Category Archives: Piedmont-Triad

Armed

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Guns make me nervous, always have and always will.  In particular I'm not a big fan of handguns because it just seems like it would be too easy to make a catastrophic error with one.  That's why seeing people walking around with handguns makes me jumpier than a mouse in a room full of cats.  It's not that I think they'll gun me down for looking at them cross-eyed, rather it's that I can think of 100 ways that someone could inadvertently pop off a round and I can just as easily imagine myself catching that round somewhere on my body.  That explains why you won't catch me within ten miles of the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park on August 14 when some pro-gun people hold their Restore the Constitution Rally.

Obviously I'm not a gun guy, but I'm also not someone who gets real worked up about gun control.  I am a guy that's been known to sit in rush hour traffic and marvel that so few accidents occur on a daily basis rather than how many.  Seriously, given what we know about the human condition how is it possible that thousands of cars driven by people who watch American Idol on a regular basis can weave from lane to lane at 75 mph and only a tiny minority actually wreck?  Take that thought process and apply it to guns and you'll know where I'm coming from.

A Voice of Principle and Reason

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President Obama wrote the following on Twitter: "With Robert Byrd's passing, West Virginia has lost a true champion, and America has lost a voice of principle and reason."

Let's put this in perspective.  That sentence was written by America's first black president about a man who while he was serving in Congress filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and as a young man had belonged to the KKK.  Byrd later said that he regretted both of those decisions, but to me that even further highlights the change we've seen in this country in what is really a historical blink of an eye.

Here's an interesting fact for those of us who live in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina: Byrd was born in 1917 in North Wilkesboro (about an hour from Winston-Salem) and was originally named Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr. His mother died in the 1918 flu pandemic and he was adopted by his aunt and uncle from West Virginia and they changed his name to Robert Carlyle Byrd.  

Colonial Pipeline Tank Goes Kaboom

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Anyone who lives in the Piedmont Triad is familiar with Colonial Pipeline's tank farm hard by I-40 in Greensboro.  I drive by the tanks at least twice a day during my commute to and from the office so I've had ample occasion to wonder what would happen if one caught fire.  We found out this weekend when one of them was struck by lightning and went up like a roman candle, and from what I've seen the Greensboro Fire Department did a stellar job containing the blaze.

Something interesting I learned while monitoring WXII's Kenny Beck's coverage via Twitter: one tank contains 200,000 gallons of oil, which helps put the Gulf Oil spill in perspective. If the current low end of the estimate of 42 million gallons is correct then that would be like taking 210 of those tanks and dumping them in the Gulf.

Food Fight Between Winston-Salem and Greensboro

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Here's the deal: the organization I work for (Triad Apartment Association) has kicked off its annual food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank of NW NC.  For the past several years we've hosted an event at a Greensboro Grasshoppers baseball game and invited the public to bring cans of food to contribute to Second Harvest.  This year we've stepped it up and are hosting an event at the Winston-Salem Dash game on July 12 and the Greensboro Grasshoppers game on July 14 and we're holding a contest to see which game will raise more food/money for Second Harvest.

As part of our efforts WXII has agreed to partner with us and both Mayor Joines (W-S) and Mayor Knight (GSO) have filmed public service messages that will run on WXII as part of our efforts.  Obviously we're most thankful to the mayors, the Dash, the Grasshopper and WXII for working with us on this effort.

If you'd like to participate you can do so in several ways:

  • Attend one of the games and bring food or financial donations ($1 = 12 cans of food)
  • Drop off cans of food at one of our participating apartment communities (see the map below, or the list on the TAA website).
  • If you'd like to mail in a donation you can send it to TAA at 3407 West Wendover Ave., Suite E, Greensboro NC 27407. Checks should be made out to Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC
  • An added bonus: if you want to donate a couple of bucks just write "Shave Jon's Head" in the memo field of any check, or on a cover note with the donation, and if we get $1,000 with that note then I'll have my head shaved.

I hope to see you all at one of the ballgames!

Winston-Salem/Kernersville Drop Off Locations

View 2010 TAA Food Drive W-S Drop Off Locations in a larger map

Greensboro/High Point Drop Off Locations

Another Reason to Stay Out of Politics

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There are a gazillion reasons to stay out of politics, but one that never occurred to me until I read this post at YES! Weekly is that when you're stumping you'll likely have to deal with people in various stages of undress.  It's bad enough dealing with this at the pool, where you're at least expecting it, but I don't think I could handle it as part of what's the equivalent of a job interview. Ick.

