Get ready for a wet and wild Friday…

If you missed the Charleston Regional Business Journal’s “Power Breakfast,” you don’t have to miss the lessons delivered to that crowd by Jason Bradford:

The biggest point I wanted to get across was to get in the conversation. Getting in the conversation is free. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging platforms are free. You can monitor what people are saying about you and your company! Below are the four points that were included in the booklet this morning… my big point of “Get In The Conversation” has connections to all four points.

Here’s some good news if you’re looking for something to do outdoors this weekend:

All the recent rain has filled the old-growth swamp at the Audubon Center at Francis Beidler Forest! It has been quite some time since the water has been at its current level. Walking along the 1.75-mile boardwalk, one sees nothing but a sheet of black water in every direction!

If you’ve never been to this gem, GO. And to see it with slowly flowing black water everywhere is a complete treat. It’s an easy walk, safe and fascinating for kids, and the temperatures are perfect. Worried about bugs? There are very few in a healthy swamp. To repeat: GO.

Where do you get most of your news?

So just how far has the Charleston real estate market gone back to the future? Here’s an interesting interpretation by Howard Arnoff:

So bottom line, I would suggest we are probably back to prices somewhere in 2005 rather than 2004 and while prices may decline another 5 or 10 percent before stabilizing, in many cases, you can probably buy today for that same 5 to 10 percent discount off today’s price.

AND FINALLY:
Geoff Surratt of Seacoast Church says he’s through with Christianity:

I am one of the many Americans who would no longer describe themselves as a professing Christian. I cannot in good faith associate any more with what the label Christian has come to represent in America. Christianity is now a set of political views, a way to distinguish different groups of people (Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus), a movement to impose a certain view of morality on others regardless the condition of their hearts.

In order to be a faithful Christian I can only vote for politicians who say they hold the party line on the right issues. It does not matter if I agree with their economic views, their foreign relations policies or their theory on education; if they pass the Christian litmus test they are my candidates. The fact that voting for these Christians again and again has produced little change, in fact we see abortion more acceptable and gay marriage legalized at a faster pace, can’t be factored into the equation. As a member of the Christian party I have to toe the line.

Interesting piece.

NOM NOM NOM
Because you maniacs can’t stop thinking about (and writing about) food!

Where’s the beef? It’s at Heather’s place this month. Herb-encrusted steaks. Mmmm.

Holly provides a surprising culinary defense of California Dreaming, the fort-like restaurant at Ripley’s Point, as well as a nod to the bar atop the Round Holiday Inn.

Yet another reason to worship bacon, the American fetish food of the 21st century.

A handy index to local-celebrity-foodie-blogger Tartlette’s recipes.

(Dan Conover writes for Xark and is very, very happy about the return of baseball.)

First up, it’s two of my favorite things in one post: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Walter Biffle:

Everyone knows the real opening sentence to Slaughterhouse-Five is the beginning of chapter two:

Listen:

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

Now, Billy had a tough row to hoe, what with being unstuck in time, and in worn torn Germany and stuck up there with the Trafalmagorians or whatever their names were, but Billy, after all, was a fictional character.  I’m real and i feel pretty unstuck in time myself occasionally.

Sometimes this is has to do with my own Luddite tendencies.   Sometimes it’s about the fact that both of my folks spent some of their formative years sans electricity and indoor plumbing and rode into town on wagons and stuff while i, on the other hand, rode miles and miles everyday in a fancy car to a private school and had 23 televisions and milk that came in a jug–what a gap to span in one generation!  Sometimes it’s about the music i play and grew up with. That is the case today…

Holy cow. Even I know that if you’re representing a larger group (your company, your unit, your vocation, your friggin’ country) to a foreign dignitary, it’s in your best interests to understand what sort of behavior is okay, what is not okay, what is abso-frakkin’-lutely not to be done under any circumstances short of an armed attack (you do not touch the Queen — you just don’t). Shouldn’t it have occurred to somebody on the president’s staff, even if PrezBO seems incapable of this particular thought process, to find out what constitutes appropriate gifts?

We are so screwed.

One more thing — can you imagine the uproar if Bush had done anything similar? Sheez.

But this tax hike will naturally affect middle and lower income households more so than the “rich” folks. So PrezBO’s campaign claim to only increase taxes on people making more than $250,000, or $225,000, or $200,000 (depending on when he said it) was a lie.

Bill Moore was a well-known name around here, a beloved professor, a great storyteller, the go-to-source for reporters looking for perspective on local and state politics. He died yesterday at 64, and that’s a big loss. A remembrance:

Yes, he was a genius, yes he was accomplished, but he was also kind, warm and funny.  And, if he told you a joke, you didn’t soon forget it.

