Blogging Roller

Latest Links - BarCampRDU 2009 edition

Dave Johnson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:00:04 +0000

BarCampRDU 2009 was a great success, if I don't say so myself. Here's my brief review. We had excellent turn-out, lots of great session pitches and lots of great sessions. Everything went very smoothly and our estimates for meals, t-shirts and party-budget were spot on. We received lots of positive feedback on Twitter and blogs and at the event. We did have some difficulties with the PA system and a couple of projectors, but we got past them with a little help from our friends.

Here are the links I've rounded up since the event. If you want a taste of BarCampRDU 2009 then check Robert Fischer's excellent podcast and Tanner Lovelace's very-cool time-lapse set to spooky music.

Robert Fischer: "What's A BarCamp" Featuring BarCampRDU 2009
Excellent podcast that explains BarCampRDU and includes all session pitches
Tanner Lovelace: BarCampRDU 2009 Session Grid Timelapse:
3 minute time-lapse of session grid build, change and tear-down
eTechSuccess: BarCamp 2009
"BarCamp was well worth the time" plus a list of the sessions
Joe Gregorio | BitWorking | BarCamp RDU
"a well run event that was a lot of fun to attend"
Best Thing Ever: Getting Involved - NCSU Web Developers
"I got to meet a lot of really great folks"
Digital Papercuts: Triangle Tech Week Wrap-Up
"A big shoutout to [all] the organizers and volunteers for a great unconference"
Matthew Bass - BarCampRDU was a rousing success
"I heard several attendees comment that the presentations outdid last year's camp"
BarCampRDU weekend is here!
Thanks to host Red Hat all the BarCampRDU 2009 sponsors!

We might have to do it again next year

BarCampRDU coming up soon, still needs sponsors

Dave Johnson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:54:59 +0000

BarCampRDU 2009 is rapidly approaching (August 8, 2009) and the event is sold out with 250 registered attendees. Problem is, we're only about halfway to our funding goal. I guess it could be the economy or maybe it's event overload; doesn't it seem like we had a heckuva lot of tweetup-camp-athons around here lately?

Either way, we're not ready to give up yet. We're doing another call for sponsors and trying to open up as many sponsor opportunities as possible. Check out the BarCampRDU blog for more information.

Save the date: BarCamp RDU 2009

Dave Johnson — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:53:27 +0000

We've got a date and a venue for BarCamp RDU 2009, so mark your calendars:

BarCamp RDU 2009 - August 8 at Red Hat headquarters in Raleigh, NC

More information and registration coming soon...

Triangle Tweetup tomorrow

Dave Johnson — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:37:51 +0000

The first Triangle Tweetup of the year is tomorrow at the stylin' Glenwood South facilities of Edge Office. There's a site now with an interesting speaker line-up and people tweeting about it (and food).

Count me in!

Update: Reminder the #triangletweetup is a food drive too, bring some nonperishables, info: http://tinyurl.com/6vn3ct via @ginnyskal #givingback

Triangle is hopping!

Dave Johnson — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:09:54 +0000

Joe Gregorio: Wow, the local area is really hopping these days, check out the 14 upcoming conferences, camps, workshops and events. Here's some video from the just passed RTP Startup Weekend, we've got coworking sites popping up, and of course a blog to cover it all.

That blog that Joe mentioned is new, NBC 17's 30threads.com, which launched last night at a very well attended blogger, beer and BBQ bash in the Edge Office coworking space in downtown Raleigh. The site is both a community aggregator and a blog authored by local/social media superheros Wayne Sutton and Ginny Skalski. Congrats to Ginny, Wayne and NBC 17 on a great launch and what looks to be a great new community site like no other in the Triangle.

1 week 'til BarCamp RDU!

Dave Johnson — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:11:58 +0000

BarCamp RDU 2008 is one week from today and it's shaping up the be the biggest and I hope the best BarCamp RDU so far.

Here are a couple of notes for attendees:

Check the attendee list! On July 21, we decided we had budget and space to register everybody on the waiting list. If you were on the waiting list you are now registered to attend.

Remove yourself if you can't attend. If you registered but cannot make it, please remove your name from the list. For planning purposes, we need to have as accurate a count as is possible.

Propose sessions in advance. If you are interested in initiating or attending a session on a specific topic, then go right ahead and add your topic to the Proposed Sessions list.

