My newest post at the Onslow Memorial Hospital TweenBeat blog is live.
No Get Smart Quick Schemes, Please talks about the recent Disney decision to refund parents that purchased the Baby Einstein brand of music CDs and video DVDs and cassettes.
Head over there and add your opinion! [...]
My newest post at the Onslow Memorial Hospital TweenBeat blog is live.
Hottest styles, every shoe, every color discusses the impact of television on a child’s sense of style and dress.
Cruise on over and add your 2 pence!
[...]My first blog posts are live at Onslow Memorial Hospital’s TweenBeat blog.
Hi, My Name is Thomas and I’m a Mommy-Blogger is the obligatory introductory post.
Are You At Your Mother’s House? is the first in what will be an unknown number of posts related to [...]
I emailed questions to all the candidates and incumbents for Jacksonville City Council.
Mr. O’Connor has not submitted answers, but I did speak with him briefly on the telephone today. Below is a quick synopsis of our conversation.
Mr. O’Connor believes in taking government “back to basics”, meaning providing the primary services [...]
I emailed questions to all the candidates and incumbents for Jacksonville City Council.
Below is the response from Bob Warden (At Large). The response is cut and pasted directly from the email and contain no altering of text.
I’m responding to this because I’ve heard that your blogs are balanced. I’ve
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I emailed questions to all the candidates and incumbents for Jacksonville City Council.
Below are the answers from Mr. James Bryan (At Large). The answers are cut and pasted directly from the email and contain no altering of text, except for format (bulletized the questions and indented the answers).
-Water is becoming [...]I emailed questions to all the candidates and incumbents for Jacksonville City Council.
Below are the answers from Mr. Jerry Bittner (Ward 2), who is running against Councilwoman Reva Sullivan. The answers are cut and pasted directly from the email and contain no altering of text, except for format (bulletized [...]
I emailed questions to all the candidates and incumbents for Jacksonville City Council yesterday.
Below are the answers from Councilman Jerome Willingham (Ward 1), who is running unopposed for election. The answers are cut and pasted directly from the email and contain no altering of text, except for format (bulletized the [...]
The Jacksonville Daily News has posted profiles of the candidates for Jacksonville City Council. For your convenience, I’ve linked the individual profiles below (The JDNews page is a bit squirrelly and quiet a bit confusing…)
Incumbents:
Reva Sullivan (Onslow) (Ward 2) Randy Thomas (Onslow) (At Large) Alva M. Williams [...]A couple weekends ago, AM and I took a quick trip to Duplin Winery for her birthday. It was a first time trip for both of us, so we really didn’t know what to expect, though we were looking forward to the wine tasting.
We go there just [...]
Onslow Memorial Hospital (Twitter, Facebook) is seeking to pay mommy-bloggers and not offering equal opportunities to dads.
It’s a move I’ve called sexist, ignorant and foolish.
Certainly, moms have a particular perspective on raising children. Certainly, in Jacksonville and Onslow County moms have to deal with particular [...]
On behalf of the Down East Cyclists’ bicycling club, I’d like to invite you to participate in the Down East Cyclists Family Fun Ride on October 10th, 2009 at 9 o’clock in the morning.
The Family Fun Ride will begin at the Onslow County Tax Office on Court Street and will [...]
Here’s a preview of some upcoming blog posts:
– Jacksonville City Council Candidates’ Yard Signs and What They Say About The Candidates and Voters
– Jacksonville City Councilman Jerome Willingham Learns Not to Mess with Lindell Kay from the Jacksonville Daily News
– Day Trip to Duplin Winery
– A [...]
The 2009 municipal elections are just more than a month away and there’s been nary a word from the majority of candidates running for Jacksonville’s City Council.
Below is a list of questions I will be sending to all the candidates within a few weeks. Give them a read and [...]
This is a test post from the WordPress iPhone app.
I’m not entirely in love with it. There’s limited text editing, no URL support and questionable photo support. There’s also no commenting ability or blog settings access.
I’ll play with it a bit, but the app is very limited and [...]
I provide my usual and all-too-often needed apologies for being a less-than-stellar blogger.
This post is a mixed-bag of stuff that’s been floating around my head these few weeks.
The race for Jacksonville’s City Council
There hasn’t been much public campaigning. Mr. Hunter Hadley, Jr (At-Large) has yard signs posted. Councilwoman Reva [...]
I’ve been elected chairperson of both the Parks and Recreations and Trails and Greenways Commissions at their most recent meetings. Though I wasn’t looking for either appointment, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to move Jacksonville forward on recreation and bicycle/pedestrian issues.
