really puzzled as to why this is. I'm not shunning other guilty-pleasure music from that era of my life, like Men at Work or Duran Duran. So why are the News pushed aside?

Musical tastes change, and everyone goes through phases. But I'm sensing this one is a little more permanent.

Crisis Planning Protocols

About a month ago, Anita was shopping, and an old-style kitchen timer caught Tommy's eye. So Anita bought it for him. Since then, he likes setting the timer for various events, i.e. 10 minutes until it's bath time, 15 minutes until SpongeBob comes on TV, etc.

So the other day while we had a friend over for dinner, Tommy randomly set the timer for a few minutes. Our friend asked Tommy what we should do when the timer goes off.

"Panic," said Tommy.

Nice. Be calm right now, but in seven minutes, freak out. And the ironic twist, at the time he was wearing his t-shirt he had gotten earlier in the day for being a graduate of a week-long program called "Safety Town". I wonder if they taught him the value of planned and well-timed panic.

Craig Whitehead: Finalist for New Job

Apparently former Peoria Assistant City Manager Craig Whitehead is a finalist for the position of city manager in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A couple media types have called to pick my brain about what I know about the man whose job was eliminated during the time I was covering the goings on at 419 Fulton Street. I don't recall any city council members ever saying anything positive about Mr. Whitehead.

Maybe the funnier part is that the Grand Rapids City Council wanted to conduct the search secretly, so they hired a search firm with the intent of keeping names of candidates out of the public record. But the council wanted to know who was being considered, so they sent resumes with names and former employers blacked out so council members could see the kinds of applicants that were in the pool.

Of course, the redacted resumes were leaked, and reporters using the advanced tool "Google" were pretty quick to assemble the names of finalists.

When the heck will governments learn that transparency is always better than trying to do things secretly? Apparently never.

A Good Iowa Blog

Someday I will find the time to update my blogroll to reflect some of the cool Iowa based blogs I have found and read regularly. Until then, please check out this post from Cedar Rapids Gazette columnist Todd Dorman. It's a great example of the non-partisan, straight dope, humorous and insightful sputum that he cranks out on a regular basis.

Tax Time

So far I have been a big fan of my new state. Life in Iowa is good, and in many ways there have been some nice surprises over life in Illinois. But the last couple weekends I have found a way in which the Land of Lincoln has it big over the Hawkeye State: income taxes.

First of all, Illinois has a flat rate, and Iowa has a graduated income tax based on income. That difference is fraught with philosophical differences of tax policy. But I'm focusing more on the massive amount of paperwork involved. Back in Illinois, you finish your federal return, and your state return would take about five minutes to complete. Transfer a few numbers from the fed return to the state return, go through a few steps, and then you are done. But in Iowa, the state return is every bit as complicated as the federal return. Plus, when you file, you have to include copies of some schedules from your federal return. And Iowa only uses direct deposit for refunds if you e-file (which costs $19.95). What a ripoff.

Come on, Iowa! We can do better. We already have Illinoisans jealous of our congressional map. Let's make then jealous of our IA-1040s, too.

Of course, both Iowa and Illinois are talking about overhauling their tax structures in light of the economic downturn, so who knows what the future will be like. I don't think governments ever make anything easier, simpler, or more understandable when they overhaul anything.

Another Tommyism

I love five year-old logic:

Anita: (angrily) I'm about to lose my cool.

Tommy: Does that mean you're going to get your hot?

Delightful.

Signs of Hope in the Economy

A few weeks ago we took the kids to Fairview Heights, IL to see Anita's folks. It was a good visit, and the St. Louis area greeted us with unseasonably warm temperatures. That means we took a few walks around my in-laws neighborhood.

Four houses in the neighborhood had "For Lease" signs out front, clearly the product of foreclosures with property speculators trying to get some money out of the homes before selling them someday when the housing market turns around. But here was the good sign: six houses in the neighborhood had signs out front indicating work was either recently completed or was underway. Two new roofs, new windows, a new driveway, etc... More homes getting improved by their owners than homes looking for owners.

So maybe, just maybe, the people who still have their homes think now is the time to invest in them and improve them. A good sign? I think so. But maybe I'm looking for signs of hope.

Night Light

For at least a couple of years now, Tommy has slept with his lamp and night light on. At some point when he was two, he didn't want to sleep in the dark. Negotiations to have just the night light on were fruitless. So we bought about the lowest watt light bulb possible, and let him sleep with both his night light and lamp on. It never interfered with him going to bed or sleeping all night long, so we let it ride, as is our parental m.o. when there doesn't seem to be a pressing problem.

This week, Tommy inexplicably decided he didn't want the lamp on, and just the night light. No reason, no fuss, no nothing. He just decided it was time.

In my limited experience as a parent, I have come to the conclusion that this seems to be the way to go. Kids tend to do things when they are ready. A gentle nudge here or there may seem appropriate, but ultimately they get it when they are ready.