And another:

One of the stories that I remember most was him telling us how he grew up poor in the country and as he left the country and went on to college he came to hate the three things that epitomized poverty: corn bread, country music and overalls. He said that he did come back around to loving some good corn bread, and that country music – true country music – is one of the best genres out there. But he still couldn’t stand overalls.

And here’s Greg Hambrick:

At the end of our last talk just a few weeks ago, the last thing I told him was that I always enjoyed bending his ear. It was much less than I would have said if I’d known it would be the last time. I’d have let him know how much I appreciated his help through complicated topics, his patience with silly questions, and his passion for sharing his experience whenever I called.

So long, Bill. You’re already missed.

DEPARTMENT OF OTHER STUFF

You’ve heard of beer googles. How about beer sweaters?

It’s easy to forget that we live in a tourist destination, but Margo and Mike just demonstrated how much fun it can be to make the most of Charleston. Look at how they celebrated their 9th anniversary.

Tom Bradford of Charleston Moves makes points I can support whole-heartedly::

• The bike/pedestrian lane on the bridge is fabulous, but it needs to be interconnected with a network of bicycle and pedestrian options.
• Some officials in the low country get decent marks for good intentions but progress is way too slow. (We’re embarrassed to say that Spartanburg and Greenville are ahead of Charleston.)
• The next huge priority is a bike/ped crossing over the Ashley River, then connecting it to the West Ashley Greenway (which itself must be made usable by a wider cross-section of users).

Thanks, Tom.

Diva is committed to writing. That’s what it takes, girl. Fire it up.

Lance Armstrong’s broken clavicle has plenty of company.

Happy birthday to Kat, happy birthday to Kat…

What’s the weather going to be like?

What a complicated weather map over the next few days!  This setup is a forecaster’s nightmare as there are so many fronts and storm systems to deal with and the timing/position of each of these can greatly change the weather we will see.

Hmm. I’d take an umbrella.

Women and science. These are a few of my favorite things…

A lengthy (yet fascinating) examination of an online scam.

And you thought all The Mustang did was roll? Apparently, it also builds.

DEPARTMENT OF “AND FINALLY”

Happy (belated) corndog day.

Dan Conover is just about the only person blogging at Xark these days (everyone else says they’re “busy”).

I usually don’t open one of these roundups with one of my own posts, but if you haven’t heard yet, it’s CREATE South 2009 Donation Day, and we’re all about promoting that over at XARK. CREATE South is on April 25th in Myrtle Beach, it’s the most important free South Carolina tech-media conference of the year, folks from here are pitching in to keep it going and I hope lots of you will go there now,  register to attend and chip in a small donation.  Seriously: Go do that. We’ll wait….

No, really. Go do it.

… and welcome back to today’s roundup, written against the backdrop of Day 1 of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, one of the most entertaining days in all of sport.

As someone who owns a license for Adobe Contribute but has never tried using it, I was very interested in this thoughtful review of the product by Wheatblog. I’ll be back for Part 2.

Thanks to Brian for the reminder that Friday morning marks the beginning of spring. Of course, Brian then points out that winter isn’t quite done with us yet.

Patrick takes content theft seriously…

Josephine Humpheries in Smithsonian, as quoted by Upper King Street:

Nothing I see is simply scenery or event, but all is overlaid with memories, and those memories with other memories and stories, plus the truth of history as I’ve learned it over time, and finally with a film of dreams and losses, bits of music, discoveries, tragedies, wild comedy and fragments of desire. I never think of Charleston as my “hometown.” I don’t know what I should call it, except maybe my life.

Hey, heard anything lately about some bonuses at some insurance company called AIG? Here’s Cedar Post’s take on it:

The press, the president, the congress will turn AIG into a goat (errrr a suicide bomber), but that will not fix the economy, because the trouble has nothing to do with bonus payments to banking execs.

And as a parting shot, be sure to take a look at this bit of Lowcountry wit, collected by Joan.

First, an update to yesterday’s thoughts-and-prayers alert by Dan Tennant: Looks like the doctors want to send Whitney home.

Dave Moulton on riding his bike, now vs. then:

It’s taken me the best years of my life to reach the best years of my life.

Jeff Tompkins delivers a satiric piece in which Rush Limbaugh deposes Michael Steele at a GOP press conference:

The radio host went on to explain that everything good that happened over the last eight years should be credited to former Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, while everything bad should be attributed to former Presidents FDR, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as Congressman Barney Frank. When asked to clarify his method of assigning credit and blame, Limbaugh explained, “Oh, come on. That’s another trick question from the liberal media.”

