Peter Kleeman isn’t the only City Council candidate with an active blog about his campaign, Jim Duncan points out — Barbara Haskins is blogging, too. She started her blog on Saturday and, since then, she’s written a series of posts on topics ranging from her party affiliation (she’s not saying) to city/county relations, affordable housing to the debate between the rescue squad and the city. (Mayor David Brown blogs, too, but not about the race thus far.) Hopefully the growing roster of blogging candidates will engage one another through their weblogs, carrying on discussions and linking to one another’s good ideas as other Charlottesville bloggers do. That could make for a really intelligent, civilized election.
Archive for the 'Blogs' Category
I’m glad to see that City Council candidate Peter Kleeman has started a campaign blog. No slouch, he’s written several thoughtful, in-depth posts in the week since he’s started it, writing about the planned McIntire interchange and the city’s plan to sell a 22 acre construction easement in McIntire to VDOT for a buck. If he keeps this up, Kleeman may well provide voters more insight into his beliefs and plans than any council candidate in my memory.
Normally it wouldn’t be news that somebody is thinking about running for the Charlottesville school board, but it’s not every day that a) Sean McCord runs or b) that somebody blogs about the decision process. Sean is a well-known local blogger, regular cvillenewser, head of the Local Support Partner Program at UVa, and has three kids in city schools. By way of introduction, the Johnson Village Democrat opens his blog with this post:
I am considering running for the Charlottesville School Board. What seemed a simple idea when it was first presented to me has become unexpectedly complicated. I have decided to document the process here. In this space, I will gather the information that one needs to run. If I run, I will write about my experience. If I win, I will maintain this blog as a School Board member. If I do not win, I will offer this blog site to a sitting member or members of the Board. Above all, I intend to conduct all of this business in an open and honest manner, and I expect all of you to call me to task if I stray from the pledge.
Sean is like City Councilor Dave Norris in that what would make him such a great candidate are precisely the qualities that he possesses that would make any reasonable person assume that he’d never run for an office. Whether or not he runs, though, I’ll enjoy following his decision process on his blog.
By UVa student Mike Loew. Not news. Just a nice picture from the Charlottesville Flickr pool.
The popularity of the Charlottesville Blogs aggregator has spiked in the past few months. Here’s a graph of monthly page views since the aggregator’s inception:
Those of y’all who blog should know that a great many more people are reading your blogs than perhaps you’ve suspected. I wish I had some more useful numbers (monthly visitors, repeat traffic, etc.), but I’m using a pretty crude program to track traffic to Charlottesville Blogs, so page views is as good as it gets.
(This was prompted by Michael Strickland’s kind post on the topic today.)
There’s been some informative discussion on local blogs about the Charlottesville Planning Commission and how they interact with the public. Over at Charlottesville Tomorrow, Brian Wheeler chronicles the planning commission’s February 15 meeting (complete with podcast audio) where:
the Charlottesville Planning Commission directed staff to prepare written guidelines strongly discouraging any communications between the Commissioners and developers or citizens with a position on a matter before the Commission. A motion to eliminate those communications entirely was considered then withdrawn. If approved, the City Planning Commission would adopt a style in sharp contrast to their neighbors in Albemarle County where these informal meetings with concerned citizens and developers are common practice.
Over at the new blog “Democratic Central,” responding to Charlottesville Tomorrow’s blog entry, Lloyd Snook weighs in strongly in favor of an open process:
When I was on the Planning Commission 20 years ago, I would meet with developers and citizens and neighbors and anyone else who wanted to talk about things. I wanted the most information possible. I didn’t want to have to get only the information that the staff gave me — not because I thought they were out to mislead me, but because they might not ask the same questions that I would ask.
[…]
This is not a jury system, where the decision makers can only base their decisions on what they learn in the courtroom. Planning Commissioners are generally thought of as legislators, and there are no restrictions on how legislators can gather their information.
