Sam’s Club Moves from Harrison Ave.
Last Thursday Sam’s Club opened their newest area store, located at NC54 and I-540, in the Shiloh Crossings shopping center. The store is actually a move, as the store at Harrison Ave and I-40 closed on Wednesday.
Filter Plays Downtown Live
Tonight’s free concert features Filter , but actually is a whole day of music, beginning at 2pm. Here are some details of the day’s activities:
Weather: The ABC11 Accuweather Forecast for Saturday, June 13th, 2009: Partly Sunny with a high of 89!
Artists Performing on the Bud Light Main Stage:
- 2:00 PM – Ethan Hanson
- 3:30 PM – Swagger
- 4:30 PM – Bright Young Things
- 5:30 PM – The Fifth
- 6:30 PM – Bill West
- 7:30 PM – Charm City Devils
- 9:00 PM – Filter
Monster Second Stage (All day during breaks) – 100 Yorktown
Location:
Moore Square Park, corner of Blount St. and Martin St., downtown Raleigh, NC
Where to Park:
In addition to street parking throughout downtown, there are 3 major parking decks within a very short walk of Moore Square Park. The two most commonly used are The Moore Square Deck and The Hargett Street deck. The Alexander Deck on Wilmington Street allows FREE parking on the weekend. For more information on parking visit
www.GoDowntownRaleigh.com
Or…
Park anywhere in downtown Raleigh, and take the R-Line to Moore Square Park! For more information visit
http://www.godowntownraleigh.com/get-around/r-line
Family Event:
Downtown Live is a family event. From 2pm until 7pm there is a huge Downtown Live kids zone complete with inflatables, bouncing houses, slides, and pony rides. Also, expect visits from many of the area sports teams. All ages are welcomed at Downtown Live, but you must be 21 to consume alcohol. If you plan on consuming alcohol, please remember to bring a valid I.D.
What can I bring inside the park?
You MAY bring:
– One bottled water
– Needs for children (i.e. diapers, strollers, etc.)
– Blankets and chairs
– Umbrellas
You may NOT bring:
– Professional recording or camera equipment. Professional cameras are defined as cameras with a detachable lense. Small digital and phone cameras are okay.
– Food or Beverage (including alcohol). There are a wide variety of local food vendors set up inside the park, in additional beer and beverage stations.
– Pets, even if on a leash. No pets allowed of any kind.
– No coolers, bags, picnics, bikes, rollerblades.
Forget something?:
Fear not, there is a full service Convenience Store set up on site. ATM’s are also available inside the park next to the Convenience Store.
Don’t Drink and Drive:
A full-service taxi stand will be set-up outside the Blount and Martin St. exit of Downtown Live.
Rain or Shine:
Downtown Live is a rain or shine event. As they say in North Carolina: "If you don’t like the weather, stick around 15 minutes, it’ll change." Us North Carolinians know that throughout the summer stray thunderstorms often pop up out of nowhere. This may cause a slight delay in the schedule, but the show will go on. Day of show stay tuned to 96Rock for weather updates.
Don’t Drink, Don’t Smoke, What Do We Do?
U.S. News and World Report recently released a few surveys which included the most/least smoking cities and most/least drinking cities. ironically Durham, the former “City of Tobacco” was named as the 5th Most Smoke-Free Metro area. Greensboro, Wilmington, and Hickory were mentioned in the 10 Smokiest. Raleigh and Fayetteville were mentioned in a tie for 5th in the Most Sober Metro Areas survey. The numbers were compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
Further evidence that we don’t need to be called “Tobacco Road” by the national sports media, and evidence that there really are two North Carolinas.
Old Crow Medicine Show Coming to Cary
It’s rare that a song mentioning Raleigh isn’t embarrassing, but The Old Crow Medicine Show pulled it off with “Wagon Wheel”. That was 3 years ago, though, and The Show is concentrating on their new CD, Tennessee Pusher , which has gotten good reviews from the likes of Rolling Stone and others. The once North Carolina-based quintet plays Cary’s Booth Amphitheatre on August 10. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.
New York Times Visits The Triangle
Today’s New York Times features a 36-hour visit to some of the Triangle’s eclectic offerings. From Poole’s to the Scrap Exchange to the Eno River Park, the writer bounced along several interesting stops. (The Cat’s Cradle story isn’t quite right, though. Nirvana and Pearl Jam both played to very full houses in the same summer, 1991.)
Over A Barrel
The News & Observer has a good story about the Barrel Monster that appeared on Hillsborough Street. On of many gags from the nopromiseofsafety site, the monster made of construction barrel pieces appeared as a work of art. Raleigh PD didn’t seem impressed, and charged Joseph Carnevale with larceny and damage to property.