Oh, and if you are interested in helping out with preparations or on the day of the event, then please let us know (dave.johnson at rollerweblogger.org or wayne at wayne-sutton.com)

And one final note. BarCamp RDU would not be possible without the very generous financial support of our sponsors and our host. So...

See you next Saturday at BarCamp RDU 2008!

Sixteen days until BarCamp RDU 2008

Dave Johnson — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:13:57 +0000

Just a gentle reminder that BarCamp RDU 2008 is coming soon. And one request. We've got 209 people registered and 31 on the waiting list so please help us out and if you registered but cannot make it, please remove your name from the list.

If you are interested in helping out with preparations or on the day of the event, then please let us know (dave.johnson at rollerweblogger.org or wayne at wayne-sutton.com)

Help sponsor BarCamp RDU 2008

Dave Johnson — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 17:27:33 +0000

After attending two great BarCamps here in Raleigh, I'm just as pleased as punch to be helping out on the BarCamp RDU organizing committee this year.

We put out the call for sponsors a couple of weeks ago and thanks to some generous sponsors including iContact, Canonical, rPath, Brian Russell, OpenNMS and Montie Design we quickly met 65% of our small budget. Now we need to wrap things up, money-wise. If you'd like to get some great positive exposure among the best and brightest in the local tech community by sponsoring, here's your chance.

If you're interested in sponsoring or helping out as a volunteer, contact me via email for more info (dave.johnson at rollerweblogger.org). If you're interested in attending, you'll have to add your name to the waiting list -- at this point we're sold out.

Blackbox tour coming to the Triangle

Dave Johnson — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:43:33 +0000

In case you're not following the Blackbox blog, the Sun Modular Data Center is coming to the Triangle on March 12, 2008. The event will be hosted at the SAS Institute campus in Cary, NC. Here's the blurb:

Join us and enjoy presentations and tours throughout the day of Sun's Modular Datacenter, the world's first datacenter in a box - a 6.1 meter (20 foot) shipping container. Also known as Project Blackbox, this is a virtualized datacenter optimized for extreme energy, space, and performance efficiency. It applies Sun's trademark innovation and network computing infrastructure expertise to engineer out complexity and provide a whole new alternative for quickly adding datacenter capacity anywhere it's needed, with the ability to move it as business needs change. Because of its modular, high density design, the Sun Modular Datacenter packs more heterogeneous compute power in less space than a traditional datacenter, and can be configured, deployed, and quickly modified and redeployed for another project virtually anywhere worldwide.

Interested? The sign up is here.

NC State Fair 2007

Dave Johnson — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:39:19 +0000

We spent most of the day today at the state fair. Kids loved it. Parents endured it. We saw the bunnies, roosters, cows and pigs. We avoided the fried-thing of the year. We used up a fist-full of pre-purchased ride tickets and learned that the dubious safety factor makes the rides much more exciting than the big sturdy ones at the theme parks.

Social software and multi-media whiz kid for hire

Dave Johnson — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:44:00 +0000

Local multi-media and social software whiz kid Brian Russell is hanging out his shingle as an consultant. Best of luck, Brian. If you're looking to grow an online community or upgrade your organization to Web 2.0, check out his resume and portfolio.

RTP web-tech/blogger meetup tonight, 6:30PM at Serena

Dave Johnson — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:39:37 +0000

The Raleigh Bloggers meet-up has morphed into a more inclusive RTP/Triangle-wide gathering, not just for bloggers and not just for Raleigh. We're still meeting on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays, but we've moved the location from Raleigh Times Bar to the more centrally located Serena, a nice restaurant/bar with free WIFI. And we've established a community page at Ning. Our first meet-up in this new configuration is tonight so come on down and join us at 6:30PM tonight.

Raleigh bloggers tonight and a proposed change

Dave Johnson — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:05:33 +0000

Looks like we're going to have a pretty good turn-out for the Raleigh bloggers meet-up tonight (7PM at Raleigh Times) with Pat Mueller, Jackson Fox, Wayne Sutton, Michael Kimsal and perhaps even Mister Sugar himself planning to show up. That's a little unusual because attendance has been pretty spotty recently. In fact, last time it was just Pat and I sipping pints outside of the Raleigh Times Bar.

