Geezer

There are 380 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 16 of 38).

Tornado, three years later

Today began for me much the same way it did that Saturday morning exactly three years ago. Then, as now, it was just the dog and me at home while Kelly and the kids were on the road.

Fortunately the similarities end there. This morning’s weather is clear, breezy and very chilly at 34 degrees F with no signs of any tornadoes. In fact, one of the last … er, signs of the tornado in my neighborhood was removed recently. Up until a few weeks ago, a “No Parking” sign stood outside St. Aug’s on a steel post that was twisted almost completely around, a daily reminder of the jaw-dropping power of violent wind.

Sadly, a day before I was to take a picture of it the city replaced the post and sign. Don’t know if I should be sad I missed it or happy the public works department is so on top of things. At any rate, life in East Raleigh is back to normal now.

Preemptive school closings and delays

Wake County Public Schools just announced they will stay closed tomorrow. This comes a week after the school system had a two hour delay for about a half-inch of snow. Tomorrow’s threat of anywhere between 4 and 8 inches of snow is a bit more serious, at least, but you have to wonder if the school system isn’t getting a bit too snow-shy.

Everyone who’s been around here long enough remembers the utter disaster of 2005, when an inch of snow at morning rush hour closed schools and sent everyone on the roads at once to fetch their kids. The roads promptly froze over, leading to colossal gridlock the likes of which I’d never seen before nor since. Certainly, no one wants that to happen again. I sure don’t. I’ll never forget it!

Even so, that incident is now nine years in the past. Raleigh has grown up considerably since then. The city now pre-treats the roads with salt brine and gets ahead of the storm. I think the city has handled subsequent storm events very, very well. In essence, I think it’s highly unlikely Raleigh will get caught off guard again.

So if the city has improved its snow response, what about the schools? Seems to me the school staff aren’t making a call based on how a given storm will impact school transportation. Rather, the school system should be deciding based on how well the City of Raleigh and NCDOT can keep the roads clear. Yes, it may be -9 degrees or, yes, it may snow two feet overnight. It shouldn’t really matter what happens if the city and state can clean it up in time for the early buses to roll.

Forty-five trips around the sun

Family hike pic at Falls Lake. Note the wrist brace.

Family hike pic at Falls Lake. Note the wrist brace.


Yesterday was my 45th birthday. My how time flies. It was a good birthday, though, overall. The only downside is that I seem to have somehow injured my left hand on Sunday. I wasn’t doing anything excessive – just watching The Hunt for Red October on the couch with Travis, but an hour later my hand was extremely sore, especially at the wrist. This mystery injury provided me teeth-gritting pain over the last two days, only now letting up. Since yesterday, my hand has ballooned from the swelling. I hope it will settle down on its own because my former employer has been slow getting the COBRA coverage started on my health insurance and as of now I don’t think I can see the doctor without a lot of reimbursement paperwork trouble.
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Lee Atwater on the “Southern Strategy”

A discussion on mobile phone safety led me to look up Lee Atwater. Atwater was the Republican strategist known for his divisive campaign tactics in the 1980s. Atwater died in 1991 from a brain tumor (thus the mobile phone safety angle).

I had long known Atwater excelled at race-baiting voters. Until today, though, I had no idea that this interview existed in which Atwater comes right out and explains the new codewords he used for this nefarious purposes. Those codewords are still being used today, sadly enough. Voters are voting on racial issues even now.
Lee_Atwater_1989
Perhaps Atwater will one day reincarnate as a black woman and get a feel for the hate-filled policies he put in motion.

Highlights of 2013: Activism

Frank Eaton films Hallie

Frank Eaton films Hallie


2013 turned out to be a big year for activism. As soon as our Republican governor took office, our right-wing state legislature went to town dismantling state government (that is, except for a few juicy positions given to the governor’s cronies). A lot of citizens of our state are hurting now and instead of working to assist them, our state leaders are piling on the pain.

