I Wasn’t Going To Buy This House Until I Saw The Realtor’s Headshot On The Sign

Have you seen our signs?

It’s about our clients and their houses, not us.

Update: for those uninitiated, the Onion is satire.

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Don’t forget. Daylight Saving Time starts tomorrow morning.

Who knew? (bolding mine)

In 1975 the U.S. DOT conservatively identified a 0.7% reduction in traffic fatalities during DST, and estimated the real reduction to be 1.5% to 2%,^[58] but the 1976 NBS review of the DOT study found no differences in traffic fatalities.^[39] In 1995 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimated a reduction of 1.2%, including a 5% reduction in crashes fatal to pedestrians.^[6] Others have found similar reductions.^[59] Single/Double Summer Time (SDST), a variant where clocks are one hour ahead of the sun in winter and two in summer, has been projected to reduce traffic fatalities by 3% to 4% in the UK, compared to ordinary DST.^[60] It is not clear whether sleep disruption contributes to fatal accidents immediately after the spring clock shifts.^[61] A correlation between clock shifts and traffic accidents has been observed in North America and the UK but not in Finland or Sweden. If this effect exists, it is far smaller than the overall reduction in traffic fatalities.^[62] A 2009 U.S. study found that on Mondays after the switch to DST, workers sleep an average of 40 minutes less, and are injured at work more often and more severely.^[63]

Combine Daylight Saving Time with Daniel’s Pedestrian Survival Techniques and you’ll be walking safer than ever. (for a few months)

The way it works is simple: As you’re walking toward your destination, you remain constantly aware of the vehicular traffic coming from either direction. Once a clear break appears, you cross at that moment. There’s no wait time, because you continue walking while you watch for the opening. It’s highly safe, or at least you have maximum control over your own safety. Before “jaywalking” was stigmatized and banned through a campaign by automobile lobbyists, this was a perfectly acceptable way to approach a typical dilemma.

Set your clocks back.

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VDOT is preparing for the possibility of a significant winter storm this weekend. Any story that we are “expecting” 40-50 inches of snow is incorrect. We are carefully watching the weather forecasts, as I’m sure most people in the area are, and are preparing our operational plans based on those forecasts. As we get closer to the weekend we’ll have a better idea of the timing of the storm, type of precipitation and likely accumulations and we will adjust those plans accordingly.

Update 4 February: Now we’re expecting 20-28 inches. Buckle up!

Again.

CBS19Weather says – @JimDuncan Some models are indicating 12-18″; that is of course preliminary & subject to change. Our prediction comes closer to time (tk)

and:

WINTER STORM WARNING until early Wednesday for: Albemarle, Nelson, Greene, Madison, Orange & Culpeper Cos. (tk)

I’ve heard we’re supposed to get 2-4 inches tonight, and rumors say this weekend anywhere from 12 to 40 inches of snow in the Charlottesville area. 40!

Friday “could get ugly.“

If we get 40 inches of snow in Charlottesville, I don’t know what we’ll do, other than make Jay jealous.

Update 2 February 2010: @CBS19Weather says:  

@Jenna_WennaMJ has potential to be significant…don’t think we’ll see anything as severe as 2 ft. still definitely one tow atch! – Brantley   

Woo-hoo!

And …for those of you who are curious about the difference between a weather warning and a weather watch:

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A fascinating discussion last week, and I hope to be able to make the next one. Huge thanks to CvillePodcast for recording the conversation.

News media across the country are collapsing. After recent staff cuts, furloughs and the shutdown of local printing for the Daily Progress, will Media General be doing more downsizing? Can we support four TV stations? Two weeklies? Will blogs replace all of them? What about the partnership between the non-profit Charlottesville Tomorrow and the Daily Progress, being watched nationally as a possible future model for local news?

That topic was the subject of a Left of Center forum jointly sponsored with cvillenews.com. The event is moderated by site founder Waldo Jaquith. 

University of Virginia media studies professor Bruce Williams began with a historical overview of how changing “media regimes” in the U.S. have impacted political communication and civil society, and how the recent ‘broadcast era’ may have been an anomaly in the larger sweep of American history.

The future of media is something that affects us all. I love the point, “we need to separate the crisis of journalism from the crisis of newspapers.”