Eugene reports there are serious reasons to be concerned about the future of popular MUSC nom-spot Blend.

Joan has a nice picture from Charleston’s most beautiful and evocative churchyard, and it’s even got the cemetery’s resident cat in it.

Pam has a nice way of being about many things at once:

Spring is definitely springing around here – hints of green have turned into a millon tiny, perfectly-shaped leaves, and the birds have been flying around as if they’re getting ready for a big party (and I suppose, in a way, that they are).

So I started the day by saying to someone in the lab ‘Boy, things would be great if they weren’t so bad’.  Have you ever been in that kind of situation?  When things are really exciting…and simultaneously sucky?

The Blue Ion guys earned their reputation for being inventive and geeky for a reason. And this experiment is pretty Bill-Gibson cool.

Have a great pre-spring spring-like day!

The big news for the super-cool-party-people in town? Charleston Food + Wine is underway tonight. The big news from last night was Joan and Byron at The City Paper’s “Best of” party.

More local efforts at organizing “creatives” (hey, that’s us, by the way).

Blue Ion sez: Stop arguing on Twitter. Start arguing on Speege.

Happy birthday, Chuck’s mom.

Words of wisdom from Jeff Tompkins:

Now, to be clear, I am not a doctor and I know what I am about to say is very controversial, but I am not afraid to put it in print: It is my medical opinion that if you can avoid a deadly rash, you should.

Anyone up to a pork trifecta challenge?

Looking for real recipes for real meals for real people on real budgets? Try the newly reorganized Home-Ec 101 recipe index.

And because this is Charleston and we like traditions… It’s Thors Day!

Did You Know?

Ever wonder why some of us think this whole “internet thing” is so important? Because we’re changing the world. This comes via the Michael Douglas Smith Blog. Be sure to watch this video.

Got plans for Saturday? You might want to watch the forecast.

Work is underway at The Cigar Factory, with condos and a swanky restaurants coming soon.

Park West Palazzo does a great job of keeping up with civic news east of the Cooper. This is a very interesting post about an attempt to attract younger people to buy homes in Mount Pleasant, and why residents should care about that.

Erica had good coverage of Pecha Kucha No. 2 for The City Paper.

No more firefighters standing in the streets to collect for charity. Sounds like a great move to me.

Join the Carrotmob!

Nice Moleskine art over at Lowcountry Sketchbook.

Jeff Tompkins is on the cliche beat and might just alter your speech patterns going forward.

There’s not an enormous amount of posting today, likely because the weather is just stunning (if a bit windy — on my ride over the bridge into Charleston today I didn’t have to touch my brakes on the way down because the headwinds were quite literally strong enough to stop my bike).

However, there’s several things that stand out from today’s haul:

Here’s Old Controller on the mother of the octuplets, and our collective footing-of-the-bill for her children:

I’m not happy about subsidizing this woman’s bizarre hobby, either, but I wouldn’t threaten her over it. I still think they should take those kids away from her, though, and let families who aren’t nuts raise them.

And here she is on the stimulus:

The vast majority of those who choose to comment have come over as negative.

And yet it passed. This is what happens when the ‘Murcan public elects Democrats into office. We’re (and when I say “we” I mean the voting population) getting exactly what we voted for.

I’m not getting what I voted for, but then I didn’t vote for the “right” people.

It’s going to be a disaster. We’re screwed. We are so screwed.

Sick of the hearts-and-flowers-and-wine bias of the Valentine’s Day holiday? This year, give her beer!

The Monck’s Corner monks have moved on to marketing mushrooms (and that’s a lot of “M”s)!

Here’s a helluva story: Is the Naval Weapons Station playing with EMP and frying up a bunch of civilian cell phones?

Kevin just published a new installment of Dark Sky Magazine, so there’s loads of fresh fiction and pictures and lit-news-coolness. Go check it out.

The City Paper notes that Charleston Police are stopping cyclists who ride without a bike license.

It’s Dan (that’s Dan C., not Dan T., for those of you keeping score at home) back for another quick spin around the local blogosphere:

Here’s South Carolina Citizen Journal’s take on the future of the state’s ports:

What we need at the Port of Charleston to remain competitive is SHARED ACCESS RAIL LINES INTO EACH TERMINAL. If we can’t get that, we might as well start drawing up plans for condos.

The news about Rutledge Coffee and Cream was bad. Now Park Circle Coffee N’ More is shutting down. The news is a bit shocking considering that it hits one of the few areas that seems to be on the upswing these days.

