Category Archives: Asheville Live

First Family Vacation in Asheville

Published in Asheville Live on April 20, 2010
President Barack Obama and the First Lady Mich...
Image via Wikipedia

President Barack and Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, will be heading to Asheville for spring break. The First Lady

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Video Exposes Dangerous Conditions at Exit 44 on I-40

Published in Asheville Live on April 14, 2010
North Carolina Department of Transportation

Image via Wikipedia

This video was posted to our Facebook page and I thought it literally hit home as I have dealt with this horribly backed up intersection many times. Watching it, it is hard to believe how long the line is to get onto the exit.

Then comes the hardest part to watch: several cars who have bypassed the line altogether, simply cut into the line right at the offramp. This would REALLY tick me off if I had been waiting in that interminably long line.

This is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed, but as the author of the video points out, only NC-DOT can fix it.

Several accidents have occurred due to bad drivers and a poorly designed exit near where I and my family live. I want this fixed.

The Asheville Police Department and Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department have told me that only the NC Department of Transportation can resolve this matter.

[swf]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot0i31uabgQ,560,340[/swf]

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When the Lights Go Down In the City…

Published in Asheville Live on April 6, 2010
Server Room in a Power Outage
Image by Aaron Landry via Flickr

Well, the cams were down for much of the night and this morning due to a widespread power loss in downtown Asheville. I woke up to alerts on my cell phone and when I got to work I found that all the servers, phone system, voice mail, network routing equipment, everything was off. We have power protection, but it couldn’t hold out long enough, and it was emitting an ear-splitting beeping noise (took a little while to figure out how to get it to stop). According to the Asheville Citizen-Times:

About 700 Progress Energy customers in downtown Asheville lost power this morning following an equipment failure.

Utility spokeswoman Martha Thompson said the malfunction occurred in an underground vault housing a substation around 1:30 a.m.

All customers had power restored by 5:30 a.m., she said. The downtown police and fire station was among the locations that lost power.

Everything’s back up now and we’re running smoothly, but in honor of this event I present to you a bit of a musical interlude:

[swf]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4QkTvK2OEw,480,385[/swf]

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Ween Coming to Thomas Wolfe Auditorium

Published in Asheville Live on April 2, 2010

Ween PosterAll hail the Boognish! We are only a week away from the great Ween once again gracing Asheville with their off-beat brand of musical artistry. The show is April 9 at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and yours truly will most certainly be in attendance.

For those of you who don’t know Ween or who only know them from their mid-90’s pseudo-hit “Push th’ Little Daisies”, you don’t know what you’re missing. Ween has an amazing range. The 2 leaders, Dean and Gene Ween seem to be on a quest to make at least one song in every style imaginable. They even released a country album, 12 Golden Country Greats (which had only 10 songs) and it was fantastic and uniquely Ween-ish! These guys are supremely talented, and even if you don’t like all their songs, you’re bound to like some of them. Almost every album they’ve released has contained at least one instrumental song, and each one showcases the outstanding musical talent of these guys that try hard to make you believe they don’t care.

Ween hasn’t released a full studio album since 2007’s La Cucaracha, and a live album At the Cat’s Cradle was released in 2008 (recorded in 1992).

It’s bound to be a great show, and I can’t wait. The show is April 9 at 8:00 PM. Below, one of my favorite Ween songs, Voodoo Lady.

[SWF]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJVLR9lyopg,480,385[/SWF]

Bonus Classic Retro Ween: Freedom of ’76

[SWF]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzYykIA1xVg,480,385[/SWF]

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1100 Communities Vie For Google Fiber

Published in Asheville Live on March 29, 2010

The deadline for nominations has passed, and according to a post on the official Google Blog, over 1100 communities submitted bids and almost 200,000 individuals. The number of nominated cities almost doubled in the last few hours before the deadline. The post referenced was originally posted at 10:00 AM, and they had 600 municipalities. After the deadline, they posted this update:

Update at 5:26pm: The response deadline has now passed. We’ve received more than 1,100 community responses and more than 194,000 responses from individuals. This map displays where the responses were concentrated as of 1:30pm PT. Each small dot represents a government response, and each large dot represents locations where more than 1,000 residents submitted a nomination. We plan to share a complete list of government responses and an updated map soon.

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Google Moment Today at 1:30pm

Published in Asheville Live on March 25, 2010
This is one of the huge welcoming signs for Go...
Image via Wikipedia

If you haven’t already nominated Asheville for the Google Fiber initiative, wait just a little bit longer. Today at 1:30 PM will officially be the “right time” to submit your nomination. Asheville City Council passed a resolution creating the “Google Moment” and is encouraging everyone to submit your applications for Asheville at the same time.

Be part of the moment! At 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 25, Asheville citizens including school children, employees, and business leaders, are encouraged to participate in a

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Controversial Housing Project Approved

Published in Asheville Live on March 24, 2010

Proposed Larchmont Apartment Complex RenderingThe Larchmont Project, a controversial low-income apartment complex, has been approved for development in North Asheville. Opponents of the project, which will include 60 units and will be located off East Larchmont Rd. near Merrimon Avenue, say that the scale of the project is too large and doesn’t fit with the surroundings. They also say that 60 units is too many and the complex will be too densely packed. From the Asheville Citizen-Times:

Opponents, including many nearby residents, said they were not opposed to affordable rentals on the site but thought the two proposed buildings

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