Virginia Landmark Contest Returns

A weekly feature once found here was a Virginia Landmark Contest. I once had hundreds of photos of various Virginia Landmarks, but a crash of the 80 gigabyte external hard drive that they lived on caused me to lose almost all of them. Since then I've been slowly adding new landmark photos to a new collection and I'm bringing back the landmark contest. Just like before, the only award the winner will receive will be the admiration and awe of his or her fellow readers. Note that all pictures will get bigger if you click on them.


This week we are in Southwest Virginia and we'll be looking at several landmarks. First, this building is not on the main street of the town in which it is located. But if you've spent much time wandering the side streets of this town the building's arresting architecture and bright blue shutters should be all the clues you need to identify it.

If you instead prefer to visit this town's many pubs and drinkeries, you may still have some insight into the building's current use.


While not a landmark in the sense that we tend to think of them today, the place on the right was surely a well known landmark and navigational aid to those intrepid explorers who wandered Southwest Virginia around 250 years or so ago.

The water in the river that winds around the base of this formation does not eventually find its way to the Atlantic. Instead, after producing some of the most challenging kayaking rapids in the east, it enjoys a nice slow trip to New Orleans before mingling with the saltiness of the Gulf of Mexico.

Other than that, the only hint I'll add is that it's located about an hour's drive north and west of the building above.

Less than an hour away from the wilderness shown above is a charming little Appalachian town. That is the location for our next stop.

Your mission is to identify the town, the building in the photograph, and the monument on the corner. There are monuments all over Virginia. This is one of the very few that does not feature a guy with a gun.

Your hint for this location is the small street you see going by the building on its left side. Once merely a side street, almost an alley really, it (for now at least) would have to be considered the main street of the business district in town.

You can see a close-up of the monument if you click on the small image on the right.



I hope you enjoyed this little trip through one of my favorite parts of Virginia.

We'll now begin our journey back toward the Blue Ridge and my home.

As we leave the eastern edge of the coalfields though, we'll make one more stop at an historical spot in Southwest Virginia. The photo on the right is obviously a re-creation of a late 18th century settlement. Where is it and what is it's name?

Bonus question;
This location also has an important connection to the history of a state park in Kentucky, you can get extra bonus points if you can identify that connection. If you are not aware of that connection, watch this blog. Sometime within the next few days I'll be writing the story of an incredibly strong woman that is the subject of that connection.



If you have a photo that you think would make a good future Landmark Contest feature please send it to me and I'll include it in a future contest.

UPDATE:
There have been some very good guesses, and a few correct answers so far. But no one has yet named them all.

UPDATE II:
There is only one landmark left to be correctly identified. Here's your hint; It's not the Carter Family Fold, go back up and read the paragraph that introduces the final landmark.

The Liberal And The Giant, A Parable (Since Liberals Seem To Love Parables)

I just serendipitously stumbled onto the perfect example of the liberal mindset. It's so precious it may make you weep, so get your Kleenex ready. I'm sure most of my readers have not seen this, but I'm sure you'll all appreciate the lesson in liberalism.

Once upon a time, in the eastern end of an east coast Commonwealth there lived a frustrated liberal blogger. This blogger was (and is) the target of many a barb from the village giant, a conservative blogger, (most of them well deserved I might add).

Recently our liberal friend made a software switch from Blogger to Wordpress. This can be a daunting task, even for experienced web persons, so she received quite a bit of help from the village giant. Now many denizens of the blog village did not consider this act to be out of character for the giant in the east, but our little liberal was quite surprised to be a recipient of such kindness. Especially since it came from the village giant.

The liberal blogger was so impressed, a decision was made to reward the village giant. "How can I best reward the giant?", the liberal blogger said to no one in particular. "I know, the giant really needs a new computer, but I can't afford the $400 or so that would cost. How can I show the giant just how big my heart truly is, and how compassionate I am, and how much I really want to thank him for his kindness"? The liberal blogger thought and thought, and came up with the only solution liberal bloggers have been trained to come up with.

"The solution is so simple," said the liberal blogger, "I'll just collect money from others here in the village, then I can use their money to buy my gift to give to the giant." And so the liberal blogger set about to do just that.