Times like these require standing up and being heard. That’s why our family attended a number of Moral Monday protests in Raleigh. That’s why we aren’t letting these guys off the hook come election time.

Hallie also got involved with activism this year, helping assemble the iMatterYouthNC climate rally and march on Halifax Mall. It took a lot of work and could have used more participants but at the very least it was an education in how these things are done. Hopefully it will spur other kids to join the cause, too.

Cyst-free

Pre-op selfie

Pre-op selfie


My oral surgery went off without a hitch this morning. It was easier than I anticipated. I’ve had a few other oral surgeries, mostly as a teen and mostly to move teeth around, but I can say that this was the easiest. Within ten minutes of me arriving this morning, Dr. Upton was operating.

I was wrong about the anesthesia being the kind that knocked me out. Instead I was somewhat conscious but feeling no pain. I remember catching a glimpse of the cyst as it came out of my mouth and remember the dentist tying the sutures. It was like my perception was slowed a few seconds back from real-time and though I was being led out to my car I felt able to stand. The effect was not unlike what it feels like to get a mild concussion, able to perceive the moment but retaining very little.
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Highlights of 2013: Playing music

The Highlanders

The Highlanders

One of the biggest and most welcome changes has been my renewed enthusiasm for music. After our Highlanders gigs and our trip to Wisconsin (and the Bluegrass Festival in Raleigh) I have picked up my guitar almost every day. I hope to get more time playing, especially playing with my family or others!

Highlights of 2013: Solar PV installation

Solar PV deck

Solar PV deck

The year 2013 will be memorable for our installation of solar PV cells on our home. We had discussed going solar two years before we made the call to Southern Energy Management to get it done. In March we signed the contract and, once the permits were obtained, the panels went up in May.

We had a few bumps at the beginning when our inverter malfunctioned. The inverter is the heart of a PV system and ours would frequently send a jolt of overvoltage into our home wiring. After SEM came out and replaced the inverter everything has been working fine. Things have been running so smoothly we tend to forget that we’re a power station.

I blogged about my experiences with solar PV, which led to my friend Scott Huler pointing his Scientific American blog readers to my site. I enjoyed the attention and the extra blog traffic!

Our system doesn’t cover our complete electricity needs but it’s great to be reducing our footprint as much as we are.

Highlights of 2013: Neighborhood changes

Oakwood_North_construction_begins-3
This past year was notable for the changes in our neighborhood. We learned late in 2012 that the Oakwood North subdivision was coming to the Weatherford property across the street from us. Construction was rumored to begin in May 2013 but nothing ever seemed to happen, other than surveyors markers going up on the property. It wasn’t until October that the bulldozers finally came, making short work of the ten acre property. Our quiet dead-end street has since become quite busy, with construction trucks parking outside our home daily.

Around the same timeframe, our neighbors the Giras began construction of their home behind our home. Their site prep work crews got a little overzealous and cleared trees from our property, which the Giras agreed to replace. Meanwhile, their home was built quite quickly and now is days away from being occupied. Despite the tree-clearing snafu, we look forward to having them as neighbors. We will, however, miss the privacy their wooded lot provided between us and Glascock Street.

All of these changes aren’t necessarily for the worse; they’re just different. We look forward to greeting our new neighbors and introducing more people to the joys of living here.

Highlights of 2013: Giving up the Parks board gavel

It was a great year to be chair of Raleigh’s Parks board. In February, I led what I consider the best meeting I’ve ever led. The energy I from these kinds of meetings will leave me giddily bouncing off the walls for hours. It’s a shame that I get good at this right before I have to turn it over to someone else.

I did get some good park dedications this year, some of which I probably didn’t blog about. In April, I gave what was arguably my best speech at the Neuse River Greenway dedication. I followed that up with a speech at the synthetic field dedication at the WRAL Soccer Complex. Though there wasn’t much of a crowd at this one, it was special because my parents got to witness it.
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