Apperently we're miserable people

Well, according to Forbes anyway. Pat McCrory thinks Forbes needs drug testing, it's the second time I've ever agreed with McCrory. Forbes cites Charlotte as the most violent city on their list, what they don't tell you is that they used old statistics when a newer batch were readily available. But of course finding the newer statistics would have required actual research, something which Forbes isn't very good at. Forbes also skews numbers by using percentages to compare numbers from a much smaller Charlotte of 1990 (pop. 395,934) to a much larger Charlotte of 2008 (pop. ~700,000). Despite them printing this tripe Charlotte continues to post gains in employment year after year despite rising gas prices and a struggling national economy poisoned by their precious right-wing economic policies. It's not like those high taxes are being spent on new police to keep down that seemingly phantom crime rate. Oh wait, they are.

Among other factors to determine misery levels for a town they couldn't point out on a giant print map was weather. Charlotte is no stranger to 60 degree days in winter. That's probably why the Forbes article neglected to mention weather in Charlotte's paragraph.

The fact that Charlotte was one of three (along with Seattle and Portland) American cities to experience growth during the housing crash didn't factor into the "research" either.

I agree with Castro, they need a bucket on their heads.

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.

I'm getting a real estate license

...and it's probably an incredibly stupid decision given the current less than healthy state of the American housing market, although Charlotte's market has somehow found a way to saunter on it's obvious there are problems here too, seventy-seven homes in one Beazer developed starter home community have gone into foreclosure since August 2007. Yeah.

In all honesty it's probably my ergophobia that's making me shy away from a normal path of employment. I also think my oceans of useless knowledge about Mecklenburg County could be put to use as a real estate agent (how many other 23 year olds know that "Sharon Amity" signifies the unification of the Charlotte and Sharon townships?). God I'm a geek.

So, yea, that's what I'm going to do.

I played the lotto with (the splendiferous) Jane's numbers and didn't win anything, hopefully she'll have better luck.