All the items on this list (which, until now, has existed only in my mind) do have a common theme; feel free to guess in the comments.*

• The Folsom Children’s Zoo
• Branched Oak Lake/P.O. Pears on the Lake
• A Lincoln Saltdogs game
• July Jamm
• James Arthur Vineyards
• Sunken Gardens
• The Nebraska State Fair
• Jazz in June
• Various Ice Box events
• Lincoln’s hiking/biking trail system
• Holmes Park Lake

*This competition has no monetary or other compensatory value, except for the pat on the back you can give yourself after posting a comment. This is not a competition requiring any discernable or useful skill besides your self-diagnosed “Internet OCD” and/or using an RSS client. Enter at your own risk.

This is the longest time I’ve gone between posts since I started this blog (which, astoundingly, was over a year ago). Well, I’m not dead, and life goes on. So…what have I been up to and/or thinking about? In no particular order:

1. It’s been approximately 10,000 °F here in Nebraska for the past 3 weeks; however, this weather pattern should finally break this evening.
2. Sampled wine at James Arthur Vineyards with Henry and Clay on Saturday; we then went on to watch Sideways afterwards.
3. Canoed the Niobrara River around Valentine (with Lincoln, Henry, and Meagan) July 16-17. If I had remembered to take my camera along, there would be pictures for you to look at.
4. Saw Gaelic Storm at July Jamm. You should buy one of their albums.
5. Brewed and bottled: 5 gallons of Belgian witbier. It’ll be peaking just in time for entry at the Nebraska State Fair.
6. I know how to eat with chopsticks. My parents didn’t know I could do so before Friday.
7. Nearly every time I walk around downtown Lincoln, I think about how a greedy algorithm determines how I can walk from place to place in a (mostly) optimal manner.