While these crimes were technically committed, Wake County D.A. Colon Willoughby questions how serious the crime is. In fact one of the commenters at nopromise, Chad, suggested that the monster be the mascot for the DOT. Not a bad idea!
Kevn Kinney Coming to Pour House
On Saturday, July 18 the Kevn Kenney Band will be playing at the Pour House. This will be the late show, and tickets are $10 in advance.
Dunkin’ Celebrates 15K in Raleigh
On Monday, June 15, Dunkin’ Brands, parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, officially opens its 15,000 th store worldwide in Raleigh, a Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins Express located at 8170 Glenwood Avenue ( map it ). To commemorate the milestone, all Raleigh Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins stores will sell coffee, donuts and soft-serve ice cream cones for the special price of 15 cents from 3 to 5 PM.
NASCAR driver Greg Biffle and NC State head football coach Tom O’Brien will be on hand at the 15,000 th store to personally serve local customers. Biffle will give customers autographed photos and also surprise two lucky customers – one each at the counter and drive-thru – with 15 months worth of coffee and ice cream. Dunkin’ Brands CEO Nigel Travis, Dunkin’ Donuts President and Chief Brand Officer Will Kussell and Baskin-Robbins Chief Brand Officer Srinivas Kumar, will also roll up their sleeves behind the counter to serve customers.
At a special ceremony at 1500 hours (3:00 p.m. ET), the company will also announce a donation to support Homes for Our Troops, a national, non-profit organization that is building a specially adapted home for a severely injured veteran in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Dunkin’ Brands will also donate 1,500 pounds of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to Give2TheTroops, a non-profit organization that sends care packages to deployed troops. The coffee will help North Carolinians serving abroad enjoy a taste of home.
Trachtenburg Family Coming to Pour House
The extremely odd and creative show known called the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players is coming to the Pour House on Wednesday July, 15. I saw them on Conan O’Brien back in 2003 when Rachel, the drummer, was only 9 years old. Here is the NPR feature on them from only a couple of months later. The show is at 9pm and the tickets are $8 in advance.
This Teardown Hits Home
Raleigh’s newest teardown is at 428 Drummond Drive ( map it ). The house was built in 1976 and had just over 4,000 square feet plus an unfinished, almost full basement. There were 4BR/3.5Baths, walk up attic, walk-in closets for all bedrooms, upstairs utility room, and 9’ ceilings downstairs. The .93 acre lot backs up to The Greenway, just across Crabtree Creek from St. David’s School. The house is currently being torn down and will be replaced in the next year. Why do I know so much about this house? It is the house in which I grew up.
The surgical disassembly of the house has been interesting. Habitat For Humanity volunteers went in and salvaged nearly every possible component, including doors, windows, electrical wiring, plumbing, and more. After complete removal of all insulation and wallboard, non-essential walls were removed and the wood was salvaged. As the removal of the roof progresses, it seems the deconstruction company is salvaging the mighty joists for the house’s tall roof.
For the record, I have been and still am a supporter of Renew Raleigh’s principles of homeowner’s rights. After being on the market for well over a year, the house finally had a buyer, and he owns the rights to do whatever he wants to with the property. I fully support him in making that address a fine home for another family in the future.
It is quite surreal to see the house come down, though. My mother was the general contractor as the house was built all through the summer after I finished First Grade. As my daughter finishes her own First Grade year, she will see it come down.
Several factors went into the house’s demise. After we lost my father two years ago, it was emotionally the right time to leave. The house, built for a family of four, was not the right place for a widow living alone. It was just too much for one person (and frankly, whoever lives in the much-bigger replacement will have to spend a lot of time/money washing windows, maintaining that yard, cleaning bathrooms – I don’t envy them!). I think the timing of my father’s death was about as bad as it could have been given the slumping real estate market. As the house sat on the market, we all got the feeling this would happen.
I feel like I have a realistic handle on the situation. Let’s face it, on a street full of all-stars, this house was not the street’s finest. Despite needing some TLC, in the grand scheme of things, it was a fine house. Perhaps the biggest enemy of the structure, though, is the property on which it sits. A lot backing up to a nature preserve, in one of Raleigh’s safest ITB neighborhoods, with absolutely no chance of having the setting spoiled by new development is a rare find. These factors presented opportunities for the site that badly outweighed a house with yesterday’s styling and in need of some repairs. It is a similar quandary to the Paschal House in Country Club Hills. Its large lot will eventually be subdivided and the house will be sadly removed, too.
While it is never a joyous occasion to lose a landmark in one’s life, the most disturbing aspect of this “scrape” is that this house simply wasn’t good enough, in this day and age ? Really? We have a president who recently proclaimed the economy as the country’s worst since the Great Depression. Mind you that was an era where some lost so much that they had a hard time finding food. Our dire situation juxtaposed against the discarding of a pretty nice, big house is difficult to reconcile with the real world.
