* I went to VMI, where our honor and honor code are intact. A cadet “will neither lie, cheat, steal nor tolerate those who do.” Simple. And it’s enforced. Personally, if I were an alumnus of UVA, I’d send my diploma back and stop any donations. If you’re not going to have an honor code, don’t have one. Don’t purport to be “honorable” for marketing purposes.

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Personally, I ignore the classifications of “occupy” and “tea party” …

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On both of these issues, my question is: What in the world can average citizens do?In other words, why bother? Being an American seems to mean less and less.

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But don’t stop today. Thank them whenever you can. What they and their families have sacrificed for us is immeasurable.

Thank a veteran today.

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The Festy is extraordinarily kid-friendly and offers plenty of opportunities for a not-so-kid friendly experience; next year I’ll probably take my little one.

I highly, highly recommend you visit next year (or head on down to Devil’s Backbone Brewery now; it’s gorgeous and you can stop at Blue Mountain Brewery on the way as well).

Sometimes it takes “tourists” to remind us that we live in a pretty awesome place.

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As an aside, this was one of my favorite books when I was a kid –

Update 10 October 2011: Marlene Condon writes –

“Please let people know that the Brown Recluse is not native to Virginia.  Most reports of this spider in our area are misidentifications.  If one is found, which happens very rarely, it’s a result of being moved here in someone’s furniture, for example.
 
As for Black Widows, these spiders are extremely shy.  As long as you don’t stick your hands or feet  into places where you can’t see what’s there, you are highly unlikely to be bitten by a Black Widow.  If you see one, just leave it alone!
 
The reason for this spider’s infamous reputation lies in the fact that they inhabit dark areas, so they would make themselves at home in outhouses.  Naturally, when someone’s bottom was squishing a spider on the seat, it would bite to try to save itself.  No spider will bite a person unless it is thus threatened.  There’s absolutely no reason for it to do so.
 
People worry far too much about the things that truly pose little threat while not worrying about the things that do–such as being on the road where accidents aplenty happen.”

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And I’m a bit excited.

I expect I’ll be writing about this quite a bit over the next few weeks and months, but here’s one thing I’ll note now:

I don’t think I’ll publicly disclose the builder of my home. It’s easy to find out, and I’ll tell you in person, and if you’re a client, I’ll give you the full run-down.

The reason we bought where we did was not for the house; it was for the location. We walk and ride bikes to the park, the pool, the soccer field, coffee shop(s), the library, and ride bikes to all of the above including my daughter’s elementary school.

Now, if we can save money through energy efficiency and I will learn more to help my clients, that’s a win all the way around.

Press release is after the jump.

•       Jim Duncan (Crozet, Albemarle County): $2,500 makeover
•       Kathleen Brumbaugh (Palmyra, Fluvanna County): $2,500 makeover
•       Lisa Workman (City of Charlottesville): $5,000 makeover
•       John Collmus (Charlottesville, Albemarle County): $10,000 makeover
 
See below for more information about the winning homes and homeowners or visit www.powersavermakeover.org.  Interviews and house visits with the winners are available; to schedule, please call Annie Suttle at 434.249.9817 or email annie@leap-va.org.
 
Over the next two weeks, local contractors will compete in the “Smackdown” to vie for the right to perform the home energy improvements. The winning contractors will then be matched with the winning homeowners to achieve at least a 15% gain in energy savings. Projected improvements include air sealing, duct sealing, adding insulation, and the maintenance or upgrading of heating and cooling equipment.
 
Last month the pool of Contest entries was narrowed down to 10 finalists, all of whom received free home energy assessments. The results of their assessments – including the potential for energy savings – were the key factors in selecting the winners. 
 
“Today we are congratulating our four winners, wishing the contractors good luck, and letting all Charlottesville area homeowners know that they can still win big,” said Cynthia Adams, Executive Director of LEAP. “For a limited time everyone can take advantage of cash rebates and the new low-interest PowerSaver loans offered through our partners at UVA Community Credit Union to make home energy improvements affordable.”
 
