Raleigh, Chapel Hill to Host Women’s 2012 Action
Congratulations to N.C. State and UNC as basketball venues were selected to host 2012 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament action. Early round games will take place at UNC, while the RBC Center will be one of the four regional sites for the tournament. The Final Four for that season will be staged in Denver.
Winterfest Sets Opening Event
The Downtown Raleigh Alliance today announced two headliners for the upcoming
Raleigh Winterfest
opening celebration on December 4:
Jaron and the Long Road to Love
and
Christian Kane
along with a special holiday performance by
The Embers
. These performances along with many local acts will be featured in a half-hour long holiday special on ABC11 that will air live 7:30 pm.
“We are pleased to bring a larger ice skating rink to downtown Raleigh this year. We know this will be a huge draw for area residents, employees and visitors and we plan on making the kickoff event a truly celebratory evening,” says David Diaz, President and CEO of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance. The ice rink will be open six days a week from December 4-January 30, and admission is $8 (includes skate rental).
Chevy Volt Ride and Drive Coming to Raleigh
On Monday (November 1) the
Chevy Volt
12-city
Unplugged Tour
will roll into Raleigh’s City Plaza. From 8:30am to 10:00am residents will get the chance to ride and drive the Volt, the world’s first electric vehicle with extended-range capability. In order to test drive, one must be at least 21 years of age and have a valid driver’s license.
On a fully charged battery and tank of gas, the Volt has a driving range of hundreds of miles. Because the Volt can use gas to create its own electricity in extended-range mode, long trips are possible. However, the Volt is primarily powered from electricity stored in its 16-kWh lithium-ion battery which is typically offers a range of 25 to 50 miles (depending on terrain, driving technique, temperature and battery age). When the Volt’s battery runs low, a gas engine-generator seamlessly engages to extend the driving range.
Note: Drives are on a first-come, first-serve basis.
(What I’d like to know is why Raleigh only gets this tour for 1.5hrs when other cities on the tour get at least a half day. The following city on the tour is New York, but their event doesn’t begin until the 5th. Perhaps the tour has some private engagements during the week in a city that lies between Raleigh and New York?? While I’m glad we got a tour date, likely buyers of this car in this market, who are not real estate agents, are extremely unlikely to be able to get away from work first-thing Monday morning.)
Gogo’s Guide to the NBA
The NBA regular season tips off tomorrow night with three games on the schedule. It also begins a two week preview of the NBA League Pass package on Time Warner Cable. The preview, showing thru November 2, is our chance to see some of our favorite former college players whose teams never get national TV coverage. Teams like Indiana and Cleveland have tons of area players, and this is our chance to watch them. The Pass is on channels 571-581 (SD) and 1581 (HD).
The NBA rosters are an interesting read every year. There are so many surprises in the rolls, including the coaching staffs, I put together a
master spreadsheet of all NBA players
for readers to enjoy. In order to best utilize the data, log in to your Google account, and then select File | Make a Copy…, and save the spreadsheet into your own
account. Users can then sort the list by Team, Salary, Age, etc. to best comprehend the current rosters.
There are several players from the area in the league. Quin Snyder, Bob Bender, Gene Banks, Chip Engelland, Phil Weber, Nate McMillan, Vinnie Del Negro, Joe Wolf, Bob McAdoo, Pat Sullivan, John Kuester, George Karl, Larry Brown, Dave Hanners, and Phil Ford are all among the coaching ranks. Raleigh natives Chris Wilcox and John Wall are preparing for big seasons as players in the league. Additionally there are also several former local college players in the league, and Duke currently holds the lead. Those players are:
Duke (13)
- Shane Battier (Houston)
- Carlos Boozer (Chicago)
- Elton Brand (Philadelphia)
- Luol Deng (Chicago)
- Chris Duhon (Orlando)
- Mike Dunleavy (Indiana)
- Gerald Henderson (Charlotte)
- Grant Hill (Phoenix)
- Dahntay Jones (Indiana)
- Corey Maggette (Milwaukee)
- Josh McRoberts (Indiana)
- J.J. Redick (Orlando)
- Shelden Williams (Denver)
UNC (11)
- Vince Carter (Orlando)
- Wayne Ellington (Minnesota)
- Raymond Felton (New York)
- Tyler Hansbrough (Indiana)
- Brendan Haywood (Dallas)
- Antawn Jamison (Cleveland)
- Ty Lawson (Denver)
- Jerry Stackhouse (Miami)
- Jawad Williams (Cleveland)
- Marvin Williams (Atlanta)
- Brandan Wright (Golden State)
NCSU (2)
- J.J. Hickson (Cleveland)
- Josh Powell (Atlanta)
Wake Forest (8)
- Al-Farouq Aminu (LA Clippers)
- Tim Duncan (San Antonio)
- Josh Howard (Washington)
- James Johnson (Chicago)
- Chris Paul (New Orleans)
- Ishmael Smith (Houston)
- Darius Songaila (Philadelphia)
- Jeff Teague (Atlanta)
We’ll see if others such as Rashad McCants, Sean May, John Scheyer, and Danny Green can find there ways onto the list…
Hamilton Named Sporting News POY
Raleigh’s Josh Hamilton was named today by The Sporting News as their baseball Player of the Year. The 6-4 lefty led Major League Baseball hitting .359 this season.
