SenatorShriv

The last time I was in Austin (last summer for Austin City Limits) they had just broken out of an ungodly heatwave. My memory could be failing me, but I believe that they had just had 70 days in a row where the temperature broke 100 degrees. 2009 was supposed to be an anomaly but that scares the bejeebus out of me. Once things get passed about 85 it is pretty miserable as far as I'm concerned. I believe that it can be fairly humid as well. Something to consider...

If you prefer outdoor adventure take Idaho for sure. If you prefer live music and the feel of a bigger college go to Austin. I've been to both and you can't really go wrong with either in my opinion.

I am not an expert on transportation policies or the specifics of this plan but I know that the modeling and planning that goes into these efforts is extremely rigorous so I'm inclined to trust the ridership estimates. The conversations that I've had with folks working directly on these issues indicate that they are being fairly concervative with their approach and that there is a good chance the costs will be lower and the benfits will be greater than the initial estimates. I believe that they will design the service in a way that will maximize ridership and will make it a viable alternative to highway travel. State and local transit experts have been at the table every step of the way to ensure that local transit will be integrated into the broader midwest rail plans so I'm not too worried about where the specific Madison stops will be. I travel from Madison to Milwaukee for work about once every other week and have several co-workers who make the trek once or twice a week. After taking a quick poll in the office this week it was unanimously agreed that it would be great to use that commute time actually doing work rather than constantly worrying about what the traffic situation on the beltline and between Waukesha / Milwaukee was going to be. Adding more traffic lanes has been the answer for decades and continues to be a just temporary "band aid" type approach to our transit needs. The argument that we should be spending this money on other infrastructure investments is a little strange to me. Lots (too much in my opinion) of the ARRA / stimulus funding is being directed toward infrastructure improvement projects that were "shovel ready" but will have little overall public benefit. The bottom line is that ALL transportation funding is expensive. I'm glad to see that we're diversifying our investments a bit and providing options for travelers. Until we master the technology of teleportation I'm excited to have the choice betwen trains and cars for some of my travel. Edit: Design DOES matter so if you have strong opinions about where trains should go or stop I would contact state or local government reps and ask them to advocate for routes / stops that would be convenient for you.

My roommate used to have a PS3 set up that we were able to watch Youtube videos on, but we weren't able to access other internet sites. I'm not saying that you can't do it, but ours was not set up to do so. My biggest concern with cancelling cable is that I won't be able to watch Brewers games. My other concern is that when I looked into this about 3 years ago most internet providers were only slightly cheaper than the monthly cable bill was.

My old computer recently crashed completely. It won't even turn on and several computer experts have failed to get all of my old music, pictures and documents off of it. In addition to the music on my Ipod from that computer I have music that I legitimatly purchased or live concerts that I downloaded from legit sites from older computers that I no longer have access to on a hard drive. Now I'm sitting on almost 70 Gigs of music on an aging Ipod that I don't want to lose to the inevitable Ipod crash. Does anyone have experiance transfering information from an Ipod to a new computer? I'm sure that there is softwear out there that will allow me to transfer the information. I'm just wondering if anyone has experience with anything that worked particularly well?

I have other friends who graduated with political science degrees that do research for think tanks, interest groups, businesses or government agencies that want to study X, Y or Z to improve their operations. One example of this type of work is a friend who does analysis of media coverage on health care issues for a national think tank. She tries to figure out which media messages are most effective in certain markets and how deeply the core messages of the interest groups working for (or against) health care reforms are infiltrating into the national and local media coverage of the topic. Another friend works for the equivalent of the Public Service Commission in another state evaluating how effective their PR campaigns are at achieving results (promoting energy efficiency for example) and makes policy or programmatic recommendations to improve their results. There are others who have ended up in public relations type roles for PR firms that do campaign consulting for businesses, politicians, organizations and interest groups. If any of the potential career paths I've mentioned in previous posts sound interesting I would be happy to make some recommendations about resources that would give you more background / perspective on those types of options. The most amazing thing to me after graduating was realizing how many options and opportunities there are out there even in what seems like a very specific field. I knew I wanted to work on energy policies (which I thought was extremely specific at the time,) but now it seems like new and different opportunity come up weekly that offer me the chance to play a slightly different role within that specific or a related field.

