Yearly Archives: 2007

Timber Rattlers are the Champeens

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My son Justin’s baseball team, the AA Timber Rattlers of Southwest Forsyth Little League, won their tournament championship yesterday.  To make the victory even sweeter Justin went 1-2 at the plate, hitting a single in his first at bat.  Since he’d been hitless in the first two games of the tournament and had been having trouble making contact it was great to see him get that hit.  Even better, he was aggressive in both of his at-bats after he’d become tentative in the earlier two games.  We had a long talk at breakfast about swinging hard and not being afraid to miss and the kid showed great gumption by going up there in front of a rowdy crowd and taking some really hard cuts.  What a great way to end the season.

Why I Love My Web Apps or The Upstairs AC is Fried Again

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Our house has two AC units: one for the main floor and one of the upstairs, which was an attic that was converted to more living space some time before we bought the house money pit.  The upstairs AC went out last year and it just went out again yesterday which means that when the AC company gets out here this week (HUGE wait list for service) we’ll probably be paying for a new unit.  In the meantime my office is a sauna so I’ve shut down my computer and am working away on my wife’s computer.  In the past this would have been problematic, but about 90% of my work is now done on web apps that I can access from any computer connected to ye internet.  Makes the sting of our dying AC unit a little easier to take.

Oh, by the way, in the span of one hour yesterday afternoon I found out that our AC wasn’t working, our microwave (three years old) died and our home phone started acting up (seems to be fixed now).  Still trying to figure out when I walked under the ladder.

Who’s Reading About Lewisville Elementary?

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Last Friday I posted a piece about the suspension of Lewisville Elementary science teacher Allan Snow.  That post has garnered more comments (by a lot) than any other post I’ve written so I thought it would be interesting to see where the folks who are reading the piece are coming from.  Thanks to Google analytics I can tell you the following:

  • 37% from Yahoo!
  • 18% from Google
  • 11% from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system
  • 7% from the Winston-Salem Journal
  • The rest from various sources

The one that interests me the most is the school system number.  Obviously there’s a lot of interest in this story within the schools, especially Lewisville Elementary, but unfortunately all I can offer is rumor, conjecture, emotions, etc. and most of that is contained in the comments and not anything that I’ve been able to "report."  I would LOVE to be able to offer facts, findings and the like but that won’t happen unless or until the sheriff’s office and the school superintendent’s office release their findings.

I’m Touched

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My wife would tell you that I’m touched in the head, but the title of this post actually refers to this video produced by Popular Mechanics about the new Microsoft touch technology coffee table.  I’d seen the promos for the thing but figured it was just more overblown hype from Microsoft.  After seeing the video I’m left salivating over the possibilities in the computer realm in the next 5-10 years.  Really, you need to check it out.  Here’s the link again.

I Learn Something New Every Day, Winston-Salem Edition

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I’ve been inspire by Esbee to further educate myself about Winston-Salem.  I don’t get out as much as she does so I don’t have any pictures to share, but here’s some info I found on Answers.com:

  • Pam Grier was born here. She was the star of 70’s blaxploitation flick Foxy Brown and one of my favorite lesser known movies, Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.
  • Mark Grace was born here.  He was a first baseman for my Chicago Cubs back in the 80s and 90s and my kind of scrappy player.  The dude could hit too.
  • Answers.com also lists John Tesh as a famous resident of Winston-Salem, which is another one I’m gonna have to check.
  • They have a bunch of other famous residents listed, like Chris Paul, Josh Howard and Richard Childress but none that surprised me as much as those above.

Feel free to share any other interesting Winston factoids.

Now That’s a Time Machine

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Tulsaplymouth01
Keep an eye on the news on June 15, 2007.  That’s when the folks in Oklahoma will unearth a time capsule buried in 1957 as part of the state’s 50 year celebration, which makes this year a centennial celebration.  Here’s the really cool part: they buried a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe in a concrete "coffin" as part of the capsule, along with a case of Schlitz beer, the contents of a woman’s purse and a container of oil among other things. Check out the Youtube video of the car being buried.

