outskirts: life and times in charlottesville

As I was heading home I noticed the Mall party (the big 30) was getting started near the middle of the mall. You know the place…right next to the fountain by Zocalo that hasn’t been turned on in the past 1.5 years.

It looks like all the local media is around, so be sure to watch that 6 and 11 coverage if you want to see more (I’ll have a few pictures up tomorrow or later tonight). Now, if you want to see this in high def…you’ll have to move to another city. Rumor has it Adelphia won’t be getting us a HD cable service until 2008, but more likely 2009. WRIC in Richmond has now become a true HD station (at least when their tower doesn’t get hit by lightning) and is doing their local news in HD. Very nice.

Update: Several pictures posted on my Flickr home.

The stretch of road where this accident happened is yet another one where trying to get around as a pedestrian is basically impossible. Anyone try to get across 29/Rio lately? Less pedestrians, more lanes is the basic philosophy around here.

I’d heard that when they redid roads here in the village they were supposed to add bike lanes to help promote activity and all that hoo ha. When they redid Park road they didn’t add bike lanes. They did add parking spaces. I believe that some loophole in the law was used to get around that bike lane issue.

When millions were spent on the musical marshmallow how many bike racks were added? Five? Ten? Try zero. I actually think that several were removed, but I can’t confirm that (I may have to look through some old pictures if I ever have time). Bikes lanes and crosswalks…both good.

Web exclusive…pictures from the new carousel being set up in C-Ville. Did other people have first dibs on this space but got snubbed by the city elders…investigation continues…

Click for more exclusive photos.

Chaos erupts as a cow rampages through the village. I wonder if this had anything to do with our power outage yesterday.

I saw a really big pig in my yard one day as I was coming home.

PS. It looks like a monkey is also on the loose here in Virginia.

I went to Wintergreen to catch the fireworks last night. I was so nice and cool up on the hill. It is hot as hell here in the village. This one was a 15 second hand held shot. It is a pity I didn’t remember my tripod. This looked like fish swimming around up in the sky.

Click the shot to drop by my Flickr photos.

As is the case almost every day during the summer…a large chunk of the downtown region of the village lost power for about 25 minutes this evening. My guess is that the person who watches the local mule let it out of the power-generating mule-walking machine.

I ventured out to investigate the situation. Traffic lights were devoid of light, so no one was bothering to stop or even slow down at intersections. Three big Dominion Power trucks rolled by, and about five minutes after that the power reappeared. Maybe they had the spare mule.

I made the critical error of going outside in Charlottesville in the summertime. I think I lost 8 pounds in 12 minutes. Was TJ stupid enough to spend his summers here? I guess if he was he at least had “servants” to wave fans on him all day.