To do that, though, I need to hear [...]
Filing for 2009’s municipal elections are over and the slate of candidates for November’s ballot is complete. It’s time to stop guessing who will pony up to run and prognosticate about the campaigning.
Since there’s not much campaigning to analyze so far, I figure that it’d be useful to lay a [...]
The filing deadline for 2009’s municipal election has passed and the final listing of candidates is available at the Onslow County Board of Elections site.
The incumbents:
Jerome Willingham (Ward 1) Reva Sullivan (Ward 2) Alva Williams (At-Large) Randy Thomas (At-Large)The challengers:
Jerry Bittner (Ward 2) Hunter Hadley, Jr. (At-Large) Robert Warden (At-Large) James Bryan (At-Large) Lori Ready [...]The Jacksonville Daily News has a story, but it doesn’t name any of the “numerous people interested” in replacing Willingham, Sullivan, Williams or Thomas on the Jacksonville City Council.
Alva Williams has an interesting quotation, though:
"We’re not through with our work yet…I hope the voting public is smart enough [...]
The Jacksonville Daily News has the bead on all the local fireworks displays for today.
While you’re reading online, go ahead and give the Declaration of Independence a read and think about what it means and what the founders of our nation had in mind when they wrote [...]
Candidate filing for the 2009 municipal elections will begin Monday, July 6th and end at Noon on Friday, July 17th.
Filing fees (MS Excel) and more information on the municipal elections is available at the Onslow County Board of Elections website.
There are four seats (Willingham Ward 1, Sullivan [...]
My week is almost over. I’m off tomorrow at Noon until Monday. So, yays for me.
If you thought recent dramas in Jacksonville were over, you were wrong. The folks at Americans for Prosperity have attacked Mr. Phillip Cherry (Director of the Onslow County Library System) for sending [...]
The Jacksonville City Council is still reeling from the aftershocks of the 4-2 vote to dismiss former City Manager Kristoff Bauer and revelation that Council-member Reva Sullivan may have been attempting to contact him inappropriately.
Bauer wrote a letter to the editor of the Jacksonville [...]
Jacksonville’s former City Manager, Kristoff Bauer, was fired in a 4-2 (Jerome Willingham, Reva Sullivan, Alva Williams and Randy Thomas for, Michael Lazzara and Fannie Coleman against, Sammy Phillips, as Mayor, only votes in ties) vote on June 9th.
After the firing, there was quite the bit of backlash [...]
…And that the rate I’m breaking spokes (4th in as many weeks was today), I’m beginning to fear for my rear wheel. I was really hoping to not leave the apartment all weekend. Drat!
Other than that, this was a pretty uneventful week as far as adventures in bicycling.
[...]The City of Jacksonville’s Trails and Greenways, Parks and Recreations and Beautification and Appearance commissions met Monday, May 18th for their annual joint meeting. The agenda is here.
All commissions previous meeting minutes were approved.
The chairmen of each commission made reports on each the actions of each commission:
Parks and Recreation: [...]
The Jacksonville Trails and Greenways Commission is meeting Monday, May 18th at 6pm in the Choate Room at the Jacksonville Commons Senior Center. This is a public meeting and all City residents are invited and welcome to come.
The agenda is below.
I. Call to Order II. Approval of Previous Meeting’s [...]Earlier this evening, HB 1451 – Bicycle Protection Act was removed from the NC House Transportation Committee agenda for tomorrow. This week is the legislative deadline for passing measures which do not involve money. There were no appropriations in the Bicycle Protection Act, so it is effectively dead.
It’s at [...]
As I mentioned yesterday, the NC House Transportation Committee is meeting Tuesday and will consider House Bill 1451 – Bicycle Protection Act. If you live in North Carolina, I hope you’ll write your representatives, especially if they’re members of the House Transportation Committee, as is Mr. Cleveland.
The [...]
May is National Bicycle Month. May 11th to 15th is Bicycle to Work Week and May 15th is Bicycle to Work Day. If you can’t ride all month or all week, shoot for Friday. Think you can’t commute by bicycle? Guess again, my friends. Unfortunately, there are no events [...]
The City of Jacksonville Trails and Greenways Commission met Monday, April 20th.
The minutes from the March 16th meeting were approved.
There were no presentations, but Mr. Mike Wetzel reminded Commission members that City staff (as well as outside agency staff (i.e. JUMPO, NCDOT, contractors, etc)) could be requested [...]
The week was full of incidents and accidents. Only one involved me directly, though.
