Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

In Brief: Koss Exec. Plays the Insanity Card; JSOnline.com Redesign, Pizza Tradgedy, Bucks Tickets Too Expensive

January 21st, 2010

Happy Thursday and welcome to day two of the Republican Senate majority!

  • The old “I had to embezzle $30 million dollars to keep up my lavish lifestyle and high social standing” defense will be employed in the Koss embezzlement case. Always a winner with the jury, especially in a recession!
  • I’m not a fan of the recently tweaked design on JSonline.com. They made the one thing that people go to the site frequently for (blogs) harder to find and are instead pushing video. Yes, I continue my crusade against the frivolity that is “jsonline video”, but there are two important differences in the switch between blogs and video on the site. 1.) The columnist blogs provide content that people actually want to see and 2.) the videos are mostly in existence to provide an extra revenue stream through the commercial you’re forced to watch.
  • For those who moved away from Milwaukee recently, you may not have heard but Pizza Man burned down the other day. Very sad. The conch there was outstanding. Hopefully they rebuild.
  • I complained about it a bit yesterday on the Twitter, but seriously, why are Bucks tickets so expensive? The cheapest lower level seats start at $50 and go up to $225 for a single game! Granted, I can go up to the upper deck and “only” pay $20 per ticket, but with a two year old it helps to be close to the action to keep their attention. You know one person who won’t be weeping tears of sorrow if the Bucks leave town someday? Me. I would however be the first in line for season tickets if we were able to replace the “BA” in NBA with a “HL”.

Major Media in Milwaukee Diverts All Resources to Covering 3 Inches of Snow

January 7th, 2010

Apparently, it’s a slow news day here in Milwaukee. So slow that Wisconsin’s major daily newspaper has decided it needs to make the news instead of reporting on it.

So if you didn’t know it was snowing today, in January, in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will make sure you know it’s snowing. In Wisconsin. In January.

They’ve got a “snow blog”.

They’ve got a “live chat” for people who want to talk about that fact that it is in indeed, snowing.

Most bizarre, they’ve got a live video feed from two of their “reporters” who are driving around the area and commenting on the fact that it’s snowing. You can watch all the exhilarating action of someone else driving 35 miles per hour here if you’re own commute this morning didn’t satisfy your thirst.

Here’s a screen shot of the entire front page of the jsonline.com site where I challenge you to find anything not related to snow.

screen-capture-4Apparently, there are resources a plenty for  having a “reporter” doing live video streams of people driving in the area with 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. Local coverage of our elected officials who make decisions that affect our every day lives, not so much.

A (Belated) Look Back at 2009

January 6th, 2010

I’m a bit late for my usual “looking back at 2009″ posting, but better late than never right?

Best albums of 2009: Silver Sun Pickups (Swoon), Tiesto (Kaleidoscope)

2009 Hit Movies: GI Joe, We Live in Public, Zombieland

2009 Movie Misses: District 9, Rachel Getting Married (Yes, it did come out in 2008. It deserves special mention in 2009 for being that bad. And that’s coming from someone who would watch Anne Hathaway read a magazine for 90 minutes.)

Great TV of 2009: Tru Blood, Battlestar Galactica finale, “The National Parks” miniseries on PBS

Lowlights of 2009: Not making Lollapalooza for the first time in five years. Chicago not getting the 2016 Olympics and how some people cheered against it. Painting my house. Brewers not making the playoffs.

Highlights of 2009: Being elected the Board President for the Park People. President Obama’s inauguration. Painting my house. Season tickets for the Brewers. Getting to have a hand in writing two pieces of major State legislation. Bringing Emerson and Carter camping for the first time.

2009 was also another good year for the weblog. February turned out to be the busiest month of the year with 150,000 page views in the month and over 1,200 visitors per day. It coincided with the publishing of the most popular posting I’ve ever done, the open records request I did to uncover the fact that the State spent $2 million on a web site that has less functionality than my weblog. Since then, I’ve been averaging just over 1,000 visitors and 5,000 page views per day to the weblog. Not earth shattering numbers, but a pretty good year.

That posting about the $2 million website still gets a few hits a day and was the most popular of the year. The other top articles of the year were the one that got some major play after I called out right wing radio host Mark Belling for calling women who breast feed their children “sows” and some of the more level headed commentary found on the subject about the McBride/Flynn affair back in June.

Thanks for making 2009 a great year and especially to those of you who continue to engage in reasoned debate on a regular basis about the issues facing Milwaukee and America.

Best wishes for a prosperous and joyous New Year!

Have a Great Finish to 2009

December 31st, 2009

Have a good New Year celebration, whatever it may be. I’ll be checking out for the rest of the year.

