New York City and Carnegie Hall

Ligon Middle School performs at Carnegie Hall

Ligon Middle School performs at Carnegie Hall


Wow, it’s been a busy few weeks not just for me but for all of us. Hallie took three days off of school last week to travel with the Ligon Philharmonic Orchestra up to New York to play at Carnegie Hall. Kelly, Travis, and I along with Kelly’s parents joined her after taking the bus up.

We arrived Friday afternoon and had plenty of time to do some sightseeing. First we checked in at the Union Theological Seminary which was to be our hotel for the trip. Then we hit the subway to check out downtown.

Our first stop was the Brooklyn Bridge. I’d seen it from a distance of course but had never walked over it before. It was windy, cool, and very crowded, but it was nice to be able to say I’ve been across it.
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Tyson Shows Star Power :: North Carolina State University Bulletin

The tickling photo of Hallie and Travis with Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson made it to the N.C. State website. Also, you can see us pretty easily in the audience in the first photo. Pretty fun to find!

NC State hosted a bona fide superstar last Thursday when astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and host of the Fox TV show “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” came to campus.

If you’ve ever seen Tyson give a lecture or hold forth in one of his 10 appearances on the “Colbert Report,” you know he has a galaxy-sized personality and charisma to match. Both were on full display during his campus appearances, which included a roundtable interview with local media, a meeting with students in the College of Sciences and a public lecture in the Hunt Library auditorium.

via Tyson Shows Star Power :: North Carolina State University Bulletin.

Retreat on Common Core

I get nervous when politicians who can’t look farther than their next election begin meddling with education. Short-sighted NC lawmakers now want to retreat on Common Core:

Raleigh, N.C. — North Carolina would begin walking away from the Common Core standards for math and English in public schools under proposed legislation that a student committee approved Thursday.

“Common Core is gone July 1 if this passes,” said Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, one of the measure’s leading proponents.

The full General Assembly will take up the measure when it returns to session in mid-May.

Although the bill does delete legislative language referencing Common Core standards, it does not take them out of play right away. Rather, the measure would create an Academic Standards Review Commission to develop standards “tailored to the needs of North Carolina’s students.”

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Penalties for estate tax!

Oh noes!!1! Now I has the penalties for estate tax! Differently I’ll take legal action!

I love how F-PROT anti-virus is sophisticated enough to say there’s “no malware in this announcement,” as opposed to, say, “no malware in this message.” Good stuff.

Good morning!
You has the penalties for estate tax.
Total: $290.82

===Detailed notice is in the attached file===

You gotta check out paper before: June 25th 2014.
Differently you’ll take legal action.

Very sincerely yours,
Supervisor of North Carolina Department of Revenue.
Alicia Owen
+1 (321) 513-22-52

Any questions? Send an email for more information or help.

No malware found in this announcement. Checked by F-PROT Antivirus. Thu, 24 Apr 2014 12:13:06 +0100

Raleigh tops list of shallow single men?

broken-heart-pixabay.com
Raleigh ranked tops in one category it might have wished to have avoided. My single female friends were nodding in agreement last week when dating service Zoosk proclaimed Raleigh to be the least open-minded dating city in America. Even Birmingham, Alabama, is more open-minded, folks.

Zoosk claims it analyzed one million conversations between the singles who use its service and ranked cities based on how willing someone was to date someone different than themselves. Raleigh ranks last in single men’s attitudes about age and college degrees.

Now, I’m leery of any infographic-driven website. Anyone who’s used Facebook lately knows that numbered lists are sure-fire clickbait: people love to read numbered lists. Mention a few major cities in that list and you’ve got a sure-fire recipe for free PR. Also, with only an infographic to go by and no real data, we’re left wondering how these conclusions were drawn.

It all sounds like a publicity stunt. At the very least, since Zoosk draws its information from its user base, it is really nothing more than a reflection of its users. Perhaps Raleigh’s single men who use Zoosk are simply … well, losers.

Now, back when I was single in Raleigh (you know, before the Internet), my complaint was that there were not enough women around. Too many male engineering geeks crowded the Hillsborough Street bars. Fortunately, Raleigh gained some higher-quality clubs and diversified its job market a bit (I would have preferred that more women would have chosen engineering careers since I find female geeks quite attractive, but I digress) and going out became somewhat less of a swordfight.

