03/18/2002:
Here's a purple crocus just for jen.
Tomorrow is Primary Election Day in Illinois. If you live in Illinois, get out there and vote. What, you live in Champaign Urbana and can't remember what district you just got redistricted into with the new census? Not a problem! Check out the pdf renderings of the new districts on Mark Shelden's page. What, now you don't know WHERE you need to go vote? Not a problem! Check out the precinct maps (big images) on the same site.
Winner for best CampaignKitsch I've received so far? Hands down it has to be the really flat q00l sponge from Blagojevich. It's one of those really paper thin flat vacuum packed sponges that plump up hugely when you drop just a bit of water on 'em. "Watch Illinois Grow" indeed.
More political good news is that the Living Wage passed the Champaign County Board with a vote of 18-3, with wide bipartisan support! Yes! The room was completely packed, people who had never spoken in front of any government meeting were speaking and saying they are now wanting to speak more often, all the churches were there, it was just generally really good. Next step is the City of Urbana, which should go well. It comes up on the agenda March 25th along with some liquor related ordinance changes so it should be quite the packed house.
Other somewhat old news: The back-back-room at the IMC (otherwise known as The Grand Ballroom) is now done and music shows are happening. Cinema Cafe is once again closed - well, it has become only an art gallery, so who the heck is gonna go in there? It's the coffee that pulled in the people to buy the art. Alas. Some of my more cynical neighbors are saying it's a matter of time before either they put coffee back or the place closes for real again and someone else can put coffee back in it. The owners are cool but I can't help but wonder what in the HECK they are thinking???
...and thus goes your basic oops I need to get all caught up in a hurry entry.
03/20/2002:
It's probably not a really good idea to be driving around the University of Illinois right now. This week officially begins the Campustown Beautification Project and accompanying street reroutings/closings. Some of the reroutings are temporary and due to the construction (currently the road doesn't really exist, per se) while others are permanent traffic changes that will remain in effect on the newly beautified streets. Supposedly the sidewalks will be widened, there will be trees and planters on wider, colored sidewalks, and Green Street will be reduced to three lanes (one each way, plus a turn lane) from the current four. Lots of people are blaming the beautification for the street rippage, but the thing is, Green Street hasn't really been overhauled since the 40's, so even if no cosmetic changes were made the thing would need replacing. Heck, the sidewalks were floating.
That said, I'm sort of divided on the whole thing - I don't really mind the three lanes on Green, but why is this only from Wright to Fourth? It'd make more sense to have the three lane configuration continue all the way to Neil Street, considering that that's the boundary of "Campustown" anyway. With only three blocks of narrow street it seems the merging hassles are going to cause far more trouble than the narrowing alone will. As for the rest of the changes, well, let's just say I'm glad I don't drive. As it is, among other bits of weirdness, John street will have one block of one way traffic going west while the rest of the street is one way going east. And where they meet? What, traffic sink? I guess they'll turn on to 6th, which is also one way, headed south... buses are being rerouted too. In fact, today is the day - Wright Street officially changes direction. Of course, they restriped it yesterday, leading to an afternoon of fun and frivolity. I suppose there's really no way around it. Good thing they scheduled this part for Spring Break.
Tomorrow Sascha and Dave are coming to my house to put a computer in my basement to run a node for the IMC community wireless project. The current idea is for the computer to be in the basement on top of the tool cabinet, with the ethernet coming from the front bright work/computer room through the floor next to the heating vent the same way the phone jack comes in there. Power to the computer can come from one of the outlets in the basement. The pringles can that is the wireless node itself will eventually go up on the house gable, most likely, with a wire coming down the roof, down the inside corner of the porch, through a small hole in the porch floor and then through a small hole in the basement wall (masonry drill plus caulking) but probably that won't get put up for a while yet. I'm thinking tomorrow we'll just get the computer installed and ssh'able from the outside world, then later on do a trial run with the pringles can just held up by a human on the porch, then finally once the porch is more done, installed for real. The original computer was in the the living room, loud as hell, and putting out tons of RF to mess up my radio reception, so the basement seems best for all concerned. If I have to, it can have tinfoil taped up all around it... Once this system is up though, if I ever get a laptop, and my backyard all nice'n'comfy, I'll be able to sit out there or walk all around downtown surfing the web, wheee.
03/25/2002:
Tonight at 7:30 PM in the Urbana City Building (400 S. Vine) the Urbana City Council Committee of the Whole will meet. Living Wage is on the agenda.
We're forecast to get more freezing rain (it's 25F and not budging much, so it should get nice'n'slick), sleet, and then snow tonight. I have Steps Of Death on the house, because right now they're still just the old stoop steps placed near the temporary plywood floor of the porch, and there is no railing. Whee. Walking to work is also interesting, but it sounds really nice, because all of the ice covered limbs are making clacking sounds like jade trees.
03/26/2002:
Last night the Urbana City Council Committee of the Whole (i.e. all the members, but meeting to do discussion business) voted to pass the living wage on to the full council with a recommendation for approval. As the full council is just the same people (well, one guy was absent last night, but all six of the rest were there) it should be a done deal in about a week! That makes the fourth local governing body to pass it. Turnout was good again, Jenny Putman from the county board was there to speak in favor too, and all the council members gave little blurbs about why they were happy to support it, while two of them said that really it doesn't even go far enough. Woo.
Snow, Snow, and More Snow is the theme of the day. There was more frozen rain last night on top of the old crusty snow and then we got a nice six inches of the fluffy stuff. I spent some time this morning looking for the snow shovel before finally finding it fallen over underneath the snow behind the house - I dug around with the rake. Raking snow makes a kinda cool cake mix like feel. Then it was all about shoveling it. There's still ice underneath but at least with it shoveled smooth it's easier to walk on, you don't get your pants all totally wet from the knees (like I have since plenty people on Nevada are slacking OFF). For part of the way in I just gave up and walked in the road, but that wasn't much better as the plows hadn't been by (I'm not sure they bother plowing Nevada period). The heavy snow didn't really start until around 3 AM so they were no doubt out plowing the bigger streets (but they didn't get Race either).
I took a picture of my house this morning too.
Lately I've been renting videos from Am-Ko, two a week. Renting there is $2 for a week. The main peeve is that the tapes are completely, completely, unsorted, and they are shoved onto small shelves, a row lying down, then like 3 rows on top so you can't see the stuff in the back, then stuff in boxes all jumbled up down below the shelves, it's just amazing. What I'm really interested to find out is, most of the videos I rent, being modern Japanese TV, have a sign at the beginning that the show is closed captioned - if I had a TV that shows the closed caption of American TV programs, can that TV show me Japanese closed captions? By closed captions I mean just that - not subtitles (trust me, no one would bother to translate these shows) but just the Japanese written text of the audio track. Japanese TV is NTSC just like US TV is, and their VCRs do everything else compatible with US VCRs, so maybe. But, I'm wondering if there might be font issues. I need to find a neighbor with a closed caption ready TV to try it out, or maybe this weekend take one of the videos up to BestBuys or somewhere with a buncha TVs and see if they'd let me try it out. I know the signal is recorded, so whether you're displaying the CC while taping or not it ends up on the video, but I dunno if the signal is the same, or what. If it turns out that I can see the closed captions, I'd be tempted to buy a cheapo TV that will show them. But most of my neighbors have ancient TVs if they have one at all.