Pat proposed that we rename, refocus and relocate the Raleigh Bloggers meet-up. He suggested that we admit our geek nature by renaming it the "RTP Blogging Code Monkeys Meet-up." Also that we move it to the RTP area so it's convenient to folks from all three corners of the Triangle. I'm ready for a change and declining attendance is a drag, so I'm a big +1 on that. I suggested that we be more inclusive to non-bloggers with a blurb like this:

RTP dev/blogger meet-up. Come and chat about software development and web-technologies with Triangle-area code monkeys and bloggers.

Interested? If so, subscribe to the BlogTogether mailing lists for further updates.

BarCamp RDU - August 4, 2007

Dave Johnson — Thu, 5 Jul 2007 23:12:18 +0000

In the unlikely event that you are a Triangle area geek who reads this blog and has not yet signed up, you might want to know that registration for BarCamp RDU is open.

Glassfish at UNC-Chapel Hill

Dave Johnson — Tue, 3 Jul 2007 21:41:01 +0000

Via the Aquarium, there's a nice Java EE and Glassfish adoption story over in Chillboro:

Adam Constabaris: A fundamental question for us in building this application was whether to use Tomcat and "soup it up" by using Spring to add services Tomcat doesn't provide itself, or whether to use a full Java EE container. We could have made it work with the servlet container approach, since our application isn't heavily "enterprisey" and we were initially reluctant to pay the complexity price of EJBs. After looking at the Java EE 5 specification, though, we saw a lot of ways we could simplify and standardize things, such as using JSF 1.2 and coding to the Java Persistence API rather than using Hiberrnate APIs directly.

Hey! I know that guy. Hi Adam.

Is there a trend towards full app servers and away from plain old Tomcat? Is it because of strong open source Java EE offerings from Sun, JBoss and Apache? I don't know, but I sure hope so.

Raleigh bloggers - tonight

Dave Johnson — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:21:57 +0000

It's meet-up time and as usual, I'll be there. Details - http://joshstaiger.org/raleighbloggers

RTP 2.0 Open Social

Dave Johnson — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 15:10:27 +0000

Via Paul Jones:

RTP 2.0 and the Council for Entrepreneurial Development are proud to present the first RTP 2.0 Social. Sponsored by RTP 2.0, CED, and Broadwick, makers of IntelliContact, this event will be held Wednesday, April 4, from 7-9PM at Tylerâ€™s Tavern in Durham (located in the American Tobacco Campus).
This event is open to everyone interested in meeting other technologists, innovators and entrepreneurs in the area. The goal of RTP 2.0 is to bring individuals together for meeting, sharing ideas, and having fun. Friends are welcome, of course.

Sounds like another nice opportunity to meet-up with the local tech crowd. I just signed up for the mailing list.

Raleigh Bloggers meetup Wednesday (change of time & venue)

Dave Johnson — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:59:20 +0000

We've decided to change the time and place of our Raleigh Bloggers meet-up. Too many folks complained about Tuesday night, so we've moved to the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of each month. Now we'll find out if "Tuesday's not good for me" was just an excuse to avoid hanging with the tech/geek patrol. And we've moved from crowded and loud Helios Coffee to the quiet Raleigh Times Bar (yeah, right). I mean, if nobody's gonna show up we might as well drink, no?

When: Second and Fourth Wednesdays of every month at 6:30PM

Where: The Raleigh Times Bar (Map)

14 E Hargett St
Raleigh, NC  27601
919.833.0999

Raleigh blogger meetup -Tuesday at Helios, 6:30pm

Dave Johnson — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:01:05 +0000

It's time for the first Raleigh Bloggers meetup of the new year.

About Us. We are a group of bloggers who live in and around Raleigh, North Carolina. We meet twice a month at a local coffee shop just to chat. We have no formal agenda. Sometimes we talk about blogging, sometimes podcasting, sometimes technology, sometimes politics, ... mostly whatever's on our minds. We've been meeting regularly since March of 2005.
Join Us! New faces are always welcome, whether you're a professional blogger, a newbie looking for help starting a blog, or someone who just likes to talk about nerdy things. All you have to do is show up and look for a group of guys with laptops (invariably it's always guys, but women are certainly welcome!).

Meetup details are on the wiki.