But soon the giant heard of the liberal blogger's efforts, and being the conservative he is, declined the offer graciously.

The moral of the story? Liberals are truly compassionate and thoughtful, and they always want to provide the most lavish gifts they can possibly provide, as long as they can take money from the other villagers to provide that gift. A conservative, on the other hand, would have simply bought the giant a cup of coffee and an omelet, and offered a genuine heartfelt thanks across the table at Denny's. That and a genuine offer to return the favor at any time.

Upanishads And Jim Webb?

Heh...
And I thought LSD and "Summer of Love" prose went out of fashion 30 years ago... [Link]

HT, Singleton

NASCAR Has A Silly Season... I Never Thought Blog Carnivals Did...

Until now. Silly season indeed, wherever Jerel C. ("J.C.") Wilmore now lives.

September 07, 2005 was the very first Virginia Blog Carnival, hosted by Chad Dotson. Sorry, but it is no longer available online. The next host was Brian Patton, followed by Norm Leahy, Kenton Ngo and Ben Tribbett.

Democrats at least started out fully supporting the Carnival, but somewhere along the line they simply stopped contributing or offering to host. The most recent liberal host was Monstrosity, (which is now defunct) in October of 2006. Prior to that you have to go all the way back to May 22, 2006 to find Virginia Progressive as host.

Along the way, most hosts would add "host's choice" entries from across the political spectrum in order to round out their carnival, but the Democrats for the most part simply stopped contributing. The Richmond Democrat has decided that he is unhappy with the lack of liberal participation. F.T. Rea, in his typical half-cocked fashion, has decided that the carnival has been hijacked by the vast right-wing conspiracy. Thomas Krehbiel has decided it's just too much work to be bothered with, which is at least an honest assessment.

But now we have threats of a lawsuit. Blogger v. blogger. We have a Democrat starting what he calls a "competing" carnival.

Ironically, this Democrat claims to have offered to host a carnival in April of 2006, but the honor somehow went to Norman instead. Interestingly, he has two posts published in succession asking for contributions on April 23 and 24, 2006. But there was no carnival on The Richmond Democrat blog anytime during that week, although there was one on One Man's Trash on April 23. I find it very interesting that no one caught such a glaring discrepancy. There was not even any mention of it on The Richmond Democrat.

Just as ironically, the only carnival that I can find in which Mr. Wilmore did participate was one I hosted on March 6, 2006. Wonder what got into him that week?

Now, just how important is any of this? Pfft, not very. Certainly not important enough for Mr. Wilmore to demand that a sitting judge be bothered with verifying certain details of his story. Hardly worth this post, except I thought it may be fun to include in Mr. Wilmore's new carnival.

The only part of this saga that is important is that we have a blogger, formerly from Richmond and allegedly an attorney, putting forth the rather extreme effort required to determine Kilo's full name and contact information. And then somewhat heatedly threatening a lawsuit if a very benign post is not retracted.

On second thought, that's just silly too.

Carnival Time

Not only in the Crescent City, but all over Virginia. Ward Smythe has the current Virginia Blog Carnival put together. Go on over and check it out.

Hans Mast On Virginia's Own "Big Dig"

I've been meaning to mention this for days now. But I don't live in NOVA and the trip from Tyson's Corner to Dulles is not regularly on my agenda.

Hans Mast has been covering the proposed rail line through Tyson's Corner and the seemingly dumb decisions that have been made regarding it. Check it out;

No-Bid Contract: Dulles Metrorail Extension
Metro Tunnel Underwritten by Tysons Businesses

And these, his contributions at Raising Kaine;

http://raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6915
http://raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6944

Hans has really done his homework on this very interesting subject

Today Around Virginia

The first Virginia Blog Carnival of 2007 is now up at Cathouse Chat.

Ken has The Direction up and ready for this week. His production gets steadily better each week.

SWAC Girl reminds us that "It's the Jihad, Stupid"

Jerry Fuhrman underlines that thought here.

And Elle adds this.

Bearing Drift has a new look and a good guest post by JB.

NOVA Townhall will be hosting Lt. Governor Bill Bolling today at 3:00pm. Go submit a question now.

