Summer Preview

Nice preview of summer we're having here. It's been in the upper 80's for the past couple days. I turned off the furnace and turned on the air conditioner. Even watered the lawn a bit.

Yesterday I managed to get out of the house and went downtown for lunch and some ice cream (Maggie Moo's Better Batter ice cream with chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough). I did a circuit around the mall area. Half the trees (mostly the Oaks) were still looking pretty dead looking but the others were in full bloom and parts of this downtown park really felt like spring. Just look at this picture. Leafless on the left, flowers on the right - gorgeous.

The water, the centerpiece of the mall area, needs some serious work. The water is this pea green color and there is scum and trash floating along the edges and in the corners - Gagh! Hopefully Omaha will use some of it's stimulus money to spruce up the place. I was surprised to find that there are fish in the soup. A lot of fish actually. The fish seem to be afraid of the light as they were clustered in the shadow of a bridge.

In the evening the Wife and I went to see a Quasi-Live performance of the This American Life radio program. The show was recorded live and the performances were beamed to some 430 movie theaters around the country. It was pretty good. Funny stories told by familiar voices. There was even live music performed by Joss Whedon (He sang some of his singing commentary from his Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog DVD).

I was impressed by the crowd - our theater was about two thirds full - about the same amount as a regular movie. The crowd was a mix of hip youngster and hip oldster. I wore the shirt I bought at the live performance we attended a couple years ago. I kind of felt like a Trekkie wearing a Star trek uniform. Since nobody seemed to recognize it, I didn't feel too geeky.

Today, part two of the summer preview, I took my Mom out for lunch at Goldbergs known for their "Burgers, Beer, & Bloody Marys." It was good enough. Neither of us had the burgers, beer, or bloody marys.

It all comes to an end tonight with some thunderstorms and a 30°F drop in the temperature. Preview Over.