Category Archives: Winston-Salem

Please Promise Me You’ll Pull a Hendrix If You Win

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The Winston-Salem Dash are auditioning people to sing the National Anthem this season.  Please, please, please promise me that if you win you'll be more Hendrix and less Roseanne when you perform. From the Dash press release:

Tryouts for the chance to sing the National Anthem at a Winston-Salem Dash game this season.  More than 150 entrants will sing acapella versions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a panel of guest judges. 

Tryouts will begin on Saturday, March 27 at noon and will end at approximately 6 p.m.

Where: Hanes Mall, in the lower level plaza near the carousel

For more information, please visit www.wsdash.com

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'.

A Concise Description of Madhouse

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I've been watching Madhouse on The History Channel (for excellent reviews of the show see KT's reviews at Esbee's blog) and I do enjoy it immensely, but one of my fears is that my friends and family in other parts of the world will think that the Madhouse crowd is representative of Winston-Salem in its entirety. Fec offers his own evaluation and I have to say that the first and last sentences of his second paragraph kind of sum up my worries:

I stayed up last night and watched the History Channel’s Madhouse chronicle of W-S Bowman Gray stadium modified racing. The series portrays our area in the worst possible light.

The shows are highly effective cautionary tales of men who refuse to grow up and the families they neglect. It is a cogent primer in abnormal behavior. The soul-crushing pastime of habitually racing on a track too small to pass renders the participants beyond their already limited capacities to maintain composure. It’s Jerry Springer on wheels.

I have nothing against the Madhousians, and in fact the culture reflected in Madhouse is one of my favorite things about the Winston-Salem area, but you have to remember that just a few miles away from Junior Miller and his K'ville Mafia live grown men who wear loafers with no socks to the pool at FCC.  If that doesn't say "I haven't grown up" I don't know what does.

Official disclaimer: I see nothing wrong with going sockless, but why drag your loafers into it?

Why is Downtown Important?

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If you ask me "Why is having a vibrant downtown important" I would probably reply, "Well, it just is."  It's always seemed intuitive to me that a healthy and vibrant downtown is essential for a metro area, but I've never really been able to quantify my rationale.  Thankfully I can let the folks at Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership do it for me:

Nice Article on Labor of Love

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Kim Underwood wrote a nice article for the Winston-Salem Journal about TAA's Labor of Love project at The Children's Home.  As I wrote before, this is one of the most amazing projects I've ever been involved with and I think the article really helps explain why:

The cottage is needed because last Sept. 1, the Children's Home took over the operation of Opportunity House, a nine-bed emergency shelter for young people on Brookstown Avenue. The shelter had been run by the Youth Opportunities organization.

"The intention from Day One was to move that facility on campus," said George Bryan, the president and chief executive of the Children's Home…

When the Children Home agreed to take over the shelter, Bryan estimated that it could take $150,000 to renovate the 10,000-square-foot Stultz Cottage. With no money available, immediate action wasn't possible.

Along came Marc Crouse, a member of the apartment association who volunteers at the home and is in the process of adopting a young person who has been living there. When he approached Bryan about the association doing something at the home for this year's "Labor of Love" project, Bryan thought that fixing up the cottage for the program would be just the thing.

"From the first, we are considering this a miracle," Bryan said.

Hanes Mall to Require Parental Supervision for Teens?

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I read an article in the Winston-Salem Journal this morning that said that Hanes Mall is likely to require anyone under the age of 18 to be accompanied by parents after 5 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.  As the parent of three teenagers (17, 16, 13) I have just one question for the mall's management: What took you so damn long?

Teenagers are palatable, barely, when they are singled out from the herd.  Heck, you might even be able to take them in groups of two or three if you limit the exposure to under ten minutes, but you get them in large groups and they're as bad as any group of human beings around.  Actually they're more like zombies on speed, and knowing that and knowing that they have the same attraction to malls that zombies have I avoid that place like the plague.  Sure I avoid the mall as much as possible anyway thanks to my aversion to shopping and Sbarro, but knowing that there are teenagers there in abundance absolutely seals the deal.  

The only worse place than a mall to be on any given day is a high school or middle school, but we pay people to pretend to do something worthwhile with them in those places and for the most part we aren't expected to actually breathe the air there unless our children do something remarkable like achieve more than altered states of consciousness.  So really schools don't count.

Hanes Mall management, on behalf of all normal human beings in the Winston-Salem vicinity I want to say "thank you."  Of course there might be an unintended consequence that my wife will expect me to accompany her on shopping forays on Fridays and Saturdays after dark, but I'm well prepared with enough exaggerated illnesses and household tasks that I think I can fend her off for the near future. When I do run out of excuses I'll just add a requirement that we eat in the food court if we're to shop there.  That ought to take care of it.

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.
 

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.

 

Winston-Salem Journal’s Managing Editor Heading Out

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Ken Otterbourg, the Winston-Salem Journal's managing editor, is leaving the paper at the end of the month.  From his blog post about his departure:

We will be running a story tomorrow announcing my resignation as
managing editor at the Journal. We told the staff yesterday. So
consider this the tease, as it will make you read the article.
But the short version is that a) I wanted to try some other things
besides running a newsroom before I got too old to make the transition
and that b) I had some substantial disagreements with our corporate
staff about some planned changes for our newsroom in the coming year.

Update: I'll keep in place the speculatin' that I wrote below just to show how off one person (me) can be when working with partial info.  According to the article that the Journal ran about Otterbourg's resignation his disagreement with the corporate office has to do with consolidating the copy editing and design functions of the three largest papers.  Of course that could have led to people being let go (speculation number 1), but still it looks like I really was speaking through my nether regions. Update End

That last line has me speculatin' and the three possibilities that pop into my head are:

  1. He's had to be the guy handing out pink slips the last couple of years and he doesn't want to do more of the same.  In classic corporate style the suits in Richmond want him to cut senior reporters since they cost so much and hand the reins to kids out of journalism school (if such people still exist) and hope for the best.  
  2. The suits in Richmond want the newsroom to be better integrated with advertising so that they can offer more "innovative" business solutions to their advertisers.  Hey, if it's good for Murdoch's peeps then why not Media General's?
  3. The suits are considering pulling the plug on the printed product and going entirely digital.

Remember this is pure speculation on my part and I could be totally talking out of my nether regions, but I don't think the speculation is too much of a stretch, especially the first one.  Believe me, I hope I'm wrong.

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!

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Esbee links to the trailer about the History Channel show filmed at Bowman Gray last summer and set to debut this coming Sunday.  Looks entertaining and I'm sure it will be the kick in the pants I need to finally get me out to the track next summer.  I feel somehow un-Winstony for living here five years and not getting out there even once.  This despite the fact that a friend of mine who goes there religiously once described the atmosphere thusly (I'm paraphrasing):  "It's great.  There are all kinds of women there wearing halter tops and no bras, and they really should be wearin' bras since their tattoos get all distended."  If that's not a ringing endorsement I don't know what is.

Here's the trailer.  Show debuts on the History Channel at 10 p.m., Sunday, January 10.