I was asked to serve on the Charlottesville Planning Commission some years ago (I decided against it), but gave a lot of thought to it. I’ve got to agree with Lloyd Snook’s take on this, assuming that common sense is adhered to as Peter Kleeman suggests in a comment. Balancing open government and convenient government often isn’t easy; I’m glad there’s a public discussion about it.
On his blog, Dave Norris addresses the question of whether our homeless population has migrated here to take advantage of our services. Using the results of the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless’ annual census of the homeless, he’s found that the majority of the local homeless population is from the Charlottesville area, the overwhelming majority is from Virginia, and those that aren’t from Charlottesville have lived here for many years. (In fact, a much higher percentage of the non-homeless moved here than the homeless.) Quite simply, the homeless are far more likely to be locals than the non-homeless.
City Councilor Dave Norris was the first City Council candidate to maintain a blog (second, if you count me, but let’s not), and now he’s the second councilor to blog, following Mayor David Brown’s March entry into blogging. His blog just got started yesterday but it’s already shaping up nicely. Turns out he’s a deltiologist — a collector of vintage postcards — and he’s posting some of his collection of 900 that portray Charlottesville, which I think is awesome. I’m a sucker for vintage C’ville stuff.
It’s worth mentioning that one other member of council is known to blog — Kevin Lynch has contributed three blog entries to cvillenews.com over time [1, 2, 3], and is a regular commenter here.
There are a good number of local businesses wondering how to reach the thousands of people who read local blogs; here’s how to do it.
Some folks have taken to advertising here via Blogads (the image-and-text vertical rectangles often found at right), but there are now a couple of other local blogs that are newly part of the Blogads network. Sean Tubbs’ Charlottesville Podcasting Network starts at $10 for a one-week run of a full-sized Blogad, and nailgun (the excellent and popular local music blog) starts at the same rate. Also, I’m now accepting them over at Charlottesville Blogs for $15/week.
I think local businesses would do well to give ‘em a whirl.
MAACA has put on their annual three-day poverty diet over the past three days, in which participants voluntarily spend just $2.83 on food. The idea is to give participants an understanding of what it’s like to live on the budget allotted to food stamp recipients.
This time around, local blogger and CHS student Michael Strickland participated. He kept an audio diary over the course of the three days, talking about what he was eating, how he felt, and how he did with his budget. And it’s available via the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, natch. It’s interesting and enjoyable — I’d love to see more people working with CPN’s Sean Tubbs to create this sort of original audio webcast.
A dozen C’ville bloggers got together a couple of months ago, and now Jennifer and Marijean are staging a repeat. C’ville Coffee, Saturday the 30th, 10am. I’ll be headed to the beach for the week the day, but I’ll see if I can delay my departure by a few hours to join up with everybody. If you’re a blogger, a blog commenter, a blog reader (hint: you’re reading one now), or you’d like to take up blogging, do yourself a favor and come on out and meet the crowd. There are now exactly 200 Charlottesville blogs, so the crowd’s pretty big.
Jim Duncan hosts the Charlottesville Blog Carnival, listing his favorite blog entries of the past week. This past week was a particularly good one, giving Jim some rich material to work with.
C’ville blogger Jennifer has done something unusual for a local blogger — an interview. With a little guidance from the Daily Progress’s Bob Gibson, she talked with Parks & Recreation director Michael Svetz about the recent cut in pool hours. It turns out that there’s a lot more going on than the change in hours, including systemic classism in the pools system and inefficiencies in the existing pools. Patrons of city pools will want to read this.
It’s really great to see local bloggers doing research into local matters.
Inspired by Charlottesville blogging alumnus David St. Lawrence’s Floyd blogger gatherings, I think some of us local bloggers, blog commenters, blog readers, and would-be bloggers should get together informal-like. A half dozen of us got together for breakfast at Bodo’s about a month ago and had a fine time. It was great to put faces with names, swap advice and get to know one another.
