Mar
25

Pre-Flight Parking Shutting Down

The folks at Pre-Flight Parking near RDU informed me last night that the site is no longer taking new parkers, and will be closing as soon as the last car is claimed. Apparently within the last week the company that owns Fast Park bought out the Pre-Flight location last week. (A couple of employees said that they offered Pre-Flight employees $2 less per hour, too).

So, it appear that there are now only three alternatives for parking at RDU:

  • RDU: $12/day – Park across the street from either terminal
  • FastPark Parking: $5.45/day – No walking, covered parking, complimentary car wash, bus delivery from your parking spot to terminal front door.
  • District Drive Park & Ride: Free – Ride TTA’s bus ($2 each way, exact change) Route 100 (.pdf). Note that this option is only convenient for late morning/early afternoon arrivals and departures. Lot is not under surveillance, but there is security-by-obscurity in a safe area.
Mar
18

Ben Folds Five, Guster Joining BNL at Red Hat Amphitheater

Ben Fold Five announced today that they will tour this summer with Barenaked Ladies and Guster. The “Last Summer On Earth Tour 2013”. The 29 date tour’s apocalypse comes in Brooklyn, but not before the tour’s penultimate show at Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater on Sunday, July 28.

BNL Fanclub presale tickets will be available tomorrow (Tue, 3/19) at 10am. Citi Cardmember presale is Wed at 10. LiveNation’s presale is Thu at 10.

Mar
18

Download Your NCAA Tournament Schedule

2013_NCAATimesThe 2013 NCAA Basketball Tournament is upon us, and all three Triangle teams are in the field again. The games begin tomorrow night, however all of the ACC teams in the field play on Friday at these times:

  • 12:15 – Duke/Albany (CBS)
  • 1:40 – NCSU/Temple (TBS)
  • 2:10 – Miami/Pacific (TNT)
  • 4:10 7:20 – UNC/Villanova (TNT) 

Time Warner Cable in Raleigh carries these networks on the following channels:

  • CBS (1105, 3, 105)
  • TBS (1302, 34, 302)
  • TNT (1301, 26, 301)
  • TruTV (1313, 44, 313)

Ready to fill out your brackets? Print out a blank ESPN bracket (pdf).

Finally, all of the games can be easily added to your Android phone, iPhone, Outlook, Google Calendars and more! Simply visit gogoraleigh’s Calendars tab, and use the links provided in the “2013 NCAA Tournament” line. The events include location and network covering the game.

Mar
14

Why Do We Even Play The ACC Tournament?

Ever since the open era of the NCAA Tournament began there has been much concern about the necessity of conference tournaments. Much like a football conference championship, the even provides an opportunity for the league’s best teams to lose, exhaust themselves, and risk injury. Rarely do the top 3 or 4 teams in the regular season affect their NCAA Tournament seeding considerably, so the event focuses on bubble teams and their chance to impress the selection committee one last time.

Some argue that the event, therefore, is not good for the league, and carries little weight. The fact is, however, that as expansion rendered leagues unable to set equitable regular season schedules, conference tournaments mean more than they ever have.

Consider this matrix:

  MIA DUK UNC UVA NCS
MIA 2 2 1 1
DUK 2 2 1 2
UNC 2 2 2 2
UVA 1 1 2 1
NCS 1 2 2 1

This matrix shows the number of times each opponent played the other top 5 teams in the league. As you can see, UNC is the only team in the Top 5 that had to play the other 4 twice. UVA only had to play one team twice, and was able to feast on the Clemsons and Virginia Techs of the world.

So, in a league where days off and tiebreakers are determined by a single game, the lopsided schedule presents an arbitrary value to teams that supersedes the action on the court. We have to have the conference tournament to determine the champion because with an unbalanced schedule, it is the only way to determine a true champion.

Mar
08

Coopers 75th Anniversary Coming Saturday

Undercover-Poster-Clyde-CoopersTomorrow (3/9) Clyde Cooper’s will be celebrating the institution’s 75th Anniversary with an outdoor BBQ competition. In the empty lot next to the restaurant, the following pitmasters will be battling for BBQ supremacy:

  • Randy & Debbie Holt – Clyde Cooper’s BBQ 
  • Sam Jones – Skylight Inn
  • Zack Goodyear – Saucemans
  • Clay Folgers & Floyd Knolls  – Wilmington Grill
  • Mike Robinson
  • David Burch –  Smokey Dave’s BBQ
  • Frank Steinbach
  • Mike Bullock
  • Ches McDowell

The event runs from 11am – 4pm and tickets are $5. Voting ends at 2:30, with awards at 3pm. Parking is free in the adjacent parking garages. 50% of proceeds go to SPCA of Wake County.

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