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From the desk of either “a good service provided by the local government” or “Charlottesville and Albemarle cooperate without great argument” …

From the County of Albemarle:

Trees will be recycled into free mulch for the public

It’s almost that time of year again!

As in the past, the Albemarle County Parks & Recreation Dept will host its annual Christmas Tree Recycling Program beginning December 26, 2009 through January 16, 2010. The Christmas Tree Recycling Program collects discarded Christmas trees which are chipped into mulch and then offered to the public at no cost. This program has been in operation since 1988 and recycles over 3000 trees each year; which in turn yields over 144 cubic yards of mulch. Not only does this recycling program provide citizens a place to dispose of a potentially large and cumbersome item, it also reduces the impact on our landfill.

By combining forces with the Charlottesville Curb Side Pick-Up Program, the two programs collected over 5600 trees last year, yielding approximately 268 cubic yards of mulch. According to the City Public Works Department, their curbside pick up will be the week of January 11th, 2010. Trees must be at the curbside by 7am. Shortly after the City’s curbside pick up, the County and City Parks & Recreation crews will team up to chip the estimated 2600 trees at Darden Towe Park.

As a reminder, this program is for Christmas trees only, please no yard waste. Both the County & City programs require that all decorations, stands and nails be removed from the Christmas trees. Free mulch will be available to citizen by February 1, 2009, at Darden Towe Park.

The County will operate seven sites daily, 7am till dark.

The sites are as follows:

- Chris Greene Lake in Earlysville

- Crozet Park

- Darden Towe Park

- Greenwood Community Center *

- Rivanna Solid Waste Authority Recycling Center on McIntire Road (*note: Sunday hours are 12noon – 5pm)

- Scottsville Community Center

- Walnut Creek Park

The recycling location on McIntire Road may be congested; please consider Darden Towe Park as an alternate location that is less congested and is suited better for large loads and contract haulers.

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The snow came fast.

Get home and stay home.

Great picture courtesy of the HooK.

.

From my experience driving in Crozet tonight, people don’t realize:

1) Stopping and/or going fast in slick conditions is bad.

2) Tailgating is snow is worse than tailgating in normal conditions.

NBC29’s weather center.

CBS19 weather.

.

The HooK has a story.

Rick Sincere has a few pictures of the Snowpocalypse.

The Rotunda in the snow.

.

Some notes from the Charlottesville Twitter stream – Click here to see the Charlottesville Snow tweets.

CBS19 Weather said (at 21:34:) 10″ of snow reported at the Lake Monticello area in Fluvanna. – Brantley

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If you’re looking for Christmas lights in the Charlottesville area, start here … I’m hoping the ones in Crozet/White Hall are back this year after they took last year off due to illness.

If you have a google login, you can edit the map, add new light installations …

View Charlottesville Christmas Lights in a larger map
Thanks to @DailyProgress

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I am probably the worst Alumni Chapter president in the country.

At the urging of an alumnus from the Class of 49B, I’m attempting to organize/mobilize the Charlottesville chapter of the VMI alumni association. If an alumnus 50 years out is interested in getting alumni together I figure I, 10 years out, can do my part.

I started this discussion on LinkedIn, but thought it warranted posting here. The times I have tried to organize local alumni the consensus has generally been – if you want your VMI fix, you go to Lexington.

Over the years, I have tried to (re)invigorate the Charlottesville Chapter of the VMI Alumni Group; I’m going to try it again.

I’m going to shoot for a January gathering of the Charlottesville VMI Alumni.

If you’re interested, please fill in this form. I’m shooting for a January gathering, most likely a happy hour.

And please send it to your fellow VMI folks in the Charlottesville area. If you have any questions, please contact me anytime – 434-242-7140 or jim@realcentralva.com.

In the bonds,

Jim Duncan, ‘98

Any fellow VMI alumni in the Charlottesville area who want to help, please let me know.

Photo courtesy.

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Rather than bore you with a full summary of my time on posterous, here are a few of the stories I noted/wrote there last week -

Rethink the Season of Giving

Postal workers say facility closure would slow mail service | Charlottesville Daily Progress

Well *this* bodes well for health care reform

Decentralized Design Hubs and Work Centers – Kinda like @GetOpenSpace #cityideas @good

How do you define “investment”?