I figure Sunday, 2pm, C’ville Coffee on Harris Street, and we’ll hang out for an hour or so. The spot is kid friendly, has WiFi, and has a relaxed environment conducive to this sort of thing. Even if you’re not a blogger, but you’d like to be, come on down and we’ll help you get started. Maybe I’ll be sitting alone, maybe there will be a dozen of us. Drop on in and find out.
cvillenews.com reader Brent has started a new community blog, hburgnews, which is to Harrisonburg as this site is to Charlottesville. I know there are a bunch of regular readers of this site who are closer to Harrisonburg than they are to C’ville — I hope y’all will get in the habit of reading and contributing to hburgnews and help build up the valley blogosphere.
Dan Kachur hosts this week’s C’ville Blog Carnival, having selected his favorite blog entries from the past week and highlighted them for your reading pleasure.
Earlier this month somebody posted a restaurant review on Charlottesville-Dining that was not altogether complimentary. The anonymous contributor reported that s/he had gone to Mas, had a tasty dinner, and then became violently ill. The illness was labeled “food poisoning,” with the contributor claiming that others have had the same problem after eating at Mas.
Mas’ owner and chef Tomas Rahal spotted the review and was upset, and wrote Charlottesville-Dining creator Fred Telegdy, asking him to take it down. Simultaneously the original reviewer wrote Fred, also asking for the comment to be removed, judging it too harsh. The review was erased (as was, eventually, Mas’ very existence in the site’s database) but the e-mail battle between Fred and Tomas went on.
In this week’s Hook, Barbara Nordin steps in, siding with Mas on the basis that the rather serious charge of food poisoning wasn’t based on any medical opinion. (Nordin doesn’t identify the website or the restaurant. I’ve done so here because it’d be mere minutes until somebody identified each in the comments.)
There are a few lessons to come out of this interaction. The first is that it can be a real pain to run any website that takes public comments (though y’all have been sweethearts for years now). The second is that local businesses have got to keep an eye on area websites and blogs to be aware of when they’re being written about and what’s being written. And the third is that there’s another tapas bar named “Mas”, over in the UK — how weird is that?
Steve Whitaker hosts this week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival, condensing a week of Charlottesville blogging into a sixteen-item digest for your reading pleasure. Not satisfied with the normal format, he’s invented a cool little numbering scheme.
Want to host sometime? (You should!) Drop me a line.
It was one year ago today that the Charlottesville Blogs website was established, in order to aggregate all of the great blogs in Charlottesville. There were only maybe a dozen Charlottesville bloggers at the time: BK Marcus, Bill Emory, Brian Geiger, Colten Noakes, Duane Gran, Helena Cobban, Jim Duncan, Lafe, Polyglot Conspiracy, Ryan Chiachiere, Rick Sincere and Joe Stirt were all running thoroughly enjoyable blogs at the time. Granted, at first it was basically all Book of Joe all the time (face it, Joe, you’re prolific) but as the ranks swelled, the variety and insight represented became more and more impressive.
Today there are 174 Charlottesville area blogs, and I can honestly say that I really, really enjoy reading them. I couldn’t have forecast a fifteen-fold increase in just twelve months, and certainly I never would have expected that the quality of writing and insights would increase at the same rate. I believe I’d be happy limiting myself to reading only Charlottesville blogs, so impressive is the bunch.
Nothing particularly special happened a year ago — Charlottesville Blogs was just a way to aggregate all of the great blogging that was going on, that in some cases had been going on for years. But the explosion in blogging among y’all in the past year has been amazing, and worthy of acknowledgment. So I celebrate this arbitrary anniversary today. What it’ll all look like in a year’s time I don’t dare speculate.
Cameron hosts this week’s C’ville Blog Carnival, tracking down sixteen local blog entries well worth your time, all from the past few days.
Next week Steve Whitaker hosts.
Jennifer hosts this week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival. Fourteen enjoyable bests-of are included, neatly summarizing what Charlottesville bloggers have been discussing in the past seven days. If you’re a Charlottesville blogger, and you want to host, holla.
