Bus Tragedy Fundraiser

If you live in Madison - head over to a Potbelly location for dinner tomorrow for a good cause.

Come to Potbelly Sandwich Works on Thursday, Aug. 30th between 5-8 P.M. We will donate 25% of sales to the Bus Tragedy Fund. All Madison locations are participating-- State Street, West Towne, & East Towne.

One of our employees lost her fiance in the bus stop incident, and now she is a single mom with three kids.

If you don't live in town, here's the (very sad) story.

Livin in Fast City

Madison was named a "Fast City" by "Fast Company" magazine.

"They are cauldrons of creativity where the most important ideas and the organizations of tomorrow are centered. They attract the best and brightest. They are great places to work and live."

Pretty cool stuff.

Welcome to the 19th century

Not a great day for Wisconsin. Many/most of my candidates did make it through yesterday but both referendums (that mattered) passed, neither of which I supported.

I guess my personal viewpoint is that the death penalty referendum passing is "unfortunate". I really don't support it, but at least this is only "advisory". Meaning that the governor and others would still need to actually approve in order for things to change. To be honest, I haven't done a whole lot of checking on how likely this is, but I'm assuming that Doyle (who won by a landslide in the end) won't go for it.

The real reason it's embarrassing to live in Wisconsin this morning is the amendment to our constitution approved yesterday.


"Marriage. Shall section 13 of article XIII of the constitution be created to provide that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state and that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state?"

It's not exactly a smooth read. It certainly could be less wordy and more clear, perhaps (as a friend suggested yesterday) it should have read: "Do you want discrimination to be written into our constitution?", but that can't account for the incredible margin this passed by: 59%-41%.

Yes, that's right: It's the 21st century and we're voting in overwhelming numbers to add blatant discrimination to the constitution. I guess it just wasn't illegal enough already.

At least it looks like AZ got it right.

Rainer Maria, Epic Hero, and The Box Social

Geer, Brandon, and I took in a great show at the Annex (home of the worlds most obnoxious webpage) last night.

We were there to see Rainer Maria, after being quite happy with their show at Lollapalooza. They didn't dissapoint, putting on another very good live show. Aftwards, I bought the most recent CD and am listening to it this morning - good, but I'd have to say I much prefer them live.

While Rainer Maria put on a show that was exactly what I was looking for - the big story of the night were the performances delivered by the openers.

The Box Social (from "two blocks away") put on a great show. They had some really good stuff but just lacked some of the polish that they'll need to take the next step. It was a good show though - the three of us were all pretty impressed.

Next up was Epic Hero (from a suburb of St.Paul... Minneapolis, I think). They were great. The lead had a great voice and their all around talent level was quite high. I know that Brandon (and maybe Geer too) actually thought they were better than Rainer Maria. I'm not ready to say that but as we discussed during the show: they really had a lot of good stuff - if they just had a couple of "big hits" to go along with it, they could definitely sell some discs.

All three great bands for $11 + the place isn't crowded and is small (v.important to me, I find). Madison has so many great shows for cheap these days. Looking out even just a couple months there are so many that I want to see! Really looking forward to those!