Found an Interesting Report in our MLS today

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I grew up in Culpeper, Virginia, just north of Charlottesville … before it became a bedroom community for Northern Virginia. My dad was and is a commercial real estate broker there; I remember when I was a kid Dad would joke with me – and say, “they know who I am …” and every single time, they did. He built his reputation and business on knowing people and being good to them.

Charlottesville is much the same way – we’ve grown since I was a kid, but we’re a very small town, made smaller by social media and our collective desire to communicate and interact.

We’ve always lived by small town rules; building a real estate business has always been about small town rules. This new world allows for small town rules to integrate and interact with social media rules – and the overlap between the two is tremendous.

- Reputation matters.

- The Golden Rule, while not often explicitly acknowledged, is practiced more often than not.

- Giving back counts.

- Seeing people is easy; knowing people takes work.

Nothing groundbreaking here, but a reminder to be nice.

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Once again, it’s time for the Charlottesville Toy Lift. And once again (thanks to my wife being on the Board for the Toy Lift) it’s time to volunteer.

Click through to fill out a volunteer form.

What is the Toy Lift?

The Kids Lift Foundation believes every child is entitled to a happy and enriched childhood. Our mission is to support local families through volunteerism, community cooperation, morale building, and educational tools. We seek to provide that support through Toy Lift, Books Lift Kids, and Kids and Cops Holiday Shop.

The purposes and objectives of the Foundation are to:

• Provide toys and books to area children ages newborn through 8th grade
• Seek charitable contributions of money, toys, books and other needed items
• Seek volunteer assistance from the community
• Not interfere with any governmental or community agencies already assisting area children

The Foundation’s service area includes the City of Charlottesville and the Counties of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Nelson, and Orange.

Why should I support Toy Lift and what makes Kids Lift Foundation different? Toy Lift is entirely volunteer run. There is not one paid employee as part of the Kids Lift Foundation. We start with a volunteer board of nine people that work all year. We add another 10 volunteers who serve as advisors from July through Toy Lift. Then we host hundreds of volunteers from the community during the event itself.

All our toys stay local. The families we serve come from Albemarle, Buckingham, Charlottesville, Fluvanna, Greene, Nelson, and Orange. The toys we collect from the Toy Lift event go directly back to those families. None of our toys are sent to Richmond, Lynchburg or other locations. We do allow other local charities to take advantage of the toys we have left after we have taken care of the families on our list.

Our selection criterion allows us to identify families that might otherwise be missed. We do not use the financial documentation that other organizations do. Instead we require all our families to be sponsored by a school. We rely on the recommendation of a school counselor or social worker that a family is in need of support. This allows us to identify those families that may not already be part of “the system,” but may be experiencing circumstances that make this year particularly difficult.

For example, a family that has had a parental death this year and mom couldn’t even imagine trying to pull together Christmas might not meet any financial criteria, but the school personnel that know this family can identify them for us. They can also help us find those families who may have a very recent job loss, an accident or crisis such as a fire, or a sudden family burden.

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From friends at Blue Mountain Brewery:

Today is the release of our tasty Lights Out Holiday Ale. Available on draft & in six-packs here at the brewery. Today is also the first Thursday of the month which means it is Steal the Glass day, all day long. Buy a beer for $5 and you keep the logo glass it comes in, no limit on glass purchases.

Sweet. I’m not a fan of the crass, blatant, wasteful and repulsive commercialism that comes with the holiday season. I do love my family and spending time with them and friends.

Blue Mountain Brewery’s Lights Out is becoming my favorite way of welcoming in the holiday season.

Cross-posted at RealCrozetVA.

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There’s never been a better time or reason to grow one.

I’ve never had a mustache before, and really, if I can’t have a little bit of fun with my facial hair and hopefully raise a bit of money to fight men’s cancer, what good is waking up everyday? Life’s to short to take oneself too seriously.

WCAV noted earlier this month that “Over one in ten men in Charlottesville who get a prostate screening at Martha Jefferson Hospital have abnormal results.”

I may even run in The Charlottesville Men’s Four Miler Training Program and Fun Run December 5, 2009 in Free Union (but my bum ankle may prevent this).