The Webb Quartet

"Sure, Jim. We're all on board the Jim Train. You call the tune, we'll play the fiddle!"
From left, Chap! Petersen, Greg Galligan, Don McEachin, and Janet Oleszek. Not pictured, but said to be the groups bow stringer and rosin supplier, Jim Webb.

HT/Badrose for the graphics work. (She has a Mac, I can't figure out Photoshop, what can I say?)

Psychic Blogging

For a long time now I've been psychic blogging. I don't know how it worked, but whenever I posted a new item to this blog, it did not go on the top of the aggregators like everybody else's did. Not Dave's, not Waldo's. Instead I would find it way down the list, among blog items written by others about 4 hours earlier.

At first I was really excited by this. I could save myself lots of time and effort creating a blog entry if I could just go to the aggregator feed from 4 hours earlier and read what I was going to write.

But I could never quite make it work that way.

Today, Dave Mastio took away my psychic (almost) ability, and I want to publicly thank him here.

He's Back

Johnathan Maxfield is back. Of course I knew he never really went away, but in an interview with STD he vows to remain on the Virginia blogging horizon. He remains also on my blogroll on the right sidebar.

My given name can be found on this blog, while Mr. Maxfield's cannot be found on his Journal of the Common Man. Yes, he is blogging pseudonymously, but I'm pretty sure other bloggers here in Virginia are not really named NoVa Scout, or Isophorone, or Bwana, or Howling Latina, or..you get the idea.

Welcome back Max.

Full disclosure;
I hold no degree in engineering, although I have successfully played the role of an electrical engineer all over the world for the past 20 years or so, with the act currently playing to good reviews in Patrick County. I'm also not a chef, but some may argue with that statement. I prefer the more scientific approach to cooking taken by the one who shares my first name on the Food Network, therefore I'm obviously "Not Emeril".

I've never been very active politically, with the exception of a short period of time while I lived on the west coast of Florida. The most important lady in my life has attempted to persuade me to run against Ward Armstrong, but I always tell her that I have too many ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, and ex-one night stands to ever successfully do so. (What can I say, I'm big on full disclosure.) While I have broke bread with both Will Vehrs and Barnie Day on more than one occasion, I have never poured tea for Shaun Kenney, but I once opened a beer for Jerry Fuhrman.

Home For Sale, Fauquier County

After a month of the "festive" Christmas template, I've reverted back to a slightly more conservative look. You'll notice the layout is exactly the same, I've only changed the colors and some graphics.

If you look down the left sidebar you will also notice an ad describing a home for sale. No, I have not gone commercial. That is an unpaid ad that I have placed for a friend. I still do not accept commercial advertising of any kind on this site.

Now, let's talk about that home for sale for a moment. It belongs to and was built by the Marvin & Lois Mast family in Fauquier County. Located in picturesque, rural Fauquier County near Catlett, Virginia. It is located 46 miles from Washington D.C., and 14 miles from both Manassas and Warrenton, Virginia. Also, it is only 82 miles from Richmond, Virginia.

The house is a slightly modified design by Steven Fuller, in the Southern Living Homes collection of designs. Blythewood Estate is a 7000-square foot manor set on a hilltop with a beautiful view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It overlooks a 2-3 acre stocked lake and is sited on a 20 acre property which includes a rolling meadow and wooded area. I'll let Hans Mast, the son of the owners and writer and publisher of The Not So Daily Me further describe the property.

Construction on the Blythewood started on May 14, 1999. Marvin served as a general contractor and sub-contracted the work out. General contracting was Marvin's career approximately 20 years ago. He really sweated every detail and did far more work than any hired hand would have done to make sure everything was just right. The family spent many a Saturday over at the new house cleaning up. Handily we lived only a 1/4 mile down the road and we were constantly at the building site. We have a large photo album showing all phases of construction.

Several builders who have been through the house have commented on the craftsmanship they saw. Four things that have received especial praise are the custom trim work, the brick work, the stone fireplace, and the hardwood floors. The trim was milled by a local outfit and was installed by a long-time friend of the family's. The brick work was done by Marvin's brother-in-law, who traveled up from North Carolina to do the fireplaces and front porch. A framing crew from Orange, VA which was run by a cousin of the family's did the framing. In each case, Marvin spent long hours thoroughly researching each decision to make sure the best one was made. The house was finished and we moved in one year and one day later, on May 15, 2000.

