Winston-Salem Profiled on Wells-Fargo Wachovia Blog

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Here's a link to the profile of Winston-Salem and an overview of Wachovia's history written for the Wells-Fargo Wachovia blog by Wayne Thompson, a resident of Winston-Salem and member of the Wells-Fargo communications team.  It's a nice piece but Mr. Thompson had a couple of small errors:  one was a sin of ommission when he forgot to include Arnold Palmer in the list of Wake Forest sports greats (this was pointed out by a commenter on the blog) and the other was identifying Chris Paul as a native of Winston-Salem (he grew up in Lewisville). 

Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

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I love positive thinking, especially the variety that goes something like this: "Yes, you lost your foot in that freak bicycle accident but on the positive side you still have your leg!"  Thus you'll understand why I really like this story from the Winston-Salem Journal titled Existing-Home Sales Up for Fourth Month and this excerpt in particular:

The Winston-Salem Regional Association of Realtors said yesterday that 324 homes were sold last month, up 3.8 percent from the 312 sold in March.

"While it is not uncommon for sales to increase month over month for the first half of the year, it is encouraging in this climate that we are returning to more normal home-buying patterns in our community," said Phillip Rector with Mundy Realty and the president of the association.

Still, April home sales were down 34.8 percent from April 2008, when 497 homes were sold. The average sales price was $157,000 last month, down 11.3 percent from $177,000 for the same period a year ago

I think a better gauge of how good this news is (or isn't) would be to compare the growth from March-April in 2008 with March-April of this year. While this story tells us that home sales were up 3.8% from March to April of 2009 we don't know what the increase from March to April of 2008 was, which means we don't know if we have better or worse growth than last year.  If housing sales actually declined this time last year then it makes the fact that April sales this year were down 35% from last year not so bad, because last year sales were sliding from month-to-month and this year they're on the rise.  But if March-April sales last year were actually an increase of 7% then that means that not only are the year-to-year comparisons bad, but the seasonal growth in sales this year is also worse than last year, which makes the news really bad.

Long story short: I really hope the news is good, but the data given in this story doesn't really tell us if it is or not.

Until We Can Dash, Let’s Wrassle!

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Driving past Winston-Salem's delayed crown jewel of a downtown baseball stadium it occurred to me that with all the rain we've had and all that exposed Carolina clay that's where the outfield will someday be the Dash's outfield (we hope) there's actually something the venue can be used for until the sod's ready to roll out: the world's largest mud-wrestling pit.  Rather than let the site just sit there let's get some entertainment value out of it.  It really might work, especially if you consider the stadium's proximity to several of Winston-Salem's adult entertainment establishments…not that I'd know anything about that.

Hot off the presses:no baseball downtown this year.  Wrassling it is.

Parenting Wisdom

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The following sentence was uttered by a parent not to be named, upon the departure to the pool of her 15 year old daughter, who was sporting her brand new and way-too-skimpy-for-her-Dad-to-look bikini:

"At least she looks good and her a– is covered and her boobs aren't hanging out."

There is that.

Bowman Gray Getting Ready for the Bigs, Well the History Channel

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In our house the History Channel is actually watched fairly regularly so it's kind of exciting to us that the History Channel is going to film a series following one of the short track racers over at Bowman Gray stadium.  From Channel 14:

WINSTON-SALEM – Reality TV is making its mark on Winston-Salem and Bowman Gray Stadium. A television crew from the History Channel will film its show, “Madhouse,” at the race track this summer.

“They're filming a TV series here that's going to be on the History Channel. And it's about the life and struggles of a Saturday night short tracker here at Bowman Gray Stadium,” Chris Fleming, a driver from Mount Airy, said.

The track is NASCAR’s first and longest running weekly race. Drivers began running their cars at the stadium just one year after NASCAR started.

Ugh

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I think I'm getting old and cranky.  I read the letters to the editor in the paper or the comments posted on local news stories and I really kind of get hot and bothered.  Take this comment from a story on WXII's site about Andy Griffith's affirmation of faith with Grace Moravian Church in Mt. Airy:

"I grew up admiring Andy Griffith and his values. I was shocked and disappointed when he endorsed Obama, who is actively Pro Abortion. Christians need to stand up."

I'd LOVE to know the commenter's feelings about Obama's predecessor's stance on capital punishment. 

Yep.  Old and cranky.

links for 2009-05-22

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  • SCIP and Frost & Sullivan Institute Merger Looking a Little Different
    The "grow your own" competitive intelligence network on Ning is ablaze with comments about the SCIP and Frost & Sullivan merger. One of the people on the network contacted FSI directly to get their view of the merger and if what they wrote is accurate it seems to be very different from what SCIP members were told before they voted for the merger. In a way it doesn't matter because SCIP would have folded if the vote had been no, but it also could make the transition pretty ugly if the members feel misled.
    (tags: scip competitiveintelligence)

Selling Dad

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Apparently there's a long tradition at the kids' high school of underclassmen skipping the seniors' award ceremony.  Other kids' parents, who apparently are infinitely cooler than me, are taking their kids out for a fun breakfast and then taking them to school at mid-day so they can go to their post-ceremony classes.  My daughter asked if she could go with one of her friends and her cool parent, but I'm old school and figured that part of being a freshman is suffering the indignities that are part of that hellish year of school.  Still, I didn't want to be totally un-cool so I told her that if she came up with a creative idea to "sell" me on the concept of skipping the ceremony I met let her go.  Below are the two marketing campaigns she came up with and were waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday.  The first is a video she shot with her digital camera (that's her younger brother she recruited for the project) and the second is a set of panels she taped to the wall in the hall leading to our bedroom. FYI, she's going to breakfast.