A J Doe 

Message from the Past

Yesterday, I felt in the mood to brake in my 1/2 new kitchen and do some baking. Yes, both my brother and I know how to cook. When you have two parents working full time, us kids often started dinner when we got home from school so it would be nearly done when the parents got home.

In the freezer I noticed some frozen strawberries that my mom had given me. After 3 years of grad school and no time to cook, I decided I needed to take some time and make some comfort food. It had been such a long time since I made pie dough I had to get out my mom's oil dough recipe. As I opened the cook book, the past jumped out at me. This particular cook book originally belonged to my grandma (my dad's mom). Ninety percent of the recipe cards in this book are written by my grandma. Out from the cards jumped her very distinct hand writing that was so familiar to me as a child. I don't even remember how I came to possess the cook book. Memories came flooding back into memory. Baking cherry and prune Kolachis, yum. Was her recipe for Kolachi in this book? No such luck.

As I mixed the dough up, added sugar and starch to the strawberries, I suddenly realized the past was present in my kitchen. The rolling pin; grandma's, the Pyrex measuring cup; grandma's, the cookbook; grandma's. I slide the pie into the oven and pull open my kitchen drawers. Inside I also find a potato masher, also grandma's. Maybe I was searching for something comforting that evening and these things allowed my good memories to well up from deep inside me. It did make me feel good to have these thing around me last night. I wondered if any other grandchildren had such treasures tucked away in their homes. I rather doubt it, I don't think they came around to visit that often. My older sibling might have a thing or two but I very much doubt my younger sibs took the time to acquire such things.

I wonder why I collected these things yet, to date, have cared for them so unceremoniously. Today, in a rather off and on fashion, I continue to ponder what these things met to me, mean to me and will mean in the future to anyone. Things that belonged to someone they never knew personally and will only know through my memories of them.

UFO landing on Chicago lakefront smashes historic designation

UFO on the Lakefront

The National Parks Service Advisory Board's Landmarks Committee voted unanamously to recomend stripping Soldier Field in Chicago of its status as a National Historic Landmark. The Board agreed with the analysis of the National Park Service employees, here in Omaha, that the flying-saucer shaped stadium wedged between the field's columns destroyed its historic character. Who could have guessed?

Close is only counts when playing in horse shoes

Well, I was called by Union Pacific. I was told I had a great interview but that I was a very close second choice. The job was given to someone else. In a way I was somewhat flattered to come in 2nd place. However, that still leaves me without a job. I was also encouraged to apply again at UP. So I got back online and applied for the same job but in another department. The opening had just been posted the day before. Lucky me.

What kind of a party is this?

"I did attend the (Omaha) Midtown Neighborhood Alliance (MNA) meeting on August 26. The following is my impression of the proceedings. It was kind of like being at the tea party in Alice in Wonderland. The current overall disorganization of MNA created a "fly by the seat of our pants" environment at the meeting."

This is a quote from my correspondence with my neighborhood board of directors the day after a meeting by MNA that was used by the MNA officers to ramrod the selection process for "neighborhood representatives" to sit on the redevelopment board for Destination Midtown. Lost on those attending and engaging in such behavior was that such an important decision, that affects all our neighborhood's futures, was to serious a decision to railroad through an unannounced, sparsely attended meeting. I wasn't the first or only person to express that opinion at the meeting. What I witnessed at the meeting, when attendees tried to convey their neighborhood's input, their voices of dissent were shouted down, intimidated or drowned out. Very sad and unprofessional considering that we all were surposed to be on the same side.

MNA was formed to advance the interests of the neighborhoods in the planning process. Three neighborhoods voiced concern that they had not discussed which representatives should be advanced to the Destination Midtown Board and one key neighborhood was not present at all. No nominations were taken nor asked for in advance of the meeting. No deliberation was allowed and no prior thought was given to who in the DM area was most qualified to serve on the DM Board. This was one of the worst manipulations of the democratic process I have ever witnessed. The result was that all the more economically challenged neighborhoods were disenfranchised and left with no representation on the MNA board or the MD board. All those elected to be officers or representatives were upper income people who generally lived in the more gentrified parts of Midtown.

The entire proceedings appeared self servicing and unfair.

Labor Day

With the setting sun today, the summer season is assumed ended. The sun sets at 740pm making the day seem so much shorter and hints at the soon to come short days of winter. It is surprising to me that I have spent the entire summer without a paying job.

I had a huge interview last week with with an interviewing committee at Union Pacific Rail Road. This was my second interview with UP and the stakes never seemed higher. I was unusually nervous before the interview and I hope it didn't show. At one point this summer I went 60 days without a single interview. Maybe the economy is recovering but certainly not here. If this doesn't come through for me, I need to think up a new plan. Perhaps even moving to a city with more jobs.