Terribly so.

Sorry.

link here.

video here:

No podcast this week

My voice is tired from all the sales pitches I (your humble chef and businessman) have been tossing around this week, along with informing the population at large on the things they should know about, but don't seem to.

In other words - I've been a blabbermouth..

So I give you this song, which describes the whole Victory Stadium situation to a T.

Have fun.

Act NOW!

I mean.. really now.. like absolutely NOW!

Courtesy of Ebay, and yours for only $15.50 (plus $9.95 shipping and handling), but this is an auction, so the price may change!

Imagine the excitement of owning your own "bought and paid for" Victory Stadium brick - complete with dormant black mold from numerous floods! Perfect for your home or office.

100% Genuine! Made of real whatever bricks are made of!

(Also offering shipping insurance for an additional $1.50, because brick may be damaged during shipping)

Allright - Im not looking to single anyone out on this, but sheeeeeesh.. enough with the bricks allright?

Sometimes I love my inbox..

Aside from the helpful suggestions for the Victory Stadium bricks.. I also got this, direct from the city government..

ROANOKE, VA - As of Thursday, July 13, at 8 p.m., the City of Roanoke
has
given away all Victory Stadium bricks purchased from the
demolition
contractor for distribution to citizens.  No additional
bricks will be
available for distribution.

As requested by City Council, a number of
bricks have been set aside
from those purchased to be used in the
construction of a memorial to
Victory Stadium.  All remaining bricks on the
site belong to the
contractor.


Allright.. What the hell.. the city PAID for bricks from it's own building? Maybe we should have just let it fall down on its own, then the bricks would have been free.

I call for a full investigation into this "Water(logged)Brick-Gate"... no, seriously. PAYING for your own bricks from a building you PAID someone to demolish.

Oh, as if this weather wasn't headache inducing....

For now and the foreseeable future

I've decided to add a ticker from VirginiaGasPrices.com to the sidebar over there. Every time you load up the page, it will display the high and low for the entire state - clicking on it will take you to the full list.

We paid 40 bucks to fill the tank yesterday at Sheetz, at $2.68 a gal. I have a feeling we might not see gas that cheap for the rest of the summer. But at least we have the sidebar thingy to let us know.

Things one can do with your bricks:

I do not pretend to understand the need for a brick, much less 4 bricks. But in order to be helpful, heres a list of things you can do with your bricks.

• Donate them to the Homeless Shelter. If enough people do it, maybe they can build a new shelter out of the old bricks.
• Use them to elevate your hibachi.
• Personal Protection.
• Doorstop for really windy days.
• If you heat all 4 of them in the oven, wrapped in foil - they will keep you warm while you shovel in the winter.
• Create a very small patio.

Well, thats all I've got for now. Any suggestions - send em' in.. You just know in another 2 months people are going to be looking at these bricks trying to figure out why they have 4 of them.

A new banner to march under...

A new flag to fly.

Something to unite us all again, beyond petty squabblings and forced community spirit. More on the new flag to come..

Remember the hoopla?

The C2C competition, the different futuristic types of housing it would bring. Haven't heard much lately have you..

First Cradle-to-Cradle House Built in Roanoke

July 12, 2006 Courtesy Corinna Grogan at IDG Gainsboro, a Roanoke, Virginia, neighborhood pockmarked by failed urban-renewal exercises, may be an unlikely place to find America’s first cradle-to-cradle (C2C) home. But this month local architects Stephen Feather, AIA, and Richard Rife, AIA, will complete a 1,623-square-foot, two-bedroom house that meets those sustainability principles. Several other C2C submissions are now in various stages of development. Feather and Rife’s design was one of 625 entries in a 2004 international competition to apply William McDonough’s C2C protocol to new residential construction. Local firm SmithLewis Architecture arranged the competition when Roanoke officials hired the firm's principal, Gregg Lewis, AIA, as consultant to jumpstart the city's neighborhood revitalization initiative. “We feel that sustainability needs to be part of the discussion,” Lewis says of the decision to launch the competition as a way to solicit the best designs. This inaugural project features locally harvested wood, low-VOC interior finishes, a geothermal heat pump, and roof-mounted photovoltaics. It also was designed for modular production, although this example was stick-built. “We hope our C2C house will be an impetus to get the industry involved in green building, as we see this as a way to make green building more affordable and more mainstream,” Rife says.  Construction costs are estimated at $150,000 and were fronted by a local community development corporation. The actual sale price is $95,000 after mortgage incentives and product donations, to be commensurate with the market. When complete, the house will blend aesthetically with the modest Southern homes surrounding it. To Lewis, what began as “an incredibly rich design problem” now promises to be an engine for redevelopment. “All of a sudden you have this gem on the block,” he says. “People will be motivated to reinvest in the community.”  Violet Law

(Via Architectural Record News)

Incase you were wondering..

