Quickie

- It's busy at work, and I'm trying to be on vacation next week. It rather cuts into time.

- The weather is making it difficult to focus; unseasonably warm this week, after months of below average temps. The sun is (mostly) shining, too.

- I dreamt about rain last night, including a futile hunt for my umbrella (which is exactly where it lives - hanging by its strap on the hall tree in the living room). Turns out it rained quite a bit overnight. The bedroom window is open, and my subconscious apparently grabbed on to the sound.

- This is for another post, but I got a letter from the child I sponsor yesterday. She drew a really great picture of herself flying a kite.

- In a related note, I used up the last of my Amazon price-fixing settlement to order some sticker and coloring books. Compassion works as the middleman in any mailings with your sponsored kid (you mail your letter to them, they mail to the kids), and while you can send things along, they have to be flat and more or less fit in a business size envelope. I figure I can take the pages out of the book, and send a few pages and the corresponding stickers at a time.

- There is some sort of celebration in the city today for the 25th anniversary of the filming of Major League, which took place mostly at the old County Stadium. It was a big deal at the time; Hollywood mostly ignores the middle of the country. The only reason the state saw some filming of Public Enemies is that one of the real life locations was available for use.

- (Did I ever tell the story of the coworker who put in photos for the casting call for extras, and was actually selected? They were to film for two days in Madison, about two hours west of here. She turned it down because it was an unpaid position, and she'd have to pay for a motel room. Turn down the chance to say you were an extra in a Johnny Depp/Christian Bale movie, just because you were too cheap to spring for a motel room? Good grief).

- The saga of the new arena continues. The NBA is making noise about our current place being "unsuited to modern basketball". Note the area is barely 25 years old. Former Senator Kohl is trying to sell the team (quietly), and it's leaked that part of the deal involves the construction of a new arena. Kohl has committed a fairly substantial chunk of his personal funds to the project, should it ever happen. Meanwhile, the city is making noise about the public portion of the project being supported by - you guessed it - additional taxes. The surrounding counties, who were nicked for the extra sales tax that is paying off Miller Park (and that tax will never, ever go away; the sunset date has been extended at least half a dozen times) are loudly voicing opposition to paying anything for a new arena. Sigh. Why the heck didn't they start 25 years ago with a per-ticket charge that would be held in trust for either remodeling or rebuilding?

- Gotta run.