Talking About Driveways

1 Reply

Last night we had a public meeting of the Lewisville Planning Board to show the public an early draft of the access management ordinance we're working on for the Lewisville business district.  In a nutshell we're trying to plan for what we think will be some pretty significant growth through the 2035-ish timeframe and trying to make sure our Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) is up to the task of managing that growth.  A big part of the future plans are to build a parallel road to Shallowford Road (the main drag through town), turn make both roads one way with two lanes, to build some connector roads between the two and to put in a couple of new traffic circles at entry points on either end of town.  That's the big picture, but as with most things in life the real work is in the details. 

Until we started this process I didn't understand the impact of driveways on traffic design.  Simply put you have to make sure that driveways, or road cuts, are spaced far enough apart and far enough from intersections so that they don't create a hazard by having people exiting and entering the roadway in close proximity to each other.  It sounds mundane, but if you've ever tried to enter a busy roadway from a parking lot that happens to be too near an intersection with cars turning into your path then you'll know why we're spending so much time on this.

As you might expect we ended up with quite a few comments from the 20+ members of the public who attended the meeting.  There was some understandable concern about the increased traffic through town, about motorists speeding even more than they do if we go to two lanes in each direction and about the impact on commercial property.  All were valid concerns and I think Marty Myers, our town planner, did a good job answering them.  Since we're only at the draft stage of the process we'll be able to incorporate any changes that might need to be made based on the feedback we get, but based on last night's meeting I think we've made some really good progress. 

Taking One On the Chin

Leave a reply

My daughter's soccer team (West Forsyth JV) was 30 seconds from a 0-0 tie with arch rival Reagan High School last night when the Reagan girls scored on a really nice break away goal, so the West girls had a tough loss to swallow last night. Besides the built in rivalry of the schools' location this one is even more special because most of these girls play with or against each other regularly on their club teams.  For instance one of my daughter's club teammates played for Reagan and a bunch of girls from the sister teams from our club and who practice and scrimmage together all the time also played for Reagan.  That made it a great atmosphere because while we were definitely rooting for our own kids we were also giving "atta girls" to the Reagan girls.

The next big rivalry game will be Davie High School.  There are quite a few of my daughter's club teammates playing for Davie and since I was the assistant coach on the club team I'm going to definitely have some mixed emotions going on.  Of course I'm pulling for West, but the perfect game to me would be a close win for West with all the girls from the club team playing great.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Followed by a Foxx

1 Reply

My Blackberry beeped.  I looked at it.  The message from Twitter: "Virginia Foxx (virginiafoxx) is now following your updates on Twitter."  As much as I've written about disagreeing with my Congresswoman I have to say that I'm flattered that she'd bother to follow me.  If I was in her shoes I'd have completely ignored me.  Welcome Congresswoman Foxx, and whether or not we agree on anything I'm glad to know you're listening. Now about that stimulus bill…

Gimme Some Big Love

1 Reply

One of the positive sides of business travel for me is the opportunity to watch HBO in my hotel room.  We don't pay for it at home so I don't get to see many of the excellent HBO series like The Wire until they come out on DVD, or when I go on a business trip.  Last week I caught up on HBO's Big Love which has a plot centered on a polygamist in Utah played by Bill Paxton who seems to constantly be battling the leader of one polygamist group on the one hand and the mainstream Mormon church on the other.

As you can imagine many Mormon's aren't too thrilled with the show, but I find it an entertaining show and don't think it provides any harsher treatment to the Mormon's than film and TV have been doling out to Catholics for as long as I can remember.  Can we say "The Exorcist"?

Apparently there's an upcoming episode of Big Love that will include a depiction of a temple ceremony and this is really irking some Mormons.  Some are worried that without the proper context the ceremony will come off looking kookie, but given the show's producers' approach to this point I don't think they'll do anything over the top.

Reading about this reminded me of when the Mormon temple opened in the Maryland suburbs of Washington.  I was a little boy (must have been around seven or eight) and I got to go in the Temple with my Dad who was very active in the church at the time.  The memory is vague, but I do seem to remember lots of maroon carpet and what I thought of as a really big, brass bathtub.  If I remember correctly it was used to baptize boys as proxies for people who had died before having the opportunity to be baptized themselves but I'm not entirely sure that's accurate. 

My family left the church when I was about 10, but as you can imagine I have a keen interest in how the Mormon church is treated because of my early involvement.  To give you an example of what I mean I can tell you that when I was a senior in high school I was attending a small Lutheran school and the principal insisted on trying to cure me of the influence that the Mormon "cult" had on me.  While I didn't consider myself a Mormon any more I also knew that what I'd experienced hadn't been a cult and I let him know that.  In fact it's one of the few times I remember arguing vociferously with an adult.  So I tend to be sympathetic towards the Mormons' sensitivities to their treatment by others, but in the case of Big Love I don't think they're getting treated any differently than other religions have been by the entertainment industry.

