Orion's Eyes

Blount Street Commons



This Victorian house that used to belong to the state is being moved to make way for the new Blount Street Commons. This block is slotted to hold five story buildings with street level shops and "urban lofts" above.



This quaint corner of Raleigh is going to change dramatically. The Blount Street Commons project will change this whole neighborhood.
Posted by orion Jun 19 2008, 01:26:44 PM EDT Permalink Comments [1]

Mixed Message from Peace College



Peace College wants to welcome you to their campus. Yet... they don't want you to trespass. Which is it? Who gets to decide if you are welcome or not?

Posted by orion Jun 19 2008, 01:17:11 PM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

Rosie's Plate

A recent article in New Raleigh announced that Rosie's Plate has opened up on Person Street in Raleigh selling special dietary needs meals for pick up or delivery.


Courtesy of the New Raleigh

The North Carolina State Archives Flickr photostream has a 1935 picture of the same building as it was originally used.


Courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives

This neighborhood is going through a revival and it is great when these old buildings can be reused rather than torn down.
Posted by orion Jun 17 2008, 07:45:36 AM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

Ocean Isle, NC sandbags



I just got back from Sunset Beach NC to find the newspapers full of a discussion on shoring up inlets to preserve Ocean Isle properties that are currently sandbagged. One thing that is missing from all the accounts I have seen are pictures of the current situation. So I have posted above a picture I took of the west end of Ocean Isle from Sunset Beach across Tubbs Inlet(this link has a picture of the same shore when there was still some dune left). As you can see the sandbags are right next to the last house on the beach and the inlet is "dynamic." There has been significant erosion on the west end of Ocean Isle where residents have built much closer to the shore than in neighboring Sunset Beach.
Posted by orion Jun 03 2008, 02:31:44 PM EDT Permalink Comments [2]

NCSU Libraries Patio Pictures



This is a picture I took just before this area was demolished for renovation. It is the patio seating for the food service in the lower level of the D. H. Hill  Library building at NC State University. This is the south side of the building and the Brickyard is to the left.

Here is another view:



And yet one more:


Posted by orion Jun 02 2008, 08:12:32 AM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

Historical Marker Database needs you


I found a really great Internet project that needs help from the citizens of Wake County. The Historical Marker Database has no entries for Wake County! There are 116 North Carolina Historical Markers listed from 23 counties. Brunswick County with 35 has the most N.C> markers listed. Johnston County has 15 markers - all dealing with the Battle of Bentonville!
I am sure someone out there in sight of this blog has a camera and, like me, an urge to correct this sad situation. If you do, read the site's Submission Guidelines, grab your camera, and document your favorite Wake County Historical Marker.
You folks in other places who may be reading this are allowed to participate too! Check out your county and see if it needs better recognition in this wonderful resource.
The websites motto is: “Bite-Size Bits of Local, National, and Global History”

Posted by orion Apr 30 2008, 08:01:17 AM EDT Permalink Comments [2]

Artisan Cheesemakers of North Carolina

The US produces over 9 billion pounds of cheese a year and the average US citizen consumes over 30 pounds of cheese a year. Most of this is made in large factories by international corporations.



The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese by Jeffrey Roberts has just been acquired by the NCSU Libraries. It lists seven cheesemakers in North Carolina. So if you are interested in consuming some of your 30 pounds of cheese in the form of locally made cheeses by small dairies, here is a list of the North Carolina dairies listed in Roberts' book.

Celebrity Dairy, Siler City
Chapel Hill Creamery, Chapel Hill
Elodie Farms, Rougemont
Goat Lady Dairy, Climax
Sleepygoat Cheese, Pelham
Spinning Spider Creamery, Marshall
Yellow Branch Farmstead Cheese, Robbinsville

All seven have websites. Many encourage visiting and have dinners and other events.

In addition to the above, the Southern Cheesemakers Guild lists 10 North Carolina cheesemakers on their website. These include:

Hillsborough Cheese Company, Hillsborough
OakMoon Creamery, Bakersville
Ripshin Goat Dairy, Lenoir

If you know of any other artisanal cheesemakers in North Carolina, please add a comment with their name and location.







