North Carolina Snowstorm
This is not funny! The picture on the left is the scene outside my front door this morning. So far, we have received at least three inches of snow in Raleigh with another couple of inches still to fall.
To be sure, this is a significant weather event for this part of the country. We don’t get a lot of snow around here, so the municipalities just don’t have a lot of equipment to deal with it. The result is businesses and schools have been closed, and traffic is down to almost nothing on the streets.
Having said that, the local news coverage is enough to drive a sane person totally over the edge. Picture if you will, a reporter standing outside, in the dark, on a local street. He is bending over, pointing at the snow on the street say something like, “This is snow that has fallen in the last few minutes.” Â Evidently, he was afraid viewers would think they were showing us pictures of rose petals dumped on the ground! All of the television stations had similar “reporting” going on…inventing news where there really wasn’t any.
The best thing about this weather event is that it has given many North Carolinians the perfect excuse to stay home today and watch the historic events in Washington, D.C., as Barak Obama is inaugurated our 44th President. There have been volumes written in the last few days about the significance of this event, and I can’t really add anything eloquent to what has already been said, so I’ll just say that I join in the optimism that perhaps real change can now take place and the myriad of problems we face in the United States and the world will be addressed in a meaningful way.
Recognition
A fellow North Carolinian, and in fact a fellow resident of Raleigh, has honored this blog as a Diamond in the Rockpile: Class of 2008. I am truly honored to receive this award, mostly because it is a no-strings-attached kind of award. What I mean by that is, this is not an award to be passed along, it is not done to promote the originator’s own blog, and there are no other expectations attached to it. My friend, Mojo, at Why? What Have You Heard? created this award to recognize blogs of merit that he has discovered in his travels through the blogosphere. I hope you will check out the post outlining his ten choices for this award and check out some of the other blogs that share this honor. He really did pick out some diamonds in the rough.
Thank you, Mojo, for including me in this honor. I am humbled by your description of my blog and my photographic efforts. Like most, I am probably my own harshest critic. It is gratifying to have someone express appreciation for my efforts the way that you have. As you mention, there are literally millions of blogs out there, with many being added every day. To be singled out at any level is truly an honor. But to be honored for my photographic talents by someone as equally talented is truly special. I can’t express adequately what this means to me. I hope you understand how much I appreciate this.
By the way, Mojo, I actually began life in Wyoming, but I did move to North Carolina from Indiana. I spent the bulk of my life in Illinois before that. But you are correct, I got to North Carolina as quick as I could. And I definitely have found where I belong.
I’m going to close out this post with the rationale that Mojo gave in his origninal post for honoring Tarheel Ramblings with this award. I hope my readers will take some time to check out his blog.
Lee’s Tarheel Ramblings was a recommendation from a friend that’s become a regular stop on my touring of the blogosphere. A little bit more than simply a photo blog, this is a slice of life in my home state presented the way a native would do it, even though Lee originally entered this world in Indiana. He wasn’t born here, but apparently he got here as fast as he could, and his angle on the area is usually unique and always interesting. Lee’s another photoblogger that doesn’t mind sharing his “trade secrets” with the rest of us, and his photographic prowess is impressive enough that we take notice of how he does what he does. Like all the best photographers, he’s got a keen eye for things that most people miss.
