Lately my Netflix has been slow to arrive — if they arrive at all. I’ve had to request replacements for both Superman Returns (eh) and Stranger than Ficton (!). This really isn’t that surprising since our mailman letter carrier, depending on his emotional state that day, leaves our mail on the porch, in the door, on the ground, and sometimes even in the mailbox.

Today I get three Netflix in the mail, including two copies of Stranger than Fiction: the original and the replacement. The both look like this:

Both of them had been opened and resealed with blue painters tape. The original disc was shipped 5/16 and the replacement was shipped 5/23. Both arrived yesterday (5/30). I’m so confused! Who opens Netflix that don’t belong to them and then sends them back in the mail? I mean you’ve already committed a felony, why not just keep the free DVD’s?

So listen up. If you’ve been stealing my Neflix: stop. Kthx bai.

Sorry for the delay gents. In about two hours I got a new toy to play with and one of my more popular websites decided to not work anymore. SO I’VE BEEN A BIT BUSY.

Here are the answers to the bonus questions:

• What percentage of the population is elderly (55+)?
  • 6.3% (129)
• What percentage of the population are children (under 18)?
  • 56.4% (1,160)
• Average rent amount?
  • 178$

First the answers:

• What is the average household income?
  • 8,744$
• What is the average length of occupancy?
• 7.1 years
• How many of the households are a minority?
  • 100% (753)
• How many households have married parents?
  • 0% (0)
• How many of the heads of households are female?
  • 92.5% (697)
• How many households have employment income?
  • 31% (234)

Now the leaderboard:

• Daniel
• Eric
• Matt
• RMSZero
• wolf
• Sam

Which means Daniel is getting a free CD that someone randomly sent me! You can pick from two, and let me just say: if you like Celine Dion, you just will love these CD’s.

A couple bonus questions that popped up in the comments (know this: total Gilpin population is 2,056):

• What percentage of the population is elderly (55+)?
• What percentage of the population are children (under 18)?
• Average rent amount?

Eric also asked:

I would also be interested in knowing if Gilpen is full (all apartments rented?)

Not only is Gilpin full, there is a waiting list to get in.

Round two, FIGHT!

I’m going to ask you a couple questions about the demographics in Gilpin Court. You guess in the comments, and then I will tell the correct answers. If you get win I will mail you one of these two CD’s I got in the mail randomly. No fair if I’ve already told you or if you use the internets. Know this before we start: there are 753 households in Gilpin Court.

• What is the average household income?
• What is the average length of occupancy?
• How many of the households are a minority?
• How many households have married parents?
• How many of the heads of households are female?
• How many households have employment income?

Get to it!

Oh as an ef-why-eye, I’ve been working closely with FT Rea to launch Richmond’s newest community blog: The Fan District Hub.

FDHub is a much grander undertaking than WotBN.net. Think of it more as a ‘zine — which is great since FT has some serious ‘zine experience. Also, I designed FDHub as well as developed it. I don’t get a chance to design things very often and I enjoy when I get the chance. It is definitely something that is very difficult for me, but I like how this one turned out.

So if you live or work in the fan now you’ve got a great source of news, events, and info. If you’ve got tips send, make sure you email them to FT!

As mentioned previously my randomly assigned topic at the Greater Richmond Challenge II was “Workforce Housing.” Real quick: workforce housing is housing for people that form the backbone of society (think teachers, police, fire, clergy). Workforce housing is different than affordable housing. Affordable housing is for the guy who sells you beer at 7-11.

Our day was filled with meetings all over the region with interesting people: the publisher of the RTD (aside: I was really hoping that Tom was going to be lame. But he is awesome, intelligent, and funny. I don’t know how good he is going to be at running the ol’ paper but as a dude: he rocks.), the head of planning for Hanover County, an employee of St. Joseph’s Villa, the head of the Department of Revitalization for Henrico. That was all before lunch.

We had lunch at the FRIENDS center in Gilpin Court. While there we spoke with the property manager of Gilpin, some representatives from the RRHA, the director of the Department of Community Development, as well as a resident. I’ll share some demographic stats from Gilpin in another post. They are eye opening.

After lunch we went to a successful affordable housing neighborhood on Jeff Davis called Winchester Greens. The Better Housing Coalition renovated a depilated apartment complex to some pretty awesome Fan-esque apartments — that rent for 700$. It is probably the most “successful” workforce housing option in the region.

The final place we toured was the South Richmond SRO. A SRO, “single room occupancy,” is a renovated hotel where each resident lives in one room. These facilities cater to the homeless and provide social services as well as extremely cheap rent. An astounding 96% of people leaving the South Richmond SRO are self sufficient after one year. !!! . That is amazing to me. The other great thing is the whole renovation cost 1.9M$ This isn’t a convention center, or a performing arts center sized project. We could plop these down across the city for basically nothing and move a lot of people off of the streets.

I’m back from the Greater Richmond Challenge II. I had an excellent time and met some pretty awesome people. We traveled all around the the area to each of the three counties and city. We went to Gilpn Court. We went to Winchester Greens on the south side.

I’ll be back early next week to give a good brain dump of things I learned. It’s still kicking around in my head at the moment.

Now back to learning to play the ukulele.

PS. For a mini run down check out John(whom I finally met in person!)’s blog.

Tomorrow I take part in the Greater Richmond Challenge. Basically I pay the Chamber of Commerce a bunch of money so I can brainstorm ideas to make Richmond a better place to live. I will be there because I am Richmond’s number one fan/cheerleader. NUMBER ONE.

There are 95 participants and 5 topics; making two tenish person groups for each topic. My topic is “Workforce Housing.” Last year “Workforce Housing” was called “Affordable Housing” which is way more interesting to me. Workforce Housing: teachers, firemen, police, other people necessary to our society can’t afford to buy the median priced house on their median incomes. That is the issue. (Affordable Housing was a broader issue, something like “poor people are being priced out of owning a home.)

Does that suck? Should the rent? Should we/government give them some sort of helping hand? Should we/government give developers tax incentives to build affordable housing? These are the kinds of questions we are going to be asking several Richmond area officials/peeps.

It should be fun. Do you have any questions you’d like answered/asked? Drop a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

THE CHALLENGE BEGINS TOMORROW.