Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,524 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 135 of 153).

Put yourself on the map

Remember how Google Maps forgot my address? I decided to find out how to get my address put back in. Google’s help pages are quite confusing in this regard, so it took a few tries before I found the cheese, so to speak.

Beginning at the Google Maps Help Page, I found a notice that the mapping info Google Maps uses had recently changed. Aha! The source of my missing map issue!

So what do you do when you suddenly go missing? You contact Tele-Atlas, the new supplier of Google Maps data, directly. I pulled up the link to Tele-Atlas’s Map Insight feedback page and submited my address for correction.

So what happens now? Tele-Atlas built a Flash-based tutorial that describes the process. I reckon their marketing department has a lot of time on its hands!

David Byrne tickets on sale today

Musician David Byrne and company were in Asheville recently and took a pass on visiting Biltmore House, judging the $47 ticket price too steep.

I think its a steep ticket price, too, but so is the $44 Byrne wants for his upcoming show at Meymandi Hall December 8th.

As I watch the markets sink even further today I’m not feeling so inclined to part with that much money. Maybe I’ll meet Byrne on one of his expected bike rides around town.

Cedar Creek Gallery


Kelly and I took the kids up to Creedmoor Saturday to visit the Oakleys, the family of Travis’s best friend Carson. They were hosting an arts festival at their farm, known as Cedar Creek Gallery. I’m amazed this place has been here for forty years and I never knew about it until now.

We watched as Lisa Oakley did some glass blowing, creating a long string of glass which will be used to create beads for necklaces and bracelets. It was fascinating: I’d never seen glass blowing before. There were other artists around, too, including some very talented potters and sculptors. And the event attracted a crowd. At one point, their one cash register had no less than thirteen customers waiting. I was tempted to buy a few things myself.

The kind of studio where one can practice glass blowing, welding, and the like is what I’d like to see Raleigh Parks and Rec provide. Something like a Mythbusters or Techshop kind of place. Maybe some day I’ll be in a position to do something about it …

If you’re interested in some of the coolest pottery, sculpting, and whimsical handmade products around, take a morning drive up to Creedmoor and see the Cedar Creek Gallery. You’ll be glad you did.

David Byrne coming to Raleigh Dec 8th

David Byrne of Talking Heads fame will be playing Raleigh’s Meymandi Hall December 8th, says N&O music critic David Menconi. The show’s not even up on the Progress Energy Center’s website yet.

David and Brian Eno recently released a new album called Everything That Will Happen Will Happen Today. You can listen to the entire album from its website, which while not as cool as Byrne’s Radiohead pals selling their album on the honor system is still pretty cool.

Wachovia and Citigroup: a shotgun marriage

The Charlotte Observer reports that Citigroup’s purchase of Wachovia’s was a panicked move by the FDIC to keep Wachovia solvent as nervous customers created a “silent” bank run. Customers began withdrawing their money on Friday and by Monday morning it was clear Wachovia had no liquidity left. In other words, Wachovia would’ve almost certainly failed this week had the FDIC not engineered the Citigroup deal.

Scary stuff, folks, and I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of it. I’m glad I’m a credit union member.

(h/t Suzzanne)

Mergers

The economic downturn is causing a lot of companies to either merge or else go belly-up. Watch for these consolidations in 2008:

1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. Will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2.) PolyGram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.

3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.

4. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa
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USS Elliot decomissioning video

I spent a moment last night watching the USS Elliot DD-967 Decommissioning Video that Ens. Jeff Underwood (now of MissionMediaUSA) was selling at the ceremony in December 2003. The video doesn’t show the decommissioning but it does show some of the ship and interviews from the last crew. Jeff gave me permission to post a copy of it, so I put it here. Its an MPEG4 file shrunk to … um, 160 megabytes, so start the download and go take a nap while it completes. You’ll probably only want to watch this if you served on the Elliot, truth be told.

I also went hunting and think I found a photograph from Elliot’s last day. A midshipman there for summer training posted pictures from the SINKEX that day. I originally thought the ship in the middle of this picture might be Elliot under tow, but its more likely another ship lining up to take a shot at Elliot.