If you feel so inclined, please donate here.

The beneficiaries of the donation are the Livestrong Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

As many of my clients and friends know, I tend to grow a beard every Fall-Winter, for no reason other than I’m still able to grow hair on my face. This year, inspired by my friend Jay, I’ve decided to shave off my beard for the month of November.

From the Movember site:

This Movember, the money raised in the U.S. will be split between the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation will use the money raised by Movember to fund:
• the LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance program which has the goal of improving survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40.
• research initiatives to further understand the biology of adolescent and young adult cancers.

To date, Movember has raised $47 million globally making it the world’s largest charity event for men. Significantly, awareness of men’s health issues has improved with Movember helping to spread important health messages directly to millions of Mo Bros & Sistas around the world.

We challenge you to join us in changing the face of men’s health.

For further information, visit The Movember Foundation.

Before

After

If you can, please consider giving a few bucks.

There’s also a Prostate Cancer Support Group in Charlottesville

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Off topic, and not for or against HR 2998, the former HR 2454.

But trust me anyway.

If you were a buyer or seller, would you hire me if I didn’t bother reading the offers, Contracts and contingencies that I asked you to sign?

How Fast Can Congress Read H.R. 2998 from Sunlight Foundation on Vimeo.

Why do we allow our "hired" representatives to get away with passing bills – trivial and substantial – without actually reading them?

More at the Sunlight Foundation:

I wrote last week that OpenCongress can be an incredible resource for citizens, reporters and activists looking for information on Congress, but cautioned that this is only true when Congress makes that information available. With the case of the American Clean Energy And Security Act, this simply wasn’t possible. Members of the House were given precious little time to determine the policy outcomes of this legislation, due to its size, the different versions released, and the time frame provided for action (Speaker Nancy Pelosi had sought a vote before next week’s 4th of July recess). Members of the public were given even less time.

Update 02 July 2009: skip forward to 2:20 to hear him speak about some of the housing implications.

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Daniel and the folks at Cloudbrain have proposed what I think is a brilliant idea that is probably being done elsewhere … this would be perfect for Realtors who don’t need the wasteful infrastructure provided by larger facilities, when all many of us need is a coffee shop, occasionally a larger conference room and quiet space to work/write. The idea’s not necessarily new; I’ve heard it a couple of times locally over the past few years – what’s needed is for someone to step to the plate and lead the way.

Based on the comments on his post, it seems that there are plenty of interested people out there seeking this space.

We’ve been throwing this idea around for a while and I’ve talked to enough people that have been excited about it, it seemed time to take the idea to a new level: A Blog Post.

WHAT IF…

We leased one of the large empty office spaces on the Downtown Mall and turned it in to a workspace for internet workers, developers, designers, bloggers, writers (etc.) that work alone or in small teams.  It might look something like:

• Fast WiFi
• Large tables where you could work on your laptop
• Couches and comfy chairs for lounging / discussions
• A conference room you could use for meetings with clients
• Coffee, WII, Xbox and other brain stimulants
• Whiteboards for brainstorming and announcements
• Simple rules like “Headphones = Do Not Disturb”
• A community of smart creative web workers

There seems to be a lot of 1 – 4 person companies in Cville that (1) Spend most of their time on a computer (2) Want to be Downtown (3) Are paying too much for office space or work from home and (3) Would benefit from being around other creative people during the day.

We could charge a monthly fee (similar to a gym membership) and you could use it as much or as little as you want.  Would anyone be interested in something like this?  Leave a comment with feedback / suggestions.  If we could get 15-20 people to commit, I think it could be do-able.

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We have to take in the humor where ever we can find it. Take four minutes and watch this.

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My thoughts and prayers go out to Tanta, her friends and family and any and everyone who read her on Calculated Risk. She had an ability to explain financial matters in a cogent and humorous way that will be greatly missed.

I personally learned a lot from her and am grateful.

Read more at Calculated Risk and the New York Times.

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One of the reasons I love Twitter is finding things like this from people know I respect:

(That picture is not really Jeff Brown – it’s Jeff Turner)

Find me on Twitter.

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Thanks to Kris Berg for finding this gem.

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Few things in this world are more valuable than perspective. Thank you, sir.

More.

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