There are obviously plenty of men who go the young bimbo route (or, at least, there are men like this who also use Zoosk), but looks alone were never my thing. I think that’s the same for many men, Raleigh ladies, so don’t despair. Keep those standards high, keep your heads up, and stay the hell away from Zoosk if you want to find the right guy!

I has the penalty for public services

Oh noes!!1! I got an urgent email today from the Chief of Texas Department of Revenue. It seems I has the penalty for public services, whatever that means. And, differently I’ll obtain court claim. I sure don’t want that happening!

Good morning!
You has the penalty for public services.
Total: $300.70

===Detailed notice is in the attached file===

You gotta check out paper before: August 26th 2014.
Differently you’ll obtain court claim.

Yours truly,
Chief of Texas Department of Revenue.
Jamal Ortiz
+1 (580) 196-17-52

This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

No threats found in this notification.
Checked by BitDefender.

Phishers crack me up.

Plane truths

The Manhattan skyline appears in the windshield of a Vamoose bus.

The Manhattan skyline appears in the windshield of a Vamoose bus.

Last week I was booking a flight for my upcoming business trip to California when I discovered to my surprise that Southwest Airlines, long my airline of choice, offered fares twice as expensive as the lowest airfare. My company’s travel booking system actually wouldn’t let me book a Southwest flight because it was too expensive. I never thought I would ever get in trouble with my boss for booking Southwest, but it’s reached that point.

We’re on the road today to New York City by way of bus from DC. The bus is less than a year old, it’s quiet, clean, comfortable, and there are AC power outlets under each seat. Free WiFi, too, and we can make mobile calls anytime we want. I didn’t know what to expect when we began talking about a bus trip but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

Putting these two ideas together, I mused to Kelly how perhaps these bus lines owe at least part of their renewed success to Southwest’s decision not to be the “bus of the skies” any more. Or perhaps travelers have simply gotten fed up with the unbelieveable hassle of air travel and have sought out more civilized means of travel.

Yes, I’d never thought I’d say it but traveling by bus may be more prefreable than travel by air. Are the high-flying days of air travel over?

Exhibit B for sloppy N&O editing

Well, that didn’t take long. No sooner did I complain about a glaring error in the Sunday Midtown Raleigh News that I found an big error in today’s print edition. A story about the opening of the newly-renovated Terminal 1 at RDU Airport carried a headline referencing Terminal 2. This wasn’t a long, wonky story but one maybe ten paragraphs long, so there’s no excuse for the editor not being able to quickly scan the story and see which terminal was being discussed.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Come on, N&O. Get it together!

New York City bound

As I mentioned, the Turners are on the move again. And, as usual, we’re all headed in different directions, at least initially.

Hallie left for school at 4 AM for her bus trip to New York City, where she and her fellow Ligon Middle School orchestra members will play Carnegie Hall Saturday night. An hour later, Kelly took Travis to his Conn Elementary school field trip to Fort Fisher. I’m staying here for work before heading to a fundraiser for Kay Hagan this evening.

Thursday night, Kelly, Travis, and I will travel to Kelly’s parents’ home (leaving the Rottweilers to guard the home while we’re away, of course). Friday morning we’ll head to DC to hop a bus which will take us to New York. We’ll stay long enough to watch Hallie’s performance before taking the bus back home.

Oh, and the following week I travel to Sacramento for work: the first business travel I’ve taken in a while. Should be fun.

Tornado, three years later

Today began for me much the same way it did that Saturday morning exactly three years ago. Then, as now, it was just the dog and me at home while Kelly and the kids were on the road.

Fortunately the similarities end there. This morning’s weather is clear, breezy and very chilly at 34 degrees F with no signs of any tornadoes. In fact, one of the last … er, signs of the tornado in my neighborhood was removed recently. Up until a few weeks ago, a “No Parking” sign stood outside St. Aug’s on a steel post that was twisted almost completely around, a daily reminder of the jaw-dropping power of violent wind.

Sadly, a day before I was to take a picture of it the city replaced the post and sign. Don’t know if I should be sad I missed it or happy the public works department is so on top of things. At any rate, life in East Raleigh is back to normal now.