WmX – Page 167 – Black and White

what remains?

Danny Meeks & homeplace — Once there was a park, a commons and a house on a hill. The hill remains, for now.

q. phellos

willow oak — easing into spring, silhouette of a willow oak leafing out. Sometimes juvenile leaves look like miniature versions of the full grown leaf, that is not the case with the willow oak.

dollar dollar dollar

near Futenma, hiway 81 — Dollar General DG, Family Dollar FDO, Dollar Tree DLTR.
Will Dollar Tree be able to fix Family Dollar?
Family Dollar shareholders approved a merger with Dollar Tree instead of rival suitor Dollar General.
Watch out you dollar people, roaring out of the east, the House of 66 cent!
I looked for an SNL skit where a customer complains about his less than a dollar purchase.
Old skit, from the eighties. Search turned up the more recent 39 cent

thunderstorm

grayed out — First rollicking thunderstorm of 2015. Trees stayed connected to the ground but the world more than 15 yards away disappeared behind the rain.
Electricity went away for twelve hours. Can of tuna for dinner.

electric danger sign — Walked the power line for a distance, couldn’t find where it was downed.

where is the light switch?

CHO Mayor Huja silhouette — The City of Charlottesville is a quarter finalist in the Georgetown University Energy Prize, a nationwide competition for small-to-medium sized
communities to compete to win a $5 million grand prize by saving energy.
The Council meets tomorrow afternoon for a budget work session.

While operating 6016 streetlights, the City doesn’t appear to have an IES certified individual (Illuminating Engineering Society) on staff.
Who is in charge of the lighting? Who directs spending in this arena to make sure we get best lighting for dollars spent?
Who knows how many dollars are spent on lighting?
There are forms available to request the addition of streetlights, drop lens, highway-style fixtures, but
no one knows where the light switch is, where the form is to request the removal of lighting.
We submitted a dark-skies petition in 2000 trying to reclaim the night..
Someday…
(read Janis Jaquith’s essay “Turn Off The Lights”)

Charlottesville Marathon

Woolen Mills Chapel in the distance — Step by step, 26 miles and 385 yards. This section features sixty one feet of downhill, through the Woolen Mills neighborhood to the Rivanna River.

cardinal oversees unusually active bipeds

baseball

Swanson Field, STAB — a warm day, good for baseball, meditation, contemplation

tooth and claw

Turdus migratorius — winter didn’t end soon enough for this American Robin

Bass fishing in the afterlife?

casket display — Big box stores have not gotten into the long box business. Around 7000+ people die everyday in the US, is that not enough of a market to interest the kings of retail?
Selling caskets would be a downer, depressing the sale of premium outdoor gas grills?

Micropterus salmoides — What message to send off with the loved one?
When this purchase comes it is not an easy day. Bypass this store, green burial is an option.

presser

overview of assembled press — The Charlottesville Police Department held a press conference at 2:00 pm Monday, March 23rd at CitySpace located at 100 5th Street NE, Charlottesville, VA.

TV people — The purpose of this press conference was to provide the media and public with the results of the investigation into an alleged sexual assault at the University of Virginia that was reported in Rolling Stone magazine in the fall of 2014.

Chief Tim Longo — Chief Longo addressed the assembled news folk and took questions.

journalists — My tribe.

plethora of devices — Once upon a time Journalists had to ask questions and photograph, now the job description includes blow by blow tweeting.

breaking down folling presser — Often we see television journalists skyping from conflict zones, but when news originates at home big gear is still de rigueur.

Reporter does a standup following the conclusion of the presser.

30 x1028 px box — Conclusion
Based on the information known to investigators at this time, we find no substantive basis of fact to conclude that an incident occurred that is consistent with the facts as described in the November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone Magazine article.
The department’s investigation cannot rule out that something may have happened to “Jackie” somewhere and at some time on the evening of September 28, 2012. Yet, without additional evidence we are simply unable to reach a definitive conclusion.
This investigation remains open, yet suspended in the event additional evidence should come to light.–CPD (full statement is available)