More information about PowerSaver loans is available at https://www.uvacreditunion.org/home/power.
 
The Contest winds down as we gear up for the winter heating season, the best time to prepare homes – and budgets – for high energy bills. On the heels of today’s announcement, residents are encouraged to attend a free workshop on the “High Costs of Winter” next Thursday, October 13. More information: http://leap-va.org/event/octoberworkshop. 
 
“We join LEAP in congratulating these four winners,” says Alison DeTuncq, President/CEO of UVA Community Credit Union. “From our point of view, the contest is a great way to increase awareness of the benefits of energy-efficient home improvements that can not only save energy, but result in more comfortable homes, improved property values, more money in homeowners’ pocketbooks, and a cleaner environment for our community. We’re all winners in this process.”  
 
About the Winning Families
 
Jim Duncan (Crozet, Albemarle County; 2278 SF): $2,500 makeover
Jim and his family of four live in a pretty new house (2003) but pay excessively high energy bills while still suffering in a drafty house. Turns out only half of their attic is insulated, among other issues.
 
Kathleen Brumbaugh (Palmyra, Fluvanna County; 2300 SF): $2,500 makeover
Kathleen’s family of four have been dealing with major comfort issues despite the fact that they live in a 2002 home. Her son’s bedroom and husband’s office above the garage were particular trouble spots. They’ve got a fair amount of insulation, but their duct work all sits outside the conditioned space.
 
Lisa Workman (City of Charlottesville; 1978 SF): $5,000 makeover
Lisa’s family of three moved into this 1948 home about 20 years ago and have dealt with extreme comfort and moisture issues ever since. Their energy bills are moderately high but largely because they set their thermostats so low that they are freezing in the winters. And heavy rains create a river in their basement. 
 
John Collmus (Charlottesville, Albemarle County; 2212 SF): $10,000 makeover
The Collmus family of five plus their two exchange students live in a 1983 house with high energy bills and comfort issues. Among the main culprits are old appliances and heat pumps plus duct work outside of the conditioned space. 

About LEAP (leap-va.org)
LEAP is a community-based nonprofit created initially from a joint initiative between the City of Charlottesville and County of Albemarle. Our alliance partners include local government, Dominion Virginia Power, Charlottesville Gas, the University of Virginia, Piedmont Virginia Community College, the business and contracting community, and other nonprofits. Working together, we seek to create unprecedented utility (energy and water) savings by retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, comfortable, and healthier for those who live and work inside.

About UVA Community Credit Union (uvacreditunion.org)
UVA Community Credit Union is a not-for-profit, member-owned cooperative that provides a wide range of convenient and professionally managed financial services to its more than 55,000 members. Membership Eligibility: Membership is open to those who live or work in Charlottesville, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Madison, Nelson, or Orange. Business Eligibility: Membership is open to any business located in our field of membership.

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There’s a business opportunity here. I can smell it.

Fewer and fewer people can do stuff.

Click to see annotations

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Read the whole thing.

After reading all of these existential scenarios, I decided to hand out an essay by John Taylor Gatto called “Against School: How public education cripples our kids, and why.” A career New York City schoolteacher, Gatto argues that students are bored because they are supposed to be. The education system is intentionally designed to shape them into a passive mass who will, in bovine fashion, join the labor force and become unthinking mass producers and mass consumers. Public education, in Gatto’s estimation, is a scheme dreamed up by the captains of industry to incubate servility and ultimately sabotage anything like a real democracy. I don’t think my classes quite bought into Gatto’s conspiracy theory (“yeah . . . maybe . . . whatever”), but they did agree that the American high school classroom is pretty damn dull.

…

I suspect the hesitancy by many high school teachers to hold active class discussions about real moral and ethical dilemmas may be a byproduct of how contested and politicized the word values has become. No one wants to talk about them because someone might become offended, or someone might say the wrong thing, or the messiness of open debate might get exposed.

