Category Archives: Forsyth County

Split Google Loyalties

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Today I attended the Linking Winston-Salem luncheon and part of the program was a plea to support the Winston-Salem effort to get Googled. Winston-Salem is a little late getting started with its public push, especially when you compare it to Greensboro's weeks old effort, but I guess it's better late than never, and since I live in the Winston-Salem burbs I'm happy to see them going for it.

On the other hand thanks to my job and my long-time interest in the Greensboro blog community I've also been invited to participate in their various Google-wooing efforts.  Typical of Greensboro they've been working out the kinks in public, but they seem to be making decent headway.

I've been thinking about this and I've come to the conclusion that I can't be the only one who's in this situation.  I'm guessing that since this isn't an election I can vote for as many municipalities as I want, but I'm also guessing that Greensboro and Winston-Salem could be missing an opportunity.  Wouldn't a consolidated, regional effort for the Triad make a lot of sense to Google?  I haven't studied the requirements in depth so I don't know if this is even an option, but if it is I can think of a lot of compelling reasons for a Piedmont Triad effort:

  • The combination of all the higher ed institutions in the Triad is pretty impressive (Wake, UNCG, Winston-Salem State, NC A&T, High Point U, Salem College, Greensboro College, UNCSA, etc.)
  • The combination of all the large, public corporations between the two cities
  • Each of the cities is doing some pretty cool economic development on its own (FedEx and HondaJet in Greensboro, PTRP in Winston-Salem) but when considered together the efforts seem even more impressive

That's just three positives off the top of my head, and I'm sure that there are people who will let me know if I'm all wet, but I still have to ask if a joint effort has even been contemplated?

I do realize that Google's basic info page says "We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people" and that even if you combined only Greensboro and Winston-Salem you'd be awful close to the upper limit so the entire Triad would obviously exceed it.  Still, if Google's going to wire multiple mid-sized cities wouldn't it be of interest to them to do a couple in close proximity for purely logistical reasons?  And if that's the case wouldn't it make sense for the various players in the Triad to throw in together to make a really, really compelling case with Google?  Just askin'.

Labor of Love is a True Highlight

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This weekend was the kick off for a project that I'm already sure will be one of the highlights of my career.  The organization I work for, Triad Apartment Association, is doing it's annual Labor of Love project and this year it really is audacious.  We're taking on a three story building at The Children's Home that has been vacant for over 25 years and fixing it up so that it can be used to house children that the Home serves.  The project includes cleaning and painting every room, installing new carpet, replacing outlets and light switches, repairing all plumbing fixtures, re-glazing all bathroom tiles, replacing/repairing floor tiles, repairing and refinishing a parquet floor, removing an interior wall from one room, installing new appliances, installing 9 new ceiling fans, repairing exterior woodwork, providing new furniture and installing new landscaping. What makes it so incredibly rewarding is that all of the materials, time and money have been donated by companies and individuals involved with TAA, and even more remarkably, people in the community who somehow heard about it and volunteered to help.

We're getting all this done in four days, Feb 12-13 and 19-20, which you'd think would be impossible until you consider that on the 12th we had over 70 people show up to help and on the 13th we had over 90. We're expecting just as many, if not more, next weekend.  We had so many people that we had enough to go out and do other projects on The Children's Home grounds.  

One of our volunteers is a woman who grew up at The Children's Home and lived in the building that we're working on.  I can't even describe the feeling of standing in a room with her as she painted a window and told a story about her first night at the Home spent in that very room and how it changed her life.  It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

There aren't words appropriate enough to describe what all of these volunteers have given The Children's Home, so to those of you who have participated please accept these humble words: Thank you! If you would like to help with The Labor of Love you still can and please feel free to shoot me an email if you're interested.  Otherwise there is always a need for volunteers at The Children's Home and there's plenty of information on how to help at their website. 

Reality Based School Systemry

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Thankfully the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools spared us the 5:30 a.m. phone call to announce the obvious: school's out Monday and they just called at 5:00 p.m. Sunday to inform us.  I was worried that they were going to act all, you know, "We have to wait and see if God sends a rogue heat wave through the area tonight before we assess the situation" and then wake us up at some awful hour to inform us of the obvious.  Here's at least one reason I think they made the right call:

DSC_0174 

That's Concord Church Road, a relatively well traveled secondary road in Lewisville, at about 3:30 on Sunday.  That's gonna be one slick road tonight and in the morning and I have a feeling that there are roads just like it all over the county.
 

Lewisville Today: Elderly Love Triangle Gone Bad; Idiotic Teenage Kayakers; Moronic Adult Leaper

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Unfortunately my little 'ol hometown has been in the news a bit lately, and not for good reasons.  A couple of days ago an elderly couple was found shot to death in their home, apparently by an elderly Mocksville man who had dated the woman and was upset that she was trying to reconcile with her husband.  Then yesterday two teenagers disappeared on the Yadkin River when they decided that it would be a great idea to go kayaking while a flood warning was in effect.  Just down the road from where the boys went on their little misadventure a man decided to jump off a bridge into the Yadkin because he thought it would be fun.  Despite his best efforts to win the Darwin Award the man was rescued.

That's a lot of action in one week for a little town of 14,000-ish people.