(Helios Coffee. By Raleigh blogger abbyladybug / Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker)

19 days until the NC Science Blogging Conference

Dave Johnson — Tue, 2 Jan 2007 09:06:55 +0000

The North Carolina Science Blogging Conference, Saturday, January 20, 2007. This is a free, open and public event for scientists, educators, students, journalists, bloggers and anyone interested in discussing science communication, education and literacy on the Web.

See Bora's blog for an update on sessions, sponsors and ways you can help.

Film Babble

Dave Johnson — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 21:18:19 +0000

Here's a little something else I'm thankful for. My brother Dan has been low-frequency blogging for a while and he's getting better and better. His blog is called Film Babble and it's definitely babble (and I mean that in the absolutely best way possible), but his writing style is interesting and he got a pretty deep knowledge base to draw on when it comes to movies and music. His latest post is about director Robert Altman, who just passed away.

Happy Thanksgiving

Dave Johnson — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 21:10:30 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate this fine American holiday and happy Thursday to those that don't. As always, I'm thankful for my happy and healthy family and happy that we'll be able to get together this weekend. And, as usual, we enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's place over in Chapel Hill. For us, the traditional dinner is turkey, stuffing, gravy, rice, cranberry sauce, stir-fried veggies and dessert of pumpkin pie and chocolate pecan pie (my personal favorite). Tomorrow we'll head down to Andi's folk's beach house near Topsail Island, NC for a couple of days of doing mostly nothing -- the water will be cold but with temps around 70F my crazy kids might just brave the icy waves. Hope you have a good one too.

Raleigh blogger meetup tonight at Helios, 6:30PM

Dave Johnson — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:28:12 +0000

And Helios is a very nice little coffee/bar, if a little crowded at times. Details are on the wiki.

Old Reliable Run 2006

Dave Johnson — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 16:18:08 +0000

I ran the Old Reliable Run today and thanks to the cool weather, overcast skies and better training I did a little better than last year. Last year I had to stop to walk a couple of times and I ran the 10K in 55:36 minutes. This year I didn't stop, felt strong and I think my time was closer to 54 minutes.

Update: Here are the (soon to be) official times:

Place Bib  Name                    Chiptim Guntime Pace
===== ==== ======================= ======= ======= =====
489   1443 DAVID JOHNSON           54:31   55:18   8:54

Raleigh blogger meetup: Tuesday at Helios Coffee

Dave Johnson — Mon, 6 Nov 2006 17:48:59 +0000

We've got a new meeting place, Helios Coffee in the Glenwood South area of Raleigh. Please join us to talk blogging, podcasting, politics, tech or whatever else is on your mind.

Time: Tuesday Nov. 7, 2006 - 6:30PM
Place: Helios Coffee, 413 Glenwood Ave, Raleigh, NC (map)

2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference

Dave Johnson — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 22:12:57 +0000

Anton Zuiker wrote to tell me about the 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference coming up January 20th, 2007. I just registered and I'm looking forward to learning more about how scientists are using blogs and RSS/Atom blog tech in their work.

Cafe Cyclo is history

Dave Johnson — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 22:34:12 +0000

I meant to blog it last week, but I forgot. When I arrived at Cafe Cyclo last week for the bloggers meet-up I found Josh and Sam standing under the awning taking shelter from the rain. The outside tables were gone and peering through the dark windows, I saw that everything was gone. Wow. Sad to lose such a unique place (unique for Raleigh, that is). I'm not sure what happened. Maybe the Raleighing folks have a clue.

So now we need a new meeting place. Josh and I think Helios is probably the best choice. Any other ideas, Raleigh bloggers? Ideally we'd like a relatively quiet place with good coffee, beer, food and free WIFI.

Latest links: rules for blogging edition

Dave Johnson — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:22:28 +0000

Lots of reading material on rules or lack of rules for blogging today.

First, some posts about Tim Bray's use of the F-word in a blog about Sun's new Project Blackbox. My take on the F-word? It's good and I use it, but I haven't had the guts or the reason to use it on my blog (although I have posted quotes that include the word). I'm with Scoble on this one: when somebody like Tim says something is F-ing cool, then I sit up and take notice.