I leave you with this, enjoy and see you in 2010!

On a Lighter Note, Toys You Always Wanted But Never Got For Christmas

December 23rd, 2009

While I was out shopping for the kids the other day, I caught myself thinking about all the toys I wanted when I was a kid myself but never got.

As many know, when I was growing up my family was, well.. poor. One of my most vivid memories I have as a kid is waiting in line in the Carson City community center for Government issued cheese and powdered milk. The memory is stamped into my brain as clearly as the plain black letters on the white background of the packages of the food we were waiting for. Despite our station in life at the time, we were able to have a good education through the miracle of Catholic charity which allowed me and my brothers to attend a parochial elementary school.

One of the more interesting things about going to St. Theresa’s Catholic school at that time was we were in classrooms with a lot of kids who very much could afford to go there. Several of my classmates had parents who were doctors, orthodontists and one of my friends was the son of the Lt. Governor (later Governor after we moved) at the time. The great and terrible thing about this is we had access to some of the greatest toys of the time, which is how every 4th grade boy rates his existence, but only while visiting friends houses.

On Christmas mornings back then, my friends were getting new Diamondback or Hutch bikes, opening a new Nintendo Entertainment System or ripping open the packaging of the latest Transformer.

At the Cody household, we would instead be opening up Go Bots (or their knockoffs) and other toys that were more affordable and three boys could share. Not that I have any regrets or am complaining by the way, I wouldn’t trade the memories of those Christmas mornings in for anything, and I appreciate things now later in life as a result of not “having it all” as a kid.

The one exception to the “I never got any of the ‘awesome’ toys as a kid” rule, is the one year my brother Scott and I got real Transformers under the tree. They weren’t Go Bots or Dashbots, but real Transformers just like on the cartoons! Mirage and Bumblebee.

Of course the irony was that we were so eager to play with them, we opened them weeks before Christmas and when we were caught opening empty boxes Christmas morning, they were taken away for good.

So we got by as kids tend to do, and like I said, I don’t regret it a bit.

But I walking down the toy isle the other day, I did feel some of that old nostalgia coming back, especially when I saw the G.I. Joe toys.

Again, for most boys my age, G.I. Joe toys were where it was at. On top of tapping into the natural fascination of all things military that young boys often have, we would always make it home from school to watch the cartoon at 3:30 where the slogan “Knowing is half the battle” taught us in a tough, cool way things like the importance of staying away from downed power lines.

Luckily for us, G.I. Joe action figures were also moderately priced, which meant that around Christmas time and birthdays we could expect a few under the tree to play with. If things were going well at work, or we had made a few extra batches of “Wisconsin Bell” flags on the side for my moms company (A whole other story…) we might even get an accessory like jeep or tank to go with our G.I. Joe action figures. Most of the time, we would end up taking our action figures and jeeps over to the friends houses who’s parents could afford the more expensive toys.

So in the interest of Christmas and keeping things on the lighter side for the next few days, I share with you my top five toys that I lusted after but never received as a kid. Maybe you’ve got some of your own to share?

The “Jetfire” Transformer. He was massive and shiny and huge and sold from the top shelf at Mervyn’s.

Star Wars AT-AT – Again, another huge toy that we probably didn’t have the action figure manpower to operate, but very desirable none the less!

G.I. Joe “HALO” Parachute Pack – I actually did get this for a birthday, but was only able to use it once as Duke and his HALO parachute were never recovered after their initial launch. Weather conditions were good, but looking back, the model rocket engine we strapped him to may have been a bit too powerful. He was last seen accelerating out of my backyard and towards Lake Tahoe, much to the initial delight of my friends and I.

The U.S.S. Flagg – Another massive toy. Looking back, we probably didn’t have enough Joes to actually man the ship.

Diamondback 1984 Diamondback dirt bike. Dirt bikes were a big deal in Nevada in the mid-80’s. This is a good example of a classic 84 Diamondback, although I would have preferred some axle pegs on the front and back. And check out the links on that chain. Awesome.

So what are some of the toys you look back fondly? Have a great Christmas!

Two Fun Videos to Share for the Holiday Season

December 22nd, 2009

As 2009 draws to a close (whew) and Christmas draws near, I thought I’d share a few videos that pretty much sum up both.

The first is a fun video that uses Google Wave to look back on 2009:

The second is a video that makes the case – which needs to be done every year – about what Christmas is really about.

On a completely separate note… Dear video producers: Please put the morphing 3D title text plugins and generators made famous in the movie Valkyrie and the Ford truck commercials away now. They have become the 2009 video equivalent of the drop shadow in Photoshop; overused but rarely done well. Every time I see this effect in use lately, I cringe.

