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Filed under: New Domain Tagged: carolinalifestyles.com, New Domain ]]> http://carolinalifestyles.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/we-have-moved/feed/ 0 anifani821 Screen shot 2010-03-26 at 2.07.08 PM http://carolinalifestyles.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/st-paddys-day-blessing-to-our-readers/ http://carolinalifestyles.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/st-paddys-day-blessing-to-our-readers/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:56:07 +0000 Ani http://carolinalifestyles.wordpress.com/?p=2022 ]]> I have heard it said that we all have a drop o’ Irish in us!

Whether your lineage is Irish or not, we would like to send all our readers a special blessing for St. Patrick’s Day.  We hope you will share it with others who are dear to you.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

May every valley lead to a mountain top;

May every dark night lead to a sunny morn;

May every trial lead to celebration;

And may you always feel God’s presence,

Even as you walk in the rain . . .

–Ani

To help you find the best of connections out there, we have listed a few of our favorite ways to stay abreast of what’s happening on the court.

Neat App from Pocket Bracket for iPhone, iTouch or Google Android:   

http://www.pocketbracket.com/about

NCAA Men’s Basketball Facebook Fan Page:

http://www.facebook.com/ani821?ref=profile#!/NCAAmbb?ref=ts

Live stream audio from Opening Game:

http://mmod.ncaa.com/

Printable NCAA 2010 Bracket Chart here:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/bracket

CBS Sports has a neat set-up with a bracket manager that can be customized:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/mayhem/brackets?ttag=BM10_SEM_all_goog_bspoe_adg_0008

Asheville, NC prides itself on a thriving farm-to-table scene and flourishing network of family farms. While the city owes that reputation to many active organizations and individuals, one local non-profit laid the groundwork for city’s food future.

The Rise of ASAP

In 1995, Charlie Jackson started what would become the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP). At the time, tobacco was falling out of favor as the tobacco and cigarette industry came under fire. Tobacco was the foundation for many family farms in Western North Carolina, and Charlie feared the worst if tobacco disappeared from community agriculture.

Charlie and his wife, Emily, worked with several community members to form ASAP. The organization’s goal was to assist family farms as they transitioned from tobacco to food crops. Through education and marketing, ASAP developed and advocated strategies that helped family farms prosper, preserved farmland and provided access to healthy, locally grown food.

Making Local Food More than a Catch-Phrase

Fast forward 15 years later, and ASAP is still on the scene changing the way the Asheville-area views and approaches local food.

“ASAP has spent a lot of time collecting and communicating information about local food. We get to know locals farmers and share that information, so the community can make accurate and well-informed decisions when they decide to buy local,” says Rose McLarney, who handles Communications & Marketing for ASAP.

One of the ways they raise awareness is through the annual local food guide. The guide serves as the definitive resource to family farms within a 100-miles radius of Asheville. What started out as a Xeroxed piece of paper has grown into a magazine with over 100 pages that’s distributed at local businesses, visitor centers, hotels, restaurants, newsstands, schools and community centers.

The creation of ASAP’s Appalachian Grown Certification has also helped educate local buyers. “The certification is a process that certifies farms as local and family-owned. It helps consumers identify ‘real’ local food in stores and restaurants,” says Rose.

Sharing the Bounty of Local Food with the Entire Community

But the attention on local food doesn’t stop at the market. ASAP works with local schools on the Growing Minds Program. The program helps educate youngsters on the benefits of fresh food by facilitating school gardens, cooking demonstrations and visits to local farms. The final touch is getting fresh food from local farms on the school cafeteria menu.

ASAP has also spent time ensuring that nutritious and healthy food is available to everyone in the community. Last year, they rolled out an EBT Food Stamp program at several local markets that allowed locals to purchase fresh food using their EBT cards.

Learning from ASAP’s Victories

While ASAP has been influential in changing the food scene in and around Asheville, their success is not an isolated event. The group is adamant that any city can become a partner in the movement for local food.

“Success starts with a few basics,” says Rose. “Ensure you have good and accurate information from farmers when promoting local food, and don’t underestimate the benefits of good marketing and publicity.”

She also recommends working with a diversity of markets and farmers. “Reach out to larger conventional farmers and also to the smaller, more niche farmers. And when it comes to identifying distribution outlets, don’t discount any venue. School cafeterias and farmers markets all have a place in the local food scene.”

Her final piece of advice is to recognize the positive message behind local food. “You can appeal to a diversity of people with messages connected to health, heritage, the environment or the economy. And anyone can be a part of the local food movement, whether they’re shopping for a few affordable basics or enjoying fine dining,” says Rose.

