Another day … another day with gout.
In more encouraging news, we had a decent weekend. Church picnic and then to the Wake Forest Fantasy Football event at the stadium. Sunday, a birthday event for a friend’s daughter though it was more of an excuse to enjoy the pool. Christen made a new friend and Madeleine was her usual self.
Powerball lottery did not go this weekend so the jackpot increases to $232 million. My attempt to play six tickets came up goose eggs. Not sure if I want to try again. My luck on these things is extraordinary bad. Still, it would be nice if I won something; my family sure could use it.
A very quiet tropical storm season has suddenly exploded with three storms this morning scattered between the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern Atlantic. Claudette has already come ashore to only minor damage. Ana looks like it will do a tour of the island before ending up somewhere in the Gulf. Bill is on a path that takes it away from land and dies in the mid-Atlantic. It is supposed to be a quiet year for storms and so far those predictions are staying pat.
Flickr is still giving me fits. Difficult to upload photos and organise them. Got plenty of photos waiting to go up now but I won’t move them up until Flickr settles down. Apparently, the problem is that a small section of the database network is at fault here but it is affecting predominantly heavy uploaders of images like myself. Flickr support says that they are working on it.
… and that is all I wrote.
Powerball lottery jackpot is up to $213 million for this Saturday’s draw with the lump sum payment of $103 million. Ever since they went with the much tougher odds for jackpots, they have been getting their big jackpots. So routine now, that it barely rates as news anymore. Perhaps when it gets to $300 million then it may be worth a news item of people lining up to buy tickets.
I wonder, though, why the lottery even bothers with the jackpot as it is announced now. The vast majority of jackpot winners always opt for the lump sum payment as it is usually a much better deal in the long run than receiving equal annual payments for 20 years or so.
Of course, the inflated number is what drives people to buy the tickets in the first place but it seems so dishonest in a way. Even with the lump sum payment, though, the net proceeds is much less when the various governments get their taxes out of the winnings.
Flickr is having some real site problems this past week which is causing all sorts of access issues for me on that site as well as for my own site which uses Flickr as the source of the photo galleries. Patience they counsel, patience.
This weekend is going to be somewhat busy. Saturday is the church social group picnic for the Mother’s group. After that is over with, we are planning to race to Wake Forest for Fan Fest and get pictures with the players and check out the stadium. Sunday, we go to Mooresville for a birthday party.
That is a lot of driving and a lot of gas. While cheaper than last year, prices are still pretty high. Not to the point yet where we drive only when we have to but it is getting close.
While America Got Talent television show is reaching its semi final rounds with a fairly predictable safe and standard mix of mostly singers and a few dance troupes, the Ukrainian version of the show had its finale not too long ago and its shows that to win, you do not have to be a singer or a dancer. Amazing what someone could do with sand and light.
Dog Days of summer, indeed.
… and that is all I wrote.
Quiet start to the week. Hot one too with temperatures probably hitting near 100°F(40°C) when factoring in the humidity. Mowing the lawn even after 7pm proved to be an ordeal. After getting through half of the yard, my tshirt was drenched. I figured that was a good point to stop for the evening. Resuming the mowing this evening.
Not sure if I want to keep on doing this year in, year out for 6-8 months of the year. I would really like to rebuild the backyard to eliminate most of the mowing and make it low maintenance but I hesitate though in going through with it. It is a big back yard making it ideal for young children to run and play, to let their imaginations run wild. If there was an open field nearby where they could do the same, then that would have take care of that need but being a subdivision, public spaces are rare. We’ ll see for the future I guess.
Looking forward to Bookmarks festival on September 12th. No real big names this year so far but Justin Fox, columnist for Time Magazine, will be there promoting his new book, Myth of the Rational Market which is getting stellar reviews. It is going to be downtown this year which should make for some interesting venues. I expect the lawn area on Civic Plaza to be utilised to some degree.
Speaking of things to do on a weekend, Saturday is Fan Fest for Wake Forest football. Every year, I promise myself I would go but never able to because something comes up. So far, I have kept my calendar free this weekend so we shall see if I get there.
Some local developments going on in downtown Winston-Salem:
The final touches have been completed on getting the financing in place to complete the downtown baseball ballpark. Some of the to be completed items to finish the ballpark include:
- Final grading.
- Water and sewer.
- Landscaping and grass.
- Fence and gates.
- Parking lots and driveways.
- Sidewalks, traffic control and intersection improvements.
- Playground and main entrance area.
- Playing field sod, drainage and irrigation system.
- Scoreboard and LED signage.
- Stadium seating and railings.
- Interior finishes and railings.
- Electrical and plumbing finish-outs.
- Public address system.
- Public art.
