Gene Simmons Military Tribute

Yeah – KISS rocks.  Enough said.

Two Milestones for Tryon Road at City Council

As some of you know I spend a little bit of my time trying to be an advocate for positive change in Southwest Raleigh.  I believe that we have a wonderful diverse community unlike any other in Raleigh or the Triangle (maybe anywhere).  I was recently asked to blog on the start-up southwestraleigh.com and here is my first post from that site.  I travel a good distance on Tryon Road no less than two times a day.  It is the best way for me to get to and from work and it also gives me a unique perspective – I see first hand the near-misses, wrecks and property damage.  I’ve also seen how much the traffic has increased in the past 3 years.  Our community badly needs this passed.  If you have a minute shoot an email to the Raleigh City Council and ask them to please support both the short term fix and the long term solution for Tryon Road.  Thanks!

Tryon Road (SR 1009), between Lake Wheeler Road and US 70-401, is in desperate need of repair, widening, and realignment, to better serve the south west Raleigh community. In 2010 several groups in south west Raleigh have worked diligently in advocating for road updates, improvements and ultimately the realignment of Tryon Road and the replacement of Bridge 259. Advocates have been in front of the city council numerous times and several councilors and city staff have supported our efforts with a tremendous response to the needs in our community.

The next City Council meeting planned for January 4, 2011 contains two milestones for our cause. First is the reduction of the speed limit from 45mph to 35mph with improved driver channelization (i.e. better lane management) at the intersection of Tryon and Junction Blvd. This will improve an intersection that has seen both minor and tragic accidents within the past year. We expect to see an immediate impact on the road if these recommendations are approved by council.

Second, and more exciting, is a request for an endorsement from council to cost share the Tryon Road improvements including Bridge 259 and the connection to the Renaissance Park neighborhood. This is longer term in scope but should have a significantly greater impact than anything we’ve seen done on the road to date. This would remove the “Garner Death Curve” from Tryon Road completely. [Media coverage 1, 2, 3]

We know a lot of people that visit this site will be very happy to hear that these items are in motion. That being said, they are by no means a done deal. If you are interested in seeing this become a reality, email or call your city councilor. You can email all the councilors and Mayor Meeker at once by clicking here. We hope to report on Wednesday that both recommendations passed and another hurdle for Tryon Road has been crossed.

For more updates on the Tryon Road Realignment join our Facebook Page.

Click here to comment on the original post on southwestraleigh.com – if you do write the council please let me know.  As much as possible I want to keep track of how many emails our efforts are generating.

Kindle on Nook Color?

Yes -  I know to those of you familiar with either of the popular eBook readers that title may not make sense.  If eBook isn’t in your vocabulary yet it may make even less sense but keep reading – it gets interesting.

A little background – the Kindle and the Nook are both eBook (electronic book, e-book, digital book) readers.  Pretty straightforward devices that will download books and allow you to read them.  The differences in these devices are subtle and depend on whether you prefer to order your literature from Amazon or Barnes & Noble and whether you prefer a color or black and white screen.  (There are advantages and disadvantages to all the options and depending on your particular preference one or the other will be a better fit for you.  Best advice – find a device that fits your needs that you will use.)

When Cara was looking for an eBook reader I did a little research and found that the Nook Color is running a version of the Android OS.  A little digging and I learned that the system could be “rooted” or unlocked to provide features that were possible but not available out of the box.  We took the risk and now have a hybrid Nook/Android Pad that can not only read eBooks but run several applications like Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Gmail and even a couple of games.  Granted not all the applications available in the Android Market were intended for this environment but it does open up a lot of new possibilities – including the Kindle App for Android (running to the right).

So what does all of this mean exactly?  In a small way it opens up the Nook to be a more functional device.  It isn’t quite an Android Pad (which is out but should be flooding the market by summer) but it is pretty close and for the money it is a great buy.  The ability to read and share books on multiple platforms is huge.  Given the direction of eBooks I’d say this is a good technology to get familiar with – its here and as the competition for book sales heats up I think we’ll see more of these around at better prices.

“I think by the end of [2011] you’ll see [e-book readers] getting blown out in clearance for like 50 bucks,” tech writer Clive Thompson says. “When [an e-book reader] becomes almost as disposable as a pocket calculator, you’ll see the vast majority of people switching over.”

- NPR

So if you want to root/unlock your Nook I suggest this site as a good place to start.  It says that the process is reversible and while that is probably true it is very likely you are doing something that will completely negate your warranty.  As with most things on the internet you can consider it “reliable but not guaranteed.”  That being said it worked well for us – your mileage may vary.

Happy New Year!

2010 was great but it is time to go nuts in 2011!

George Washington @ NCMH

I firmly believe that one of the past parts of living in Raleigh is the great museums we have in our backyard.  I know – we have great restaurants, bars, shopping, college and professional sports teams and everything else you can imagine but we are particularly fortunate to have the state Art, Natural Science and History Museums so close. (I’ll even count whatever Exploris/Marbles is on that list.)

That being said with another day off for the holidays we decided to go see the George Washington exhibit at the Museum of History.  After a short setback of forgetting the memory card for the camera we got to the “Discover the Real George Washington” exhibit.  It was extremely impressive and I encourage you to go.  They have gone to great lengths to recreate our first president both how he looked and how he lived. The life-size replicas of George Washington are likely the best representation of what he would have looked like using everything from dental records (his dentures to the right) to sculptures and paintings thought to best represent him.  They also explore him as an individual who ran a plantation that made whiskey, had mixed feelings about slaves (while owning them)  and didn’t want to create an American monarchy.

So enjoy the pictures after the jump but try to make a point to visit the NC Museum of History before this exhibit disappears on January 21st.  It is extremely worthwhile and oddly relevant to today’s political landscape.  I don’t know if our first president would be terribly impressed with the current state of our country.  He might be a little upset with how we the people have become too polarized in our two-party system.  He would however be extremely impressed with the advances in dental technology.