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:
First the answers:
Now the leaderboard:
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):
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.
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.
RMSzero and I picked up our first share of vegetables from the Sprout CSA (community supported agriculture). A share costs you 25$/wk. which we split halvesies. This week only cost 10$ since it was a “smaller” early harvest. I guess.
We’ve got (left to right generally) bok choy, spinach, arugala, two types of radishes, turnips, asian greens, and baby romaine. I mean seriously people: 10$. FTW!!! I can’t remember the last time we ate this many green things.
I was wondering “how long will this stuff keep in the fridge.” But it doesn’t matter because we’ve got a whole new batch coming next Saturday so we better eat up!
Huzzah!
As Grandmaster Arbiter of the fifth RVA Blog Carnival I can apparently roll however I’d like. Because I’m a nice guy — or a terrible man with a black and evil heart — I’m going give a little more exposure to those lesser known (to me) blogs. Make sure you check the bottom of this post for a concise rundown of posts by bloggers who already have full frontal good exposure.
First, some announcements. John’s been busy and just launched Richmond’s newest community blog: Hills and Heights serving Westover Hills, Forest Hill, Woodland Heights, Forest View Heights and Stratford Hills. Also, because Richmonder’s (this one included) have a mental break down when they see snow the Second RVABlogger Congress was “postponed.”
I, somehow, missed the class trip to the crater in Petersburg. This bums me out. Apparently that town is hopping with the funky fresh ideas (free public wifi!). Additionally they call their downtown “Olde Towne.” Awesome.
One thing that I didn’t miss in class was the bit about how Richmond invented slavery. But hey, we apologized for that and we have a new “we’re sorry” statue! Check out this great primer on all things reconciliation staute.
LBH, triathlons are hard. What could possibly be worse than training for one on vacation?
Does anyone else realize that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are needlessly turtles? Nothing in the plot has anything to do with them being huge mutant turtles. I never got a good answer about this from Susan when we went to see the new TMNT movie. I will tell you she seriously likes those turtles. It is kind of weird. Don’t say anything to her about it though.
I am too dumb to grok real poetry, but Poetry Is About Feelings is hilarious and just about my speed: “Poems about anything you want in ten minutes or less!” Like: “people who wear 80’s clothes.” Amazing.
Today is the anniversary of Patrick Henry’s famous speech down there at St. John’s Church in Richmond, VA. You know the one, about the liberty and such. If I had to guess, I might predict that there may be a reenactment or something going on there, although that may simply come from spending too much time living in Williamsburg - I’m not sure how they do things in Richmond. How they roll.
So this is a famous speech, or at least, it is a famous last paragraph of a speech. The whole thing - in its entirety - is pretty short though, and is worth reading. Even without a preconceived burning hatred for the British, it is pretty effective in instilling one, at least to me. You can read it here, if you like: wikisource.
Of course, something to keep in mind while reading that, and something which the wikipedia article does not mention, but which I am fairly certain is, nonetheless, true, is that no one wrote the speech down while he was speaking it, and Henry was not the sort of person to write down his speeches beforehand. So there is probably a degree of creative license, or creative memory there; be warned.
I might be thinking of the Gettysburg Address though?
The title of this post is stolen from the Daily Show book. FYI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_liberty_or_give_me_death
Now, I don’t normally type headers in all-caps. The woman I’m married to can’t stand it. But if ever a time came when an all-caps title was needed … that time was now (WTF tenses).
Seriously, Slaughterama Four. Saturday March 31 on Belle Isle.
Slaughterama is the sweetest darn bike festival on the eastern seaboard — held right here in our town. And by bike festival I mean drunken explosion of cranks and chains. Words don’t really do it justice you really need to check out the pictures.
More details to come but this far the events include:
If you miss it, you’ll feel like the biggest toolbox. Come to watch, bring a beer, get arrested for drunk in public!
We’ve been having an interesting discussion here about Richmond City’s (possibly) unreasonable minimum monthly water bill. To summarize where we are so far:
A couple of thoughts that came out of the discussion:
Now the question is, “where do we go from here?” Richmond’s Green Party representative, Scott Burger, addressed the City Council about this issue on Monday. I guess a starting point would be to contact your city council representative. A good idea might be to organize a bit and come up with some solutions, or gather some more information.
Also, Burger is offering 100$ cash to anyone that can “find any city in the entire United States that has amore[sic.] regressive minimum water and sewer rate than Richmond’s.” More details after the jump.
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If you missed the show last Wednesday you need to atone, ATONE HARD. While you are thinking of ways to make amends for missing the coolest thing to happen in Richmond this year check out the mp3’s and video:
Turns out. If someone is going to mistake me, over here in my Haduken capacities, as a source of press and send me a press release, well, I am going to have to post it.
Apparently, and I expect someone more intelligent than I to read the press release and tell me if this is true or not, Richmond City gives you a discount if you use over 10,000 cubic feet (umm a lot?) of water each month. To subsidize that discount regular folks like you and I pay a minimum water bill of 43.55$. In Hopewell you can get your water bill down to as low as 12.20$.
So — assuming this isn’t a hoax0rz — call your council person and complain.
Full text of the release after the jump. Really, I am looking for thoughts on this one.
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My good friend the bearded MattWhite, of various fames, is hosting — what some are calling — the bestest event ever to happen ever. Tonight at The Cous his “amalgamation of saxophones, trombones, trumpet, guitar, bass, and drums” called Fight the Big Bull will cover Weezer’s Blue Album from top to bottom.
It should be excellent and I am expecting some amazing sing-a-longs. The 90’s reunion starts at 9.30pm tonight at Cous Cous. Get there early as seating and standing room will be limited.