Posted by orion Aug 24 2007, 08:10:10 AM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

End the War - Support Kucinich for President

Think that supporting Dennis Kucinich is a waste of time? Well think again. If you want to end the war now instead of waiting for it to be a campaign issue in 2008, financial support for Kucinich today is the best way to make that happen. If you don't believe me, read Another Path to Peace: The Case for Kucinich by David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org. Support the candidate who will end the war.
Posted by orion Apr 19 2007, 03:22:40 PM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

North Carolina Civil Engineering Trails

This past week the North Carolina Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers  issued its North Carolina Infrastructure Report Card 2006. See my write-up of this in the Physical and Engineering News Blog.

While looking through the NC Section's website, I came across another travel tip to share. My last one was on NC county fairs. If you like visiting impressive civil engineering sites like dams, tunnels, bridges, and skyscrapers, the NC Section has a site called Civil Engineering Trails with an interactive map of interesting civil engineering sites across the state.

Large cities like Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Wilmington, and Asheville have city zoom maps to show all the sites in their locations. Sadly the links for the Raleigh, Durham and Wlmington city zooms are broken.

North Carolina isn't world famous for its civil engineering, but there are five skyscrapers documented in Charlotte; and around the state you will find three dams, some pretty interesting bridges, and some impressive domes.
Posted by orion Sep 24 2006, 10:21:40 AM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

Where Do You Eat on Hillsborough Street?


Here is a short survey about your favorite places to eat on Hillsborough Street. 

Some places have gone away and lots of new choices have appeared. What are your favorite eateries?

Fourteen people have completed the survey. Average Scores:

Zaxby's, 2.25

Thats Amore, 2.50
Mitch's Tavern, 2.58
El Rodeo Mexican, 2.69
Porter's Tavern, 2.69
Charleys Grilled Subs, 2.70
Bruegger's, 2.83

Dunkin Donut/Baskin-Robbins, 3.14
Sylvia's Pizza, 3.27
Papa John's Pizza, 3.29
Melvin's, 3.33
I Love NY Pizza, 3.33
Two Guys, 3.33
Silvia D'Italia, 3.36
Frazier's, 3.45
Subway, 3.50
Sakura Xpress 3.55

Planet Smoothie, 3.67
Golden Dragon, 3.70
WABA, 3.78
Western Lanes Bowling, 3.89
Shanghai Express, 4.00
Pizzamerica, 4.33

Marrakesh Cafe, 4.60

=====================

Zaxby's is still the front runner with That's Amore second. Today Mitch's moved ahead of El Rodeo to take third place. Marrakesh Cafe is still securely in last place.

Results last updated 6:30 am Tuesday, September 5.


Posted by orion Sep 05 2006, 07:22:01 AM EDT Permalink Comments [5]

Is NCSU the N.C. College Least Accepting of Gay Students?

The Princeton Review's just published 2007 edition of The Best 361 Colleges ranks NCSU 17th out  of 20 colleges where Alternative Lifestyles Are Not an Alternative (or, to put it bluntly, a campus atmosphere that discriminates against homosexuals). It was the only college from North Carolina on the list.
 
Here is the full list:

1  University of Notre Dame               
2  Hampden-Sydney College              
3  Brigham Young University (UT)              
4  Wheaton College (IL)              
5  College of the Holy Cross              
6  Baylor University              
7  Texas A&M University-College Station              
8  Grove City College               
9  University of Tennessee--Knoxville              
10 Samford University              
11 Seton Hall University              
12 Valparaiso University              
13 Pepperdine University              
14 Washington and Lee University              
15 Miami University              
16 Trinity College (CT)              
17 North Carolina State University              
18 University of Utah              
19 Calvin College              
20 Providence College

So is NCSU the least gay tolerant campus in North Carolina?  To come up with their ranking The Princeton Review interviews 115,000 students at 361 top colleges. Their ranking is an opinion poll and not based on quantitative data. Only 361 colleges are included. Students at 23 North Carolina colleges were interviewed. There are at least another 30 N.C. colleges that are not included. Any one of those 30 or more colleges could have students who believe their campus is less tolerant to gay students than NCSU.

In the profile for NCSU on The Princeton Review website (it is free but you will have to register to view it) there is a section where they pick particularly apt quotes by NCSU students. Here they say:

It is a shame that a school whose students claim "prides itself on diversity" is perceived by those same students to be a place that discriminates against homosexuals.  Is it the least tolerant in the state? Maybe not. But of the top 23 schools in the state, NCSU certainly has the worst reputation.