I had a double major in Political Science and History. I now work as a lobbyist for a non-profit in Madison and love what I do. I have lots of friends with Poli Sci degrees who work in the capitol (state and federal) as well as several who run campaigns for elected officials nearly full time. Some of them make a ton of money some of them make modest salaries. Many people start by working in government and then taking lobbying jobs later that capitalize off of their connections. Like most liberal arts degrees, you have a lot of general skills that most companies and organizations are looking for. You can (hopefully) read, write and think critically about complex issues. The history degree gives you some perspective on the world that can be valuable as well.

I went with Al's route for a while. While I was in college and had girlfriends who loved dogs it wasn't a big deal to have the dog on the furniture. Now my roommates aren't thrilled about having the dog all over their furniture and I'm having trouble convincing the fairer sex that a dog-hair pillow is just as nice as a goose-down pillow. Has anyone ever tried the Sofa Scram or the Scat Mat? Most of the reviews on the Amazon page linked a couple posts earlier seem to be a bit pre-fabricated...

I had a similar problem a few years ago when she would only dig holes in the backyard when she thought no one was home. Along with my roommates we started hiding in random rooms of the house with windows facing the back yard, on the roof of the garage, behind bushes, etc... and would spray her with the garden hose any time she started digging. It was a long drawn out process that involved a lot of beer drinking but eventually it worked. The problem is that I don't want to spray a garden hose in my house and that I don't have that much time on my hands anymore. I've thought about elaborate systems that involve webcams, walkie talkies and such but that seems like WAY too much work. There has to be a simple solution out there...

I've got a 6 year old black lab that loves to sleep on couches and beds when nobody is home. She knows that she's not supposed to do be there and will slink out of the house to avoid scolding whenever she is busted. For the last year or so I've resorted to closing all the bedroom doors and piling random objects on the furniture to keep her off them, but am really tired of doing so and even that doesn't always work. Does anyone have any advice for training a dog not to do something that they only do when no one is around?

I hope that they don't trade either of Lucroy or Salome. I would like to let them battle it out over the course of spring training and let the winner start the year in a true platoon with proven MLB veteran. Someone like Kendall would be fine as long as they were only for late inning defensive replacements and starting 40 - 50% of the games. If the winner of the spring training competition isn't catching fire after a couple of months, we could try to rotate in the other promising young catcher or trade for someone else to fill the platoon role at mid-season.

I was really excited about Spivey as part of the Sexson deal. I couldn't help but feel that trade was the perfect hybrid between a total punt of the next two years and the arrival of the youngsters. I had always felt the Brewer's tried to hold on to players like Sexson who were talented (or put up really good numbers for one or two years) but never built around them. Most of the time it resulted in having one or two standout players every year and a team that just stunk up the joint over the course of the season. Or we ended up trading talent for a bunch of unproven low-level prospects with the hope that we might be good someday down the road. We never seemed to have a coherent plan to field a well rounded team up until that point. Getting Spivey in the deal (instead of two or three minor league players with questionable futures) was a signal to me that the front office wanted to field a quality team that would entertain the fans day in and day out, but knew that we had to follow a long term growth plan. I was anticipating getting good production (which was the case when Spivey was healthy) and getting a good piece of the winning puzzle in return when Weeks was ready to step in and play full time. Obviously the injuries prevented Spivey from playing to his highest level for some of his time here and the Brewers getting a significant return on the inevitable trade but I'm really glad that he was here and part of the package that has allowed the team to have success over the last couple of years. I also enjoyed the interview, if for no other reason than to give Spivey a chance to retract the "I'm devestated" comment. I know that he tried to clarify his comments shortly after the trade, but it just seemed forced at the time. I was turned off by the comments at the time, but got over them quickly based off my perception that Spivey was a quality addition to the team that basically shut up and played.

I would have recommended Magnus. One of the best chefs in Madison, nice atmosphere, close to the capitol, etc... Hope it went well.

Count me in the camp of Braddock fans that would like to see him get stretched out in AAA to be ready for that first injury that hits the bullpen or starting rotation. Part of the reason I would like to see him in AAA is simply that I want to see some depth at the higher levels ready to step in when injuries start to take their inevitable tole on the pitching staff. Braddock's age make him the ideal candidate for this role in my opinion and I hope that Melvin builds as much of the staff as possible through trades and FA pitchers first.