Can a corporate blogger use the "F-word?"
Scoble: "I paid attention to that new product launch BECAUSE of Tim's language"
Tim's Bomb
Douglas: "If you believe [free speech laws] carry over to your corporate blog, then we disagree."
The F-bomb: never cool
Robertson: "when you use coarse language, there's no upside. That's right - none."
Oh My Goodness Gracious
Bray: "I'm sincerely sorry. But that's really what I'm like."

Sun VP Dave Douglas' point about corporate vs. personal blogs seems valid, but as Douglas points out, it's not clear whether Tim's blog personal or corporate. Tim's posts are included on the front page of blogs.sun.com through the magic of aggregation (actually, only the first sentence or two). Do we need to add a bad language filter to the aggregator? Should Tim and other externally hosted Sun bloggers provide a safe-for-Sun feed for our aggregator that includes only polished professional posts?

And second, some links from Raleigh News and Observer's Sunday feature on blogging, which included articles by Triangle blogging mavens Ruby Sinreich and Anton Zuiker:

Raleigh News and Observer: Rules to blog by
Sunday feature on blogging, rules, ethics and journalism
When blogging, face the conversation
by local blogger Anton Zuiker, published in the Raleigh News and Observer
Moving past the "blogs versus journalism" debate
by local blogger Ruby Sinreich, published in the Raleigh News and Observer

Looking for a tech job around RTP?

Dave Johnson — Thu, 3 Aug 2006 18:04:25 +0000

The Southeast VC blog has a good summary of local tech news sites, recruiters, networking opportunities and actual companies that are currently hiring here in the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle Park (RTP) area. He didn't mention Microsoft, which has around 100 employees (most working on Team System) -- last I heard they're hiring.

Raleigh bloggers meetup, tonight 6:30PM at Cafe Cyclo

Dave Johnson — Tue, 1 Aug 2006 16:01:26 +0000

For details, check the Raleigh bloggers wiki.

BarCampRDU, let's do it again!

Dave Johnson — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:59:02 +0000

Congrats and thanks to the organizers, volunteers, Red Hat and other sponsors for making BarCampRDU a great success. I really enjoyed it. In case you have no idea what a "barcamp" is here's the deal. According to the BarCamp wiki, a BarCamp is "an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment."

The event started around 9AM Saturday morning with a quick introduction from conference organizer Fred Stutzman. Everybody who wanted to propose a session lined up at the front of the room and gave a 30 second pitch for their idea. Most of the proposals were technical like "linux systems admin" or "atom publishing protocol," but there were some non-technical ideas too. For example there was a session on "how to juggle" and one on "how to dance with girls" (not sure how that turned out, given the M/F ratio).

After the session pitches, the session leaders claimed spots on the schedule, which was a 10-foot by 15-foot sheet of paper taped to the wall. Next attendees voted for sessions by putting tick marks on the schedule using magic markers. Based on the votes and conversations between session leaders, some sessions were combined and some were moved to smaller or larger meeting rooms -- all right on the spot. It was amazing how well that worked and how quickly we were able to arrive at a schedule and by 10AM we were all attending sessions.

The sessions themselves were not so unconventional. They were definitely more interactive than the usual tech-conference format, but generally followed the normal speaker/audience model. I'm not complaining. I enjoyed the sessions, learned a lot and heard a lot of interesting stories. I attended sessions on open source business and it's ability to innovate (Tarus Balog and ), RESTful Notification Architecture (Seairth Jacobs), social networks (Fred Stutzman) and the Atom publishing protocol (Joe Gregorio).

That's all I have time for tonight. If you want more info, Fred Stutzman has a great round-up of the blog and news coverage (and check it out -- I was mentioned in the News & Observer article) plus some guidelines for running your own BarCamp. I hope we'll do another one this year -- I'd like to help out next time around.

Tags: topic:[BarCampRDU]

Alberto

Dave Johnson — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:13:40 +0000

Tropical Storm Alberto dumped a lot of rain on us yesterday. Normally I don't worry about flooding, since I'm on a hill, but we had 4-5 inches of water flowing through the backyard for a couple of hours. I waded out and took a couple of photos for Andi since she's at the beach. Also, WRAL's has a nice slideshow of Alberto-hits-the-Triangle photos.

Go Pack!

Dave Johnson — Mon, 1 May 2006 19:36:41 +0000

Looks like WolfBlogs is live and my alma mater N.C. State University is blogging with Roller. I don't know the specifics of the setup, but I believe they are running on a cluster of Solaris/SPARC servers and using a pretty standard Roller configuration (i.e. Tomcat and MySQL).