…

Deborah Meier, a senior scholar at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education and a founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools, suggests that we replace the cover-the-material mode of teaching by cultivating a “habit of mind” that can be applied to all material. Such a habit nurtures the intellectual skills students need to make decisions on complex matters and is based on such things as: quality of evidence (how do we know it’s true?), consideration of various viewpoints (how would it look through someone else’s eyes?), the search for patterns and causes (what are the consequences?), and relevance (who cares?). These criteria will serve students well on any standardized test because they will have been taught how to evaluate the evidence before them, regardless of what it may be. And Meier’s last question, “who cares?” speaks directly to my students’ complaint about the relevancy of subject matter, because their demand for assignments that are relevant to real life does have merit. In the year 2011, real life can be quite scary, and helping students to navigate it requires a much more challenging curriculum.

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Us? We went to the half bathroom and tweeted about the earthquake.

The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program states that we just experienced a 5.9 magnitude earthquake.

2:38 pm: Via Twitter: 911 service in Charlottesville and Alb Co is down if you have an emergency call 977-9041

- Largest earthquake in Virginia since 1897.
- Lake Anna Reactor Ranked 7th most At-Risk for Earthquake Damage
- See the measurement of the earthquake – very cool. (found on Twitter)
- The HooK has updates.
- cvillenews puts this earthquake in historical perspective.

1 – Twitter was BY FAR the best way to learn about the earthquake.
2 – Learning from previous experience, I remembered that texting is a better option than calling.
3 – Thanks, Comcast and Dominion Power and Verizon. I never lost cable, internet, power or cell phone service.
4 – Google Voice was mighty handy for texting as Verizon texts were delayed.
5 – I’ve always known we were due for an earthquake, but hadn’t felt one that big before.
6 – Where were you?
7 – WINA.com is fielding calls.
8 – xcxd has a brilliant Twitter -vs- earthquake comic.
9 – Storify is freaking brilliant for this type of story.
10 – Did you feel the earthquake?

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View Larger Map

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I ride my bike with my younger daughter frequently. In two days, she will be a second grader.

This morning we recommenced our morning ritual of riding our bikes to the Crozet Mudhouse, a pit stop on the path to Crozet Elementary.

Upon our return home, we stopped for a bit of exploration and she seized the opportunity to cut me to the quick:

“I wish I could stay 7 forever, and you could stay 35. Because today is just perfect.”

With that, she got on her bike and started by herself, a skill she mastered two days ago. And she said,

“Come on Daddy!”

And I followed.

Lesson of the day:

Live life every day. You don’t stay young forever. And these moments must be appreciated.

.

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I have 150 invitations. I considered posting the invitations on Facebook, google plus, twitter, etc. but figured there might be more of a curious audience here.

If you’re interested in trying the social network that Jason Hiner says … “is the way Google always wanted social networking to work, and this time the company may have pulled it off.” and NPR says,

Google Plus is clearly cool. It’s shiny and new. More than 20 million people already signed up, by many estimates. That doesn’t mean Facebook users are ready to ditch their accounts — something they’ll need to do if Google Plus hopes to compete in the long-term. Most of the people I talked with still use Facebook. They say Google Plus feels empty.

I’m not sold on it yet, but I’ve never liked Facebook and g+ is a chance to start over applying the lessons I’ve learned on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook …

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- Delusional Home Sellers? Interestingly, half of the comments are noting Zillow’s inaccurate conclusions.

- via Twitter: “If you pay attention to ONE thing about the debt ceiling fiasco… listen to this. It’s 5 mins & will open your eyes.” Amazing.

- Behavioral economics fascinate me: Honest Tea Declares Chicago Most Honest City, New York Least Honest. I wonder how Charlottesville would fare, and if there would be different results in different parts of town, say, The Corner versus the Downtown Mall.

- City dwellers aren’t so green

- Look out below, Debt ceiling version

- Are you on Google+ yet?

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.

History matters.

.

