Home sweet. home?

Made it back safely a bit ago, nothing like a 9.5 hour ride to er' refresh? relax? reminisce? er ok, maybe it wasn't that fun of drive/ride. I didn't have to actually drive any of it, just sit in the back and read/listen to my ipod. Still that long in a vehicle isn't what I'd say is an enjoyable time.

Deadwood was fun. The first night we were there two of our group had pretty good luck at the 3-card poker table (one of them getting as much as 350+ up) This excitement inevitably pulled me in and I tried myself at a few hands. Needless to say it did not work out so well for me. The entire trip, I didn't loose much more than I had planned on spending (I just expected it to be on food/drink related stuffs) anyways, but it definitely drove home the point that gambling is not for me.

Now that I'm back home I'm ready to relax a little before tearing into a demon of a term paper that I've got to present in a little over a week.

In the spare time that I have over the next few days I'll be sorting the pictures I took and be making appropriate posts on flickr/youtube, so be on the lookout for those.

i. hate. snow.

so a 2.5 hour drive turned into 4 (so far) and my hate for snow is unrelenting

Ugh

Ok, so now they're saying blizzard like conditions... great news.. just great..

Ready for Vacation

So ready for vacation it's not even funny.

On Wednesday, we will be going up to Deadwood, SD to eat, drink, (maybe gamble) and be merry. I'll be taking various forms of image capturing; moving and still; along for the ride so look forward to either flickr or youtube postings about the trip. This will be my first time in Deadwood and I'm told that it's a blast, definitely looking forward to it.

We will actually be stopping in NP Wednesday night to visit family & friends and will resume the trek Thursday morning. Spend Thursday through Sunday morning and then make the long 9 hour drive home.

Here's hoping it doesn't snow. God I hate snow...

Slow Motion Slap

If you think Hilary is not a crazy lying crackpot, you deserve the following...

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

The End of the Cold Streak?

You know it's been a couple of cold weeks when you wake up in the morning thinking 19F is actually pretty warm...

A farewell to the era of anonymous drinking? - Not in Nebraska

So I was brought attention to the following article. In which they describe how some bars are using machines to scan the bar codes on drivers licenses, and then the information is stored and later sold to filthy marketing types who like to send out extremely targeted advertising to the unsuspecting patrons. ("Any big plans for your birthday next week!?" etc)

Anyways, I was interested in what the laws of Nebraska said on the issue (and more importantly whether I would get in trouble if I were to take a sharpie to the back of mine..) and am proud to report that we Nebraskans have nothing to worry about. The website www.privacyprotectionlevel.org got a response from Noelie Sherdon, Legal Counsel NE DMV on the issue and it is as follows:

Just a clarification of NE law on information on a driver license - While there is no way to restrict anyone writing down or photo copying the information that appears on the front of our driver's license if a person allows someone to do that to their license or ID card, that is also not very convenient in an electronic age. NE does have a statute that makes it a felony criminal offense to record and store the information that is electronically encoded in the machine readable zone on the license. I have pasted a copy of that statute below. You may also want to review our DMV privacy law which is found at Neb.Rev.Stat. 60-2901 and following. The statutes are available free on the Nebraska Legislature website. Our privacy law restricts release of data contained in our DMV records, but does not specifically apply to information on the actual driver license or id card.

Section 60-4,111.01 Storage or compilation of information; violation; penalty.

• (1) The Department of Motor Vehicles, the courts, or law enforcement agencies may store or compile information acquired from an operator's


• (2) No person having use of or access to machine-readable information encoded on an operator's license or a state identification card shall compile, store, preserve, trade, or sell such information. Violation of this subsection shall be a Class IV felony.

Source: Laws 2001, LB 574, § 30
Noelie Sherdon Legal Counsel DMV, State of Nebraska (402) 471-9593

So there you have it, you are safe to allow them to scan your ID and anonymously drink in Nebraska, which is all great and awesome for 80% of the state. However as a resident of Omaha I'll just have to be careful if I ever decide to cross the river into Iowa...