May 2014

There were 15 posts published in May 2014 (this is page 1 of 2).

Green Tie Awards

Our family attended the Green Tie Awards and dinner of the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters as guests of Bill and Bett Padgett. It was great seeing so many familiar faces in the crowd, so many I couldn’t possibly talk to them all.

The highlight, though, was the speech Hallie gave to the crowd at the end of the program. She marched right up to the podium and gave a heartfelt speech on why conservation matters to her. Kelly and I were justifiably proud of her and her speech generated a lot of positive comments from the attendees.

Afterwards, I had to chuckle at the spectacle. When I was Hallie’s age, there wasn’t enough money in the world to get me to speak in front of a crowd. I would have died on the spot, or nervously mumbled my way through it yet our daughter can belt out a passionate speech to a roomful of strangers without even breaking a sweat. That’s a pretty powerful skill for a kid. It took me until the age of 30 to even get close to that.

So, even though my attention is drawn in dozens of directions right now, it’s great to have the opportunity to cheer the accomplishments of our kids.

Vic Lebsock retires

I had to take a moment out of my day to attend the retirement party for Raleigh greenway planner Vic Lebsock. Raleigh’s greenways have undergone a transformation since Vic took over, growing from less than 20 miles in 1990 to over 110 miles today (with more under construction).

I’ve served on the Parks board for 20% of Vic’s time with the city. During that time I’ve attended many greenway dedications, gone on many greenway excursions, and forwarded many questions to Vic during that time. I was happy to see three other Parks board members there to say thank you to Vic.

Enjoy your well-deserved retirement, Mr. Lebsock!

Speaking of speaking

Totally unrelated to my new gig as Ligon PTA president, I have been offered a spot on a PTA panel about “safe routes to school” at this weekend’s North Carolina PTA meeting in Winston-Salem. The NC PTA was intrigued by my work on the Frank Street sidewalk and thought the members could benefit from my experience.

Yeah, it’s a long drive to WS, and yeah, I have to take a half-day off of work to go there, but I do very strongly believe in the importance of schools and the accessibility of schools in particular. One does not beat one’s head against a wall for three years unless one is either committed or needs to be committed. If I can help fellow PTA members find a way to get their own projects done then it will be time well spent.

(I just realized I left my MT.Net readers hanging about Frank Street – it was approved by City Council. Yay!)

Fellow me not

Word came today that I didn’t make the finalist cut for the Friday Fellowship program. I have really mixed feelings about this. While I would totally geek out over discussing leadership with like-minded citizens and enjoy the bonding experience, frankly I came within a whisker of deferring my nomination for another time. I’ve taken on an engaging new job, I’m helping multiple nonprofit organizations, trying to be a good father and husband in there somewhere, and have now committed as Ligon Middle School’s next PTA president. I had to be kidding myself to think that I could juggle all this and the program, too.

On the upside, I didn’t so much mind rescinding the vacation requests I made a year ahead of time for the retreats I now won’t be attending. I’m certain to fill those weekends with other tasks, and now I can consider adding those vacation days to an epic trip of some variety.

It was a honor being nominated, to be sure. I gave it my best shot and that’s all I can do. Time to move on because life doesn’t wait.

Doing away with generators at Raleigh’s street festivals

Noisy, smelly generators are bad, mmmkay?

Noisy, smelly generators are bad, mmmkay?


I’ve long thought that Raleigh’s Moore Square is a poor place to hold festivals. The foot traffic, lack of infrastructure, damage to trees, poor sight lines (from the aforementioned trees), and other aspects make it a tough place for large crowds. However, there is one thing that Moore Square offers that Fayetteville Street cannot: silence. Vendors working in Moore Square went about their business without one thing you almost always find in other festival areas: generators. The Moore Square vendors didn’t need generators because Moore Square provides power facilities vendors can plug into.
Continue reading →

Photographing art

Intellectual property? Um hmm.

Intellectual property? Um hmm.


I’ve never understood why artists get so uptight when someone photographs their art. It always makes me shake my head when I go to a concert or show and the artist prohibits photography. Are you really worried, Mr. Artist, that a simple photograph could compare to actually attending your show? Is your act truly that boring? If a photo of you onstage is so much of a threat to you, why are you in business? What are your fans getting for their $50 tickets? I’ve never seen Bruce Springsteen live, but I can’t imagine a photo could take the place of the three-hour experience he provides. I ran into a similar attitude at Carnegie Hall.