Original article here:

http://www.farmtotableonline.org/2010/03/power-in-community-how-a-local-food-movement-changed-a-city/

Ever like to listen in on a police pullover right near your house? The cops are parked in your neighbor’s driveway and your curiosity really starts setting in. Or you see an ambulance in the distance and you say to yourself, “I wonder what’s going on over there?” Admit it, you’ve done it as much as I have. If you’re like me, you don’t have one of those fancy, expensive scanners that picks up the world, but you’d sure like to have one. There are numerous fire/police/EMS scanner apps available through the iTunes stores, but 5-0 Radio Pro Scanner really fits the bill.

5-0 Radio Pro startup screen

The opening screen nicely lays your options out for you. You can browse the scanner feeds, scroll through the top 100 feeds, along with several other options for regular radio feeds. The feeds you have access to are global, from the US to Canada, Australia to the UK, some 35,000 in all. Select your country, then select a state or region/province. Let’s say you’re living in Kentucky (just go with it) and you hear of something huge happening in New York. Or you hear about a car chase in California (Home of the High Speed Persuit). It’s a couple of easy screen taps to get to the police or fire department where all the action’s at. The screen itself for each feed mimics a scanner, with the name of the feed, amount of time you’ve been listening, the size of the stream, and the amount of listeners. There’s also a code guide that fills you in on what the various codes mean, that way you’ll know more beyond the standard “10-4.” You can even chat about what’s going on during a particular stream via twitter. The gold in the app is the ability to play the scanner stream in the background while you’re using other apps.

Pick a country, any country

One thing to keep in mind is that many areas simply aren’t that active as others, leaving a ton of dead air. It won’t make too much sense to sneak a listen on a scanner where the most activity is the fire department getting a cat from a tree. On the flip side, there are some scanners that are extremely active. Depending on the day and time, some seem to go non stop, and that’s where the thing pays for itself. Listen in on the Essex County, New Jersey (Newark) police scanner on a Saturday evening, and it’s a constant stream of activity (one Saturday evening wound up being less than thirty seconds from one call to the next, with police dispatched to various residences). If you’re wondering where some of the better feeds are, tap the main screen for the top 100 feeds. They’re all active and at times, kind of like watching a good episode of COPS, highly entertaining. As eye rolling as it can be, it’s also enough to make you want to stay indoors for the rest of your life.

The scanner feed screen

You also have a set of radio station and internet music streams. It’s the slight oddball part that deviates from the entire purpose of the app, however it’s still a welcome feature. That section is broken down by genre and there’s a lot here from decades to gdradio.net. There are genres of music I’ve never even heard before (Romantica and Romantico?). There are various ethnic-based radio stations, AM radio stations, a Beatles radio section (which is really cool). Even  Howard Stern’s “Howard 101″ Sirius station streams here too, how–I have no idea. If you’re a Stern fan without Sirius XM, so long as that part of the app exists, it is pure gold to you. Like the scanner feeds, the audio here is very reliable with hardly any breaks where it needs to reconnect. It won’t substitute for your satellite radio, or real radio for that matter, but if you’re out and about, it does the job perfectly.

Between the police, fire, EMS, air traffic control, railroad feeds, as well as the streaming radio apps, there’s plenty to listen to. New feeds are always being added, although I’d love to see NASCAR driver feeds incorporated into the app (no…I’m not holding my breath). I can’t come up with a single con to this app and the $1.99 asking price makes it out to be a pretty decent steal.

A quick note that the good folks at smartestapple.com would like to remind us of is the ability to record scanner feeds and email them to friends. You can look at the “Browse Web for More Feeds” section for instructions on how to do so. Another notch in an already very cool app.

Tucked away less than a mile from Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing is the team David Ragan, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, and the now notorious Carl Edwards call home. Located about a mile (as the crow flies) from Hendrick and a hop, skip, and jump from Stewart-Haas, Roush-Fenway in Concord, North Carolina is one of the sleekest, slickest museums in town.