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I’m going to try to pull some similar data for Charlottesville-Albemarle’s walkable areas, but don’t think the datasets are going to be there.

- Basically, every sport at UVA is great. Except for football and basketball. Congratulations, UVA Rowing team!

- Mr. President, Hold up a Mirror; You have Met the Enemy and It is You! (but really, it doesn’t matter who you vote for)

- What could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, this: The Navy Bought Fake Chinese Microchips That Could Have Disarmed U.S. Missiles- I’m reading Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble, and it’s one of the most sobering, terrifying books I’ve ever read. You should read it too.

- Phrase of the Day: Filter Bubble

- Time to Close the Security Theater. Now, if only we could get our spineless politicians to do something about this. Abolish the TSA. Now. When my 7 year old was verbally assaulted by a TSA agent this year, I decided to not fly until the TSA was gone; this has been a very difficult decision for me, and very hard to stick to, but so far, my convictions have withstood the temptations to fly.

- Biking vs. Driving Calculator. I’m trying to drive less more often.

- The Bounce Back Buyers. If you were foreclosed on three or four years ago, you’re likely eligible to buy a home now. Good foresight, you.

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A tease: In Charlottesville, attached home sales are down 35% – from 17 to 10. In Albemarle, single family home sales are up 107% – from 269 to 289. More to come.

I just finished The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History,Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better and now I’m reading The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, both of which are terrifying on different levels.*

Some linkage for you:- Home Sellers Step Up as Last-Resort Lender to Poor-Credit Buyers

- Harvard University’s annual housing report – Subsidence problem

- Harvard’s State of the Nation’s Housing – 2011 (PDF)

- America’s Infrastructure is Failing. But the US is spending $320 million per month to build Afghanistan’s infrastructure.

- Could civil unrest happen here?

- Don’t abandon a blog post; people might notice when an “educator” notes his fellow “Educator’s“. If I were a teacher, I’d be embarrassed. If I were a parent (in this school system), I’d be outraged.

- What looks to be a fascinating 3-part series at the Daily Progress – “College Just Isn’t What it Use to Be“. This part made me laugh, cry, cringe and fear:

A final interesting tidbit: Students come to college today expecting high grades. As Ms. Roksa noted: “Surveys … suggest that over two-thirds of students today expect to earn a B or higher average in college, compared to only 27 percent in 1971, when the study began.”

Critics of higher education might focus on a decline in academic rigor as the chief reason students are neither learning nor training themselves to learn.

* those are affiliate links to Amazon; I think I get a penny and a half or so if you buy the book through that link.

** Anyone can put up pictures and quote from the Realtor Party line to the media; I’m trying to put forth useful, transparent real estate analysis.

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Both may be ponzi schemes, but which one affects us more?

Groupon:

I would love to be wrong about this. Especially given the fallout in the tech economy if Groupon blows up. But isn’t it really pretty obvious that Groupon is a massive Ponzi scheme?

The United States government:

No wonder Bill Gross, Nouriel Roubini, Laurence Kotlikoff, Steve Keen, Michel Chossudovsky, the Wall Street Journal and Bernie Madoff all say that the U.S. economy is a giant Ponzi scheme.

As I noted last year:

The governments of the world have spent trillions trying to paper over the fraud and prop up the big, insolvent banks, instead of forcing them to restructure and forcing bondholders and shareholders to take a haircut.

At least with Groupon, we can choose to buy or sell.

In other words … is this about the government or Groupon?

There are all kinds of questions about the business. How can they possibly sustain this kind of revenue growth? Can they get costs under control? What about merchant and customer fatigue? How about deep-pocketed and savvy competition,

…

How can you possible build a sustainable business by going from 0 to 8,000 employees in two years? Why did the COO and CTO both leave the company in late March, barely two months ago? How do you value a business that could do $3 billion in revenue this year but might not be able to keep the lights on in 12 months?

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I was thinking about this today in a home inspection, and said that someone ought to suggest this to the Mythbusters. Turns out, they thought of this five years ago:

* Not a TPS report.