Let's all be more accepting and supportive of the BLGT community on campus and, hopefully, we may begin to attract and retain more alternative students. Then maybe next year or the year after, the Princeton Review will find that our students think this a campus that doesn't discriminate against Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian and Transgendered students.
Posted by orion Aug 24 2006, 09:01:20 PM EDT Permalink Comments [3]

Public Transportation in the Triangle

GoTriangle.org has a Trip Planner that makes travelling by public transportation as simple as using MapQuest. All you need to do is plug in where you are and where you want to go. Then add the day and time you plan to leave or you have to get there. SUBMIT to the machinations of the program, and VOILA! - you have your route planned out, including alternatives. All the bus systems are included: TTA, CAT, Wolfline, and Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill Transits.
With that said, getting around the Triangle area by public transportation is not very straightforward. Trip Planner mapped out a route from my  home in Raleigh to the Common Ground Theater in Durham that requires three different bus systems, takes 2 hours, and includes a half mile walk.
However, if you have an interest in exploring the intricacies of Triangle public transportation, there is no better tool than the Trip Planner. Besides a door to door route, it can provide you information on the various fare structures and has an Advanced Search that can let you fine tune your travel plans.
Posted by orion Aug 22 2006, 03:27:46 PM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

The Washington Monthly College Rankings

The Washington Monthly, which says it is "an independent voice, ... willing to take on sacred cows--liberal and conservative," has just come out with their second annual ranking of U.S. colleges. Rather than complain about the U.S. News & World Report rankings, they decided last year to produce a college guide of their own.

Instead of comparing schools on academic excellence, they developed a ratings scale based on how much a school is benefiting the country, and came up with three criteria:

1. how well it performs as an engine of social mobility,
2. how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research, and
3. how well it promotes an ethic of service to country.

They then devised ways to measure and quantify these criteria and set up two rankings: one for national universities and another for liberal arts colleges.

So how well does NC State do if one changes the criteria in this manner? While NCSU was ranked 81st of U.S. universities by U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Monthly ranks us 115. Our neighbors to the west ranked:

23      Duke University      (US News: 8)
32      University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill      (US News: 27)
55      Wake Forest University      (US News: 30)

So sadly the Washington Monthly's new way of counting doesn't mean that NC State fares any better. Actually, we do quite a bit worse by dropping 34 places. I guess this is one statistic that won't be touted by the university.

An interesting part of the Washington Monthly's report is an article called "Is Our Students Learning?" by Kevin Carey. He laments the impossibility of using any of the published rankings to objectively measure the performance of colleges and universities, and goes on to describe three measures that do. These are The Collegiate Learning Assessment, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), and measuring what happens to students after they graduate (like Florida's annual State University System Accountability Reports). In each case he describes a reluctance by the academic community to make this kind of information available to the public.

It is sad that the resources for choosing one of the major investments that a family has to make in life are so lacking in concrete measures. One would think that scholarly institutions like colleges and universities could, and would want to, measure themselves with scientific rigor and publish the results.
Posted by orion Aug 19 2006, 07:00:30 AM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

Tuesday August 01, 2006

North Carolina County Fairs



The above picture is from the 2005 Columbus County Fair in Whiteville.

To many in the Triangle the State Fair in Raleigh is the only fair they have ever experienced. Yet there are actually 45 agricultural fairs in North Carolina. Most of them are county fairs. They have animal, crop, and flower shows, travelling carnivals, food vendors, and entertainment just like the State Fair, but the ambience is much more relaxed and everything is on a smaller scale.

So if you like the idea of the State Fair, but find the crowds, long lines, noise, and size bothersome, I suggest you try out some of the smaller fairs around the state. For years I have been going to the Chatham County Fair in Pittsboro with my kids and really enjoying it. Local musicians playing on a small stage with lots of room to get up close is a lot more fun to me than crowding into the State Fair venues. Admittedly, if you go to the State Fair for the big rides, you will be disappointed by the smaller travelling companies who tour the county fairs. But if you want to get to know rural North Carolina, you won't do that in Raleigh.

Also, if the State Fair just leaves you craving more, the county fairs start this weekend and run pretty much every weekend through the end of October. The North Carolina Association of Agricultural Fairs has a web site with a calendar and some of the fairs have their own web sites so you can get some idea before you go.

