Wild Tires

Need to go through my pictures and figure out what ones to have done in a large size for the gallery.
I want to have a couple large ones that can bring in some dollars. I have plenty of 4x6 pictures to bring.
Maybe I should do a couple photo books and sell those. Who knows.

Running late. Hit the snooze a few times this morning.

Is the coast here going to get hit or have a near miss with the hurricane?

I never knew rubber trees looked like tires.

Its Snot Friday

Had a great time yesterday. Went down to Salisbury and meet Autumn, a friend from high school. She actually was my brothers girlfriend during their freshman year. We had not seen each other since high school. She has a great group of friends who are artists and musicians so I felt pretty much at home. I am going down again in a couple weeks and they want me to bring some pictures. They think they can get me some gallery space. Sounds good to me.

Anyhow it was great to see Autumn and reconnect. It was like we had no missed a beat. I thought she lived on the Outer Banks but she lives on a little island of the South Carolina coast.

My parents always liked Autumn and she would stop in and see my Mom at the antique shop when she went back to Ct. So yesterday when my Mom called I had Autumn answer the phone and let them talk for a while.

Good time. I needed a day like yesterday. Busy work week then Asheville this weekend.

Hell Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Its Friday. Wooooo HO.

Going with one the the executives of the company that owns us to meet with an IT company to give them ideas on how to improve our very sad looking website. In my opinion it needs some major reworking to make it consumer friendly. Everyone has ideas on how this needs to be set up and what they want the site to be. I am glad I get to go and inject my ideas and I will get to learn some things on how this all operates.
As is usually the case people who do not work in IT have all kinds of ideas and even though they seem easy to do it is usually not the case.

May be able to meet with a friend from high school this weekend. Autumn lives on the Outer Banks, but will be fairly close by this weekend. All a matter of timing and plans. If not this weekend then soon.

Asheville next weekend.

Photo is Del McCoury at Wanee Fest in Live Oak, Florida.

New Hours

I changed my work hours from 8:30 to 5:30 to 8 to 5. I never really liked my old hours. Really I never liked getting out of work at 5:30. Now I also miss all the bus traffic near me when I go to work at 8.

Got a nice little present at work yesterday. The President of the company was here and he had a meeting with us in the morning. Then yesterday afternoon we all got a $25 Amex gift card as a thank you for the job we do. Nice gift to get. Things like that can help make your day.

My nephew starts his college life tomorrow. Hope he does well and does not party his out of college.
It will be interesting to see how it all goes. He really had no idea how life changes from this point on.

I see that Guilford County has put a 1/4 cent sales tax increase on  the ballot in November instead of raising property taxes. How this gets voted down. 8 percent sales tax in ridiculous. They also do not need to raise property taxes. How bout just holding the line until the economy reaches some sort of normality. I want to see what the tea baggers around here have to say about this.

Numbers

So we hear that the economy is slowly getting better. I doubt it.

We have a little over 14 million unemployed. To put half of those people back to work in three years we have to add 208,000 jobs a month if we continue on the same path. Seems like an impossible task at this stage.

Homes sales drop 27 percent in July and now we hear talk of more stimulus so we can generate more homes sales. I say no to this. Let home sales drop and let the prices drop. The ultimate benefit is when homes prices drop to a natural level then more people will be able to buy homes at an affordable level. Homes are meant for people to live in, not to be something that you live in for a couple years and then turn around to sell for a massive profit. We have our priorities backwards here. The goal should be to put families in homes and not to use a home as a short term investment. People living in homes for many years is what makes a community.

The economy is not getting better or worse. I think it is settling into a natural state of affairs and all will be fine if we stop manipulating things. Not easy to accept. But it may be closer to the truth than we want to believe.

Going Local

With the outbreak of salmonella from all those eggs I think this will do some great things for the local farmers.
I have been buying eggs at the farmers market since I moved up here and I have to say that they actually do taste better.

Although local farms and farmers are not going to be perfect they do have a vested interest in running a clean farm. Mega farms are worried about the bottom line first and local farmers worry about putting out fresh, great tasting products first. It comes down to pride of ownership for the local farmers and pride of money for the corporate farms. Buy local when you can and support a real local business.

Temps in  the 70's today.

Running late. Mind is slow and foggy this morning.

Overall

A fairly quiet weekend overall. Saturday I did head over to Saxapahaw and had lunch/dinner then watched Holy Ghost Tent Revival for the first hour of the show and then headed home. A great locals event with  a large crowd. Nice time.

Yesterday I went for a little drive and got a few pictures. Stopped in at an antique shop and bought a couple tintype photographs. Nice day overall. You can tell the very beginning of fall is coming as the mornings are decent and humidity is not so bad. Ready for some cooler weather.

Quote of the day:

"How can we have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism."   Howard Zinn

Picture is of my parents house before the porch was repainted and flowers put in the front.

Refreshing

Man it is nice out this morning now that the humidity is gone for a day or two.

No real plans for most of the day. Think I may head over to Saxapahaw later on this afternoon. They have a farmers market and that is followed by live music. Tonight is a band called Holy Ghost Tent Revival. I have heard them on Pandora and WNCW in the past and they seem to be pretty good. Outside free music with low humidity, seems like a plan.

Picture is from Newport, Rhode Island. Great town to visit. Some super seafood. There are a couple places that have the most amazing clam chowder, which I could go for right now.

Special Delivery

May I suggest to all the paranoid people of America that we don't build the mosque only if you agree that we stop doing any business with Saudi Arabia. Since most of the attackers were residents of Saudi Arabia I suggest that you carry your xenophobia to any dealings we have with the Saudi government, businesses and oil companies. We must ban all Saudi travel to the United States and no Americans can be allowed to travel there either. Really we must do this so you feel completely safe.

While these same folks are also suggesting we consider repealing, rewriting or making some other changes to the 14th amendment then I want you to be open to consider repealing, rewriting or making changes to the 2nd amendment. Bet you will not be open to that debate.

You see people if you start to push too hard there are many of us who are sick and tired of the insensitivity and paranoia of people on the right and we will begin to push back and demand that you start to understand that this world is for all peoples of the world. It is not for white Americans to dictate to everyone else how to world is to be shaped. Continue to push to the right and the pushback will be much more that you imagine.

Boxes

How many more years before people do not know what these are?

While I read the news online I love to read newspapers. One thing that most people do not read when reading online are the little gems of news that are hidden deep in the newspaper beyond the headlines.
Many stories that are very important are buried in the paper for many reasons and if we lose newspapers those issues will never get told. Buy a newspaper this week.

Rod Blagojevich basically gets away totally free in round one. Pretty amazing the governments case was so weak after all the press it got. Makes one wonder.

I need to camping soon. Hopefully will go sometime in Sept. when the weather turns cool. Have not been camping in over a year. It would be nice to sit around a big fire with a beer.