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This is about three hours on Sunday, 8 May:

Picking strawberries at Chiles Orchard in Crozet :

Driving to Blue Mountain Brewery to fill up a growler with Rockfish Wheat:

Picking up some local, farm fresh eggs at AM Fog :

* Pictures taken with my Droid Pro, and weren’t edited or altered at all. It’s just that pretty here.

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One would assume that their distribution capacity will be ramping up as well, so those of you not lucky enough to live near enough to get their beer will finally have your chance.

From the press release:

“(Afton, Nelson County, Virginia)  Blue Mountain Brewery has selected the Colleen Business Park in Nelson County as the home for its two new production brewery projects. During the year-long site selection process, the Colleen location emerged as the best fit for the projects, allowing Blue Mountain to expand its brewery operations in Nelson County. Blue Mountain originally located in Nelson after water studies and drilling test wells. Brewer Taylor Smack notes, “The water in this region is an integral part of the success of our brewery process. I had talked with Central Virginia Electric Cooperative [the Colleen Business Park land owner] about locating a brewery here as far back as 2004. The site never left my mind as very ideal, and we’re thrilled to finally be making a production brewery in Colleen a reality.”
 
Blue Mountain Barrel House and Organic Brewery is a 10,000 square foot production-only facility for the 10 lines of Blue Mountain beer that will be kegged or bottled in 750ml corked bottles and undergo 100% natural refermentation. These beers will be USDA certified organic and will tend toward the more “specialty” end of Blue Mountain’s beer production spectrum. Beers brewed will include the popular Dark Hollow Bourbon-Barrel Aged Stout and Mandolin, but will also introduce new styles such as an imperial pilsner and a barrel-aged Belgian-inspired ale. Production is slated to begin by January 2012, with a start capacity of 2,500 barrels per year, growing to a capacity of 5,000 barrels per year.
 
The second project, a large production brewery of 40-60,000 square feet will focus on the production of the current bottled beer lines, including Full Nelson and Classic Lager. This brewery will help service the large amount of unfulfilled orders from the current beer wholesaler, as well as begin expansion to out-of-state markets. The eventual capacity for this brewery will be 50,000 barrels annually.
 
County Administrator, Stephen Carter, noted, “The County worked diligently with Blue Mountain Brewery to assist in the expansion at the current location as well as locate the two new production facilities in Nelson County. The decision to locate in the Colleen Business Park is an exciting one for the company and for the County. The advantages of the Colleen Business Park, water quality, as well as the opportunity to expand in the same locality are the reasons that Blue Mountain chose Nelson County for the site of its production facilities. In addition to creating approximately 50 new jobs for the County, Blue Mountain Brewery will further enhance the already strong beverage business cluster with the addition of these operations.”
 
Both brewery facilities will share an effluent pre-treatment facility that will use aerobic treatment and anaerobic digestion to reduce the level of brewery effluent strength to meet the operating standards of the Nelson County Service Authority wastewater treatment plant. Although the two breweries will be production-oriented and not include a restaurant area such as the Blue Mountain Brewery pub in Afton, there will be a tasting area at both facilities, as well as a beer garden patio shared by both breweries for public tours and tastings. Customers will be able to fill their growlers or buy six-packs for off site consumption, while enjoying the magnificent view of the Blue Ridge and Nelson County from the hilltop site in the Colleen Business Park.
 
Gary Wood, President and CEO of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative (CVEC), expressed congratulations to Blue Mountain Brewery and welcomed the new neighbors. “The CVEC Board of Directors was enthusiastic in authorizing the sale of land to Blue Mountain Brewery because these two production and bottling operations fulfill the purpose of developing the Colleen Business Park in partnership with Nelson County and the Service Authority.”
 
“Blue Mountain Brewery raises the already high visibility of Nelson County as a great place to live and do business, with a particularly strong combination of agricultural products and tourism. In addition, Blue Mountain Brewery will create jobs for our local citizens, support other local businesses and contribute to the County tax base.”"

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