Obama in Chapel Hill
Photo by Abby
Last night I went to the Barack Obama rally in the Smith Center in Chapel Hill. There was a pretty good crowd on hand for this event that began at 9:30. Doors opened at 7:00, so we had plenty of time to waste while we were waiting for the festivities to begin.
I met up with one of my friends from Twitter, John, in Carrboro and we rode to the event together. I had gotten tickets for the rally with some folks from work, but we didn’t have firm plans to meet, so it was good to have someone to sit with. We spent lots of the pre-game time twittering. Here’s a link to all tagged tweets from the evening.
The 9:30 start time got us a preacher, 2 Congressmen (David Price, Mel Watt), a campaign organizer, a basketball player (Sam Perkins), a UNC student and memories of Eve Carson. Obama finally appeared at 10:30. It was worth the wait. He charmed the crowd with his message. He talked a lot about change and doing things differently. If elected, it will be very interesting to see if he make that change happen.
I was undecided before the rally, but with Obama tendencies. I will now support him, with the hope that he is able to bring about change for the American people. He described his campaign as being about “your struggles, your hopes and your dreams.”
I will close, as he did. “If you will stand with me, we will transform this country.”
Bloggers offer glimpse of uncensored Cuba
In a highly censored country like Cuba, people have taken to blogging to get the truth out about their country. Using black market dial-up accounts, stolen passwords or disguises to sneak into tourist hotels, these bloggers are getting on the internet to tell their stories.
Here’s a link to the AP story published on Wired.com.
Links to Cuban Blogs:
Generacion Y (Google Translation)
My Island at Midday (Google Translation)
Potro Salvaje (Google Translation)
Johnny is Going to Coach at Stanford
Former Duke Player and Duke Associate Head Coach, Johnny Dawkins has been named head basketball coach at Stanford. Another Krzyzewski protege is moving into the ranks of head coaching. He was part of Coach K’s first recruiting class at Duke that begin the string of successful seasons for Duke. He was also one year ahead of me in school. So when Johnny went to Dallas for the Final Four in 1986, I went too. I was also in attendance when his jersey was retired.
This also meant that as my academic schedule swerved between rigorous (pre-med) and not so much (pick a major, meet requirements and move on to graduate school in the future), I shared several classes with Johnny. The most memorable was an additional science requirement for non-science majors which used a book that was actually called Physics for Poets.
The non-basketball memory of Johnny that has always stayed with me was that he was someone who referred to himself in the third person. It was a bit disconcerting to have a conversation with him, and he would say something like, Johnny has a busy day today. I would assume that after all these years he has dropped this practice.
Read more about the coaching announcement here
Chapel Hill Announces New Public Arts Administrator
Today the Town Manager of Chapel Hill announced the new position of Public Arts Administrator. This position will lead the Percent for Art program and other public art initiatives. This role had been handled by the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission, and its staff. While I was chair of the commission several years, the former Town Manager asked us, a volunteer board with paid staff, to incorporate as 501c3 non-profit rather than become part of the town, as we recommended. Now under a new Town Manager, a new town position is created to serve this function. I understand there may now be two public art boards: a town commission and a board of the non-profit for fund-raising.
By the way, Jeff York, the new administrator, is a great guy and will do a great job in his new position.
Here’s the press release from the Town of Chapel Hill website:
Town Manager Roger L. Stancil announced his decision today (Thursday, April 24) to appoint Jeffrey York, director of public art and community design for the NC Arts Council, as the new public arts administrator for the Town of Chapel Hill. He is scheduled to start on June 15.“Chapel Hill has a broad range of public art programs that involve residents in creating, viewing and talking about art and that place temporary and permanent art works throughout the Town.” Stancil said. “Jeffrey is the ideal person to work with the Town and its Public Arts Advisory Commission. He will facilitate the transition of the public art staff to Town staff and current independent board to an advisory role. Our goal is to integrate public art into the context of what the Town does every day.”
“We appreciate the Manager’s determination to appoint someone with the mix of skills, experience and vision needed to build successfully on Chapel Hill’s thriving public art program,” said Frank Webb, chair of the Public Arts Commission. “We all look forward to working with Jeffrey in his (and our) new role.”
As public art and community design director for the Raleigh-based North Carolina Arts Council, York facilitated public art and cultural facility design activities and processes to communities statewide. He initiated a public art in the schools residency program and maintained an 86-piece public art collection located throughout North Carolina.
Previously, York was executive director of the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont and education director at the Birmingham (Ala.) Museum of Art. He also was education curator and assistant curator for the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, N.Y. He has two master’s degrees, in the history of art from Ohio State University and in library science and information studies from Syracuse University.
“Chapel Hill offers a receptive environment to develop a model public art program in North Carolina and beyond,” York said. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with town staff and the community to build such a program.”
The Chapel Hill Town Council in March 2002 established the Town’s Percent for Art Ordinance, which allocates 1 percent of selected capital projects for the creation and maintenance of permanent works of public art. Funding for Percent for Art projects comes from each selected project’s construction budget. In North Carolina, the only other cities with percent-for-art programs are Asheville and Charlotte.
My Favorite Color
I recently filled out an online profile and was asked my favorite color. Without hesitation, I put blue. With the exception of one brief period where I would have said green, my favorite color has always been blue.
Does this mean I am boring? Either by my choice of color, or even the fact that it has never changed. How did I avoid the years where blue expanded to include teal and cobalt and sea mist, or any of the other color names that are so far beyond those original 64 colors I grew up? Even the early web had 256. And I stuck with blue.
My favorite color has had very little relevance to my life lately. It’s not like I only have blue clothes. I don’t have a blue car. I did not buy a blue house. And the only room that is getting painted blue is for Grace, and that’s Carolina Blue (not my favorite color). So I am curious that when asked the question about my favorite color, I do not even pause before typing blue. I didn’t give it any thought, and I still don’t have a different answer. Blue is the only answer I could give, relevant or not.
Triangle Segway Tour
This afternoon I joined @waynesutton, @dtraleigh and @kitch for a TriangleTweetup-organized event at the new Triangle Segway location in Raleigh’s City Market. We went on a Segway tour of downtown Raleigh, including the Capitol Building, Oakwood neighborhood and the Oakwood Cemetery.
We were all new to the Segway, but it is very simple to ride. Lean forward on your feet to move forward, and lean back to stop. Turn by turning the handle left or right. By the end of our two hour tour, we were all pretty worn out. It did not seem like exercise, but it was still wearing. And it was a perfect day for a downtown tour. I shot lots of photos and Twittered during the ride, proving that it is easy to ride a Segway one-handed. Click for a Flickr slide show of my photos.
Wayne and Leo take a break from our Segway ride in the Memory House at Oakwood Cemetery
Grace at the Fence
Watching from the Dugout
This morning both kids had baseball games. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was starting to get a little too hot by the end of the game. It was great for Peter to finally have his casts off and to be playing ball again.
Look Dad, No Casts!
What do I Twitter About?
Here is a link to a tag cloud of my Twitters:
http://www.tweetclouds.com/user_pages/dgtlpapercuts.html