Musings

General-purpose musings

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More mall musings

I was reading this article about other cities’ battles with teens loitering around malls and it got me thinking: do we want to discourage teens from going to malls – a place where they can be better supervised? Do we really want to disperse them elsewhere? That sounds like a bad idea.

I mean, while the mall melee was scary, no one was seriously hurt (a credit to our police agencies). And as far as I know, before the fight broke out these kids weren’t committing any serious crimes. Perhaps an occasional shoplifting, but not drug-dealing or shootings.

At the mall, the ways kids can get into trouble are limited. Perhaps the answer is simply to beef up mall security.

Might minimizing multiple Mountain Dews mitigate mall melees?

A friend suggests the easiest way to keep teens from loitering in mall food courts is to eliminate the food court’s free drink refills. While it wouldn’t be the only solution I think it would be a step in the right direction.

There’s also the “mosquito” method as well. It would need to be used where teens are and not kids, however, so that rules out a food court. Might be good for the open-air drug markets around town, though.

When obsessions conflict

I recently switched out our shower head for a low-flow version that spits out 30% less water. Knowing I was saving water satisfied my urge to go green … until I realized that the new shower head doesn’t pour water out in individual streams like the old one but instead sprays it – like an aerosol.
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Breezes

A stiff wind pushed against me as I rode home one day last week. Its strength and steadiness reminded me of a sea breeze and it surprised me how intensely I miss the sea.

Brave? Or Stupid?

Extraordinarily brave or extraordinarily stupid? There’s often a fine line separating the two. At 2:30 this afternoon, a man blurred that line when he robbed the Mechanics and Farmers bank right next to my office.

The M&F bank is tiny place, so small its almost two-dimensional. What it lacks in size it makes up in location, though: it sits right across the street from the Raleigh Times. The Times is a place where patrons fill outside tables all morning and afternoon. There were guaranteed to be a handful of witnesses who could’ve seen the guy. Not only that, but top brass from the Raleigh Police visit so often that its practically a police substation. Cops could’ve been at that bank in ten seconds.

I walked by the bank around 1:30 after meeting the family for lunch at the new Roly Poly. As I passed, a bank employee was on the sidewalk, cellphone to her ear, scolded a couple for parking in the bank parking lot.

The bank is so close it literally shares a wall with my office. I can’t see it from my window, though. Can’t see the sidewalk outside my building either without moving to the window. And though I had my scanner with me I didn’t listen to it all day. Don’t know what good it would’ve done if I’d had.

Ah well. That’s life in the big city, eh?

Cashed out

I walked over to the credit union branch today to deposit a check. Right after I finished with the teller, I decided to get some cash from the ATM (though there were no less than four tellers sitting idly by, surfing the web. No kidding, I’m funny like that).

As I swiped my card it dawned on me: I could not remember my PIN.
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Facing the bottles

I’ve been fortunate not to have to travel much lately but when I do I usually do it alone. I like to eat good meals when I travel as there is only so much fast food one can consume before losing one’s mind. Thus I’m often walking into restaurants as a party of one.

What many hosts and hostesses like to do is to park single customers at the bar. While I would rather not take up a 4-spot or 6-spot table with my lonesome, I find a bar seat to be a bit wanting.

When I’m eating alone in a new place, I like to spend my time absorbing the surroundings. A fly on the wall, if you will. Unfortunately, a lot of bars aren’t configured this way, making customers at the bar face a wall of glass and mirrors rather than the rest of the restaurant.

Restaurants that put the bar out in the open are the ones that get it right, at least for people-watching clientele like me.

What’s in the soap at RDU airport?

At RDU airport two weeks ago I was taking Travis to the men’s room one last time before our flight. I know now that I was just starting a cold at the time, so my sense of smell might not have been at its peak, but I did a double-take when I smelled the hand soap I was putting on: it smelled like marijuana!

There was a guy in a nearby stall who could’ve been lighting up, but that would’ve be extremely unlikely. I checked and rechecked the smell of my just-washed hands and I’m convinced its the soap.

Next time you’re at the airport see for yourself. And avoid petting any K-9 units that might wander by.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

While I’m on the subject of newspapers, I’m such a media geek that I always tote home a copy of the area’s paper when I travel. I like to compare these papers to Raleigh’s.

I did the same in Milwaukee, and let me say how impressed I am with the quality of Milwaukee’s paper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Journal Sentinel reporter Dave Umhoefer won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. From the story (emphasis mine):

Journal Sentinel Editor Martin Kaiser said the story reflected the newspaper’s commitment to local news, digging deep on important issues and making a difference in the community.

That’s what I’d like to see from our local paper. An unobtainable goal?