Regionalism

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I'm a big proponent of regionalism and I like the idea that some North Carolina and Virginia counties are joining forces to promote their region as a tourist destination, lines drawn on a map be damned.

Several Triad counties are among a group that has formed to promote themselves as a single tourism entity. 


They have branded the areas as Cascade Highlands for the way the Blue Ridge highlands of southwest Virginia cascade into the Yadkin Valley of northwest North Carolina.


The group includes nine counties across two states — Stokes, Surry, Yadkin, Wilkes and Allegheny in North Carolina and Carroll, Grayson, Patrick and Smyth in Virginia.

Congrats to a/perture

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Looks like Lawren and crew over at a/perture are making a nice splash in the Triad.  They won "Runner Up" in the "Best Blog" and "Best Facebooker" categories in Yes! Weekly's Best of 2010 survey.  Oh, and probably a little more important to them, they were "Noteworthy" in the "Best Cinema" category.

I'm still trying to get down there for beer and a movie.  Maybe next week I'll finally get the chance.

Governor’s Volunteer Service Award Breakfast

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From the day job: TAA's team was honored to be presented with a Governor's Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service (Forsyth County) in the "Team" category at a breakfast at Salemtowne this morning.  There were also winners in six other categories and it was a true pleasure to be surrounded by so many people doing incredible things for their community.  A big thanks to The Children's Home for nominating us for the project. Here's a couple of pics:

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The TAA Team

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TAA VP and Labor of Love Chair Marc Crouse

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Kind of cool shot of the program    

Things Are Getting Better, but…

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The Dixon Hughes Triad Business Index for March, 2010 shows that the local economy is improving, but it's not by much and we've got a heckuva long way to go before we can say things are good.  It will be interesting to see what happens in real estate when the stimulus plan expires at the end of this week, but when you read this from the report you wonder how much worse it can get (knock on wood):

At the end of the 1st quarter of 2010, the inventory of homes on the market was 9,098, or 6.3 times the number of homes sold in the 1st quarter.  At the current sales pace, it will take 18.9 months to exhaust the existing inventory.  The number of existing homes offered for sale was up 16.5% from what it was at the end of the 4th quarter, and it was 9.5% higher than at the end of the 1st quarter one year ago. 

The price of the average home sold in the 1st quarter was down 2.8% from the previous quarter.  The average quality-adjusted price of an existing home in the Triad was $158,718.  The average this quarter was down 1.7% from the average recorded in the 1st quarter of last year.  By comparison, over the past year, consumer prices nationally have risen 2.2%.

Trust and Judgment

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Today offered another one of those lessons you learn early but need to be reminded of often: leaping to conclusions usually lands you in the wrong place.  I was at lunch and the person I was sitting next to, someone whom I trust, started talking about the ongoing situation here in the Piedmont Triad between Waffle House Inc. and its (now former) local franchisee.  Long story short the local franchisee got out of the business and in the process some employees were issued paychecks that bounced.  Fingers were pointed, but early on the local franchisee looked like the bad guy.

Now it's important to provide some context here.  People in the Triad who pay attention to these kinds of things are likely predisposed to believing the worst in any story about employees being given rubber checks, because another local company recently went out of business, and in the process the owner really did screw his employees out of pay and health benefits. 

At lunch I was hearing from a trusted source that the Waffle House franchisee was one of the most honorable and ethical business people she had ever met.  Knowing what I know about the source, and knowing the number of people she knows in the business community, my angle on the story instantly shifted 180 degrees. After reading the initial coverage of the story I'd just assumed that the franchisee had gotten in too deep and had done what lots of companies do in that situation: tried to hold on and pray for a miracle while telling the employees nothing of the problems and then eventually bouncing paychecks. I also assumed that stories of delinquent payroll taxes would soon follow. A one minute conversation at lunch changed my assumptions, and I began to think that there's probably a whole lot more to the story and I probably needed to reserve judgment until the situation was fully aired.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think the media did any faulty reporting.  The stories I read simply stated the facts: employees' paychecks bounced, the state's labor department was investigating and if they found any wrongdoing they were going to go after the franchisee for the employees' pay.  I did the rest of the work myself, leaping to conclusions and letting my own biases take me to an early, and potentially faulty, conclusion.  Luckily I was saved from myself today.

After lunch I got back to my desk and found this story waiting in my alert box. It seems that my source at lunch was right and it's the folks at Waffle House Inc. who haven't been behaving too well in this case, at least to this point.  And that's where I need to remember another lesson: there's usually more to a story than meets the eye, and it will probably be a while before we have the full story here.  Stay tuned.