I’ve noticed that nothing brings participants out of the woodwork here like a post about the Charlottesville school system. A whole new crowd got involved during the Scottie Griffin fiasco, parents who normally wouldn’t participate in blogs, and many of them continue to read. I think somebody — ideally a parent of one or more children in the C’ville public schools — could provide a great service by creating a blog about the ups and downs Charlottesville school system. I’d be happy to help somebody set up such a blog; contact me if you’re interested.
Also, Jennifer is hosting this week’s C’ville Blog Carnival, so if you’re a blogger that wants to brag about a recent blog entry or a blog-reader that wants something you’ve seen to be read more widely, e-mail her. And if you’re a local blogger and you want to have many hundreds of people descend on your site, please volunteer to host the carnival in an upcoming week.
I’ve just realized that I completely forgot to write about the Progress‘ article about a local blog a couple of days ago. John Yellig had a nice piece about ScamperDude, John Dove’s cat-fostering blog. The blog regularly features ridiculously cute pictures of tiny kittens and exhortations to foster one of the little guys until they can find a home. It’s a great idea for a blog — generally awareness-raising blogs aren’t read by the very people among whom they’re trying to raise awareness, but who can pass up daily pictures of those little fuzzballs?
I’m hosting this week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival. Eighteen blog entries are included; it’s a big’un. Most of the audience for my personal site doesn’t read cvillenews.com, so I figure it’s a whole new group of people to be exposed to area blogs.
Anoop Ranganath hosts this week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival. (Or, rather, last week’s. Time flies.)
Friday, I’m hosting on my blog, which should expose C’ville blogs to a whole different audience.
With the weekly blog round up gone mobile, Jim Duncan bravely hosts this week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival:
Lucretius reflects on the election, as does Rick.
DocMultimedia, the most ornery resident of the “village” reflects on the opening of the Mall while Jeannine wonders whether “pedestrian mall” means something else.
Waldo launched Virginia Political Blogs - an aggregator of perhaps the most active political blogosphere in the nation.
Anoop reveals that the Waffle House takes credit cards. Is the apocalypse really that close?
CvilleTomorrow notes the conflicts in installing a town within a town.
The end of this chapter in the Living Wage campaign. I have a feeling that it will be back.
Sean Tubbs with CPN is podcasting some of Charlottesville - Right Now. If only WINA would stream and podcast the entire shows…
Dave comments on immigration.
Joe continues his finding of some of the best stuff on the web. Bet on the price of gas!
Duane laments the continuing lack of geographic knowledge of America youth.
Next week, Anoop Ranganath takes on the challenge of hosting. If you see (or write) any blog entries this week that you particularly enjoy, tell Anoop.
With the weekly blog round up gone mobile, Duane Gran hosts this week’s Charlottesville Blog Carnival:
[Jim Duncan] wrote this week about the various policies surrounding connected communities in central Virginia and Trish writes about the propensity of developers to burn organic refuge when clearing space.
In political news, the big fuss around town is the May 2 elections, with voter guides from Charlottesville Tomorrow and The Daily Progress (by way of cvillenews). Additionally, Brian Wheeler’s Charlottesville Tomorrow has a podcast of 4th City Council Candidate Forum. If local politics aren’t your thing, The Hook notes that Cindy Sheehan will be coming to town, but I expect that it won’t please our more conservative bloggers like Whitney Blake, who has been recognized for sowing “chaos, dissent, and apathy.”
Social justice made big news with the Living Wage campaign at UVa, but David Swanson puts it into larger perspective. C’ville News covered the unveiling of the free speech monument while also stimulating a pretty good discussion on the site. Who needs chalk? We have weblogs.
Too much time on your hands? Sean Tubbs would like a volunteer to help with our local podcasting network and Jennifer suspects that The Paramount will need volunteers next year.
Local cartoonist (comic-maker?) Jen Sorensen has taken up the issue of food safety laws in her latest strip.
In school news, School Matters discusses the value of teenagers serving on school boards and Dean Jeannine talks about the implications of a myspace.com account in the admissions process.