Helping The Children’s Home

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This actually has to do with my day job.  The Triad Apartment Association (TAA) is gearing up for it's annual Labor of Love and this year we'll be working with The Children's Home to fix up a building that's been vacant for over 25 years so that it can be used as transitional housing for kids who turn 18. 

As things currently stand when a child turns 18 they are pretty much on their own.  I don't know about you, but if I'd been left to my own devices at 18 I would have been in a world of hurt.  The Children's Home envisions taking this refurbished building and using it as a place to temporarily house the 18 year-olds while they learn how to make their way in the world.

The TAA is going to take several teams of volunteers to clean up, paint, fix the landscaping and make repairs to the building over two weekends in February.  We're in the process of organizing our teams and gathering supplies for the project.  To give you an idea of the scope of this project we anticipate using a minimum of 200 gallons of paint and having dozens of volunteers on site at any given time. 

One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that we keep getting donations and volunteers by word of mouth even though we haven't really been pushing it to this point.  I can't tell you how many calls we've gotten from "friends of friends" who want to know how they can get involved.  What I've been telling them is that we will happily take donations of supplies, or money (financial donations go directly to The Children's Home for the project), to help with the project.  If we get a duplication of donations, say for kitchen appliances, then we've been assured that The Children's Home can find a use for them.  If you have any interest in helping out please feel free to contact our office at (336) 294-4428 or visit our web page about the project here. 

I wasn't yet at TAA when we did the 2009 Labor of Love so I'm REALLY stoked about this year's project.

 

Red Alert!

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09_StrayDog2
Okay people this is critical.  The dog pictured here showed up at our house yesterday and must have decided it's a cool place to hang out because he won't leave.  He's well groomed and fed so I'm thinking someone out there is missing him.  Why's this critical?  For the following reasons:

  • We've already adopted two dogs in the last year and if we end up with a third I'll have to refinance just to feed them all.
  • I can hear you saying, "Well just take him to the shelter."  Unfortunately he's a sweetheart of a dog and I can already see the soft spot in my wife's heart for him so the shelter is NOT going to be an option.
  • The kids have already named him Cujo.  That's not good.
  • Riley, our recently adopted black lab, was just starting to settle down and behave and now we have another large male dog that's trying to establish dominance by mounting him every 30 seconds.  I'm afraid that Riley will chew another door frame or two before we get him readjusted.
  • Mia, the little girl in the bunch, will probably need dog therapy if this goes on much longer. 

So, if you know anyone in the Lewisville vicinity that's missing a dog that looks even remotely like the one pictured please have them get hold of me. 

Wondering What HRDTIME$ Means

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I was heading into work today when a gleaming, canary yellow Hummer pulled in front of me.  Nothing extraordinary about that, but then I saw the vanity license plate: HRDTIME$.  Obviously I don't know the owner, or anything about the owner, but I can tell you that the first words that popped into my head were "What a jack***." 

The rest of my drive into work I speculated as to what the owner was trying to say. Maybe he's made a killing in flipping foreclosed properties.  Maybe he's a franchise owner of a consumer credit counseling concern and has more business than he can handle.  Maybe it has nothing to do with the economy and he's simply sharing an inside joke.  Who knows, but putting a plate like that on the most obnoxiously over-the-top vehicle in the history of man during times like these just seems to be the equivalent of wearing a t-shirt that says "I'm a big fat *******."

Forsyth Educators Living in Some Kind of Fairy Tale Universe?

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Kim Underwood has an article in today's Winston-Salem Journal about the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School Board exploring the possibility of laying people off due to budget issues.  The part of the story that caused my jaw to drop was this:

If individual cuts are necessary, the potential list of criteria
presented for the board to consider included evaluations;
student-performance data; length of service, giving preference to
teachers with National Board Certification; and level of degrees.

Tripp Jeffers, the president of the Forsyth County Association of
Educators, which represents the school system's teachers, urged board
members not to include such subjective elements as evaluations and to
rely more on seniority. Board members Buddy Collins and Jeannie Metcalf
expressed reservations about having evaluations and data that included
student performance too high on the list.

"The part that bothers me is the subjectivity of some of these things," Metcalf said.

What kind of fairy tale universe do these people live in?  The rest of us in the working world are evaluated by our bosses, peers, customers, etc. and have our employment tied to these highly subjective measures. Should I expect to continue to be retained, even if I do crappy work, just because I've been around longer than the highly competent person working next to me?  I don't think so. As both a boss (taxpayer) and customer (my children are students) I would like very much for the teachers to be retained based on their performance and not on their ability to breathe the air between the schools' four walls for a longer period of time than anyone else.

Forsyth Residents Part of Study Linking Population Density and Walking

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The American Journal of Preventive Medicine just published the results of a study that looked at the effect of land use density on peoples' walking behavior and included Forsyth County residents as part of the study.  It's really a "no duh" result, but having data to inform municipal planning decisions is always helpful.  From the study:

After adjustment for individual-level characteristics and neighborhood connectivity, it was found that higher density, greater land area devoted to retail uses, and self-reported proximity of destinations and ease of walking to places were each related to walking. In models including all land-use measures, population density was positively associated with walking to places and with walking for exercise for more than 90 minutes/week, both relative to no walking. Availability of retail was associated with walking to places relative to not walking, and having a more proportional mix of land uses was associated with walking for exercise for more than 90 minutes/week, while self-reported ease of access to places was related to higher levels of exercise walking, both relative to not walking.