Update 6/19/07. Below is a picture of the car after it was exhumed and here’s a link to the Flickr photo gallery of the exhumation:

Tulsaplymouth07

Since Esbee was nice enough to tell everyone to visit my blog to get their local Winston-Salem fix while she’s offline I thought I’d try and find a way to tie this to the Camel City.  Hmmm, oh yeah, I remember touring the l ocal Schlitz brewery with my grandparents when I was a kid in the late 70s.  According to this article, at the time it was built in 1970 it was the largest brewery under one roof in the US. Stroh’s took over Schlitz in 1982 and the factory was in operation until 1999. The free beer tasting at the end of the tour was the only time I ever saw my grandpa throw back some suds, and my granny wasn’t too pleased about it.

Just for kicks you can check out the satellite image of what once was the Schlitz facility here.

More on Lewisville Teacher Alan Snow

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As more and more online college degrees become available the number of online degrees that you can earn also have been diversifying. You can not only learn about medical billing at a large number of online colleges you could also get yourself an elementary education degree online if you wish.
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Lots of interesting comments on the original post about the new set of allegations against Alan Snow, Lewisville Elementary’s science teacher.  From a comment by "Concerned Parent":

I was speaking earlier on how people are repsonding to the accuser and
on the wxii website there was a person that was asking for the "names
of the accuser and he was begging so that he could contact them because
they were horrible people"…I contacted wxii and asked to have this
taken off and they did…the victim and family are now scared for their
safety by the way they have heard people respond.

This has the potential to get really ugly and it could tear at the fabric of this community.  I’m begging the sheriff and the school system to handle this right and as promptly as possible for the sake of everyone.

BTW, the Winston-Salem Journal’s article has comments at the bottom.  I’d like to thank the commenters here for being a little more civilized (and thoughtful) than those at the Journal.

Literate Hippies Invade the London Tubes

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Some folks in London have started a campaign to provide free second-hand books to commuters on London’s tubes.  Here’s their schtick:

The London Book Project is a free book exchange on a massive scale.
Using the London Underground as a high speed distribution network, we
aim to bring real literature to London’s commuters. Scrap the
freesheets – read a free book instead!

Over the next two weeks we’ll be distributing thousands of second
hand books across the tube and we want YOU to get involved. If you see
one of our books, please pick it up! Then read it and replace with any
book of your choice. Let’s make the tube a giant, free library!

Found via Boing Boing.

Lewisville Elementary and Mr. Snow

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The science teacher at my youngest son’s school, Mr. Snow at Lewisville Elementary, has been suspended with pay for alleged misconduct.  We got the automated call from the school at about 4:30 this afternoon and I just saw the notification in the Winston-Salem Journal’s afternoon email alert (article here).  No details were provided with the phone message other than that the school is participating with the sheriff’s office in the investigation.

This is the second time this year that Mr. Snow has been accused of misconduct.  The charges last fall were dropped after the authorities couldn’t find any support or proof of the allegations.  As I wrote here I wasn’t too pleased with the school’s initial handling of getting the word out the last time through, but I think they’ve learned their lesson because this time they seem to be getting the word out quickly and consistently.  One thing I’d like to know is when the allegations were initially made.  The last time we didn’t hear from the schools until a week after the allegations were made and the sheriff was called.  It will be interesting to see what the gap between allegation and parental notification was this time.

On the plus side the school reps went out of their way to say they are already working with the sheriff’s office so we know where they are in the process.  Unfortunately, because we’ve been through this already we know that the school system can’t tell us anything until the sheriff has investigated. Given the sheriff office’s performance in recent school cases let’s hope they get this thing investigated soon and thoroughly.

FYI, the phone’s already started ringing and the early take is that someone has it out for Mr. Snow.  I know it seems awful suspicious when any teacher is accused twice (where there’s smoke there’s fire, and all that), but let’s just say that those people familiar with the school have reason to think that there might be a reason that Mr. Snow would be accused.  As I said the last time, I don’t know Mr. Snow personally but I do know the people who are defending him and I trust their judgment. 

I just hope this somehow works out in such a way that the folks involved come out as unscathed as possible and that the truth is found.