New Column at MilwaukeeMoms.com – Combat the Winter Break Blues in Your County Parks

December 15th, 2009

My latest column for milwaukeemoms.com is now available: Combat the “Winter Break Blues” in your Milwaukee County Parks

Sometimes over winter break, it can be hard for parents to find fun activities for their kids. I the latest column, I point out some of the options for fun winter activities the whole family can enjoy in one of your many Milwaukee County Parks. Take a read if you get a chance and keep the winter break blues at bay!

Journal Sentinel Reporter Sourcing Story I Broke About Aprahamian Contribution to Walker Campaign Without Credit?

December 13th, 2009

How’s that for timing?

A day after I made the connection (thanks to a commenter who corrected me about who the contract was awarded to) between a recently awarded County cleaning contract to a company owned by a man who contributed $1,000 to County Executive Scott Walker’s campaign, the Journal Sentinel decides to run a similar story.

Yesterday morning I pointed out that Edward Aprahamian, owner of MidAmerican Building Services, made a $1,000 contribution to Scott Walker’s campaign for Governor on June 30th, 2009. Last week, his company won the new contract to provide janitorial services to the Milwaukee County Courthouse, a move the County Executive had been pushing hard for since last year.

In tomorrow’s Journal Sentinel, there will be an article (linked above) that highlights exactly that.

Now I can’t say with absolute certainty that the journalist who wrote the piece for the paper sourced my blog without giving credit, but I can tell you it’s happened several times before and that yesterday there was an abnormal amount of traffic to my website from a network registered to “Journal Communications”. To be honest, it’s awfully coincidental.

I don’t have a problem with “journalists” sourcing blogs, or those who write them, for their material or leads. That’s great. What I do have a problem with is “journalists” trolling well known local blogs for stories that might have legs so they don’t have to do the hard work of doing the initial investigation and then presenting it as their own work.

How hard would it be to just include a simple line in that, or any article, that acknowledges that fact?

When they don’t, or can’t, or won’t you have to ask yourself why. Perhaps the continuing reluctance of the “traditional media” to acknowledge that many of the “citizen journalists/blogs” are beating them to the punch on many stories is exactly why the “traditional media” continues to bleed subscribers while the same blogs they’re ripping leads and ideas from are more popular than ever for local news and happenings.

Monday Disco While You Wait for the Impending Snow Storm of the Century

December 7th, 2009

If you’re tired of listening to the TV stations who are on DEFCON 1 because we’re about to get snow – in Wisconsin! in December! – you might want to take your mind off that and enjoy the a time when commercialism went hand in hand. Disco Star Wars!

Yes, it’s Monday.

Neat “United We Serve” and “NFL Play 60″ Ad with NFL Stars and the President

November 20th, 2009

Cool ad for the United We Serve and NFL Play 60 campaigns.

Although because it shows the President of the United States, who at the time happens to be Barrack Obama, some conservatives will no doubt jump on it as another attempt to “indoctrinate” kids through a socialist message like “WORKING TOGETHER” as a team towards a “COMMON GOAL”. Both are clearly socialist/communist/marxist code phrases.

After all, those kids doing jumping jacks look suspiciously like some kind of Maoist training camp. First he tells our kids to “work hard and stay in school” and now he’s trying to tell them to “be active and live a healthy lifestyle”??!?! Who the heck does the President think he is????!

Personally, I think it’s a great ad.

My Brothers Writes a Book About His Army Service Blowing Up Bombs

November 18th, 2009

That is not a title I use very often to say the least…

Some of you know my brother Jonathon either by meeting him in person or through his occasional comment here on my weblog. He’s been in the Army for 12 years, served in Iraq and currently holds the rank of Captain.

And as he likes to say, he blows up bombs for a living.

He’s an EOD (explosive ordinance demolition) specialist, the same kind we heard so much

about during the height of the Iraq war when they were getting a lot of attention for dealing with all the road side bombs that were being used against US troops and civilians.

We’re all very proud of the work he’s done and of his service to our Country.

I mention all this because a book he’s been writing that draws on inspiration from his job and time in Iraq has been published, and I’d recommend it for anyone looking to hear an inside perspective on what it takes to do what he did. It’s called, “Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown” and is available for purchase on Amazon.com.

That is a picture of him in his “I’m going to blow shit up” outfit (as I like to call it). An excerpt of the book is below.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are typified by an enemy who strikes from the shadows; sniper fire, RPG’s, and suicide bombers are his modus operandi. But above all others, this enemy’s favorite weapon is the improvised explosive device (IED). Ranging from the simplest of construction to the most sophisticated of all gadgetry, the IED represents a grave threat to American soldiers all over the world.

If you have a chance, order a copy. Jon has assured me it’s an enjoyable read.