During last week’s DownEast Cyclist Club meeting, I heard that one of the bicyclists that routinely ride the Jacksonville Rails-to-Trails multi-use path had been involved in a nasty crash along the fenced area of Highway 24/Lejeune [...]
It’s been a while since I last detailed my adventures in car-free commuting. And, while there’s not a whole lot to talk about, there’s been a few changes.
I’ve been reassigned from II MEF Family Readiness to Camp Lejeune’s Installation Personnel Administration Center (IPAC) located further into the base. The daily [...]
The City of Jacksonville’s Recreation and Parks Commission met at 6pm on March 23rd at the Senior Center located at the Jacksonville Commons Recreation Complex.
The minutes from the January 26th, 2009 meeting were approved.
The Recreation and Parks Director, Mr. Tim Chesnutt, reported several items. He covered the Recreation [...]
The agenda for this month’s Trails and Greenways Commission meeting is here.
Notes and results follow:
The Commission unanimously approved the minutes for the December 08 meeting.
Mr. Chris Lukasina (administrator for the Jacksonville Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization) provided a presentation on JUMPO’s efforts in transportation planning. He touched on [...]
The next meeting of the Jacksonville Trails and Greenways Commission will be Monday, March 16th beginning at 6pm. The meeting will be held at the Jacksonville Commons Senior Center’s Community Room at the Jacksonville Commons Recreation Complex.
The agenda is below:
CALL TO ORDER – REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES - [...]Apologies for the recent silence. I received some pretty bad, even if not unexpected, news last week and haven’t really been in a good blogging “place”.
There’s two stories here, but I can only give you the short one: My position, and my co-worker’s, with II MEF Family Readiness is in [...]
It’s been more than six months of full-time bicycle commuting and I’ve lived through near-misses by inattentive drivers, being yelled at and Jacksonville’s less-than-stellar bicycling environment. And, while I haven’t used the bicycle for enough other-than-commuting trips, I will be as the weather gets better.
I’m going to stop publishing [...]
Earlier this week (I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday morning) I was bicycling to work and had this flitting thought:
I haven’t heard the names “Joe McLaughlin” or “Delma Collins” in a while. Isn’t that nice?"
And it was, it was very nice…But it wasn’t to last very long. Follow the [...]
The following is an email sent to Representative George Cleveland (Rep, NC House-14) and Senator Harry Brown (Rep, NC Senate-6). Brown and Cleveland have been assigned to their respective Transportation Committees and are in positions that could bring NC DOT efforts to the Jacksonville/Onslow area and Eastern North [...]
It was an uneventful and short week. I rode 3 days for a total of 46 miles.
2-Feb-09 Home to Bldg 40 Commute 6.5 2-Feb-09 Bldg 40 to Home Commute 6.7 4-Feb-09 Home to Bldg 40 Commute 6.5 4-Feb-09 Bldg 40 to Home Commute 6.7 6-Feb-09 Home to Bldg 40 Commute 6.39 6-Feb-09 Bldg 40 to Home Commute 6.7I didn’t make any ride notes.
Work [...]Ms. Talissa Hatchell (16) after being hit by a car at approximately 9:30am on Monday, February 2nd, 2009. Ms. Hatchell was attempting to cross Western Blvd (a major thoroughfare in Jacksonville which has 7 lanes of traffic, no crosswalks and few sidewalks along it’s length) to get to the [...]
The following is a list of questions I sent to Mr. Michael Wetzel. I asked these so that I can gain a better understanding of the role of the Trails and Greenways Commission and
Is it possible to remove the 2007 information on the Trails andApologies for the late delivery on this. I have no excuse other than I’m lazy.
The meeting was short and held after the holiday social and pot-luck dinner.
The Commission discussed the following:
The new Trails and Greenways brochure - City staff has provided a draft to the City Manager [...]The text of an email I sent to North Carolina House of Representatives members George Cleveland, Robert Grady and Russell Tucker in support of House Bill 2 (Prohibit Smoking in Public & Work Places)
I strongly urge you, dear readers that live in NC, to write [...]
I decided, as a result of my experiences with their notebook PCs, to write HP’s CEO, Mr. Mark Hurd, a second letter.
Mr. Hurd:
I previously wrote you regarding the poor product quality and even worse customer support I received with my HP Pavilion DV2310US notebook PC in May of 2008. Immediately after I [...]
It’s been an eventful week.
Monday was a federal holiday, Tuesday was Inauguration Day and I took the entire week off of work. I haven’t had a week off in the 4 years I’ve been a federal employee. And, let me tell you, it was not a bad deal at [...]