Finally, if you enjoyed not paying extra for the bandwidth used in this posting (which is made with 100% recycled zeros and ones) you may wish to follow the advice of Bleeding Edge Tech and try to save the internet.
Next week’s host will be Jim Duncan. Want to host? Contact me.
For the past couple of months I’ve posted a “blog round up”—a weekly listing of my favorite recent Charlottesville blog entries. Now that I’ve got everybody used to the concept, this show is going on the road. That transforms this into what’s known as a “blog carnival,” a regularly-scheduled best-of listing that travels between member blogs. At first I’m going to reproduce the contents of the carnival here, but eventually I’ll just post a link. Jennifer boldly agreed to kick things off this week:
Waldo’s post on the Al Weed flyer leads to equally fascinating and thorough fact analysis via the comment section; reminding us all why the blogosphere rocks as a forum for discussion and analysis.
Politickchick column was linked on Salon.com. Politickchick also posts some hilarious responses to her Cav Daily columns. What a great idea for columnists to react to comments submitted in response to their columns.
I was reminded by Johnny Metro why I love cville, the ever changing, never boring views.
Outskirts despises most things about the village; complains yet again about the music from the downtown mall. The changes in sound should be coming in two weeks, so complain after the James Brown concert. City Mouse has a different perspective on the pavalion.
City Mouse’s ongoing saga with her neighbor living in the closet continues with an answer from the myopic property management company.
Anoop had to tell the world about the noodle bar on the Corner. I appreciate the weekly updates on where to eat since I never get to go anywhere (ok I did get to go to Mas, I recommend it highly to Anoop).
Brian Wheeler & Charlottesville Tomorrow provide a great service to the community with this particularly interesting post regarding Albemarle Place; shopping, traffic, gentrification, the future is now.
Eat Air got interviewed and made a delicious brunch- all with no meat, cheese, eggs um and other things. I enjoy the recipes because generally it makes the vegan life seem accessible. I am not a convert but I enjoy the idea of the alternative.
Fatuous Observations believes people don’t respect teachers because they talk over children’s presentations. I want to assure her that people are just rude.
There are a lot of new cvilleblogs from people who recently moved here. Matt Fotter is content and needs people to drink beer on the street with him (I have someone in mind); Rob adds some humor with this great post of a mangled subtitle. Rob & Matt might have a heck of a time together.
Finally StlWorkingmom posts some review haikus on recently watched DVD’s.
Thanks for reading, enjoy.
Next week, Duane Gran hosts.
Sean Tubbs, of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, has begun a great new series on his site: conversations with Central Virginia bloggers. The first installment is a 20-minute long discussion with Chris and Darlene Bruce, who run Eat Air: A Vegan Food Log. Since November, the pair have posted daily blog entries about how to prepare meat-free, dairy-free dishes along with frank assessments of how they turned out.
Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week.
Dan Kachur discovered that we’re not as jaded about celebrities as we like to think that we are, demonstrated by Steve Carell and Molly Shannon.
Chuck Beretz reviews “The World’s Wife,” currently playing at Live Arts. He rules it good, but not great, but still recommends going.
Trish visited Orange and took lots of pictures. It’s a nice town, and often worth a Saturday visit. (I live as close to Orange as I do to downtown Charlottesville.)
C.R. is signing off—he’s graduating and moving home to Northern Virginia. It was a good run. I’ll keep reading, even if he’s not a Charlottesville blogger.
Anoop Ranganath continues his food reviews. Christian’s delicious. Café Europa great. Arch’s hit the spot. Take It Away OK. Amigo’s still uninteresting. La Taza average. Oakencroft wine worth buying, Hilltop Berry a lot of fun. Wine, Anoop? Sounds like you’re taking things up a notch. You should get together with Wineona.
David is pissed off about MLB steroid use, writing that they’ve deliberately turned a blind eye towards the problem. He prescribes five steps that must be taken to clean up baseball, some of which are both startling and smart.