I had pretty high hopes for the Avett Brother's new album (I and Love and You) when I found out that Rick Rubin was going to produce it. Instead of encouraging the band to experiment and continue to evolve a bit, Rubin seems to have overproduced the whole thing. There is very little of the spontaneity and raw energy or emotion that drives their earlier albums. (Their live performances have even become kind of boring, which is almost unbelievable when you consider how crazy their shows were on past tours.) I would support the positive review of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix. I would encourage folks to check out The Gossip's new(ish) album - Music for Men. Excellent live band as well. http://stereogum.com/img/thumbnails/posts/gossip-music-for-men-album-art.jpg

I grew up in Lake Geneva and think that this is a somewhat bizarre move. The location (the former Cactus Club) is a bit off the main drag and might be hard to draw the tourists from the popular places along the lake. The Cactus Club did most of its business with local (and were pretty darn successful with it for years.) It is also kind of weird for a Milwaukee star to open up shop in Lake Geneva. Throughout its entire history Lake Geneva has been closely linked with Chicago and has had very little Milwaukee influence. I'll send my parents out on a intelligence gathering mission when it opens and will report back with their findings.

I went the last three years and always had a blast. This year's lineup didn't do anything for me (then again last years lineup was INSANELY good so anything might seem like a let down after that.) I also felt that most of the bands on the lineup that I did want to see would be in Madison or Milwaukee sometime soon anyway. (The Heartless Bastards and the Decemberists just played in Madison this week and those were two of the big draws for me.) I skipped this year but would consider going back again if they comeback with a lineup that is better then this years. I don't remember what day they play but I would HIGHLY recommend checking out the Heartless Bastards.

I'll really miss having Brad Nelson in the system. He part of the first crew of prospects that got me really excited about following the minor leagues and got me re-excited about baseball. The debates about how to handle our glut of first basemen was a fun one (Sexson, Overbay, Fielder, Nelson, Hart, etc...) I spoke with Nelson at several different points over his career and he was always very nice. It seemed like that hamate injury really set him back about two seasons but I never gave up hope that he could be a productive role player at the big league level. It's too bad it won't be with the Brewers, but hopefully he finds a big league team that will give him a chance to flourish. I'll be rooting for him (whenever he isn't playing the Brewers.)

Tonight's game will be a good opportunity to put ourselves on top of the Division. Hopefully it's the last time we have to look up at anyone in the standings!

Not to pile on,but as one of the previous posters pointed out I don't think that Wilco has done anything that would be considered alt-country since the Mermaid Avenue albums. When introducing people to Wilco I usually start with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or Sky Blue Sky since they are slightly more accessible then A Ghost Is Born or their earlier album. Sky Blue Sky was not my favorite album but has some pretty good moments. I've got high hopes for the new one. For some reason I tossed SummerTeeth into my car cd player the about 3 weeks ago. It hasn't left the player since. I missed them on the tour that they shot this but I'm looking forward to catching them next time around.

I found about a pound and a half this weekend on a short hike through some parks around Madison. I figured that was pretty good for an amateur dinking around within the city. I cooked them up as a side dish for dinner on Friday night and will probably do the same if I find any more in the next week or two. It's supposed to be bad luck to sell them (I believe that bartering is ok) but considering how broke I am and how much they are going for ($30 lbs in some places) I don't know if I'll be able to pass up the temptation for too much longer.

To be honest, I'm just glad that we're on the winning end of it. Maybe the dog-days of being a Brewer's fan are starting to fade from the memories of some Brewer fans, but not this one. I would rather quietly enjoy the success and hope that it helps us gain some ground on the division leaders then gloat over a team that has struggled as bad as the Pirates have recently. I used to get really tired of hearing about how so many teams (including the Pirates) used to "have the Brewer's number."

Went out for the first hunt of the season today but didn't find anything. I think that it might still be a little premature. I've heard that the soil needs to hit 70 degrees before the morels really start popping up in a big way. On the other hand, I'm a huge amateur and I did talk to a guy who said he found a couple of pounds near New Glarus the other day. I'm guessing that next weekend will be primo along the Wisconsin River.

I just got back from Vegas today. It was my first time. We stayed at the MGM and had a great time. I don't do a ton of gambling, but I do like drinking and people watching so I just focused on scamming as many free drinks as I possibly could. We saw KA, which I would highly recommend to anyone looking to take in a show while in town (Cirque du Soleil with martial arts and CRAZY stage.) I wasn't anticipating enjoying myself so much, but am already thinking about when we might be able to sneak back for another long weekend.

I appreciate the candid response, but I don't really love the idea of him throwing his teammates like Parra under the bus like that. There are other ways of saying "we all need to step it up" without ridiculing the pitching staff after one of the least experienced players had a bad game. edit: Just to clarify, I agree with his statements. I just don't want this team to deteriorate into a situation where there is bad blood and infighting in the clubhouse.