October 2011

There were 39 posts published in October 2011 (this is page 2 of 4).

Cheap Thoughts: One-way streets

Last week as I helped plant trees around Chavis Park, I wondered about the one-way streets around the park. I’ve never been a fan of the one-way streets in Raleigh’s downtown area but seeing them pass through the East Raleigh neighborhoods gave me a different perspective. How do one-way streets affect property values, I wondered? If NCDOT’s goal is to speed cars out of town, as it often is with the one-way streets, how does that stream of fast-moving traffic affect the neighborhoods?

Later that day, I sent a note off to city staff asking if there had ever been a study about how one-way streets affect property values. It appears that there isn’t such a study, and as one staffer pointed out it would be difficult to gather accurate data for such a study.

I asked specifically for property value data but what I’m really looking for is more of the sociological impact that a one-way street has on the surrounding neighborhoods.

I consider driving on a one-way street a lot like driving with blinders on. If you see something interesting but see it too late, it’s a challenge to return to it. I think neighborhoods with two-way streets are likely healthier neighborhoods.

Anyway, I need to see if any research has been done on this.

Event-filled day

I’d say a lot happened today. After I dropped the kids off at school I hopped on my bike and rode 20 miles along Raleigh’s greenways, following Crabtree Creek as far upstream as the path allowed (nearly to Duraleigh Road). After a quick shower and lunch, I hopped in the car to talk with some folks in Durham about a potential job.

Back from Durham, I got an email from the client I’m chasing, asking for details for the contract. That seemed to go well.
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Raleigh’s startup opportunity

The Atlantic Monthly takes a peek at Durham’s startup efforts:

Durham is a fascinating example of what happens when a community bands together to try to attract entrepreneurs. They’ve set up all the mechanisms and institutions to foster innovation and now they’re waiting to see if startup culture can take root. The city itself has “great bones,” as they say, with a dense downtown core filled with beautiful old-timey architecture. They even have some inspiring local business history to draw on. Durham was once known as “The Black Wall Street” because of the preponderance of successful African American-owned businesses on Parrish Street.

As I said before, Raleigh needs to get into the startup game pronto or face being forever branded as LawyerTown.

Inspecting what?

One morning two weeks ago, I was walking the dog past the home that’s under construction in my neighborhood. As we approached, I watched a city inspector hop out of his truck, sign the inspection report in the front yard, and promptly hop back into his truck. He was gone before I reached the end of the yard.

Maybe the guy just has really keen vision. He may be the kind of guy who can spot construction problems from across the street in the predawn light. It sure seemed to me, though, that he had signed for something he hadn’t inspected.

Back in my Navy days we had a word (as the Navy often does) for that kind of behavior: gundecking. Part of my maintenance chores as a petty officer included inspecting the “fire bottles” (extinguishers). While it was tempting at times to just assume the damn thing would work when needed, I took the maintenance very seriously, knowing that the life it might save might one day have been my own.

As there’s nothing resembling a housing boom at the moment, I am left to wonder why this guy was in such a hurry to do his job. Or not do it, as the case may be.

Cemetery cleanup

The deadly tornadic storm (seen right) retreats after laying waste to Raleigh's City Cemetery on April 16, 2011.


The tornadoes of April 16th not only tore through several neighborhoods like the one near mine, it also tore up three of the city’s historic cemeteries. Some folks in the press have complained about the snail’s pace in which the clean-up is progressing.

The truth is that the city’s parks staff would like nothing better than to have these cemeteries cleaned up. It’s just that it’s a monumental task, if you’re pardon the pun.

If you’ve lived around Raleigh for any length of time, chances are you’ve been through one of our occasional natural disasters. The first thing the city and state does after a disaster is to seek federal assistance in cleaning up. This money from FEMA comes with requirements that the city and state must meet if they expect their work to be reimbursed. Throw in a historic designation and you add yet another layer of bureaucracy that must first be satisfied.
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Two months

Yesterday marked two months since I lost my job. How has it been? Basically, it’s sucked. I’m itching to work again and while I’ve gone on a few interviews I haven’t gotten any offers yet.

There are two more interviews set up for this week. If those don’t pan out, I think I will set up shop again for myself and hunt down some consulting work. If nothing else, this time will force me to become a better salesman.

GOP blames Obama for school board shellacking

This is too funny. The Wake County GOP got its clock thoroughly cleaned in the latest municipal elections. Now its hapless chair, Susan Bryant, is laying the blame on Obama and his legions of “paid volunteers”

Actually, the only paid volunteers I know of was on the GOP side. A few days before the election, I spotted a small sign at the intersection of Louisburg Road and Perry Creek Road, seeking paid political volunteers. The sign emphasized that the volunteers needed to be conservative.

Wake County Republican Party Chairwoman Susan Bryant blames “President Obama’s national organization” for last week’s election results that could lead to Democrats regaining control of the county school board.

“Make no mistake!” Bryant writes in a GOP newsletter this week. “President Obama’s national organization was very much involved in the recent elections, with particular emphasis on Ron Margiotta’s and Heather Losurdo’s campaigns. They hired ‘volunteers’ and spent tens of thousands on mailers cleverly disguised as coming from non-related groups.”

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via GOP boss blames school election on Obama – Local – NewsObserver.com.

Update 4:20 PM: Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Sez one commenter on the N&O article:
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Ron Margiotta’s attack ads

A few folks are raising a stink about Wake County School Board chairman Ron Margiotta’s recent use of school board video in his political ads. Some on the left are pointing to Margiotta’s use of the video as proof he enlisted county employees to help him in his campaign. WTVD’s Jon Camp did a story about it.

Now, I’m no fan of Ron Margiotta. He’s arrogant, grating, blunt, and I find a lot of what he says and does to be embarrassing. Still, you gotta hand it to him for thinking to use this video. Sure, it’s video of Susan Evans, his opponent in the school board race, and sure, it was taken with the county-owned video system. But that’s the point: it’s video taken by the public, for the public at an open, public meeting. The video is thus a public record and therefore available to anyone who requests it.
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Tree planting at Chavis Park


I spent yesterday morning volunteering to plant trees around Chavis Park through the city’s Neighborwoods program and a generous gift from the Siemens Corporation. About 72 volunteers made up of Siemens employees, the St. Augustine’s Lady Falcons basketball team, Parks and Rec staff, Parks board members (Scott Reston, Kimberly Siran, and me) and other volunteers spent three hours planting new trees in the hardscrabble neighborhoods surrounding the park.

The weather was brisk in the morning but as the crew got rolling with tree planting we warmed up quickly. I had a wonderful time meeting folks from Siemens and working the the Lady Falcons to help beautify Raleigh with new trees.

Adjusting to the new routine

I had a chat with my friend Kevin Sonney today, who blogged earlier this summer about the need to establish a routine when one loses a job:

One of the things that really messes with unemployed people is the lack of a routine. Take a standard office worker – they get up, get ready, go to work, go home, have dinner, do their own thing, sleep, later rinse, repeat.

And then we’re cut adrift, our patterns are broken, and it’s easy to unhinge or lose productivity. The advice given to freelancers – and this applies to the unemployed as well – is to establish a new routine, and stick to it, until it becomes a habit. And to make it productive, before we end up spending every day playing XBox in our underwear and never leaving the house.

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