Catlett's Station, Catlett - J.E.B. Stuart's cavalrymen attacked this Union supply depot Aug. 22, 1862, capturing, among other things, Federal commander John Pope's cloak, hat and dispatch book. Intelligence gathered here helped Stonewall Jackson plan his Second Manassas campaign.

Blythewood Estate is rich in Civil War history. Old timers tell us that the hill upon which Blythewood is built was the largest Confederate camp for miles around and that General Mosby stayed in a cabin nearby (see further note on this at the end). Friends of ours who are avid Civil War history buffs and metal detector operators hurriedly went over Blythewood one afternoon and found a wealth of Civil War artifacts including tens of bullets, cavalry horseshoes, uniform buttons, buckles, and several other things. We are located less than a mile from Weaversville, which during the Civil War had a U.S.A. General Hospital. Catlett's Station is only 2.1 miles away. Many battles were fought over it because railroad stations were the key link in moving supplies.

Hans details much more of the Civil War history of the site here, at his website. Further details regarding the sale of the property are available here [LINK]

Hans, I wish you well during your upcoming travels to Southeast Asia, and I hope your family will soon be happily resettled in Kansas.

My Last Words On Both Matters

I'll write one more post on the recent kerfuffle and then I'm through with the subject. Actually both subjects.

I need to start with what seems to be the major misconception most Virginia bloggers have about the whole thing. I do not hate Waldo Jaquith. I do not even dislike him. I've met Waldo exactly twice, and both times he was a very charming, intelligent conversationalist. But I've said that before.

I've also said that I did not have a problem with him removing a blog from his aggregator, it's his and he can do with it what he will. However, I could and did point out his hypocrisy in doing so. Does that mean I'm completely above hypocrisy myself? Nope, and you're not either. What it does mean is that I will never let unsubstantiated charges from the left go unanswered. We've been there, done that in the Republican party for way too long.

I knew from the beginning that anything that found it's way onto the Virginia Political Blogs aggregator was not the doing of Waldo Jaquith. Just as all of you know that. Therefore I have never complained to Waldo about any content found there. The origin of that content is clearly displayed, and even contains a link to take you to the actual source. That is the reason I refused his "olive branch". He demanded that some of us put an obviously distasteful post on our blog with no reference from whence it came, and no explanation or apology allowed. You would be correct in calling that just one more incidence in a very long history of hypocrisy shown by Mr. Jaquith. However, for anyone to blame Waldo for over the top content on his aggregator is simply another example of hypocrisy, regardless of the political side from which the complaint comes.

Second subject. Now it seems we in the ODBA have a bit of egg on our faces. One of our members, a good writer with a sharp mind, was posting under a pseudonym that did not accurately reflect his true self. For whatever reason someone saw fit to "out" him.

Personally I believe that blogging anonymously, in and of itself, is not necessarily a problem. Shaun has a very different perspective on the subject. But the ODBA does not demand that each member march in lockstep with each other.

Some people simply must blog anonymously due to various circumstances. We in the ODBA have learned a valuable lesson. If a blogger must work under cover of anonymity, and he joins with others to collaborate whether it be on a single blog, a diary type blog such as RK, or a loose affiliation such as ours, he or she owes the rest of the team the simple courtesy of describing himself truthfully. We didn't demand that before, and now we are paying the cost for it. Thankfully the damage was much less severe than it might have been.

We will recover, though. I hope the young writer will lick his wounds, describe himself a little more truthfully on his blog, and go back to producing the work that first got him noticed here.

Just What Is A Bigot?

I'm a bigot. Or at least I've been told I am. Most likely by people who don't even know the meaning of the word. Or at least by people who have been trained to use the word to describe anyone who is "less tolerant" than they perceive themselves to be. Certainly by people who don't know me. If they knew any of these things they would know that I'm not a bigot.

Noun: bigot
1.a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.

Those of you who know me know that definition simply does not describe me. I am quite open to argument and honest debate and I've even been persuaded to change my opinion on occasion. It may or may not describe you, I don't know. That is the reason you will never find me making that accusation of someone. The following definition would be more aptly applied to me, and most likely to you as well. I have yet to meet someone to whom the following definition does not apply.

