Geezer

There are 386 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 13 of 39).

The Confederate monument has no place on the State House grounds

The N&O’s Josh Shaffer wrote yesterday about keeping the Confederate monument on the state house grounds. I’ve mentioned before how garish I think the monument is so I disagree with Shaffer.

Perhaps we should retire the towering, out of place Confederate monument from the state house grounds to a place of honor in the Confederate portion of Oakwood Cemetery. Perched prominently on the state house grounds, it stands as a giant middle finger aimed towards equality.

North Carolina was a reluctant successionist, even then a Vale of Humility between Two Mountains of Conceit. This helped persuade Sherman from burning Raleigh to the ground. In light of our state’s lukewarm support for the Confederacy one has to wonder what the monument really celebrates.

It’s rare that I agree with conservative N&O columnist J. Peder Zane but even he has called for the monument to be removed. Because the N&O’s website has never figured out how to preserve historical links to its content, I am reposting his column here (as seen on FreeRepublic.com).
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A Look Inside Reynolds Renovations | NC State News

Here’s a fun look at the hidden history of Reynolds Coliseum, recently brought to light by the university’s renovation work. Andy Williams! Ermahgerd!

There have been a few surprises. Nothing completely out of the ordinary, of course, though the decades-old box of uneaten peanuts kind of threw the contractors off for a few seconds.Three months into the first major renovation of Reynolds Coliseum since it opened in 1949, everything is on schedule. Ductwork in the hallways of the upper concourse has been removed, prepping for the first permanent air-conditioning system the old building has ever had.

More than 3,000 original seats have been removed from the north end, and are currently on sale as souvenirs through the Wolfpack Club.

There were a few interesting finds in the old air ducts: newspapers from the 1950s, receipts from Ice Capades shows and an Andy Williams concert in the 1960s, a program for a gay and lesbian rally in 1979 and a few more current ROTC brochures.

Source: A Look Inside Reynolds Renovations | NC State News

Glorious Church building meets less than glorious end

Glorious Church gets demolished

Glorious Church gets demolished


By the time you read this, there will likely be nothing left of the old Glorious Church, the building at the corner of Glascock and N. State St where Bishop Spain’s Apostolic congregation met for years. Demolition crews are whacking down wall after wall, turning it into a pile of bricks and memories. I snapped a few photos yesterday morning of the building while it was still intact, not knowing that hours later it would be demolished.

I’m somewhat sad to see the church go, actually, though the loud services often flared the tempers of surrounding neighbors. The building has been a church since the 1950s, as far as I can tell, and now the building is rubble. It was uninsulated and not much for beauty but it served as the home of a loving congregation. I don’t feel bad about the congregation, though, as I’m sure the sale price has provided them with money to build a new church, finally completing their dream interrupted years ago by what I heard was a dishonest contractor.

The Glorious Church building is an empty shell now

The Glorious Church building is an empty shell now


I knew about the building’s fate months ago through some real estate friends. Their plan is to raze the church building and the vacant daycare building just north of it and build three luxury homes in their place. The expected asking price for these homes is lofty and will certainly boost our property values but it will also accelerate change the surrounding neighborhood. In the end, though, I look forward to welcoming more good neighbors to the area.

Travis leaves elementary school

Travis gets emotional at his fifth grade graduation

Travis gets emotional at his fifth grade graduation


Yesterday was Travis’s 5th grade graduation ceremony. True to form, it was emotional for me and Kelly. Conn has been the only school he has known. He walked the halls long before he was enrolled there, tagging along with Hallie to and from school. Somehow time flew by and he has just one day left before he’s a middle schooler.

The ceremony included singing, photos from the students as babies, speeches, and plenty of awards. Travis took home a haul of these certificates. Indeed, we laughed when we looked at the “activities” page of the school yearbook and Travis’s face was in all but two pictures!
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Computer Space and the Dawn of the Arcade Video Game

Here’s a fascinating account of the creation of the first commercially-successful video game, Computer Space, and of the men who created it, Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell would go on to create Atari and, by extension, modern Silicon Valley.

Computer Space pitted a player-controlled rocket ship against two machine-controlled flying saucers in a space simulation set before a two-dimensional star field. The player controlled the rocket with four buttons: one for fire, which shoots a missile from the front of the rocket ship; two directional rotation buttons (to rotate the ship orientation clockwise or counterclockwise); and one for thrust, which propelled the ship in whichever direction it happened to be pointing. Think of Asteroids without the asteroids, and you should get the picture.

During play, two saucers would appear on the screen and shoot at the player while flying in a zig-zag formation.The player’s goal was to dodge the saucer fire and shoot the saucers.

Considering a game of this complexity playing out on a TV set, you might think that it was created as a sophisticated piece of software running on a computer. You’d think it, but you’d be wrong–and Bushnell wouldn’t blame you for the mistake. How he and Dabney managed to pull it off is a story of audacity, tenacity, and sheer force-of-will worthy of tech legend. This is how it happened.

