Ed Cone, a big UNC fan who otherwise is a very fine fellow, was asked by his wife why a UNC loss to Wake is just another loss while a UNC loss to Duke was like "drinking lye." After getting over the fact that she actually asked him this after 20 years of marriage he came up with this: "It's like the difference between stepping in mud and stepping in dog poop, that's why."
Esbee's post about various states of local small businesses, some moving and some gone out of business, coincided with my discovery that the Back Yard Burgers in Lewisville has been closed since last month. Given that the Back Yard Burger website says "Under construction" I'm wondering if the whole chain went under. After seeing that I'm tempted to start a "Dead Pool" for area businesses, but considering how depressing most of the economic news is these days it just feels too "icky."
Over the last few weeks I've had multiple conversations with fellow basketball fans about Wake Forest's young and very talented basketball team. My take was that they were a good team, but they're young and I didn't think they'd played the kind of schedule that merited their high ranking. When North Carolina lost to Boston College I figured that was their wake up call and they'd come into the Joel with a chip on their shoulders and beat the Deacs in a hard fought game with about a 10 point margin. Although I thought that Wake Forest's win at BYU was a great win, and a big deal for a young team, I also thought that UNC would be the first real test for them and that their youth would betray them. Happily I'm eating my words.
Talk about coincidence: a couple of days ago I was talking with some friends and we were discussing GMAC restructuring so they could get some of the government's bailout funds. Someone asked where GMAC was headquartered and we all agreed that it was probably Detroit, but we weren't sure (we were in a bar and not inclined to do a quick online search). The next morning I read that GMAC was indeed headquartered in Detroit, but they were considering a move to Charlotte because they already have operations there, the CEO used to be a Bank of America exec and kept his home in Charlotte after taking the position at GMAC, and they figure there will be some banking professionals looking for work when Wells Fargo starts laying people off. (Since GMAC has restructured as a bank holding company they need to hire bankers).
Sure it's a long shot, but it's one of the better opportunities our community will probably see for a while so why not go for it? And if someone says that we should play nice with our neighbors to the south my reply is, "Remember the Alamo merger!"
Did anyone else appreciate the irony of Baptist Hospital having to settle a lawsuit with their employees over health benefits? From the article:
The lawsuit said that Baptist "violated the duties, responsibilities and obligations imposed upon them as a fiduciary" under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.
The lawsuit accuses Baptist of requiring employees to pay more for services rendered at the hospital through MedCost than alternative health-care plans would have, including higher co-payments and lower discounts. It also said that employees paid higher fees than those required by MedCost from other corporate clients.
You may remember that I complained about my wife's MRI at Baptist last fall, so let's just say I'm sympathetic to the employees.
Three days earlier, a retention pond for fly ash (a waste product from burning coal) burst in Kingston, Tenn., spilling an estimated 1 billion gallons of sludge containing years’ worth of waste from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s adjacent coal-burning power plant over an area of 300 acres, Griffith explains.
Since joining my town's Zoning Board of Adjustment I've heard a few complaints from people about various zoning rules, but I have to say that none of those people have ever taken to calling our town leaders names on their business' signs. In Polk City, Iowa one businessman has taken his frustration out with town leaders by using the sign in front of his business to call them names. If you click through to the article you'll see two pictures of his sign. On one he wrote "Our Mayor and Council Sure Are Ass—-" and on the other he wrote "Our Mayor Sure is a Lieing Little Nazi Turd." That's what I call freedom of expression, bad spelling and all.
Esbee wrote of her sons' dentist appointment at the office of Doctors Merhoff and Slawinski. Then I noticed a comment that referred to the office as "Glamor Shots Dentistry" and that meant I just had to click through and check it out. When I clicked through to their site I immediately thought, "This Slawinski guy is the smartest dentist I've ever heard of. There's 18 people in that office and he's the only guy."
Kiplinger's released its "Best Value" college rankings and North Carolina's schools ranked pretty well. All of the following are Kiplinger's overall ratings for in-state tuition.
Apparently people in the Southeast have a lower level of confidence in the economy than the rest of the country, and we here in North Carolina have the lowest confidence in the Southeast. According to this article 70% of us have less confidence in our job security than six months ago and 35% of us feel it's likely we'll lose our jobs in the next six months. News like this won't help.
Befuddled 