Noun: discrimination
1.the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually.

Now that's something I am guilty of. But like I said before, you are too. We all have a tendency to associate or not with groups based on the characteristics of that group. Even in such innocuous situations as determining which church to attend. "Oh, I could never go there, they believe that a woman can't be a Pastor." (My church does not espouse that opinion, by the way. Although I have quite happily attended some that do.) Or, "How can you attend a church that professes that homosexuality is a sin?". "What," you may ask when invited to attend Mass by a friend, "You do know I'm Baptist, don't you?". You get the idea. All of God's children discriminate against one another all the time.

We all discriminate in other ways as well. I tend not to hang out with liars, cheats, and thieves. You may choose not to enter a certain part of town after a certain hour of the night. Some of you may feel very uncomfortable if required to attend a formal function that is outside your normal social circle. Still others are afraid of groups of guys on Harley-Davidsons wearing black leather and denim.

The one way that is most familiar to you, my readers, is in political ideology. Many on the left will quite proudly say that they do not desire to attend some bi-partisan event or function, simply because those intolerant Republicans will be there. While I always smile at the irony of such a statement, I don't deny that there are Republicans that may express the same or similar opinion from time to time. I say this from experience. The experience of attempting to persuade liberals to attend a blog conference in Martinsville this past summer.

The source of the bigot tag being placed upon me is an obscure, offhand comment I made some time back, in reply to a friend. That friend and I knew that I was referring, in the form of a rather obtuse joke, to the story from the recent past concerning Abu Ghraib prison and the charges made at the time that soldiers had flushed a Koran.

That remark certainly does not mean that I would desecrate in any way your copy of the Koran. Your copy of the Koran is sacred to me simply because it is yours. The only meaning that can be drawn from my comment is that a copy that may somehow find itself in my possession would mean no more to me than a John Grisham novel. It may go on my bookshelf, but it will never be considered a sacred text by me.

Does that mean that I'm intolerant of Muslims, of course not. It simply means I will tend to discriminate in my choice of what I consider sacred. Just like you do when you eat a cheeseburger. What? You didn't know that cows are sacred to Hindus, and Jews who keep kosher consider it a sin to combine meat and dairy?

Hey Donk, Let's Do Lunch

Tale of the Donkey is doing a great job covering the 5th District. See his posts here, and here. I need to lure him to Stuart one day for lunch at Honduras Coffee.

Waldo's Olive Branch

Waldo has spoken. He has devised a way for all of us to get out of this kerfuffle which begun with his banning of a blogger who was featured on Virginia Political Blogs. He made the offer on Christmas eve, I first saw it early this morning. I'll reproduce the gist of it below (emphasis added);

I want the complaining blogs (Alton, GGD, Jonathan Maxfield, Chris, SWAC Girl, Carl, Flora McDonald and Kat) to post the blog entry of my choice on their blog. I will not write the text or provide the image — I will provide a codeword to an anonymous third party who will send that codeword, along with as much text and as many images as they want, to each blogger. Each blogger will receive a separate blog entry. They must post that blog entry on the front page of their site without explanation, excuse, or followup. In neither word or deed may they indicate that it was posted because of this offer, or why they posted it. I will say up front that I will encourage each third party volunteer writer to provide a highly-charged image and supporting text that will, without question, offend nearly anybody who sees it. The blog entry will arrive sometime in the next week, and must be posted promptly.LINK

Yes, in order to atone for daring to question why Waldo pulled a blog from his aggregator, some of us must agree to post something he considers to be equally vile on our pages, without question.

I'm sorry Waldo, that ain't gonna happen. Allow me to elaborate. You set up VPB, proudly proclaiming that you accept one and all. And I must commend you on that stance. From the inception of VPB you did just that, regardless of content. You allowed pictures of dead babies held aloft, by a blogger who wanted to attack George Allen. You allowed that same photoblogger to post numerous pictures of people lying stricken in the streets, again in order for him or her to attack George Allen.

You didn't stop with graphic images either. You allowed one particular blogger to use sophomoric references to anal sex on many, many occasions. You stood your ground and refused to prune out any of George Carlin's infamous 7 dirty words. Why, you yourself proudly used the "F" word on occasion. You are a stand up guy, Waldo. I think I speak for everyone on the right when I say I thought your stance was correct, and we applauded your efforts. No matter how vile and disgusting it was, you would not stoop to "editing". Until now. Until it came from a conservative.