This is Roanoke

Allright.. quit hounding me for autographs

Actually, it would be nice if I could find one cohesive group of people who actually READS the paper, or watches the news.

I cannot begin to tell you how many people have no idea whats going on around them, how many had not heard of Oops or the closing of NokeTown, or the Record Exchange.


People, this is your life here - the news is the only thing thats going to keep you informed. Otherwise you become a victim of hear-say and rumor. Or worse than that - a victim of ignorance.

It's your choice.. but remember - to not know is to give power and control to those who do.

Hello America!

I just wanted to take a moment here and say Hello! to all you fine folk coming over from Wikipedia (see entry: Roanoke, VA). Just one question for you all, whats with all the sudden interest in Roanoke?

I have months logged where I recieved nary a single hit from the Wikipedia entry, and suddenly - I am now getting steady traffic over from there. Why is Roanoke so suddenly popular?

Anyway, a small task for you folks - find me. I'm in the newspaper (again!), but this time not for Forgotten-Roanoke.com. So go hunting through the paper and let me know if you can find me.

No prize, this time. Maybe next time.

As is being reported

Details are still sketchy, but it looks like NokeTown (2nd and Kirk) has closed it's doors.

I have no independant confirmation of this at this point, but I do expect it in the coming days. I wish Jason and the whole crew there the very best in life and their future plans. They are good people, but this business can kill you.

Yeah - this is being passed around a bit

But thats ok.. call me a bandwagon..

Eddie Izzard presents Religion: Finally it makes sense!

From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli..

Word of Oops(!) has spread like wildfire, from "The Colorado Springs Gazette" to South Africa, and even Fox News just ran the story as part of Fox & Friends.

Nice of them to notice us, but I think the prize should go to the Salem Avalanche for "Most Creative PR use of a missing monkey":

07/09/06 "The Salem Avalanche will be holding Monkey Business
Monday at tomorrow's game against the Potomac Nationals. As with all
Monday home games, fans can receive $1 General Admission tickets with a
coupon from the Roanoke Times or roanoke.com. Tomorrow, however, the
Avalanche will extend the $1 General Admission tickets to all fans
presenting bananas at the ticket office, in hopes that Oops will seek out the tasty fruit."

Admission time: Your friends at Forgotten-Roanoke.com hit the mountain yesterday to "search" for Oops, and take care of some long outstanding business.

We walked the Loop from top to bottom and back again. First time too.. not a bad walk.. cannot imagine trying to jog or bike it though - not yet anyway.

However, it did firm up my commitment to one day gaining access from downtown Roanoke up the Mountain to the Zoo without a car. A shuttle bus, perhaps styled after a trolley, could easily run up and down the loop, or at the very least - up the Fishburn Parkway to the Zoo from downtown providing an opportunity for those who do not drive or folks too young to drive to get to the zoo on their own.

And your hosts here at Forgotten-Roanoke.com also joined the Zoo as members - so we witnessed firsthand the turnout the zoo had due to the publicity. We have been planning to become members for a while now, as we do hit the zoo perhaps 7 times a year or so.

Found out some interesting things about the zoo as well, in terms of public fundraising. Did you know they have a deal going with Sherwin-Williams Paint? 20% off regular prices, 5% off sale prices on nearly any paints. A percentage of the sale price goes to the Mill Mountain Zoo, similar to the Food Lion MVP card (which can also be linked to a charitable giving program).

There is no reason anyone can give to NOT support the Zoo.

What baffles me is the amount of people who seemed completely ignorant of the Oops(!) story. But I get baffled easily, we know this.

In the coming months and years, I'm hoping to build a relationship between Forgotten-Roanoke.com and the Mill Mountain Zoo to answer a question I've been curious about for a long time now. What happened to the stuff from the Children's Zoo?

Memories of the Central Park Children's Zoo (and another small zoo somewhere in NY) include some of the same items seen in photos of the old Childrens Zoo.

What can I say, I like the Zoo.. Im a Zoo guy.

Welcome to Sean Greene, the new Director - what a way to start your tenure.