Raleigh bloggers meetup tonight at Cafe Cyclo

Dave Johnson — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:38:17 +0000

Triangle Citysearch: Rust-colored walls, wooden chairs and a colorful row of mounted lights give Cafe Cyclo a cozy atmosphere, perfect for quiet conversations. By day, expect a quiet lunch spot. By night, expect a jazzy social scene with understated energy and lots of charm. The menu is as loaded with drink concoctions as it is with munchies. This is the perfect place for a light meal; the Asian-influenced dishes range from Vietnamese spring rolls to seared tuna.

That's us: jazzy and social with understated energy. Come on down. Josh has the details.

Surprise visitor at the meet-up

Dave Johnson — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 23:46:39 +0000

Congressman Brad Miller (house.gov/bradmiller) and his campaign manager PJ Puryear showed up at Cafe Cyclo tonight for the Raleigh blog meet-up to learn more about blogging and connect with fellow bloggers. How cool is that! I don't think he expected to run into a bunch of geeky tech bloggers, but despite that we had a great time talking blog search and RSS and politics (apparently, everybody present was a democrat). And, I made sure to get in a word or two about the evils of DRM and the broadcast flag. Check out Josh's and Bill's blogs for more about the evening.

Also... I almost forgot to mention that I got to take a behind the scenes look at the IBM DeveloperWorks Roller implementation. Bill logged in and showed me around. They're still on Roller 2.0, so they don't have comment management/moderation, but they do have tagging and they've made a couple of small layout changes to the editor/admin UI.

Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on the local jock rivalry

Dave Johnson — Mon, 6 Mar 2006 19:23:33 +0000

Audience member: (screams) Duke sucks!
Jeff Tweedy: Whatever.
Jeff Tweedy: Ah, OK, (pause) Duke sucks!
Audience: (loud applause)
Jeff Tweedy: Unless we're playing Duke, in which case, uh... (mumbles something)

... later, during the encore ...

Jeff Tweedy: (sarcastically) And my sincere congraluations on your sports successes.

And by the way, Wilco rocked! UNC's Memorial Hall is a great place to see a show. It's pretty sure it's been renovated at least once since the last time I saw a rock show there (HÃ¼sker DÃ¼, back in in the stone age).

Where's winter?

Dave Johnson — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 15:07:48 +0000

With temps in the upper 60s in Raleigh for the past couple of weeks, warm enough for my traditional geek t-shirt, shorts and berks uniform, I'm starting to wonder if we're going to miss winter entirely this year.

Google searching the Triangle

Dave Johnson — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 12:26:10 +0000

Jason Caplain, a VC here in Raleigh, posted a rumor about Google to open RTP office. The story also made the Raleigh paper. The News and Observer story Google Looks for Local Offices quotes Andy Beal, who speculates that Google may be considering aquisition of local startups ChannelAdvisor or Motricity. Or perhaps they just want to syphon off some talented but bored IBM and SAS employees.

Red state rebels

Dave Johnson — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 09:44:49 +0000

<a href= "http://townhall.townofchapelhill.org/agendas/ca051024/3a3/dan_coleman_new_federal_priorities_resolution.htm"> Town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina: NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Mayor and Town Council that the Council hereby petitions the Bush Administration and Congress to immediately end the war in Iraq, re-establish a progressive tax code, curtail end favoritism toward corporate interests, develop responsible policies focused on renewable energy, and commit to priorities that reflect the common good.

According to <a href= "http://greenespace.blogspot.com/2005/10/chapel-hill-to-bush-end-war-now.html">Sally Greene, "the Town Council enthusiastically and unanimously passed" the resolution.

Raleighing

Dave Johnson — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:36:43 +0000

Cool. A blog about Raleigh. Via Wade Minter

Connells rockin' the house

Dave Johnson — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 10:48:24 +0000

<img src="http://static.flickr.com/25/57149823_ebbe19cae5.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" />
Rockin' the house
Originally uploaded by fieldmouse.

Fieldmouse took some good shots of The Connells show at Mission Valley saturday night. I was there. It was hot and muggy as hell, but after a somewhat shakey start, sound-wise, the guys put on a great show.

