Monthly Archive for December, 2005

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DUI Ends Hazzard-Style

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 14, 2005 in Crime and Transportation. 1 Comment

Check out WINA’s description of a hellacool accident last night:

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, there was a short pursuit involving a state trooper and a speeding vehicle. The car was pulled over on 5th Street Extended near I-64, the driver got out of the car and fled, and the trooper eventually called in a tow-truck to haul away the suspect vehicle. At around 2:30 a.m., a 2003 Ford Taurus approaching the three parked vehicles at a high rate of speed hit the state trooper’s cruiser and the suspect’s car, and then went up the tow truck ramp that had been lowered. The car flew up the ramp, over the cab of the tow truck and then landed right-side up on all four wheels in front of the tow truck. There were no injuries.

State Police say the driver of the airborne car was 34-year-old Jodie Ellen Finney of Blue Jay Way in Albemarle’s Briarwood subdivision. State Police say Finney was charged with DUI.

If that trooper had a camera rolling on the dash, they’d best release that video. I want a voiceover, too: “Look out, sheriff! The General Lee ain’t known for its wings, and I can guess what ol’ Jodie Finney is thinkin’ right now. Set a spell, folks, and see Enos get madder than a weasel in a gum-bush.”

C’ville Paying $70k for New Website

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 13, 2005 in General News. 19 Comments

mom133d writes: “According to NBC 29, Charlottesville is paying a a California design company $70,000 to help create the new site. One can only hope its design is better than the current incarnation.”

California? Ouch. I was at last night’s Neon Guild meeting. There were at least a half dozen local website development shops represented there, each of whom could have done the job as well as any company in California. Assuming this is a total site overhaul and the quality of work is decent, then the price is reasonable. Whatever this new website is like, it’s bound to be less craptacular than the current site. If the new site validates, is ADA compliant, doesn’t have URLs of Death and — please, Lord — doesn’t have scrolling-freaking-text, I’ll feel pretty good about it. Bonus points will be awarded for RSS feeds, DIV-based layout, a ban on posting Word documents, and a user interface that doesn’t make my head hurt. Implementing trackbacks in any capacity will result in an automatic victory.

Some unsolicited advice to the city: Get together a beta group of uppity local geeks (*ahem*) to check out your contractor’s work before you declare the job to be done.

One Hundred Charlottesville Blogs

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 12, 2005 in Site News. 1 Comment

As of this morning, there are now exactly 100 Charlottesville blogs. I’d hoped to reach this goal by the end of the year, and so it has been done. I’ve been removing blogs that haven’t been updated for a few months, so these are all the real deal.

I’m happy that so many of these blogs are genuinely interesting. I subscribe to the RSS feed, see everything that gets posted, and I bet that I read 75% of what’s up there. Amazing that it’s only been six months.

Interested in joining the fray? Pick a free blogging service, any free blogging service and get started.

Parks Need an Overhaul

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 11, 2005 in General News. 4 Comments

In today’s Progress, John Yellig writes about the state of Charlottesville’s parks:

A city-sponsored needs assessment by PROS Consulting LLC, a consulting firm specializing in public facilities, found that Charlottesville’s aging park system needs $33 million in upgrades to bring it up to modern standards.

“The majority of parks look ‘tired’ and lack the strong image value that enhances neighborhood, the community and creates a strong advocacy,” states the 69-page document, presented to the City Council last week. “The city of Charlottesville is locked into a 1960’s mindset as it applies to recreation centers.”

$20M of that is to deal with rec centers and pools, $13M for the parks themselves. Council will figure out what to do in a month or two.

Kluge Auctioning Morven Contents

Published by Waldo Jaquith on December 10, 2005 in General News. Closed

Billionaire John Kluge is auctioning off much of the contents of Morven, the AP reports, now that he’s decided to spend all of his time at his other home in Palm Beach. Kluge announced that he’d be donating Morven to UVa in May of 2001, retaining the right to live there for the rest of his life. The 91-year-old has decided that he can do without 553 items, including furniture and rare collectables. The auction will be held on the 16th at Christie’s — a preview is available on Christie’s website.

I call dibs on the truck-sized picnic hamper.

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