The Package

Leave a reply

Yesterday we arrived home to find a full mailbox.  A couple of Celeste's clients regularly send her packages full of bills that need to be paid so I assumed that the big envelope that was taking up most of the box was for her, but when I looked at the front it was addressed to me and the return address was my Mom's.  I could feel the outline of a book so my assumption was that Mom had sent me a book she'd come across and thought that I'd enjoy.  Oh, how wrong I was.

When I opened the envelope I found a soft bound book with a cover that featured blown up pictures of leaves in fall colors and the words "The Living Years" on the front.  When I opened the cover I found on the title page "The Living Years" and the author Rachael Garrity, aka my Mom.  I quickly thumbed through some pages and realized that this was the book on her family that Mom had been trying to write for years.  A couple of years ago at Christmas she'd given my brother and me binders with the first piece of the book, but we hadn't seen anything since.  Needless to say I was stunned to find 150 pages in soft bound glory in the package I opened.

Mom wrote a specific version for me and another for my brother and since the voice is first person and addressed directly to me it is incredibly intimate.  She begins with her grandparents and carries it through to 1972 which is when I was six.  She wanted to get it done by this week because this Tuesday would have been her Daddy's 100th birthday and the book is also meant to commemorate that event.

I've yet to get too far into it, but already I'm fascinated by my family's long ties to this area.  Family names include Motsinger, Mock (think Mocksville) and Sink.  Still, the most interesting aspect to me are the childhood stories about people I have only known as adults. It's a truly amazing heirloom combining Mom's memories, letters written between family members, poems written by my uncle and family pictures.  I think I'll be mining it for years to come and my simple call to thank her isn't nearly suitable as a gesture of appreciation.  I'm blown away.

WSFCS Furlough Questions

1 Reply

This morning I was reading in the Journal about the survey that the school system sent to teachers asking for their feedback about taking a one day furlough next year.  That one day would save the system $1 million, but the catch is that it would have to be taken on one of their professional days which is also known as "teacher work day" or in most households as "who am I gonna get to watch my kid today day".  That's because the school system is mandated to provide a certain number of instructional hours each year so they can't furlough the teachers on an instructional day.  After reading this I had a couple of questions:

  • The article mentioned a $9 million deficit so why wouldn't they propose two or three furlough days in order to save two or three million dollars?
  • The leader of the teacher's association said they are opposed to furloughs at this point because they know too little about next year's budget and they want to make sure that the schools have exhausted all other possibilities like program cuts. Good point, but when you read later in the article that employee salaries and benefits account for 90% of the budget you have to wonder exactly how much program cuts will add up to.  Given that it seems a reasonable question to ask about benefits.  In the private sector health benefits have been slashed over the last few years in order to better the bottom line.  How about for school system employees?  Would it make more sense to look at benefit packages for cost savings?

I don't want to sound like I'm ganging up on teachers because I truly admire what they do and having three kids in the system I truly appreciate what the good ones do every day (don't ask about the not so good).  Still, when you're looking at the economic realities you have to put everything on the table and I don't think it's unreasonable to look everywhere you can for savings.

Great Ways to See the ACC Tourney

Leave a reply

If you don't feel like watching the ACC tournament while nibbling on stale potato chips I have two recommendations for you.  First is seeing the game at the new Deacon Tower Grille which Esbee highlights over at Life in Forsyth.  Sounds way cool.  Second is to go by Unity Moravian on Saturday and partake of some fresh BBQ.  The doors open at 4:00 and close at 7:30. The games probably won't be on in the dining area, but there's carry out and you can watch the games from the confines of your own couch while horsing down the best BBQ in Forsyth County (personal opinion).  BTW, my oldest son and I will once again be chopping pork for the BBQ at Unity so come on by and say hi.

View Larger Map

Commuting

1 Reply

Today was my first official day in the TAA office.  My first two days on the job were spent in DC at a conference so today I made the drive to the office for the first time that wasn't for an interview of some sort or another.  I live in Lewisville and the office is in Greensboro off of Wendover Avenue and the distance is almost exactly the distance I used to commute to work in DC.  Here's the big difference: it takes me about 35 minutes door-to-door here and on a good day it took 90 minutes in DC and on a bad day it could take as long as three hours.

35 minutes is actually a nice time block.  It will give me time to decompress and get my head straight for all the things I might need to do at home.  It will also allow me time to vent any frustrations I might have so if you see a big goofy guy beating the tar out of his steering wheel as he drives west on I-40 in the evening you'll know it's me.

Dell Shrinkage

Leave a reply

Dell lays off 300 from the Forsyth plant.  Dell has to repay certain incentives it received from various government entities if it doesn't employ 1,700 people by then end of 2010.  If I read the article right the layoffs bring Dell's employment numbers down from 1,400 to 1,100.  I wonder how many receipts and barcodes the city, county and state will have to send in to Dell to get their full rebate on January 1, 2011?