Now, simply because some of us have expressed varying levels of surprise at your actions, and as a "deal" to get that conservative blog back on VPB, you offer this "olive branch". An "olive branch" you promise up front will be soiled with disgusting filth. No thank you.

At the top of my left column you will notice a listing of the most recent conservative blog posts. It's a cool little asset offered by Dave Mastio at BlogNetNews. He offers it in several flavors. One can choose to have it fueled by all of the blogs subscribed at BNN, or by region. Or you can choose all liberal blogs, or all conservative blogs.

When I first installed it I naturally chose the all blogs option. I soon grew disgusted with seeing the "F" word and the "S" word in headlines posted on my site. After switching to the all conservative blogs option I have not had that problem. And I doubt that I will.

So, you see Waldo, I've already experienced the vile stuff from liberals soiling my website and I took the steps to eliminate it. I did not begin this blog proclaiming that I would accept any and all contributions to it, as you did with VPB.

Just for the record, I've said all along it's Waldo's aggregator, to do with as he wishes. I did ask him why he did not simply remove the offending post and then consult with the offending blogger. His answer, reasonable enough I suppose, was that his software does not allow that action.

I'm not sure what criteria he used to select the eight of us out of many who questioned his actions. Perhaps, in my case anyway, it's retaliation for pointing out his hypocrisy in my previous post.

Blogging Guidelines For Virginia Political Bloggers

It seems some of us here in Virginia have no idea how to behave ourselves in the blog community. After looking around for a bit today on several Virginia blogs I think I can now offer my conservative friends some guidelines.

• Posting images that depict the victim of the enemies of America in actual circumstances and conditions is not to be accepted. (note, graphic un-retouched photo, deemed by most on the left as inappropriate for viewing.)
• Posting images that depict the body of a dead baby, being held aloft and being blamed on Americans is perfectly OK. (note, graphic un-retouched photo, deemed by most on the left as completely appropriate for viewing.)

The following guidelines will help you decide what type of posts are accepted by the ethics police on the left.

• Posting an e-mail, from an unsubstantiated source, describing unverified divorce proceedings of a prominent Virginia couple, neither of which hold elected office, that is good. (note, the e-mail has been removed by the blogger, but it promises to return.)

Allow me to interrupt myself for a moment. It's been brought to my attention in the comments that I cannot substantiate nor verify that Ben's post regarding the e-mail was unsubstantiated and unverified. That is true I suppose, since Ben' does not mention anywhere in the post just how he substantiated and verified it. I now return you to the rest of this post.

• Posting, in the headline, a word that my mother would have smacked me for using is also good.

• Posting, again in the headline, another word that my mother would have smacked me for using, yep, you guessed it. That too is very good.

And last, but by all means not least. From the man who would have you believe he is way beyond reproach ethically, two more from Waldo Jaquith;

• Making an accusation of an extramarital affair which was provably false, yet not removing that post from his own blog, even after being called on it.

Yes, you can delete someone else's entirely truthful blog, yet leave such scurrilous accusations on your own blog and still proclaim yourself to be ethically superior to most of those on the right. (note, Waldo does retract the statement, but way down the page where it's less likely to be read. Personally, I would have placed the retraction in the original comment, but apparently I don't know as much about ethical blogging as Waldo.)

• Posting an unsubstantiated conversation with an undisclosed person who relayed an unverifiable secondhand conversation they had on a plane about unsubstantiated allegations that a prominent Virginia politician had abused his ex-wife. That too is deemed to be perfectly alright ethically.

Waldo is placed on a pedestal by many on the left (most notably F.T. Rea) as the epitome of ethics. Waldo himself actually believes this, and Terry does himself no favors by perpetuating the myth.

What I've learned from all this is that in Charlottesville ethics don't matter, aesthetics do.

Geesh... In the words of Jerry Fuhrman, just shoot me now.