Apparently, that is what get for 15 million dollars in public financing these days. But with in place, it should be a guarantee that the 2010 season should see opening day in the new baseball park which is a bit disappointing this year as the Winston-Salem Dash are having one of the best seasons it ever had in years here in Winston.
Left unspoken about this whole affair is whether the team can get the 4000 plus fans average per game in order to meet the revenue projections for the new ballpark. Highly unlikely I say as long as the team is Single A type team. But can the team advance to Double A status. Hard to say so it makes sense that the ballpark is probably a loss leader for the players ie Billy Prim and the City of Winston involved in the development. The real profits will come from the development surrounding the ballpark as commercial and residential buildings go up on the various properties that Prim enterprises bought up as it acquired land for the ballpark. Won’t be seeing development anytime soon, not until the economy starts digging out of the recession and the local economy picks up. Problem for the city that there are just a limited number of developers in downtown area right now and there are multiple areas of downtown that need development to realise their potential. Shifting developers to the ballpark may mean that other areas like Liberty Street will remain neglected. The hope that if the ballpark development takes off, then there is a spreading of the benefits in other areas of downtown. but that means waiting awhile for that to happen.
The National Black Theatre festival was in full swing last night as hundreds of people were packed downtown. This festival is a real showcase for Winston-Salem and downtown business for the whole week that it runs here. Some really outstanding productions this years despite the recession. When it returns in two years time, the Hanebrands theatre will be available as a venue which will allow some of the productions that were shown in some of the outlying venues to come back to the downtown area.
Downtown got another boost this week with the announcement that an arts cinema will be opening up within the Chatham building at Fourth and Cherry. Two screens with seating capacity of 80 people each will show a rotating variety of independent and foreign films with an emphasis on the films that show at the River Run film festival that is held every year in the downtown area. This is because the offices of the River Run festival will be sharing quarters with the theatre in the Chatham building.
This is all very good news. Downtown needs more options for people to do downtown besides the variety of restaurants down there and the weekly street festivals in the summer time. When the Films on Fourth ran in the Stevens Center, they were able to draw fairly decent crowds for several films like Bend it like Beckham and Spellbound which did not get play at the local cinemas that were available then. The recently opened Grand 18 does make an effort to show the more commercially viable independent films but its location in north Winston makes it a bit more difficult for downtown residents to make the effort to see them.
My one concern is that it keeps concentrating all of the new development along Fourth Street in a stretch between Spruce and Cherry. Those two blocks have several restaurants, coffee shops, and so on. But going east along fourth shows plenty of empty storefronts that could be used by someone. Not sure what would it take to have people take a chance in opening a store or some sort of retail location there but it seems that someone needs to take the first step.
I hate gout . I really do. I hate the shooting pain up my ankle to my knee. I hate the hobbling. I hate that the medicine to make the pain tolerable feeble minds me and knocks me for a loop. There are times I wonder if I should just amputate the whole foot below the ankle so I do not have to suffer the pain.
Oh well.
Despite the pain, I took the family to the First Friday Gallery Hop downtown on Trade Street. Madeleine wanted to see dancers like she did last year but there were not any this year. Instead, she saw contortionists, musicians and dogs. Lots of dogs as the local humane society was sponsoring a photo shoot for dogs during the street festival.
Speaking of festivals, the National Black Theatre festival was in full swing last night as hundreds of people were packed downtown. This festival is a real showcase for Winston-Salem and downtown business for the whole week that it runs here. Some really outstanding productions this years despite the recession. When it returns in two years time, the Hanebrands theatre will be available as a venue which will allow some of the productions that were shown in some of the outlying venues to come back to the downtown area.
Downtown got another boost this week with the announcement that an arts cinema will be opening up within the Chatham building at Fourth and Cherry. Two screens with seating capacity of 80 people each will show a rotating variety of independent and foreign films with an emphasis on the films that show at the River Run film festival that is held every year in the downtown area. This is because the offices of the River Run festival will be sharing quarters with the theatre in the Chatham building.
This is all very good news. Downtown needs more options for people to do downtown besides the variety of restaurants down there and the weekly street festivals in the summer time. When the Films on Fourth ran in the Stevens Center, they were able to draw fairly decent crowds for several films like Bend it like Beckham and Spellbound which did not get play at the local cinemas that were available then. The recently opened Grand 18 does make an effort to show the more commercially viable independent films but its location in north Winston makes it a bit more difficult for downtown residents to make the effort to see them.
My one concern is that it keeps concentrating all of the new development along Fourth Street in a stretch between Spruce and Cherry. Those two blocks have several restaurants, coffee shops, and so on. But going east along fourth shows plenty of empty storefronts that could be used by someone. Not sure what would it take to have people take a chance in opening a store or some sort of retail location there but it seems that someone needs to take the first step.
The pain still goes on.
… and that is all I wrote.