Old Reliable Run 2005

Dave Johnson — Thu, 4 Aug 2005 16:54:49 +0000

I just signed up for the Old Reliable Run 10K, which takes place in downtown Raleigh on November 13, 2005. You can sign up too at active.com. It's been over 10 years since I've run a 10K and despite my daily 3-mile run I still feel pretty out-of-shape, so I'll be happy just to finish without walking. Now I need to figure out my training program and find some good 4, 5 and 6 mile routes. I can tell that BoulderRunning.com's Google maps based route planner is going to come in handy. It opens up in Boulder, but appears to work anywhere in the US.

Raleigh Blog Meetup: Tuesday June 19, 2005

Dave Johnson — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:28:21 +0000

I don't see the notice on Josh's site, so I'll post it here: Join us tomorrow (Tuesday, July 19) for the fortnightly Raleigh/Cary Bloggers meetup.

What: An open meeting to talk about blogging, podcasting & whatever's on your mind
When: Tues @ 6:30 p.m.
Where: Cafe Cyclo, in Cameron Village

2020 Cameron St
Raleigh, NC 27605 (map)
(919) 829-3773

Who: Bloggers & people who want to blog (Podcasters welcome!)

Hope to see you there!

NC Museum of Art is blogging too

Dave Johnson — Tue, 3 May 2005 21:54:03 +0000

NCMOA has a blog, powered by Movable Type.

Triangle photo stream

Dave Johnson — Sat, 9 Apr 2005 09:43:25 +0000

If you want to subscribe to newsfeed of photos from the Triangle area, paste the URL below into your newsreader. You'll get photos of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, NC along with the occasional photo of Durham, England and random triangle art. I think that's a pretty good mix.

http://www.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=raleigh,chapelhill,durham,triangle

Right on Chapel Hill!

Dave Johnson — Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:18:21 +0000

My hometown makes me proud and activist bloggers played a part From the News and Observer:

CHAPEL HILL -- They swooped in by the busload to the town they said was filled with "dead churches" that "disregard the Bible," hoping to win over some sinners.
"I came here because I love Chapel Hill," said the Rev. Ron Wood, pastor of Celebration Assembly of God on Weaver Dairy Road and a member of the anti-gay-rights group Called 2 Action.
"I'm an ordained minister, too," he added, referring to several speakers at the Town Council meeting Monday who identified themselves as clergy members. "But I'm not one who believes I have the right to disregard the word of God."
Their message was rejected by the majority of Chapel Hillians who met them at Town Hall with signs, T-shirts and buttons proclaiming their support for gay rights.

Triangle blogger con 2005 links

Dave Johnson — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:58:09 +0000

Bruce has a great list of links about the Triangle Blogger conference. The first weekly Triangle blogger meet-up is tonight at Caffe Driade in Chapel Hill (Anton Zuiker has the details).

Raleigh, NC: coffee shops with free wireless

Dave Johnson — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:25:11 +0000

These are the best places I've found in Raleigh to get work done, drink good coffee, and enjoy free wireless access to the net.

Helios Coffee - in trendy Glenwood South (413 Glenwood Ave). Bonus features: very cool music, outside seating, good smoothies, beer and wine.
Percolator Lounge - in North Raleigh at Quail Corners (5039 Falls of Neuse Rd, used to be a Cupajoe)
Cafe Cyclo - in Cameron Village (2020 Cameron St.). Bonus features: excellent food, full bar, ice cream store next door.

Know any others? I need to find similar places in Chapel Hill. I'll leave comments open on this one.

Raleigh paralyzed by 0.7 inches of snow

Dave Johnson — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 22:51:51 +0000

We were hit by an unexpected winter storm today. It dusted the area with less than an inch of snow and paralyzed the city. Hundreds of kids are still stuck at school and many will spend the night there. We've got a couple of extra kids staying with us too. Folks are trapped in gridlock all over the area right now at 11PM, still not able to get home from work even though they left halfway through the afternoon. Folks are complaining about the school system's poor planning, the county's inadequate response, and the horrible gridlock. How do I know? They're snowblogging it on the WRAL site.

Shorts weather

Dave Johnson — Wed, 5 Jan 2005 10:09:47 +0000

It's cold in Denver, but we're enjoying some local warming here in Raleigh. It's so warm, in fact, that the kids all wore shorts today to school. I'm working out on the porch today.