2012 Downloadable Wake County School Calendars Available
Recently the Wake County School System released their official calendars for the 2011-2012 school years
in PDF format
. In fine fashion gogoraleigh has converted these calendars into numerous downloadable formats. Now readers can easily import their favorite school calendars into Outlook, iPhones, Blackberrys, Android phones and more.
Even better, though, is the addition of all of these dates to the existing Google Calendars that gogoraleigh sponsors. If you subscribe to these, then all of the dates have been automatically added to your calendars.
For more information see the Calendars tab at gogoraleigh .
Ford Explorer Coming to City Plaza
At Noon on Tuesday (10/26) Craig Patterson, Explorer Marketing Manager for Ford will be in Raleigh’s City Plaza to unveil the 2011 Ford Explorer. The reinvented car no longer sits on a truck chassis, and features the world’s first inflatable seatbealts and 30% better fuel efficiency.
All of that is nice, but what is really worth checking out is the latest generation of the phenomenal Ford Sync system, called MyFord Touch. The new version continues Sync’s fantastic bluetooth connectivity for phone and audio, and expands the abilities of navigation and climate control. Two new features include turning the car into a WiFi hotspot and iTunes tagging support from the HD radio. There is also support for USB keyboards, RSS feeds, an additional USB socket, an SD Card slot, enhanced podcast support, and more. For more information, see Mashable’s excellent writeup of MyFord Touch, as did Joelfeder.com .
Clearly the next battleground for car makers is on the dashboard, and Ford has the early lead here. Be sure to take this opportunity to see what is going on in this space.
ESPN3.com Coming to TWC
On October 25 Time Warner Cable customers will finally get access to ESPN3.com. I have to say that while the announcers are terrible and the production quality is not first rate, the lack of commercials in these games is really appealing. Some of the raw feed commentary during the “commercial” breaks is more interesting than the game itself.
In the meantime you can login by picking “Comcast” from the pulldown menu, then use footballboard as the username and warchant as the password.
Shen Yun Coming to Memorial Auditorium
On January 22, 2011, New York-based
Shen Yun Performing Arts
will come to Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium. There will be two shows:
2:00pm
and
7:30pm
. The group has received critical acclaim around the world, performing in over 80 cities worldwide.
Shen Yun Performing Arts presents classical Chinese dance and music in colorful and exhilarating shows. An art form several millennia old, Chinese dance is refreshingly dynamic and expressive. Ancient legends and heroic figures come to life through its leaps, spins, and delicate gestures, accompany with live orchestra
2:00pm:
7:30pm:
Shred-a-Thon Coming Saturday
On Saturday (October 23) there will be a shredding event for the general public . The event takes place at Coastal Federal Credit Union, 1000 St. Albans Drive, Raleigh (just behind the North Raleigh Hilton).
Bring pre-approved credit card offers, old bills, out-of-date account statements, and other documents that include personal information to shred. It is not necessary to remove staples.
This is a free event sponsored by the Better Business Bureau and the National Foundation of Credit Counseling. It is also listed on the North Carolina Department of Justice’s website .
Reuse Convention Begins Today
The Reuse Alliance is hosting the first annual ReuseConex , a national convention and expo recognizing the importance of reuse. Running from Monday until Wednesday (Oct. 18-20) the conference and expo will be held at the North Raleigh Hilton, located at 3415 Wake Forest Road.
ReuseConex is attracting nationwide attention from government leaders, reuse-related product and service providers, non-profit organizations, artists, designers and architects. The reuse movement promotes a cleaner environment and a greener economy through reuse of items for the same or repurposed function.
The event includes a re-fashion show; re-art exhibit and sale featuring work from reclaimed material artists; keynote speakers such as Garth Johnson, author of 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse ; and a film screening.
Tickets are available for full-conference, one day or expo only on the ReuseConex website, or at http://ReuseConex.org/register . All conference meals, sessions and expo hall entrance and activities are included in the full conference ticket rate.
Zombies Walk Saturday
On Saturday at 7:00pm, hundreds will gather on Moore Square for this year’s Zombie Walk . The zombies, in various states of decay, will shamble on a prepared route through the streets of the city before returning to their point of origin. “Arrrggg mmrphh,” commented a representative for the Raleigh Zombie Walk before launching into a repeated monotone appeal to “join us, join us, join us…”
Zombie walks have become relatively common in large cities, often becoming annual traditions. During the event, participants are encouraged to remain in character as zombies and to communicate only in a manner consistent with zombie behavior. This may include grunting, groaning and slurred, moaning calls for ‘brains’. The Zombie Walk phenomenon has become an homage to the Romero Living Dead films, as well as recent additions to the genre such as the Zombieland film, 28 Days franchise and The Walking Dead graphic novel/television series.
Outdoor Ice Skating to Return
Raleigh’s love of ice skating grows each winter, and this year will be no exception with the return of popular outdoor skating rinks.
Raleigh on Ice will offer families and visitors the opportunity to skate at chopping centers:
- November 20 through January 2 at North Hills Commons. The event opens during North Hills’ annual Christmas tree lighting event.
- November 14 thru December 10 at Brier Creek Commons
- December 13 thru December 26 at Triangle Town Center
Winterfest returns to downtown Raleigh
- Real ice rink
- Opening at Winterfest’s grand opening, Saturday, December 4
- Dates, hours, prices, and policies are still unannounced
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