To make matters worse, the house in which my family lived before we built this one was also torn down this year. It was a house that had problems, and its demise didn’t surprise me. Seeing my only two childhood houses I can remember coming down has been a totally bizarre experience to say the least. Hopefully it will remain a rarity in our society.
Certainly history will offer a full perspective on this and similar situations. Do we prefer that people craving big houses go to Raleigh’s outskirts and advance sprawl or replace our aging structures that do not meet the demands of the market?
The value of “stuff” in our lives is forever redefined. A seminal moment for me, however, was during Hurricane Fran. I stayed in the house with my parents the night of Raleigh’s biggest hurricane. After hours of hearing pounding rain and tall trees falling nearby, we heard a big pine hit the house. Boom, boom, boom it went as it grazed the chimney and the downward sloping far roof edge. As Fran’s eye passed, we ventured outside only to find my 1-year old BMW crushed by three trees.
As the car lay squished like a bug, I felt a strange calm. It was just a thing . Houses are no different. Memories are inside our heads, not in buildings. Our values as a society will ebb and flow, but our interactions, experiences, and accomplishments are what make our lives whole. R.I.P., 428. May your parts continue to fulfill others with great opportunity in this world.
Digital Transition Day is Here
At long last, the digital TV transition will take place. Local television stations will turn off the transmitters pushing the old analog signal, making old TVs with only rabbit ears useless. Instead, stations will be using digital transmitters that require users to have digital receivers. Those with old TVs need a digital TV converter box to pick up the new standard of over-the-air signals.
Viewers with new TVs will need to rescan the TV’s channels to pick up the stations on their new frequencies. Additionally, stations will not be transmitting at full power on these new transmitters for a few months, in most cases. Be patient, and if you are having trouble tuning a station throughout the summer, don’t forget to rescan the channels to accommodate the transitioning TV spectrum. Most stations plan to have their new transmitters up to full power by the summer’s end.
Cable subscribers will not need to do anything unless they view local HD channels through an antenna. For subscribers viewing local HD channels without an antenna, but on 5.1, 11.1, etc, no action will be needed. Also, this transition is not to be confused with Time Warner Cable’s own conversion of their signal to “digital” (QAM256). That conversion actually has to do with freeing up space for more HD channels and is not scheduled to happen soon.
In the meantime, you can follow WRAL’s instructions or just watch for important information in this video:
DVR Alert: Bull Durham
Back in the fall of 1987 movie director Ron Shelton was in the area filming some movie about baseball. The movie starred Kevin Costner, whose chilling “No Way Out” was just hitting theaters, and that Rocky Horror chick, Susan Sarandon.
Regardless of the big billing, the director still had a hard time coercing the public to fill the stands at the Durham Athletic Park for movie scenes. Fans were shifted from one side to the other to make the stadium look more filled from scene to scene. Little did we all know that the little ol’ movie named “ Bull Durham ” would end up being the one of the greatest sports movies of all time, ranking at #4 with ESPN.
While most of the outdoor scenes were shot in Durham, one of the best indoor scenes was at Raleigh’s Mitch’s Tavern . The bar is upstairs, and sets up the movie’s biggest geographic discontinuity, but only locals could be bothered by that!
Encore (TWC 310) is showing “Bull Durham” tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at 2:50pm. Set your DVRs and look for Mitch’s in the first third of the movie.
Annuals Featured in Anthropologie Catalog
MyNC.com astutely found that the June 2009 catalog for Anthropologie includes Raleigh’s Annuals among five bands featured. Good find, mync!
Recent Stories
- North Carolina Loses The Great Teacher February 9, 2015
- City Lays Markings for Currituck Obstacle Course February 4, 2015
- History Making Heels and Wolfpack Prepare for Battle January 14, 2015
- 25 Predictions for 2015 January 5, 2015
- Raleigh’s 10 Biggest Stories of 2014 January 2, 2015
- 2014: The Rain Year January 2, 2015
- Tupelo Honey Sets New Casual Standard December 1, 2014
- 2013 Predictions. A Look Back November 18, 2014
- Wicked Taco Bringing Fresh-Mex to Western Blvd November 17, 2014
- DOT Unveils I-440 Widening Plans November 12, 2014
- County Power Shift Brings Major Changes to Raleigh’s Future November 5, 2014
- Jarrett Bay Store Coming to Crabtree September 25, 2014
- FirstWatch Coming to Glenwood Avenue September 9, 2014
- Big Shindig Releases Set Times September 5, 2014
- Appearance Commission to Review Residence Inn September 3, 2014