Musings

General-purpose musings

There are 780 posts filed in Musings (this is page 47 of 78).

Commissioner Gordon orders Obama signal extinguished

I chuckled when I saw the Obama signal being shown on a downtown Raleigh office building. Unfortunately that building, One Exchange Plaza, is owned by the City of Raleigh, which probably does not appreciate political advertising being shown on its walls.

Just now a Raleigh police sergeant wandered into my $WORK offices to ask if we were responsible for the Obama signal. He wasn’t surprised when I told him no, and said “everybody’s been denying it.” I got the impression he was dutifully going through the motions but given the million other things RPD has to do it wasn’t exactly his highest priority.

Why the City would take a cop off his regular duties to chase down this whimsical prank is beyond me. It seems to me if the City really wanted to find out who was responsible it might be helpful if city employees didn’t clear out of their offices at 5PM or earlier each day. But I digress.

Also, what could the person responsible be charged with? Criminal mischief? Photon littering? How would one prove anything? Once Obama becomes President would this be legal? Isn’t there a presidential portrait hanging in all federal offices?

I personally think the Exchange Plaza building has a butt-ugly blank wall so anything that might spice it up is welcome in my book.

Parks book

After posting the history of Lions Park last night, I thought it would be a fun project to write a book on the history of Raleigh’s parks. Certainly it would be a good education for me as a new member of the Raleigh parks board.

Now, where can I find the time to do this …

What’s in a name?

Our home is on many different borders. It shares plans with a much older subdivision, though it has a distinct name. Its at the very end of our street, which is itself at the end of another street. Our neighborhood shares a street with the Belvidere Park neighborhood but shares a community watch with Oakwood Park.

And what is Oakwood Park neighborhood? Its kind of a loose collection of homes bordering the Oakwood Park on Brookside Drive. The homes comprising Oakwood Park fall into different CACs (Citizens Advisory Councils): the East CAC (of which I am current chair) and North Central CAC.

I found out today that another neighborhood to the west of us is organizing itself as Mordecai East (previously it was content to be grouped with Mordecai proper). There is also a neighborhood somewhere in-between known as Oakdale.

I find all the neighborhood groupings to be amusingly arbitrary and shifting. This is a good thing, as it reflects the transformation taking place in these neighborhoods. They are in the midst of creating an identity and these names reflect this reaching for an identity. I’m glad to be here participating in this identity creation.

Trickle-down economics

A friend of my coworker works at a local homeless shelter. He says homelessness is up 30% now due to the economy. Urban Ministries of Durham is warning of the same increase in homeless people.

“The current economic condition of our country is pushing many people into homelessness, and Durham will be no exception,” said Greg Rowland, Urban Ministries’ vice-chair. “We are committed to increasing our capacity to provide food, clothing, shelter and recovery to everyone who walks through our door.”

It might hurt to lose pretend money in the stock market but its important to remember those for whom the economic stress is painfully tangible: our homeless.

Downtown library

I was walking in to work this morning when a woman in a blue minivan stopped in front of me.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Where is the library?”

I paused. We were at the corner of Hargett Street and Person Street and there isn’t a library for miles. I gave her convoluted directions to Cameron Village Regional Library but somehow doubted she would keep it all straight.

It sure would be nice if Raleigh had a showplace library downtown. It not like this area has a bunch of highly-educated, intelligent citizenry or anything.

Builder nailed on worthless check charge

I had called the builder of our home, Kerr-Smith Homes and Land, a few weeks ago asking for the plans for our home so we could use them to finish a room in our upstairs. I called him again yesterday and left a message, but that was before I saw this:

Apex police charged John Banks Kerr, 35, of Raymond Street, with one count of felony worthless check, according to the warrant. The warrant says police think Kerr wrote a check for $137,963.32 to Guy C. Lee Building Materials on July 30, knowing that it would not clear.

Whoopsie. I suppose that’s why his website isn’t coming up now, either.

North Carolina gas prices

The paper tells me that North Carolina has the highest gas prices in the continental United States. Seems to me that this title is usually held by California, so something must really be amiss.

I’ll tell you what it is: North Carolina is being played. The oil companies are turning off the tap to bring us to our knees, either so we’ll cave and drill for oil along our beautiful, expansive coast or to help put oil-friendly politicians in the governor’s mansion and the Senate. Or it could be a way of striking back at Attorney General Roy Cooper for previous barking about price gouging after Tropical Storm Hanna (I say “barking” because I’ve seen no evidence of any bite). Somehow, some way, somebody is twisting the screws on us. I doubt its an accident.
Continue reading →

Whither the finches?

Since the tropical storm rolled through weeks ago I have not seen many if any finches at our bird feeder. Carolina chickadees, cardinals, and nuthatches still show up but the house finches are gone. I know they migrate but it seems they are gone earlier than normal.

Letters, we get letters

Either the economic sky really isn’t falling or my credit is better than I think. The stream of credit-card offers sent to me has continued unabated. I got one yesterday and another today. Normally I’d find this annoying but it has now become strangely reassuring.