FYI, many of the journal archives are offline right now, as I’m in the middle of a revamp project involving them and the road trips section. Look for them to return in a few days.
Horrendously busy couple of weeks, as I wedged lots of work and one funeral in between two big trips. I leave tomorrow for Thanksgiving in California with the in-laws, so don’t expect any exciting commentary for at least a few more days. And no, I don’t have those road trip pictures ready to go, thanks.
Anyway, may all your turkeys be happy ones, and may none of them turn out to be tofurkey.
What a very insane month. I’ll try to do better in December. Really.
The holidays in Fresno were very nice. We were well-housed, well-fed, and haad good company. The only big souvenir I brought back was a cold, but it was a mild one. As sucky as Thanksgiving air travel can be, I was actually pretty lucky all in all, and only had one really wretched flight, the return leg from Chicago to Winston-Salem on Saturday.
I didn’t have to spend too much time in San Francisco, which was nice. Unfortunately, most of the time I did spend there was spent walking around the Financial District, either looking for bathrooms or doing some emergency client work from assorted FedEx Kinko’s locations where I’d been employed several years before.
I’m home now, trying to catch up on the past five or six weeks, which somehow got lost in the shuffle.
More soon.
In happy California news, the seven years of supreme suckage brought upon the northern part of the state when Albertsons purchased Lucky Stores may finally be over.
Sorry. I hate Albertsons with a passion usually reserved for Kmart, Rite-Aid, and UPS (that’s some serious passion, folks), and I really had to mention it here since I have to stay sort of objective at the other site.
It looks like the end for Eastland Mall in Charlotte as it loses one of its two remaining credible anchors. It’s sad, really, but I saw it coming twenty years ago when I managed a surf and skate shop across the street from the place. I’m actually pretty surprised that its taken so long for it to get to this point.
I guess when you’ve worked in a dying mall, you recognize the signs earlier when another one starts to go south. Back in 1986, after only eleven years in operation, the lustre was already fading at Eastland. The more upscale Southpark, a few miles away, had stolen all the “buzz” with a remodel and a generally more impressive array of stores. Eastland never recovered; it was still healthy, but no one seemed very excited about it. It was just sort of a utilitarian place that was starting to feel just a little bit tired, not unlike the entire neighborhood surrounding it.
By 2005, when I moved back to Charlotte for a year, the mall and the neighborhood had pretty much had it. It’s an unfortunate truth in the United States that as an area’s complexion becomes increasingly brown, capital tends to start fleeing to other areas. Regardless of whether this flight is due to racism or economic reality, the disinvestment eventually becomes emotional as well as financial, and the area begins a slow, steady decline into urban decay. East Charlotte is well into that slide now. It was inevitable even before the gunshots and gang violence started that the mall would be an early casualty.
It’ll take a year or two before it all comes to an end. The really ugly period, though, will be about five years from now, when Eastland is a big, vacant, rotting carcass whose stench has befouled the entire neighborhood surrounding it. This will be the period just before it’s either torn down and replaced by a Wal-Mart, or perhaps taken over by some government entity.
It’s too bad. Eastland had a good, thirty-plus year run. That’s more than Carolina Circle got.
Why yes, my new decoration really does put me in the Christmas spirit, thanks. After all, I’ll probably be doing a significant chunk of my Christmas shopping there. And it’s so cute with the little skylights and all.
And no, I don’t really care how much they paid the person who hand-painted it.
Things I love today:
- Pop-up Video re-runs on VH-1 Classic: my only complaint is that no one ever shows my favorite: the Pop-up Behind the Music with Leif Garrett, which was one of the single funniest things I’ve ever seen on TV.
- My fast food cup overfloweth: The McRib and Burger King’s Italian Chicken Sandwich have returned simultaneously.
- Best of all, in only six more days, I get to have my boy home for nearly an entire month. Which is nice, because it’s getting cold here.
Y’know what’s really cool? Realizing what you’re about to do BEFORE putting that chip that you’ve just dipped in margarine into your mouth.
Happy 125th anniversary to the LA Times, still one of the four best newspapers in the US. Long may it remain Gannett-free.
If Wachovia opening a new ATM across the street from Bank of America — in a city where both banks have operated for decades — warrants a front-page “news” story in the Observer, I expect an entire commemorative edition the next time Bojangles opens a fast-food joint across the street from a Hardee’s.
Must’ve been a really slow news day in Charlotte yesterday.