Sean Tubbs podcasts an interview with The Thomas Jefferson Center’s Robert O’Neill about this year’s Muzzle Awards. Bob is absurdly intelligent. Listening to him speak for more than two minutes makes me feel like a drooling moron.
Marijean has an open letter to the woman at Harris Teeter. I got a good laugh out of it.
Rick Sincere reports on his birthday weekend in London, complete with birthday pictures and promises of show reviews, natch.
Jeannine doesn’t understand why Walker Square lets a homeless woman live in the utility closet next to her apartment. Having followed her blog, I think this may just be par for the course for Walker Square. That place is sketchy.
Zoe Krylova blogs about the Burning Spear concert at Starr Hill, finding its aromatheraputic aspects beneficial.
Darlene and Chris make a typical American meal. Typical chickpea gravy and typical pan-fried tofu. You know, regular stuff.
Finally, Laura took part in the UVa living wage protest, leading the protesters in “We Shall Not Be Moved” and “We Shall Overcome.” Complete with photos.
Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week.
Patience, tracking the renovation of her Belmont home, explains why so many houses in the neighborhood are stuccoed and about her efforts to de-stucco her own dwelling. Turns out stucco is basically concrete, and a real bummer to remove.
Bill Emory’s weekly “day of rest” photograph features his hands and those of his twin daughters on the grave of Rear Admiral William Hemsley Emory (1846-1917). I look forward to his Sunday photo every week.
Dave Norris isn’t happy about the second cross street on the Downtown Mall, pointing out that Council chose to ignore the Planning Commission’s 5-2 opposition to the street back in January. The new street will eat up $0.03 of each property tax dollar.
Elisabeth Epps posted a Flickr set of her recent accident on Millmont St., when she was hit by a car that crossed the center lane. I love that she took the time to snap a mirror photo during the ordeal.
Another Flickr series comes from Zion Crossroads EMT-E Jason See, who provides some great photos of a FedEx truck that caught fire in Louisa [1, 2, 3].
Colten Noakes speculates that the Preston Ave. Bodo’s is getting WiFi, though admits that he might just be starting a rumor.
Anoop Ranganath continues reviewing his dining experiences of the week. Bodo’s always good, el Puerto not so great, Basil pretty good, Amigo’s mediocre, South Street improved but uninteresting, Tea Time Desires enjoyable, Marco and Luca’s dumplings newly-questioned (they’re frozen?), China King Buffet not good, and Foods of All Nations the best of the week.
When I spot a great sunset or an amazing cloud formation, I can always count on Trish to snap a picture so I don’t have to. She doesn’t disappoint this week, with a lovely picture of the crazy storm that rolled into town Monday evening.
Jennifer is unhappy that the city is tearing down trees on Locust Ave. and that they’re not even going to replace all of them.
Dan Kachur just can’t hold back: he hates the Kroger on Hydraulic. Having worked in a grocery store, he knows: that place sucks.
Finally, Sally’s head just exploded when she had a realization: Bert & Ernie = Larry & Balky.
Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week
Anoop Ranganath reviews his dining-out experiences of the week. Let me just say that I’m jealous that he eats out so much. Orbit good. Mellow Mushroom and Sticks eh. Old Virginia Fried Chicken good. Martha’s too slow. Tokyo Rose service atrocious. Sheetz’s nachos awesome. Anoop promises more each week.
Colton Noakes pleads with you, for the love of all that is good and holy, to rent his apartment. He even put up a web page about his Monticello Ave. pad.
Andrew Hersey is freaked out that people from his past keep showing up in his life again. His theory? Good karma.
Jennifer doesn’t understand why Democratic Council candidates don’t have their yard signs out yet. Former party chair Lloyd Snook replied explaining that Schilling broke the no-signs-before-the-Dogwood-Festival deal and caught the Dems unawares.