Source: Computer Space and the Dawn of the Arcade Video Game

Jacksonville

Waking up to a Florida sunrise on Amtrak's southbound Silver Star

Waking up to a Florida sunrise on Amtrak’s southbound Silver Star


Good morning, Jacksonville! I am passing through Jacksonville, Florida, now. Jacksonville is the largest city by population in Florida and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States.

This city holds a special place in my heart. Why, do you ask? Why would America’s most sprawling city captivate me? It’s the rich history of the city as well as the months I spent here in 2000, working on a deal when I was working at NeTraverse.

I was working on a deal at AllTel, implementing a proof of concept of NeTraverse’s Win4Lin product. I stayed at a charming bed and breakfast within walking distance, owned by two characters (is there any other kind of BnB owner?). My hosts were an English professor of economics and a former Alabama beauty queen, an unlikely pairing. Yet they were so welcoming! I’ll always remember this home away from home.
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The “Entitlement Generation” : Anchor Mom

I had a few friends repost this on their Facebook pages, holding it up perhaps as an example of ideal parenting:

“If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”

Yep. I got that email last night after I posted my blog. I honestly had to laugh. Here was a stranger criticizing my parents. I tend to think they did a pretty good job. They raised three, well-rounded children. One is a successful HR exec, one is a journalist and the other is a doctor. Clearly they did something right. 😉 And let’s be real for a minute, it wasn’t all about a wooden spoon. It was about manners and respect.

Put me in the camp of the person who told this woman “If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”

There are better ways to earn respect than by beating your child. If you have to beat your child, you are doing it wrong. You. Are. Doing. It. Wrong.

You know, maybe if we stop teaching kids that might makes right and that violence is a legitimate solution to a problem, we would have fewer domestic abuse issues, murders, riots, and maybe even wars. Maybe adults could try acting like adults and work a little bit at the parenting thing, rather than striking out like a three-year-old would?

I don’t hit my kids, I’ve never hit my kids, and the thought of hitting my kids makes me sick. And you know what? They are awesome. They can be frustrating at times because they’re kids, but they respect me because I model the kind of behavior that I expect from them. If my kids make a mistake, they don’t feel the need to be deceitful in an effort to escape a beating. The lesson we teach is to own up to your mistakes and fix them. They claim both their successes and failures.

My ultimate job as a parent is to teach my kids how to interact with the adult world. If my friends or coworkers don’t do what I say, I don’t go punch them in the face. I talk with them and sort things out. This is what grown-ups do. This is how we solve problems.

I’m sick of corporal punishment apologists blaming the “sparing of the rod” for a kid’s issues. If a rod is all you’ve got in your parental toolbox, you’re a poor parent. And it’s not just your kid who will suffer.

via The “Entitlement Generation” : Anchor Mom.

Death dream

i-told-you-i-was-sick

I don’t normally post about my dreams but this one has been on my mind. An entry from my dream journal, dated 16 July 2013:

I dreamt that I had 1,346 more days to live. I would die of an expensive disease like cancer, one that would stretch the limits of my health insurance. It was all matter-of-fact. According to the calculator on timeanddate.com, 1,346 days from now is Thursday, 23 March 2017. Of course, I am not ready to die and almost certainly won’t be ready on 23 March 2017. Even so, it makes me consider how I might choose to spend these days if I know I only have x number left.

To add some detail, I was told in my dream by someone in authority that this was how many days I had left to live. It was simply explained to me that this was how it was going to be. This was my fate. And it did seem matter-of-fact, as if this was the plan I had agreed to all along. I recall not being particularly excited or concerned about the news.

And the way the data was presented in days rather than a date really stuck with me. It is a very unusual way of conveying that information, perhaps so that I would better remember it.

Dreams don’t always come true. I know this. This dream had a very sober reality that I can’t ignore, though. It is an important message to me.

So if it’s wrong, we will all have a good laugh. I will go ahead and pen a future blog entry, scheduled to post on 24 March 2017. With good fortune perhaps I will mock it along with everyone else. In the meantime, though, I am going to take in as much as I can in the 696 days I might have left.

Because you never knows when you might die. Or do you?

Fifteen years of public service

Found in the attic a few weeks ago is this letter from the late Garner mayor F. Don Rohrbaugh, thanking me for my service on Garner’s Land Use Ordinance rewrite committee. It was my very first public service (outside of the military).

Thanks, Don (wherever you are), for getting me started!

Garner_Land_Use_Ordinance-letter

Five years gone

It was five years ago today that my close friend Gerry Reid was killed in a freak traffic accident. The days that followed were some of the darkest days of my life, though obviously they don’t even come close to what his family went through.

The scars heal but the wound never goes away. I miss Gerry’s wisdom and humor. Someday we will hoist tasty brews again, my friend. Cheers to you, wherever you are.