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Monthly Archives: October 2007

More on broadband Internet in Stokes [updated]

In the Oct. 8 minutes of the Stokes County commissioners meeting (available online) Mike Rothstein of Sandy Ridge pleaded for the need for broadband Internet access in rural parts of Stokes where broadband is not yet available. This prompted me to email the Stokes commissioners and the county manager. Here’s my email: Dear Commissioners, I […]

What are the ingredients of charm?

“A Perfect Summer Day,” Thomas Kinkade Katie Hutchison, an architect, has written on the subject of what elements add up to create a charming house. The language she uses is a bit vague (I suspect she was trying to make the subject sound more complicated than it really is, as though an architect’s expertise is […]

The Dan River's looking good

  Now here’s the kind of Dan River chart I like to see — a steady rise over 24 hours, well above the median. And it’s still raining. These rains should go a long way toward making up for the long drought.

Finally, rain

WXII.com The winter weather patterns have returned, and rain is finally happening. During the summer, most of North Carolina’s rain is from thunderstorms. During the winter, moisture is pushed in from the Gulf of Mexico, and much more general rain happens. That’s what’s happening today. My neighbors-to-be in Stokes County tell me that the drought […]

Trying to rain?

www.sehazecam.net If you’re a drought watcher, as I am, here are a couple of good resources. The “haze cam” is on Sauratown Mountain looking toward Pilot Mountain. The United States Geological Survey maintains a real-time water-level gauge on the Dan River at Francisco. Francisco is up near the Virginia border, so the Francisco gauge reflects […]

Give bats a break

www.batcon.org What’s Halloween without bats? Many bat species are endangered, and bat populations are threatened worldwide. Many organizations and universities are working to save bat populations. One thing we can do, if we have a place, is to give bats a place to live. The University of Florida has a fairly gothic bat house: Here’s […]

No wireless Internet on new Alltel tower

I’ve been hanging out of a couple of Internet forums frequented by cell-phone nerds hoping to find out whether broadband Internet service is available on the new Alltel tower on Mission Road east of Danbury. I think I have a reliable answer now from an Alltel field technician. The answer is that, at present, the […]

Joan Baez, older sister to the Boomers

Joan Baez, born in 1941, is a little too old to be a Boomer. The first boomers were born in 1946. So Joan Baez was more like an older sister to us Boomers, someone we looked up to. I sometimes think that, if I’d been born for no other reason than to hear Joan Baez […]

Some Stokes photos

It’s always a good morning when the Winston-Salem Journal has a story and pictures from Stokes County. It reminds me how darned picturesque Stokes is. The Journal has a story this morning on crews doing wildfire practice near Hanging Rock State Park. Winston-Salem Journal And from WXII.com, a photo of the leaves starting to turn […]

Eat more garlic!

New York Times Here in San Francisco, it’s easy to follow a Mediterranean diet. San Franciscans have far more interaction with Tuscany and Provence than we do with Kansas, so the grocery stores and restaurants reflect that. San Francisco is surrounded by amazing farmland — Sonoma to the north, and places like Gilroy and Monterey […]