Category Archives: Off-topic
I am the Real Jim Duncan – Reputation Management 101
I am Jim Duncan. The Realtor. The soccer player and coach. Partner at Nest Realty in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Friends who have known me for a long time call me Jimmy.
I’m glad I have a blog and doubly glad I own it.
I am not the representative from Tennessee referenced in this tweet:
Charlottesville Loves its Restaurants
Charlottesville is the #14 most “Restaurant-Crazy” City.
I like that they qualify “Charlottesville” as “The Charlottesville area” by virtue of their noting that “Charlottesville” has a population of 204k.
and:
Restaurants: 460
Restaurants Per 10,000 Residents: 22.8
I have my favorite restaurant(s) (Brookville, ahem) in Charlottesville … and many of their chefs are featured at Beyond the Flavor, (note their Kickstarter campaign).
The food in Charlottesville is remarkable, and helps to make living here pretty nice.
What Happened to the Daily Progress’ URLs?
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/article_5885bff4-e808-5ab6-ad42-fcb60512f9b5.html
http://www.cvilletomorrow.org/news/article/12548-scottsville/
In doing brief research for an upcoming post, I discovered that (sadly) the Charlottesville Tomorrow article displays a snippet and the “Read More” goes to the Daily Progess article, the URL of which is at best a scrambled-alphabet with do decipherable logic whatsoever.
I’m no coder, but I am a firm believer in simplicity and planning for longevity.
I might pay for a subscription if I could be assured that the Daily Progress wouldn’t delete their archives again, as they did in 2008.
Community newspapers provide a true service; they are an archive for the community’s history. Hopefully libraries are archiving the Daily Progress – on microfiche or whatever – so this history won’t be lost.
/rant
Update 18 November 2012: It’s not just the URLs; it’s the entire “new” site that’s changed for the worse. It’s like they have a strategy to drive readers to print.
Pumpkin Patches in Charlottesville
In search of pumpkin patches in the Charlottesville area –
1) I love my clients who still come to me after closing …
2) This message the other day got me thinking – (My son’s) birthday is coming up and I would like to take him to a pumpkin patch. Do you know of a real fun one in the area? I am currently planning to go to the Plains where the living earth folks
seem to have a really nice one with corn maze, slides, animals etc.
I haven’t been to a pumpkin patch with a maze in years. We usually go to Chiles Orchard in Crozet. Graves Mountain Lodge has hay bales to jump on and such when they have their Apple Harvest Festival (this is the last weekend for it).
So … when researching something, I went to Twitter and Facebook and got some great responses:
- Charlottesville and Albemarle region of Virginia’s Pumpkin Patches, Corn Mazes, Hay Rides and More
- Liberty Mills Farm
From my Facebook:
- Pumpkin Patches and More
- Liberty Mills Farm was the clear winner.
- Silver Creek and Seamans’ Orchards, Inc. – “Bonus: near Crabtree falls, which is especially beautiful now”
From the RealCrozetVA Facebook page:
- Back Home on the Farm in the Shenandoah Valley.
- Get Lost in the Corn – a corn maze at Bridgemont Farm – 600 Wissler Rd, Quicksburg, VA 22847 Continue reading
A few of My Favorite Hikes around Charlottesville
Hiking in Charlottesville and Central Virginia is one of the biggest “selling points” for those choosing to move to or stay in the Charlottesville area. Even if you don’t hike; the mountains, the air, the trails, the parks contribute to the exceptional quality of life we all share here.
I hiked a lot when I was in high school growing up in Charlottesville. I’ve long told my clients about the wonderful hiking opportunities and how these opportunities contribute to the great quality of life in Charlottesville – and how they should hike … and last year I realized that I’d been advising friends and clients to go hiking yet I hadn’t gone myself for years.
Life should be about memories; why live (here) if not to make a few?
First, a couple tips -
1 – Take a lot of water.
2 – Be prepared – food, socks, extra shirts … I’m grateful for the backpack I still have as a high school graduation gift. Hiking if only for a few hours helps one appreciate the need to be prepared at home.
3 – I’m finding that (thankfully in a lot of ways) most of these areas don’t have cell phone coverage; either turn it off so as not to drain the battery or turn it on airplane mode so you can still use the camera. Download maps and directions and such to your phone before you go (or print them out). I use Evernote for this purpose (as well as for so many other things)
4 – Enjoy. And hike often.
5 – What are your favorite hikes?
Humpback Rocks – a relatively easy hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway with remarkable views. Last week we made it to the top in just over 30 minutes. Start in the morning and then make your way to Blue Mountain, Devils’ Backbone, or any of the other breweries in Nelson County.
People of Charlottesville
An interesting new Tumblr blog –
The Cville People Project, a documentary photography project, was inspired by Humans of New York (http://www.humansofnewyork.com/ and http://humansofnewyork.tumblr.com/). I believe that we come to know a city through the people who live there, so my goal is to depict the city of Charlottesville through its inhabitants. I intend to make portraits of as many Charlottesvillians as possible and share them, along with a little bit about each person, on this photoblog.
Caption This
I said earlier this year that one of the things that stinks about living in Charlottesville is choosing what to do. Sugar Hollow remains one of my favorite ways to spend a few hours.
Daily Progress Sold to Berkshire Hathaway
C-Ville links to Media General’s non-pay-walled press release. The Daily Progress’ pay-walled iteration of the press release is here.
We need local news reporting; here’s hoping the Berkshire Hathaway purchase provides better local news writing and reporting by the DP.
For those of you interested in the residential real estate market, today’s interest rates (~4%) look pretty good in comparison, don’t they?
