If Dwight Schrute were in charge of a Christian coffee shop…

These would be the rules.

This poster was hanging at the open mic event Friday held at a church that meets above Adam Cave Fine Art on Hargett Street in downtown Raleigh. The poster is referencing Dwight from the Office, who is big on rules. I had to give props to the clever person who posted this sign. I wish I had taken better notes on what church is located on the third floor of the building and what their mission is. If anyone is aware, please fill me in. It’s an awesome venue, and an interesting pick for a church.

The only other interesting sign I spied during this month’s First Friday festivities was at Father & Son Antiques. The steamy weather kept the retro shop from staying open for the evening’s wandering art seekers. In case you didn’t know, there are artist galleries/studios on the third floor of this shop that seem to always be open whenever the store is open. If you haven’t made it that high up in the business, I’d suggest taking a peak.

Ginny from the Blog gets a makeover

I took my blog to the stylist, resulting in the changes you see here. I’m jazzed about the new design, which is a little cleaner than my previous three-column blog. I’m still having a few things tweaked, but this is pretty much what my blog will look like for the near future.

You’ll notice the featured photo to the right, which I hope to swap out every day or so. If you click on the photo it will take you to my Flickr page, where you can see even more of my photos. Below the photo is the featured video, which will likely be a video that I’ve already included as part of a blog post, but you never know. Special thanks to Wayne Sutton and Graham Hensley for all their help.

I’m working on updating my blogroll, which somehow got lost in the shuffle. My Twitter widget doesn’t work yet either, but hopefully it’ll be fixed soon.

Other than that, I’m open to suggestions. Hope you like the new look.

Watch pig races and goat milkings at the Got to be NC Festival

I’m a sucker for a fair. Having grown up in southern Illinois, I’ve been to many 4-H fairs, carnivals, state fairs and the like. So when I found out the “Got to be NC Festival” was free and in full swing at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds, I had to go check it out. The festival kicked off last night and runs through Sunday, June 8.

I was surprised and disappointed to see the fairgrounds sparsely populated last night. By 8 p.m. (when I arrived) there was a decent breeze stirring up the steamy day, so it walking around wasn’t too bad. I wonder whether it was the weather or a lack of promotion that kept families at bay. The festival is put on by the N.C. Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, I’d definitely endorse going. Fireworks will dance in the sky at 9:45 p.m. tonight and Saturday, and assuming the display is anything like last night’s show, then it’s worth going for the fireworks alone. The show lasted about 15 minutes. If you want to watch them shoot up to the sky from the island where they’re shot off of, try parking along Trinity Road near the pond on the state fairgrounds. Here is a 360 degree spin of what you might see:

If your children haven’t had much exposure to farm life, this is an awesome opportunity to let them sample it. I’d suggest taking them to the pig races, where there are multiple shows each day, according to the brochure I was handed when I entered the gates. Watch last night’s pot belly pig race here:

You can also check out rows of antique farm equipment, the BBQ competition, dairy goats milking demonstrations and, of course, a petting zoo and plenty of carnival rides.

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen at a state fair? Certainly someone out there has seen a cow give birth or a crazy butter sculpture or something else that’s a little bizarre.

Time for a text messaging competition

Triangle-area teenagers will face off in an instant messaging competition from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh. The winner will compete for a “VIP Jonas Brothers concert experience.” The Jonas Brothers are a big deal among tweens and some teens. I know this because my 13-year-old sister literally has more than 40 posters of them plastered to her bedroom wall (which is pretty creepy, but I guess I probably had a similar amount of New Kids on the Block posters decorating my bedroom back in the day).

Check out the friendly text messaging competition my co-worker Wayne Sutton and I staged this afternoon. We both used our Blackberries, which neither of us are used to texting on, so we were at equal disadvantage. We need to know who won.

Everything will be OK

My blog is undergoing surgery. At last check it was in stable condition. Everything will be OK. It’s expected to have a speedy recovery.

In the meantime, read Ginny from the Blog here.

I’m not going anywhere …

But my hosting is. We’re in the process of upgrading hosting of my blog, so it’s slightly possible that ginnyfromtheblog.com may go dark sometime during the next few days. If it does, don’t freak out. Don’t call my boss and say: “Dude, where’s Ginny from the Blog.” Instead, just wait patiently or access it by typing http://blogs.wncn.info/gskalski into your browser.

Thank you kindly. Most Sincerely, Ginny.

Guess who’s not having any fun …

The adult who visits this park:

I saw this sign at a Wake County park in Morrisville yesterday. I know alcohol isn’t typically allowed at public parks. And it makes sense that they wouldn’t want to pick up a bunch of golf balls off the soccer fields or worry about a wayward shot hitting someone for insurance reasons. But no pets?

Raleigh is the No. 2 place to get your life on

Raleigh will be named the second best city in America to live, work and play in the July issue of Kiplinger (a personal finance magazine that has a whole section on its website dedicated to the best of just about everything a Kiplinger reader might be interested in). The issue hits newsstands June 10, but you can read the article online now.

It’s always awesome when some place in the Triangle is highlighted as a top place to be. But there are a few things about Kiplinger’s latest declaration that really irk me.

If you read the article closely, you’ll see that technically Raleigh and the “larger surrounding areas” are ranked No. 2 on the list. It’s a fact that becomes obvious only if you notice that the article posts population as 995,662 (U.S. Census estimates for 2006 put Raleigh’s population at 356,321). But really, the whole article focuses on how rad Raleigh is. It doesn’t talk about the merits of Durham, which also boasts a large creative class population (a key criteria the authors said they used to develop their rankings) or make mention of the charms of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Instead, the only other Triangle spot that gets a shout out is Cary.

It goes on to call Raleigh Times the “unofficial cultural epicenter of the new Raleigh” (wonder what the gentlemen running the New Raleigh blog think of that). The article goes on to say:

… (Raleigh Times) sits on a corner of Fayetteville Street, which is the keystone of Raleigh’s Livable Streets project, a plan to bring urban living to a city that languished as its suburbs and exurbs flourished. The bar, which offers 50 Belgian beers, attracts the young and old, hipsters and preppies, plus folks from the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University and Duke University.

First of all, Raleigh Times is not on the corner of Fayetteville Street. It is firmly planted mid block on Hargett Street. I take issue with this only because the Christian Science Reading Room is on that street corner and there is a clearly a huge difference between what’s serve at the Times versus what’s preached at the reading room. Don’t get me wrong, as a former newspaper reporter and beer lover, I love me some Raleigh Times, I just wish the article didn’t use the Times as a crutch for making a greater point about Fayetteville Street.

It’s easy to find flaws when news organizations start making lists of top places. Just look at the scathing comments people posted after CNN Money declared Durham No. 12 on a list of 100 best places to “live and launch” (because you know the Bull City is just a gang-ridden place where you’ll get mugged on the street corner *insert HUGE does of sarcasm here*). And I can empathize with the challenges a reporter faces in trying to capture the feel of an entire community based on a brief visit. I’ve been trying to do that for the community section of the various MyNC.com sites, and it’s not easy.

Do you think it makes sense for the article to declare Raleigh No. 2 without giving additional props to the Triangle? And if you’ve been to Raleigh Times, would you go so far as calling it the “cultural epicenter” of downtown Raleigh?