Sapporo Snow Festival, Lent

I want to go to the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan. It looks really cool, those snow sculptures are incredible works of art. Before reading about that all I knew about Sapporo was that it was really cold and has a truly incredible stadium. I feel a bit ignorant not knowing more about it since I like to think of myself as well versed in cultural geography. Turns out Sapporo is actually three times bigger than my fair city. Hmm, maybe I'll get to go one year.

Lent starts tomorrow, I've decided I'm going to give up junk food. Eating all this processed garbage can't be good for my mood so who knows? Maybe it'll make me happier. That'd be awesome.

Yea, can't think of anything else to write.

We need heated roads

Why can't Charlotte do this? God knows we have enough sunlight, it's basically the only thing we have an excess of besides children named Conner. We need to start doing things ourselves anyway because the capital won't give us any funds.

Stanly County had 75 (yes, seventy-five) car accidents in a 90 minute period this morning. Stanly County had more wrecks than Mecklenburg County has ambulances. That could easily be Charlotte because people here think they're driving for Richard Childress every time they get behind the wheel of a car. I know, I'm one of them.

"Where will we get the money for this insanity?" you ask. That's simple, it will eventually pay for itself because the water can be used to heat buildings and it cuts down on road maintenance, most of Charlotte's roads are due to be fixed soon anyway (has anyone driven the outside lane of Monroe Road between Rama Road and East Meck High lately? Yeah.). Of course this will probably piss Duke Power off, but Duke Power has to live like everyone else and evolve or die.

Snow

Actual snow and not ice this time, I took two crappy pictures of it.



As you can see my drought afflicted yard needs any kind of moisture.

Uptown Knights Stadium

The City said ok to a new uptown baseball stadium for the Knights in Third Ward which has been designed to seat 10,000. Info/Renders here.

This should have been done years ago but the plan has been blocked by a "concerned taxpayer" who just so happens to want to buy a Major League team. That would be peachy if Charlotte could support it's current teams but it can barely do that. The Panthers, easily the the popular of the Charlotte teams, often struggle to sell out unless they're having a rare spectacular season. The Bobcats only sell out when a big name player is in town, the hated Hornets no longer produce much of a buzz due to a justified inability to hate Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Do you really think a Tuesday night affair pitting a Charlotte team against the Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Rays or anyone not called the Braves, Yankees, Mets, Cubs, or Red Sox would even draw a 5-figure crowd? I'm not regurgitating some line from the Observer, but it wouldn't. Most of Charlotte's new population only has one connection to the city, that they live here. They don't care about Charlotte's teams unless they start winning. Also, the native population and transplants that do care about Charlotte sports teams would have reservations about supporting a relocated team because they know first hand how terrible it feels to have a team you plowed hundreds and thousands of dollars into ripped away. On top of that you have to remember that a large portion of the population doesn't give a crap about sports in the first place.

Why do I rant on here if nobody reads it? Oh yea, Jane is in school so I can't heap buckets of praise on her right now and the ground is covered in ice and snow so I have to do other stuff.