Mike at Shadow of Diogenes has never been unemployed, but he’s thinking about those who are:

The old Protestant work ethic was imbued in me early on in my life by my grand mother and mother. Granny said, “The world don’t owe you a living”. I believe that to be true to this day. However, now millions of hard working Americans are out of work and cannot find work. And the sad prospect is that more will join those eleven million before the situation improves. On unemployed man in Kansas called it an “economic sunami”.  This bad economy has a trickle down effect – it causes problems in marriages and loss of self respect in people who have worked hard all of their lives.

Cameron wants to know about your food and cooking habits. 

Brian Goode had a detailed post about the chance of a snowstorm reaching our area next week. 

As Facebookers have probably noticed, the 25 Random Things About Me meme has spread at a crazy-monkey-nuts rate this month. Here’s Eugene’s, which he posted on the venerable imablog.

About that SC House bill to put a 24-hour waiting period on abortions:

There’s no medical or psychological justification for mandating a 24-hour wait–the only thing that does is make the procedure that much more inconvenient for her. She’ll have to take an additional day off work; she’ll have to brave the nasty hordes of protestors one more time. This is an ideologically-driven bill that’s trying to make a legal medical procedure harder for women to access.

And let me point out that this state is sinking fast. Our financial outlook is a couple of shades worse than dire, our teen pregnancy rate is rising, we’re having to shut schools and gut the budgets of universities, but what our legislators want to work on is time-wasting legislation like this that just makes women’s lives more difficult.

Feeling gloomy? Let Pam’s meditation on camelias put the weather in perspective:

The camellias continue to bloom – while to the north, everyone and everything seems covered in ice and snow.  We’ve been unusually gloomy here – erratic temperatures, clouds and fog – heavy, heavy fog.  I’d best not complain:  my brother oftens reads this, and he lives in northern Vermont.  Our worst days still sound like spring to him.

Joan:

I am not allowed to make pralines when I am alone. House rules. Some people can’t drink alone but it’s brown sugar, cream and butter I can’t be trusted with.

Brian “GQbound” Wilder on Black History Month:

But there is something different about this one, my brothers and sisters. I don’t see any Kwanzaa-inspired streamers hanging from the rafters of various campus buildings. No commemorative drum circle chats at Marion Square held by the same five, grungy, dreadlocked white kids that seem to know more about Bob Marley’s smoking habits than the Rastafarian culture that molded him.

Instead, there is a silence. A dead, eerily calm silence. This same silence, oddly enough, speaks volumes and volumes to those who take the time to listen enough: Black History Month has become a relic. An ancient, often times, mythic occurrence.

This spells both good and/or bad news depending on which side of the fence you sit.

If you haven’t noticed lately, Stephanie Barna’s Charleston Food Deals updates are really getting to be good stuff.  Lotta bargains out there, folks.

Enjoy the day!

Wondering about those torn-dollar-billboards?

The local real estate market is down, but it’s not THAT down.

I’ve been asked by buyers who previously tried to lowball their way into a bargain why their offers weren’t responded to and the short answer is that there offer wasn’t even close to being realistic. One example that I recall was a buyer telling me that he offered 50% off and didn’t get a response. I looked the property up and the house actually went under contract and sold for 6% off list price. Gee, can you imagine why the seller didn’t bother to respond.

Hey, somebody else is in their forties, too:

I’m loving my 40s (and not just because my kid has four years before she graduates high school). I found the calm that I was seeking on many levels. I’m working on balance, while changing the course of my professional life. It feels like I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

I’m hoping my 50s will be about adventure, and my 60s will be a free for all. By the time I get ready to head to the retirement community, I plan to have some stories to tell. Don’t worry- I’ll change the names to protect the guilty.

Ian on the future of your phone service:

The bottom line regarding Comcast though is this:

If they’re using different technology to provide their Digital Voice Service, then it could become a telephony service and not simply VOIP, and could be taxed as such; if they’re not doing that; then they need to explain why their service is getting priority over other IP based services on their network, contrary to what they’ve told the FCC after last August.

Shadow of Diogenes Mike:

Descending a mountain trail

In fading sun light,

warm abode below.

Bridget interviews Ross Taylor about his new pizza joint on East Montague…

Babbie’s take on yesterday’s announced school closings list?

Anticlimactic. That’s when the final result doesn’t match up to the sturm und drang that preceded it. Was Charleston County Schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley’s aim “to frighten the audience or imbue them with extremes of emotion,” as the the nineteenth-century literature of sturm und drang attempted? If so, she has succeeded.

Actually, I think a more precise term might be Overton Window. It’s our LCB poli-sci Word of the Day! Happy Thursday, everyone.