Christmas Shopping Dilemma

Christmas makes me a nervous wreck. No, I don't mean that I abhor the reason we are celebrating. That God's son was born to save us is a perfectly marvelous reason to celebrate. What I'm talking about is the various traditions we as a society have appended to the rest of the story. Take gift giving for example. Who's idea was this? It must have been one of those that lie on the opposite side of the spectrum from me. Like my sister.

I'm not a good shopper. Some people are. My mother was, and my sister is mom made over. Leslie knows not only the perfect gift for everyone, she knows where to get it.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's not because I'm a cheapskate when it comes to gift giving. Well, that's not the only reason. Whenever I'm shopping for someone else and I find something interesting, my first thought is if she really wanted this she would already have it. Remember, I'm cheap, so it's not like she wouldn't be able to afford it, it must be that she just doesn't want it. I get into that kind of conflicted thought and it makes me want to find the Applebee's outside the mall and get myself a shot of Bushmills. Something no one ever thinks to get me for Christmas, by the way.

The other side of that coin is the receiving of the gift. Some people, again my sister comes to mind, can receive a gift of fossilized dog poo made into a paperweight and seem as though it was the one thing missing from their life, and they would have never thought of getting themselves such an item, but thank you so much for finding the absolute perfect gift for me. I can't do that. My disappointment will always show. Unless it's that perfect gift that Leslie always knows where to find. Or that perfect birthday gift of old VINTAGE magazines I got from someone else on my last birthday. Perhaps the two of them are more alike than I had previously thought.

UPDATE:
See comments for proof that they are exactly alike. And proof that I've described myself perfectly...

Blogs United in Hampton Roads

After the Blogs United in Martinsville Conference in August Kilo, Brian and I discussed having it somewhere in the coalfields in 2007. We even considered Roanoke as being a suitable Southwestern Virgina location (even though it's really not SWVA, not in flavor anyway). But a few nights ago I got an e-mail from Jim at Bearing Drift. His e-mail raised an interesting question. A question that Badrose and I bounced off one another over the next few days.

The idea Jim put forward in that e-mail was to hold the Blogs United 2007 conference in the Hampton Roads area. Right in the middle of Virginia's 400th Anniversary.

Badrose and I both thought it was a good idea. But the 400th Anniversary thing is an international event, would it be feasible? A follow up e-mail to Jim expressing my concerns was answered with resounding assurances that affordable accommodations would be available, though he didn't mention details. He is also certain that meeting rooms, dining facilities, and other such items would not be a hindrance.

So, as much as I love SWVA and was looking forward to camping on Brian Patton's back porch, I am sure that we will all agree that the chance to be even a small part of the 400th Anniversary celebration in Hampton Roads is just too sweet an idea to pass up. Jim, I'll call you soon and we'll discuss how we can make this happen.

Allow Me To Present...

The newest members of the Old Dominion Blog Alliance.

If you will look at my left column you will see that the Old Dominion Blog Alliance has suddenly grown. By a lot. We are now at our highest membership level ever, and with the best right of center blogs in Virginia represented in the ODBA ranks.

Some of the new members I'm sure will be familiar to my readers, others I'm just as sure will be a delightful discovery. Go ahead now, explore the depths of the Old Dominion Blog Alliance.

To the old and new members I would like to say that I've been thinking about how best to exploit the powers of a well coordinated group. I'll be posting on that subject, as well as utilizing the group e-mail to expound on some of the ideas I've formulated. If any of you have ideas along those lines please use the ODBA group e-mail feature. If you are not signed up for it contact Kat at Cathouse Chat and she will soon be able to guide you in the steps required to do so.

UPDATE:
I just fixed a couple of "errors and omissions", please reload your page.

UPDATE II:
Now, I challenge each of you to scour the Virginia Blog community (I hate the word blogosphere) and find one more conservative blog to recruit for our team. I have two that I am looking at now.

UPDATE III:
I've been doing this both from home and at work (ala Will Vehrs), consequently there may be someone else that I've overlooked. If we've shared e-mail messages lately concerning this and you are not listed on the ODBA blogroll and expected to be, please don't be bashful, contact me. My e-mail link is right over there ---> and up toward the top.

2008 Presidential Poll At Shaun Kenney's

Shaun Kenney has a straw poll up on the 2008 Republican presidential candidate. Go to http://www.shaunkenney.com/ and let your voice be heard. Or hear your mouse click, whatever.