Ten years of blogging

Today marks the ten year anniversary of my blog, MT.Net, with the first post being added 17 January 2002. I couldn’t have possibly known on that day how active I would become at blogging, with over 5,304 posts logged. That’s an average of almost 1.5 per day for ten years. Not too shabby!

Besides all the obvious fame and fortune, blogging has made me a better writer and speaker. It has led to lasting friendships. It has emboldened me to have an opinion on things – any things – and be able to defend my position. It has shown me that there are others who think like I do but might have not have been brave enough to say so until I did. It has changed minds and made me a better leader. But to put it in simple terms, it has provided me a platform with which I can help form my world through my thoughts and the words that convey them.
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Saying goodbye to the East CAC

This evening I chaired my last meeting of Raleigh’s East Citizens Advisory Council (East CAC). It was a bittersweet moment for me, knowing how much work I’ve put into it over the past three and a half years.

And yet, I leave it in very good shape. I accomplished almost everything I set out to do. The new leaders are engaged and ready to take it to new levels, too. It’s time for me to turn over the reins and let some of my fantastic neighbors take over.

As I said last night, I don’t know what the future holds in store for me but I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything more rewarding than what I’ve done with the CAC.

Highlights of 2011: CAC changes

Last year saw some transitions with my work with Raleigh’s Citizens Advisory Councils. After seeing how energized neighbors in the East CAC had become over a noise issue with Enloe High School’s air conditioning unit, I decided it might be a good time to turn over the reins to new leadership. When you identify leaders, the next step is to put them to work, right?

My decision did not come lightly. For over three years, I’ve been planning meetings, coordinating speakers, conducting meetings, and streaming live video from the meetings, to keep my neighbors informed and engaged. In between, I met with neighbors who needed help navigating the city departments to get something done. I also administered neighborhood email lists so that people could stay connected.
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Highlights of 2011: campaigns

The year 2011 was an election year for Raleigh and I was right in the thick of things again.

For a while now I’ve been wondering what it might take to play a bigger role in Raleigh government. In February of last year I quietly took a day off from work and drove to DC to attend a Veterans Campaign workshop aimed at getting more military veterans to run for office. It provided an eye-opening education to what it takes to win an election, some of which isn’t particularly pleasant.
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Highlights of 2011: Mordecai Historic Park

It was a bit unexpected that Mordecai Historic Park would become a milestone of the year 2011. I’ve served on this sleepy little board as the Parks Board liaison since I joined the Parks board but the last year was by far the most eventful.

Things really heated up in the spring when the board was presented with the location options for the Mordecai Historic Park Interpretive Center that’s been on the books for a number of years now. I’ve extensively covered on the blog the pros and cons and the thoughts behind my decision-making process, so I won’t do so again. Highlight entries are for reflection from a bit more distance, though, so from this perspective I see the growth opportunity this event provided me.
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The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur

Here’s an interesting take from TechCrunch about how mayors need to think like entrepreneurs. If Raleigh is gunning to be a city of innovation it might want to take this advice.

On stage at last month’s Le Web conference Shervin Pishevar, a Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, stated “The World is a Startup.” It’s an interesting perspective, and I think what’s true for the world is also true for countries, states and municipalities. With developments like last month’s announcement that Cornell was selected to build a new tech campus in New York City, it seems to follow that if “a city is a startup,” then the best mayors are the ones who are looking at their cities in much the same way as entrepreneurs look at the companies they have founded.

via A City Is A Startup: The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur | TechCrunch.

What’s up with 3:05 AM, besides me?

What is up with 3:05 AM that’s waking me up at 3:05 AM? Every single morning this week I’ve awakened at exactly 3:05 AM and I have no idea why.

It started the morning of my Zombiehead post. That night (Wednesday) I went around to all the computers in the house to put them on mute. It’s not the computers.

When I woke up anyway, I assumed that maybe Kelly has been shifting around and waking me. Last night she spent the night away for work, though, so that isn’t it.
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Big water bills coming due

I spent a little time this evening attending the inaugural meeting of the Midtown CAC. Among the presenters was the City of Raleigh’s Public Utilities Director, John Carman. Carman (as he’s known around the city) has been meeting with CACs and other civic groups on a speaking tour. He gave a similar talk to the East CAC back in April.

In his talk, Carman explains the many challenges of running his department, among which is the conflicting problem of water conservation. As you may remember, the city’s droughts have prompted many residents to drastically cut back on their water usage. This was good news to almost everyone but Carman, who has to fund his department through water bills. Thus when folks used less water, they actually get charged more because public utilities needs to make up the balance.
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Time for a new drug war strategy

I was surfing WRAL’s webpage the other day and, like many of their web visitors, got stuck in their gallery of arrest photos. Like the “rate me” sites like Am I Hot Or Not?, the parade of suspect photos pulls you in, making you want to click just one more time to see what’s next.

Anyway, I was clicking away one afternoon when I noticed a pattern. Of the suspects arrested for drug violations, the overwhelming majority of them were arrested for the possession or sale of marijuana. While there were some arrests for other drugs, marijuana was far and away the drug most often cited.

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