The other big fair is the Mountain State Fair in Fletcher where a bunch of counties put on a fair for the western half of the state. The last of the fairs is the Cape Fear Fair in Wilmington. So you can combine a late season beach trip with an evening at the fair.

Big isn't always better. So if you want to experience some of the small pleasures that North Carolina provides, I suggest you take in a county fair or two, and leave the big city crowds behind. If you would like to see more there is a 134 page tour of last year's county fairs available as a PDF download at The Showcase of County Fairs.
Posted by orion Aug 01 2006, 10:19:29 PM EDT Permalink Comments [0]

Saturday July 08, 2006

Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese dish that is basically a vegetable filled pancake and is sometimes called Japanese Pizza. The name means "Cook as you please" or "As you like it." In Japan it is pretty popular but  hasn't seemed to have made much of an impact in the US. I have been making them for a long time from a recipe in The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown. It was published in 1970 so you have an idea how long. I loved it but never gave it much thought because I thought Mr. Brown made up the recipe to feed the visitors to the Tassajara Zen Center.

Here is the recipe that I have been using.



O-Kinomi-Yaki
Japanese pancakes made with vegetables (and meat), can be served as midnight meal with warm reults. Americans put butter on everything; Japanese prefer soy sauce, but syrup no.
(For 5 people)

1/2 cabbage: Chinese, green or red
1 large carrot
1/2 onion: yellow or purple
3 celery stalks
(1/2 c meat or fish pieces, if desired, or whatever you have around)
2 c (or more) flour: whole wheat and unbleached white
1 egg, beaten
2 T brown sugar
1 t salt
1 tall can evaporated milk
Enough water to make batter

Chop, shred, dice or thinly slice vegetables and meat. Mix together remaining ingredients to form batter. Fold vegetables into batter and grill. May be eaten cold on the beach.
(c) 1970 Chief Priest, Zen Center, San Francisco


I now find that Okonomiyaki has an illustrious history and two distinct regional variations - Osaka and Hiroshima. The recipe above is a simplified version of the Osaka tradition. 

Senno Rikyu started serving Ishi-yaki, the ancestor of the modern Okonomiyaki at tea ceremonies in 16th century Japan. It was a batter of flour and water spread on a grill, cooked through, brushed with sweetened miso and rolled up like a crepe. Ishi-yaki was followed by Monji-yaki and Dondon-yaki. Cooking Dondon-yaki was so much fun that it became a very popular form of entertainment and gets its name from the fact that the cook would bang a drum outside the shop to attract young customers. As people kept adding more and more ingredients Dondon-yaki became our modern day Okonomiyaki.

The Osaka version starts out like my recipe with shredded raw veggies in a pancake batter. Then another layer of veggies or meat is fried in a pan as a patty and the batter is poured over it. Pieces of other things like seaweed flakes or tempura crumbles are then imbedded in the batter and the whole thing is flipped over.

Hiroshima Okinomiyaki is even more complex. It starts with a crepe-like pancake. Cover this with a thin layer of flaked fish and a thick layer of shredded cabbage, chopped leeks and bean sprouts. Then spread three slices of bacon over the top of this and flip it over onto the bacon side.  Fry an egg and put the whole thing, bacon side down, on top of the egg. This sounds way too complex and uninteresting to me.

I will stick with my simplified Osaka recipe. I like to make up a batch on the weekend and keep them in the refrigerator for lunch all week. A couple of CD sized pancakes and a soy sauce packet and I am good to go. I do vary the veggies seasonally. The recipe from the Tassajara Bread Book I consider my winter recipe since it uses veggies that are readilly available then. I just made a batch where I substituted zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, and a green pepper for the cabbage to make a summer Okinomiyaki. Also, because of my recent studies, I put clusters of sliced mushrooms or corn kernels in the frypan and poured the veggie batter over them. Yummie!

My thanks to the following web pages for their help in learning the background of my simple veggie pancakes.

About.com's Japanese Cuisine
Tsujicho.com's Okonomi-yaki
JapanGuide.Com
WIKIPEDIA's Okonomiyaki
Darke Child's Okinomi-yaki
Greggman.com's Okonomiyaki
NIPPONIA's Okonomi-yaki
Joyful Hiroshima





Posted by orion Jul 08 2006, 05:08:34 PM EDT Permalink Comments [0]