July 27, 2008

There were 3 posts published on July 27, 2008 (this is page 1 of 1).

Raleigh 911!, part I

I don’t care what you may think you know about your neighborhood, you don’t know it as well as your local beat cop does. Period. The best way to learn about your neighborhood, then, is to have a cop be you tour guide. This is what I did Friday night when I rode along with my local police officer. As you’ll read below, the night didn’t disappoint.

I showed up at the district substation at 7:30 PM, called the cellphone of the sargent on duty, and was invited inside to wait while an officer came to pick me up. After handing in my waiver, I accompanied Chris, my officer, to our first call: a domestic disturbance.
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Our outrageous phone bill

We just got our phone bill today – and boy, was it outrageous. It isn’t outrageously expensive, though: its outrageously cheap!

We’ve been charged $20 for our phone service. That’s right: twenty bucks … since May 15th! That’s $20 for ten weeks of service! And its all because we switched our phone service from AT&T to the Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Vitelity. We get two phone numbers, CallerID, and the ability for more than one simultaneous call.

Our base Bellsouth/AT&T bill used to be around $47.00/month. Long distance calling would tack on an extra $20 to that. Thus, our phone bill was often above $60/month.

Put another way, what we used to pay $60 per month for we now get for a jaw-dropping $8 per month! And through the magic that VoIP brings, we’re getting more features now for far, far less!

Voice over IP phone service isn’t rock solid, and it doesn’t always have the highest call quality. To save an extra 52 bucks each month, though, we can live with it!

Gang fight at Triangle Town Center?

So, uh, North Raleigh needs to deal with its gang problem. Three hundred gang members fighting at the normally-quiet (and sometimes dull) Triangle Town Center mall? Whodathunkit?

On the way back from our balloon adventure we passed two police cars screaming north up Capital Boulevard. The fact that multiple agencies were responding made me guess the call was a big one. Still, I never would’ve guessed it was a gang fight at that mall.

I think this incident might open people’s eyes to the fact that no one is immune to the problem of gangs.