Dave Norris is worried that the revitalization of Cherry Avenue will destroy its social, historical, and cultural fabric. Smart guy that he is, he proposes a solution involving a Community Development Corporation working with residents and developers to lift up the neighborhood intact, rather than pricing out the lifelong residents.
Bill Emory looks back at the Woolen Mills’ sewage problems in 1917 and doesn’t see that much has changed. Because he’s Bill, he includes an awesome photo that’s also pretty gross—the RWSA outlet into Moores Creek with a sketchy-looking foam on top of the water.
Joe Stirt is amazed by a crazy-cool service that tracks, in real time, what songs are playing on the radio. yes.com tracks some area stations, including WNRN which is, at this second, playing Nelly’s “Grillz.” If it weren’t for the internet, I would have to suffer the indignity of walking across the room and turning on the radio to find that out. WNRN’s top 5: Foo Fighters’ “No Way Back,” Nada Surf’s “Imaginary Friends,” Gorillaz’ “Dare,” Flyleaf’s “I’m So Sick,” and Blue October’s “Hate Me.” I’ve never heard of 3/5 of those artists.
Cory Capron had a run-in with a bobcat at 1:30 yesterday morning. I’m guessing his whacking stick isn’t going to do the trick; I’d best loan him my rifle.
Brian Wheeler provides the audio of the first City Council candidate forum, held a few nights ago by the 10th & Page Neighborhood Association.
And, finally, “Patience Crabstick” (I love that pseudonym) visited a health food store in town only to have a woman recite poetry when the check-out line was held up. Apparently she wasn’t crazy—she just wanted to read her poem. A poem about vegetables. Patience doesn’t report if it was any good.
Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week.
Bob Gibson memorializes his daughter Stella’s dearly departed chicken, Funky. Michael continues his ongoing story of his recent week in Spain. Cory tells us all about Buddhist filmmaker Takashi Miike. Patience is “pissed off that two of [her] kids live with the threat of violence every school day”. Anoop Ranganath ate an apple and it really hurt. Mike relates the story of a friend who is the literal poster child for UVa’s financial aid program who just left school in his fourth year because he can’t afford tuition. Bill Emory provides the history of one particular piece of land in the Woolen Mills, tracing it back to 1870. Scott Johnny had one of those small-town moments that are obvious to locals, shocking to newbies. Sally’s neighbor on Stribling has feral pit bull puppies that wander around the street foraging for food, and animal control won’t do anything. Maiaoming names five blogs she’d create if only she had the time. Jennifer, inspired by Anne Metz’ recent Starlight Express trip, took the shuttle herself, and judges it so-so. Ryan is a little freaked out by Mark Warner’s visage. Mayor David Brown is digging the changes at Reid’s. (Side note: I once saw a candidate for office take a swipe at Reid’s; the audience turned on him at that very moment.) Tim McCormack consumed the most disgusting-smelling fruit in the world, the durian, and lived to blog about it in excruciating detail. Jordan Conley, new to town, doesn’t know what to make of the crazy guy’s signs on Park Street. And, finally Bryan McKenzie figures that neither Vance High nor Joan Schatzman come off well in their spat.
This week’s reading was great. I really liked all of the people writing about things of local interest. If you’ve read or written a particularly great blog entry recently, please feel free to e-mail me about it sometime Wednesday or Thursday, and I’ll include it in the weekly blog carnival when I put it together late Thursday.
Mayor David Brown has launched a blog. He writes that being mayor “gives me a chance to see and learn about Charlottesville in ways that I would like to share…I thought a blog might be a good way to communicate,” and also announces his goal of walking or bicycling on every street in C’ville while he’s on City Council. (That was totally going to be my goal if I were ever on Council, not that there’s any danger of that. Damn his creativity.) Charlottesville now joins Washington D.C., St. Louis and…uh…Reading on the list of cities with blogging mayors.
Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week.
