Enjoying the Outer Banks

We’re halfway through our vacation to Nags Head and the Outer Banks and have had a load of fun so far. If you asked the kids they would say that simply riding the waves has been their most favorite activity but we’ve done far more than that.

Sunday night upon arriving, we unpacked, made dinner, fixed our beds, and settled in for the night.

We spent Monday morning on the beach, riding waves, building sandcastles, and simply relaxing. In the afternoon Kelly went for a 4+ mile run and I went for a 17 mile bike ride. We had hauled our bicycles down with us to the detriment of our gas mileage. So far I’m the only one who’s ridden one. We hope to get the family out on a bike ride tomorrow, weather permitting.

Monday afternoon the kids took a nap in preparation to see the play The Lost Colony. When they awoke, we made dinner and drove to Manteo for the show. It was the first time I’d seen it and I enjoyed it, though the kids were fading as it ran a bit long.
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Turning my Ubuntu laptop into an access point

Our beachhouse for the week was advertised as having an Internet connection, so I was looking forward to being able to do some blogging while I’m here in addition to checking out the area’s attractions. It turns out the Internet connection advertised consisted of one wired connection to a dead cable modem. WiFi would have been great, but having no connection whatsoever simply burned me up.

I called the management office on Monday, Tuesday (twice), and today in order to get someone to fix this broken cable modem. As we walked off the beach today at 3:30 PM, the guy from the local cable company was waiting to get into the home. He quickly determined that the cable modem’s AC adapter was the culprit and got the blinky lights working with a fresh replacement. After a few fumbles in fixing things, he was on his way and we had at least a wired connection to the Internet. But how to share this with the other devices in our geeky family?
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Chief Dolan to Retire

I was surprised to read of the imminent retirement of Raleigh Police Chief Harry Dolan. As the former chair of the East CAC, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Chief Dolan and will miss his innovative leadership. I look forward to learning what he plans to do next!

City Manager J. Russell Allen today announced the retirement of Chief of Police Harry P. Dolan, effective Oct. 1. Chief Dolan’s retirement after five years as police chief caps a law enforcement career spanning 32 years and a tenure that brought progress to the department.

“Harry Dolan has been an excellent police chief for Raleigh, but more importantly, he has been an exceptional leader,” Mr. Allen said. “His high level of technical and strategic law enforcement skills are matched by his unwavering ethical standards, commitment to the community, pride in the department’s employees, and enthusiasm for police work.”

via Raleigh’s Chief of Police to Retire – The Official City of Raleigh Portal.

Nags Head

We spent the day yesterday packing for a week at Nags Head and got here around 5 PM yesterday. We’re staying at the “Serenity” beach house in shouth Nags Head, specifically at 10113 S. Colony South Drive. It’s a huge beachhouse. We’re not even using half of the bedrooms in it.

We brought our bikes on this trip, to the detriment of our minivan’s gas mileage. It was worth it, though, as there’s a long sidewalk/walkway just outside the house that runs for miles in either direction.
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WineDiningFun.com

My multi-talented former boss Rowland Archer and his lovely wife Lana have just launched a resource for wine events around the Triangle. Give it a look!

We are Rowland and Lana from Raleigh, NC. We love wine events and hope you do too. We have found it very hard to find wine dinners, tastings and festivals in time to get reservations or tickets and have missed a lot of them that sounded great — after the fact. There are hundreds of web sites, Facebook pages and mailing lists that seem to get updated inconsistently if at all — and who has time to look at all of them hoping to find that one piece of gold buried in all the out-of-date information?

via About.

Twitter Updates for 2012-08-12

  • RT @johnburnsnc The USS Wisconsin is perfect for the #RomneyRyan announcement. It's already hosted one surrender to a Democratic President. #
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  • Congratulations on your reelection, @barackobama! #