At approximately 11:56 A.M. today, President-Elect Barack Obama will take the Oath of Office for President of the United States of America.
The Oath of Office for President is short and simple. It details the most important part of [...]
This week was another short cycling week. It was also one of the coolest, with temperatures dropping into the low 30°s (F).
Follow the jump for the mileage summary and the ride notes.
The week’s mileage was just over 41 miles and the longest ride just more than 9.
| 13-Jan-09 | Home to [...]
When Worlds Collide: Life Online and Off
Number of comments: 2
Ms. Steinfeld recently wrote a guest post at Thordora’s Spin Me I Pulsate blog. The subject of her post, cyber stalking, is something I’ve never had to deal with, as I have always written online by my given name. I do so for two reasons:
Car-Free: Work Week 21 in ReviewI took Friday as a personal day, so this was a short (four-day) work week. I found out on Monday that the new office I’m moving to isn’t quite ready (there is apparently still an occupant…) so my daily rides haven’t yet extended to 11 1/4 miles. Even so, my [...] Letters to the Editor: Eddie Quinn Responds to Letter to the Editor RE: Rails-to-Trails
Number of comments: 2
Mr. Quinn’s response is below, in its entirety, since it’s not available on the Jacksonville Daily News’ website.
2010 Elections: Craig Weber Announces Third Bid for Jones, Jr’s SeatIn what can only be described as an egomaniacal trip down horror alley, Craig Weber has announced via email his third bid for North Carolina’s Third Congressional seat. The text is below.
City of Jacksonville: Statement Made during the January 6th, 2009 City Council MeetingI made a statement to the Jacksonville City Council during their January 6th, 2009 meeting. Video is directly below and text below that. 
Interview: Delmer Asks Me Questions
Number of comments: 4
In a recent post, Delmer asked folks if they wanted to be interviewed by him. Being the attention hound that I am, I quickly volunteered. Delmer’s questions, and my answers, are below.
Letter to the Editor: Regarding the Article “Rails-to-Trails bridge earns state engineering award”
Number of comments: 2
The below is the text of a letter to the editor of the Jacksonville Daily News regarding this article.
Car-Free: Work Weeks 19 and 20 in ReviewSince the last two weeks have been short (Monday and Tuesday for each week), I’m going to consolidate the two weeks here. Mileage was low, what with only two days of riding each week, but I was able to get a couple really nice recreation rides in during the off days. [...] City of Jacksonville: DOT Altering Highway 24/Lejeune Blvd Traffic Lights to Lessen TrafficFrom a City of Jacksonville notice:
2009: A New Year for Personal GoalsThis is part of an ongoing series of posts on my 2009 goals. My personal goals for 2009 are much more complicated than my bicycling goals…On the bicycle, all I have to do is get my behind onto the saddle and pedal. Personal stuff is hard and requires [...] 2009: A New Year for Bicycling Goals
Number of comments: 2
I’m not a big fan of making “New Year’s resolutions”, but I like having goals. So, here’s my list of goals for 2009:
Onslow County: Holiday GreetingsThe Onslow County Board of Commissioners wishes all the County residents a happy holiday.
Technorati Tags: Onslow County NC,Onslow County Board of Commissioners,W.C. Jarman,Bill Keller,Paul Buchanan,Lionell Midgett,Barbara Ikner,2008 Holiday Greetings,YouTube,Internet Video [...] City of Jacksonville: Holiday GreetingsThe Jacksonville City Council wishes all the City residents a happy holiday 
Technorati Tags: Jacksonville NC,Jacksonville City Council,Mayor of Jacksonville NC,Sammy Phillips,Michael Lazzara,Alva Williams,Reva Sullivan,Randy Thomas,Jerome Willingham,Fannie Coleman,2008 Holiday Greetings,YouTube,[...] Car-Free: Work Week 18 in Review
Number of comments: 2
Another short week for commuting by bicycle. Illness kept me home Tuesday and Wednesday. There’s only two notable things to mention: I installed new grips and a new cyclometer on Day-Tripper. The grips are Bontrager grips with more cushion and a slightly extended palm-rest. So far, they’re much more comfortable than [...] City of Jacksonville: Mayors’ Coalition Includes Jacksonville Projects on WishlistAccording to the Raleigh News and Observer’s political blog, Under the Dome, the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition has submitted their wish-list for federal stimulus money. The list includes projects for the infrastructure improvements in Jacksonville which total over $11 million. The full list is below:
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