Laura found some great classifieds in a 1997 issue of Christianity Today. Anne Metz is “officially in love with Coran Capshaw”. Ryan is in love with Jack Abramoff’s tricked-out BMW. Joe thinks everyone should have a personal FedEx account. Some guy drove clear from D.C. to go to Spudnuts, only to get there fifteen minutes late. Cory has advice for people with ADD. Zoe visited Richmond for the day and really enjoyed herself. Eric just retired from diving, and is trying to figure out what to do with his life now. David Murray says Morrissey saved his life. “The Doctor” thinks cyclists should be ticketed if they don’t follow the rules of the road. Lexi went to Miller’s and the service was so bad that she left and went to Marco & Luca’s. Dellis feels real good about the Redskins for the coming season, and is prepared to defend that position in great detail. Anoop’s Sprint DSL service sucks, but he wrote a few lines in Ruby to fix the problem. Jim Duncan feels good about the competition from the three other Charlottesville real estate blogs. Bob Gibson promotes the first meeting of “Left of Center,” a new group for young Democrats and the Dem-curious (I was there, it was fun). Rick Sincere is a mugwump. Elizabeth has returned from her week in Spain, and it was super fantastisch. Virginia Quarterly Review (my employer) is hyperventilating over their six nominations for the 2006 National Magazine Awards. Both The Hook and Outskirts offered near-real-time coverage of the semi-nude PETA protester on the Downtown Mall. Duane Gran spoke to IT Academy students about careers in tech. And Patience finds that the reason her neighborhood swarmed with cops this morning was because cows escaped from the Belmont stockyards.
I want to call particular attention to a series that photographer Bill Emory has been doing on his blog about the Woolen Mills sewage treatment plant. Bill called for the sewage composting facility to be enclosed, what with the terrible smell, posted the comments of resident Victoria Dunham at the Woolen Mills Neighborhood Association meeting with the RWSA, and mapped the change of the area from rural to industrial, complete with audio of one woman’s childhood recollections of the Woolen Mills area. I love seeing people blog about Charlottesville, particularly Charlottesville history.
I think I’m going to keep doing this round-up every week. If you’ve read or written a particularly great blog entry, please feel free to e-mail me about it sometime Wednesday or Thursday, and I’ll include it in the weekly blog carnival (as they’re known).
Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week.
Virginia Quarterly Review has won a big-deal award. Bryan McKenzie would like you to all please stop shooting each other. Trish will miss her old apartment…kind of. Laura had some unexpected guests. Colten finished recording his new CD. Jennifer and her family stayed in a PATC cabin in March and was surprised to discover that it was cold. Scott can save you a lot of money if you follow his wiring advice. Lincoln overheard something scary (which reminds me of something I once overheard). Joe’s both famous and fit and trim. Duane’s concerned about the neighborhood model. Darlene and Chris can’t make a great vegan meal every night. Bill Emory took a walk along Moore’s Creek. Outskirts reflects on his position as juror in a recent high-profile trial. Anne Metz celebrates Cool Honey’s victory over Sweet Cakes. Lexi reviews Ludwig’s and Continental Divide, and liked them both. Dave Norris wants Council meetings to be podcast. Jim Duncan points out that we’re facing 6,000 more homes in the area. And Cory’s excited about this Saturday’s Treehugger’s Ball.
Here are some of my favorite Charlottesville blog entries from the past week.
The Cool Honey has ruled Mayor David Brown “UNBELIEVABLY dope”. The Food Geek reports on the huge crop yield increases that come of organic farming. Bill Emory talked all night into the guts of the machine. Jim Duncan is torn on what to do about growth. Joe has ten quotes that make his life better when he applies them. David Murray promotes the kitten apocalypse. Jennifer went to the Paramount for the first time, saw Yo Yo Ma, and loved every minute of it. Brian Wheeler is blown away by developers’ proffers in Northern Virginia. Michael reminds himself that only the penitent man shall pass. Rick Sincere points out that nobody minded funerals being protested until the targets turned from homosexuals to veterans. Lincoln Michael came in second in The Hook’s fiction contest. And, finally, C.R. is celebrating his first anniversary of blogging.
What did I miss?
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