Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

Page 480 of 549

Escaped Convict Caught in WV

Oscar Junior McCauley IV, a convicted felon who who esacaped from a Nelson County sheriff’s deputy three weeks ago, has been captured in West Virginia. At 4:30am yesterday morning, Albemarle police responded to a report of a stabbing and the abduction of 29-year-old Christian Brooke McCauley, and another report of a stabbing of 29-year-old Anthony Ray Shifflett. Though today’s story in the Progress gets quite muddled from there, one can only assume that Oscar McCauley was accused of these stabbings, though it’s quite impossible to determine at what point the abducted Christian McCauley was released, or what the details of that are. No matter, Oscar McCauley was arrested in Ranson, WV and is being held in Martinsburg on $1M bail. The story also explains the circumstances surrounding his escape: he somehow unlocked his handcuffs while in the back of the deputy’s car, and asked the deputy for a cigarrette. He obliged, and McCauley hit the deputy in the head, took his handgun, and took off running. Today’s Progress has the details. Kind of.

3 Orange/Madison Arsons

Two unoccupied Orange homes and a barn in Madison were all destroyed last night in fires that occurred within a half-hour span. All were within ten miles of one another. Jack Fray, chief of the Madison County Volunteer Fire Department, notes that the barn fire was quite similar to the six arsons all reported on October 20th. Reed Williams has the story in today’s Progress.

Broadslate Lays Off 150

Charlottesville’s Broadslate Networks is closing down. According to a post on the Neon Guild mailing list this afternoon (below), they have laid off 150 of their employees, and are keeping a few on to maintain things until they can sell the company. It’s impressive that they burned through $60M in venture capital in just six months. The company owns a tremendous amount of fiber optics, which they’re in the business of leasing the use of. 4:47pm Update: An anonymous poster has pointed out that they do not, in fact, own much in the way of fiber optics, despite misleading press to the contrary. 12/22/01, 1:18pm Update: Today’s Progress reports that not all 150 were laid off, but 120 were; apparently, the few dozen employees remaining are local folks.

To: Neon Guild Mailing List
From: Tracey Linkous
Subject: Broadslate closing its doors
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:37:54 -0500

My friend Katie Van Sciver called to let me know that Broadslate closed their doors this morning. From what I was told, they laid off 150 or so people and have only a skeleton crew to maintain their current clients until they can sell the company. Several folks we all know were laid off today including Katie Van Sciver, Paula Gunter, and Chuck Moran. Morgan Allen’s position was phased out a few weeks ago. I’m sure there are many others you will know, but this is who I am aware of currently. I have encouraged Katie and others to network as much as possible perhaps becoming more involved and active in some of the many wonderful networking groups our town hosts including: the Neon Guild (http://www.neoneguild.com), Charlottesville Company of Friends (http://www.fastcompany.com/cof), the Charlottesville Young Professionals (mailto:Tracey@caar.com or 817-2394); and the Communication Arts Guild (http://lists.waldo.net/mailman/listinfo/comartguild).

Please reach out to as many people as you can in this tough economy and Holiday season to nurture one another.

Your fellow community catalyst,
Tracey

Wintergreen Opens This Weekend

It’s finally cold enough that Wintergreen can make snow, and this weekend things are opening up for the first time this year. They’ll be opening with beginner and intermediate slopes, and presumably opening the black diamonds as soon as they can. Just a reminder: lift tickets are $20, ski rentals are $11 and snowboards are $26. WINA has a brief story.

New Library Computer System

The library is upgrading their computer systems, WINA reports and the new features should be wicked cool. They recently upgraded their terminals to Linux running X Windows and Netscape, and their website has allowed on-line catalog searches and book renewals for about a year now. I’m told that the new system will have a bunch of interesting new features, though the only one that WINA cites in their story is that they’ll be able to e-mail notices instead of snail-mailing you to let you know when a book is in or you’ve got one overdue. Nice.

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