I felt the same way when I walked among the stalls at Artsplosure last weekend. A few artists that had put up signs restricting photography, so obviously I had to photograph them. Now I know these folks put a lot of work into their art and they’re justifiably proud of it, but when they display it openly in a public place on a public street there’s nothing to keep it from being photographed. And why should they fear this? I couldn’t possibly reproduce this man’s sculpture from a photograph, nor could a photograph ever capture the essence of a three-dimensional work of art like sculpture.

At least Mr. Mosquera said please on his sign. The one at this next booth takes the cake. Continue reading →

Teacher attrition

Yesterday morning I was voted in as the new PTA President of Ligon Middle School, succeeding Vickie Adamson. Vickie leaves big shoes to fill since one parent said “that woman is everywhere.” I’m looking forward to the challenge, though, and really appreciate how I’ll be at the front lines during a difficult time in North Carolina education.

I was looking forward to my election, thinking what a happy moment it would be, but the party was quickly spoiled when Ms. Dula, the principal announced to the PTA members that one of her star teachers is leaving the classroom. I will never forget the look of dejection on her face.

It makes me furious how disrespectful and dismissive our Republican state legislature is of our public school teachers. Their shortsightedness is destroying our state’s future. These kids will grow up to one day lead our state. They will educate future generations. They will build the companies that will power our state’s economy. They will take care of us when we’re old and frail. And we’re dooming them to a mediocre education, loading them down with needless tests, and hurting ourselves in the process. Education is an investment in our future and these screwups in the General Assembly are mortgaging that future away.

Continue reading →

Bike graduation

Travis hot-dogging on his red bike, June 2013.

Travis hot-dogging on his red bike, June 2013.


While Kelly was away for the weekend visiting a friend, the kids and I had a couple of opportunities this past weekend to go for bike rides. This opened up an opportunity for me to try the kids on larger bikes. When we rode downtown for Artsplosure on Sunday, Hallie rode Kelly’s bike while Travis rode my mountain bike (I rode my road bike). Both kids crowed at how easy it was to ride the bigger bikes, leading me to conclude it was time to go bike shopping.

Yesterday afternoon, Kelly found a very nice Trek bike being sold on Craigslist. After some discussion, she fetched it and brought it home to present to Hallie. More bike talk ensued, with Travis getting eyes for making my mountain bike his. While I’m not yet ready to yield my bike to him, we did agree that it was time to part with his red sport bike.
Continue reading →

Mitochondria disease

The past few weeks have been so busy for me that I’m only now coming up for air. Going through my list of to do items that had been piling up, I chanced to put in a Google search in an effort to see what my New York illness episode potentially had to do with Gulf War Illness (GWI). A search for “gulf war” and “capillaries” brought me to an online announcement of a recent research study that links GWI to something called mitochrondria disease.

Reading about mitochondria disease was both a revelation and … well, a bit anticlimactic. Checking off the list of symptoms that matched what I’ve had it just seemed like well, of course you have mitochondria disease. While this does give me satisfaction in knowing what I have, simply having a name for what I’ve been suffering from doesn’t bring me any closer to a cure. But at least there are some strategies for mitigating it. I haven’t been officially diagnosed but I’m going in to see my doctor as soon as I can.
Continue reading →

The skeptic black hole

When Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke at N.C. State last month, he gave his usual riff on science literacy:

For me, science literacy is “what is your capacity to ask questions?”

Questions, they’re kind of an inoculation against people telling you stuff and having you believe whatever they say. That’s not science literacy.

When someone says “I have these crystals and if you rub them together you’ll be healed” and you say “oh yeah, great, gimmie!”

Ok? No, that’s not science literacy. But you know what else isn’t science literacy? Saying “that’s bunk, get it out of here.”

Each of those requires no thought, the rejection or the acceptance.

I thought of Tyson’s words today when I tangled online with some hard-core skeptics. The anger and derision shown by some skeptics reveals a surprising lack of balance. Many tend to shout down others who don’t share their opinion.

This is what drives me nuts about skeptics. It’s what Tyson has called “lazy brain,” dismissing something out of hand before one knows the facts. It is wrong for a believer to assume something without evidence, yet is equally wrong for a skeptic to assume something without evidence. Both require no critical thought. Both predispose a result. Both are blinded by their own bias.

True scientists follow the evidence wherever it leads them. True scientists accept experimental results if those experiments can be shown to be solid and reproducible. True scientists maintain open minds. “Prove it to me” is the mantra of a true scientist.

It seems to me that no matter what the issue, the louder one shouts is inversely proportional to the truth of one’s statements. If you maintain that you know all the answers, you don’t. That’s not called science, that’s called zealotry.