Remember the North Carolina Museum of Transportation excursion train I was psyched to ride from Spencer to Charlottesville? I happened upon the museum’s webpage last night to discover that tickets were already being sold. Though I had “sent an email for more information” way back, the museum left me in the lurch. It would seem important to know when one could actually purchase tickets, so I’m not sure why I wasn’t told about this.
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Check It Out
Links to cool places or things.
There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 138 of 153).
Fourth Friday Downtown Jams in Raleigh
I was trying to finish up work here when I noticed the near-constant stream of traffic outside my office window had come to a halt. In its place are a number of tents, tables, and chairs.
Off to New Raleigh for the answer: today is the first of a downtown music event called the Fourth Friday Downtown Jams.
Sez New Raleigh:
If you’re trying to have a post-work week beverage in the street while checking out some early evening music–then definitely step over to Hargett Street on Friday, July 25th. This blues jam block party will be the first in a new monthly Fourth Friday event featuring Jazz, Blues, Reggae, and Afrobeat jams in downtown Raleigh
If I wasn’t playing Barney Fife tonight I might want to go. There doesn’t seem to be any website showing who’s organizing this (Raleigh Times is my guess) and the New Raleigh site is borked at the moment (note to New Raleigh: check out Apache), but take my word for it: this looks like it’ll be fun.
Hot-air ballooning this weekend!
No, I’m not going up in a hot-air balloon this weekend, but I’m going to be there at the launch of two balloons Saturday evening. Local balloonist Jonathan Trappe, famous for his “Chairway to Heaven” flight last month, will be launching his one-man hot air balloon Saturday evening, weather permitting. Jonathan’s ballooning pal will be launching his traditional gondola hot-air balloon at the same time.
This will be my first exposure to hot-air ballooning and I’m really excited about it. If you’ve got no plans Saturday evening, drop a comment here (or email me) and I’ll tell you how to get to our meeting place in North Raleigh. While you won’t get to ride, it should be fun just to watch the launch.
Hmm. Already I’m wondering what it might take to make this a new hobby. Must … resist … new …. hobby …
Cancer claims Dr. Randy Pausch
Randy Pausch, the Carnagie-Mellon computer scientist with terminal cancer whose “Last Lecture” video lit up the Internet last year, has lost his battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.
His “Last Lecture” video was inspiring, and touching. I remember thinking this healthy-looking, optimistic guy couldn’t possibly be dying, but sadly I was proven wrong. He must have been an amazing professor and a wonderful dad and husband.
Go watch his Last Lecture if you haven’t seen it already, and also see his surprise commencement speech in May. And then go hug your loved ones.
Popping the bandwidth cap
Local geek Andy Withers had an excellent point of view piece in today’s News and Observer regarding Raleigh’s lack of bandwidth. Withers compares Raleigh’s options to nearby Wilson’s, which has blazing-fast municipal Internet service.
I wonder if Raleigh could take on municipal Internet some day.
Policy on sex slaves
This News and Observer headline is wrong on a few levels:
Woman may have been sex slaves, policy say
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr., The Charlotte Observer
Comment on this story
Police say two women arrested after a prostitution investigation may have been sex slaves — illegally trafficked into the United States and sleeping on mattresses at the back of a Monroe massage parlor.
I, for one, wasn’t aware there was a policy on sex slaves. Even so, the slang “policy say” is a bit too hip for a newspaper. Also, its unclear how one woman may have been more than one sex slave, unless there was perhaps some sort of outsourcing going on.
Hmm. Could it be that McClatchy is missing some of those staffers it recently canned?
Update @12:19: Looks like the N&O has fixed its headline. Thanks, y’all!
Watts the price?
The News and Observer had a fascinating article today on how Progress Energy trades energy. John Murawski got a glimpse of Progress’s trading department in action as it negotiated electricity transactions worth millions of dollars.
It reminded me of my consulting gig with Weather Predict, a commercial weather forecasting company based in Raleigh. Weather Predict has a number of electric utilities as customers: customers for whom a one degree rise or fall in temperature equates to millions of dollars in fuel costs or savings.
I’ve often wondered how those customers used that information and now I know.
Zenoss book
Oh, I forgot to mention this before we left for vacation. For the past few months I’ve been helping edit Mike Badger’s new book, Zenoss Core Network and Systems Monitoring. Its a good introduction to Zenoss for those who might have been intimidated by it before.
Mike and I used to work together years ago at the Raleigh startup company formerly known as NeTraverse (and even more formerly as Lastfoot.Com). It was fun working with him again.
Who knows? I may write a book yet.
California this time of year
My friend Matt sent me this link to encourage us to vacation in California.
I’ve already spent one day in choking-thick smoke. That was plenty, thank you. I don’t want to spend a week in it.
Time to throw another dart at the map and pick a new vacation destination.
Video of substation fire
Yesterday I came across this cool video posted to YouTube from Florida Power and Light. In 2001, an electrical substation in Miami short-circuited and blew up – and all of it was caught on tape by a FPL employee. Watch as the high voltage slices through the substation, finishing itself off in a massive fireball. It reminds me of the fire at the substation at the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and East Street in 2001.
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