Roush-Fenway

What’s striking about this museum is it’s overall presentation. Almost mimicking a race track, all of the cars and displays are placed along a circular concourse, a reflective floor, and tall, surrounding windows. Engines, springs, various car parts, and trophies are all on display. Camping World Trucks, Nationwide and Sprint Cup cars are laid out amongst interactive displays. Jamie McMurray’s July 7, 2007 Daytona winning vehicle is here, kept in the same condition as it was coming off of the track. It’s a nifty display, however the most eye catching car in the entire museum rests…sort of…right next to it. Todd Kleuver’s Daytona barrel rolling Ford Taurus, a beast of a wreck, sits slanted from the floor to the window, looking as though it’s still in flight. This car will catch your eye and magnetically pull you the moment it comes into your peripheral view. It appears to be disguised as an advertisement for the Roush constructed chassis, to show that their drivers can survive a wreck as brutal as that one. Still, you’ll pay more attention to the eight film frames that show the wreck in action, wondering how anyone could just walk away. And if the words “holy ****” come flying out of your mouth, don’t worry. They flew out of mine, too. More than once, in various combinations.

Holy ****

Carl Edwards' Display

There is a 100 seat theater located inside the circle, yet it was roped off for a private function both times I visited. They do say that it shows various moments in Roush-Fenway history. Look for this page to be updated once I get to see what it is that they show.

Given it’s proximity to Hendrick, Earnhardt-Ganassi, and Stewart Haas, it’s a short trip, very easy to get to. It’s fast, sharp looking museum. Like many of these museums this one won’t take up too much of your time. Unless you hang around the wreck. I could look at that thing forever.

The bad man has arrived at the island.

What a great character study on Ben Linus last night! A European history teacher in his flash sideways, Ben’s dealings with the zombie-ish Principle Reynolds left him with an inner conflict. John Locke, a substitute teacher in the flash sideways, innocently planted the idea that Ben should become school principal. Ben cared about his students, Reynolds cared about his bottom line. Ben was given golden information about Reynolds having a little go ’round with the school nurse, on school grounds, by one of his students (Alex Rousseau, of all kids!!!). When Ben went to blackmail Reynolds using emails hacked with the assistance from a lab teacher, Reynolds showed he could stoop one lower. He was more than willing to block Alex Rousseau’s admission to Yale to save his own job. Faced with the choice of a promotion or his student’s education, Ben chose Alex over his own gain. It was an amazing juxtaposition to the Ben Linus who sacrificed Alex, his daughter on the island, to Martin Keamy’s bullet. Ben has been put in the position to “kill” Alex twice during the course of the series. He allowed it to happen once, he didn’t allow it here.

Ben on the island was a slightly different story. He’s very much in a weakened state, no authority, no longer able to fast talk his way out of issues or  bend things his way. On the island Ben was forced to make a choice. Fake Locke freed Ben from digging his own grave (literally and metaphorically), and gave him a chance to get off the island. Ilana, who was planning to put Ben in that very grave for killing Jacob, gave him a second chance. Ben chose Ilana, essentially choosing Team Jacob. At least for now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a character or two switching sides before long.

So far everyone on Team Jacob was a better person in their flash sideways. Everyone on Team Fake Locke, not so much.

Jack’s switch from a man of science to a man of faith continued last night as well. The “ageless” Richard Alpert took both Jack and Hurley to Black Rock, looking to die. Jacob had touched Richard, as he had with the Oceanic survivors, giving him a gift. Richard could not die on his own, he needed Jack to light the long dynamite fuse. Jack knew…definitely more than just believed…that Jacob would not let either of them die, lit the fuse, and sat talking to Richard. It was almost as if Jacob himself stopped the fuse from burning up to the stick. That was also the same unstable dynamite that killed the science teacher during the first season. He couldn’t even shake the sticks and they still blew up in his hand. Richard slammed one down on the barrel, yet nothing happened. Jacob isn’t letting Richard die, either.

Richard said a couple of interesting things last night. He told Jack that he devoted his life, “longer than you can possibly imagine,” in service of Jacob. I don’t think we’re talking tens of years, or even hundreds at this rate. I think it becomes more of “how far back in time does Richard Alpert really go?” He called the gift of Jacob touching someone a curse. Jacob had touched each of the Oceanic survivors, essentially giving them a gift as well.

We could theorize that each has been given a different gift. Was Jack’s gift was one of faith, Ben’s was one of decency (debatable, but given that character’s direction…)? Hurley is still up in the air, we haven’t seen his flash sideways yet to determine his path. Jacob’s role in the lives of these characters has been enormous, his death has truly put the island in state of total flux. Watching Richard break down over the fact that he’ll never know his true purpose on the island was intense to see. I’m looking forward to his flash sideways, or possibly back story.

The bad man being Charles Widmore isn’t that much of a surprise, although the final quick view from the submarine’s periscope was on Ben. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, as Widmore has Ben as a marked man. We could also theorize that Jacob’s death has allowed Widmore onto the island. And Widmore didn’t look like he was on some underwater day cruise, either.

Coming next week: Recon