Saturday was a Full Day

Football

I went to breakfast early. Ran errands including picking up and dropping off ice and the coolers for the neighborhood block party. Left home again around 1030 for the State – Wake Forest game.

With the State Fair going on next door, traffic to Carter-Finley Stadium was terrible. Even leaving at 1030 and a noon kickoff, we didn’t get to our seats until 5 minutes left in the first quarter.

Wake’s kicker made 3 field goals of over 50 yards! State gave Wake Forest a safety and a touchdown with just a minute or so left in the first half. 9 field goal points and 9 points on State blunders were the key to Wake’s 25 – 23 win.

Even still, State had the ball with 2 minutes left in the game and was driving for the sure win; either by a touchdown or a field goal. Daniel Evans was hit as he was trying to throw the ball away to stop the clock with about 30 seconds left. The ball floated from the hit and was intercepted by Wake Forest to secure their win.

Wake Forest is for real.

They have a 6 – 1 record but should be 7 – 0. The comeback win by Clemson on them last weak was a fluke. Wake will be in the top 25 this week.

Frankly, they should already be in the top 20.

Pig Picking

Got home and went directly to the neighborhood block party. Last neighborhood party was about 3 or 4 years ago.

We’ve got a nice mixture of families living here. Young couples with small children, middle age with kids in college and beyond and retirees.

Here’s a telling sign. Among the high school kids, there’s the usual country types that drive 4-wheelers, athletes, and kids loaded up with activities to enhance their resumes for college acceptance (i.e. with helicopter parents). We even had a contingent of a half dozen Goth kids.

I was the 9th or 10th person to build here - back in 1997. Now there’s 58 houses and about 40 or so lots left. The neighborhood has evolved very nicely.

If you're interested - minimum lot size is 1.5 acres. Current lot prices start at $60,000. Minimum house size is 2,500 living (heated) sq. ft. with a 2 car garage or more required.

The developer, Lloyd Atkins, custom builds your house to your architect's plans. Very, very occasionally he will approve your house plans to be built by others. I think he's only done that for about 7 or 8 homes. He lives here so he's very careful about what is built.

I’ve posted earlier about my room mate Nuke (aka JFC) clearing the undergrowth. It looks great and gives the place a park like natural setting. I had at least 4 different people come up and ask me what ‘service’ I used. They wanted to hire the same company since the place looks so great. They were all surprised when I told them it was Nuke and then they were astounded when they learned it was all done by hand (bush axe / machete) and not with a chain saw.

Hmmm . . . . sending Nuke to the neighbors with sharp weaponry. That’s the ticket! That has Desperate Housewives with a macabre twist potential written all over it!.

Art Gallery

Lastly, we went to an artist’s showing / reception in Pittsboro around 1800. It was really pretty good. Not great, but darn impressive none the less. We estimated that all 30 or so of the Pittsboro jet set and benefactor social circle was there.

BTW - if you follow the link to the showing, the first piece (or should I say peace) described is Weapons of Pax Construction. The price was $4000. Kind of ambitous to say the least.

Pittsboro and Moncure both have a pretty good infestation of socially conscious artists.

The owner of the gallery was nurtured growing up in NY by a caring art teacher. Thus, he and his wife have made it a mission to encourage art among children and have a lot of after school and Saturday programs for kids starting as early as 2 years old through teen age years. They deliberately keep the fees low and accessible. Plus, they use some of their proceeds to fund classes for kids whose parents can’t afford it. Tags on some of the pieces let you know that the price of that item will go directly to funding classes for, say 4, children.

I picked up a brochure to give to my nephew & niece-in-law for E.

Movie

Got home and watched Mean Girls on DVD. Plenty of laugh out loud moments. Has an “After School Special” redemptive ending which was kind of out of place after the first 2/3 acerbic beginning. But, well worth watching. After all, it is a PG-13 film.

After that – forced myself to stay awake for an hour of the History Channel waiting for a Monty Python's Flying Circus rerun which PBS airs at 2400 on Saturday nights.

Naturally, I slept late this morning.