Fredericksburg Alert Online

A new service from the city alerts residents to city events, status and more.

Visit https://www.fredericksburgalert.com/ to register to receive txts, email or get a pager notice for a variety of notices from the city. (A pager, what's that again?) Already there are more than 40 groups of notices to sign up for. Everything from local traffic, river reports, to Parks&Rec events, even local volunteer opportunities.

Those with children in school will surely like the school closing notifications. The advantage is you get to pick and choose those alerts that are important to you and your family.

The FLS reports that the site is largely funded by Homeland Security, allowing the city to offer similar capabilities as the surrounding counties. Hopefully the city organizations will continue to keep their feeds up to date.

City Pool

Probably one of the best family benefit of living in the city is the Dixon park pool. From friendly staff, to fun children's area, to a mini-water slide, this has to be one of the funnest items in the inventory of city parks. And the best part for people living in 22401, it's FREE. Last year the city debated charging a fee for residents, but the generosity of Dorris Buffett and the Sunshine Lady Foundation saved the summer by donating the cost of admission.

The park system has even setup a Facebook page for Dixon Park Pool, although it lacks in recent posts. So also visit the Parks&Rec page for the latest times.

Don't miss the August 18th Hawaiian Night (8-10pm). Later this month they will be once again hosting the Soggy Dog Day (Aug 28th). Last year reports had it at about 250 people with some 50 dogs.

Family Event 7/31

Just received this in a comment - thanks!

Sat, Jul. 31 - Family Fun Festival & Avatar at Unity Church of Fredericksburg!

From 4pm-7pm 3607 Lafayette Blvd. UCoF Family Fun Festival! Planning a silent auction with gifts and services. Will play games like musical chairs, a cake walk, bean bag and water balloon toss, to name a few. Will have a moon bounce, crafts, prizes, and face painting too! Come enjoy food, music, bingo and lots of fun!

Tickets are just $3.00 for ages 5 & up. Our 50/50 Raffle tickets are on sale now, and the winner will be announced on the 31st. You need not be present to win. 7:00pm Avatar! The movie is free.

Frozen Reminder

As I sit here in a t-shirt, enjoying the warm day amongst many frigid ones lately, I thought I'd post a picture taken this morning to remind us that it is still very much winter. We have our very own ice flow in the Rappahannock. A beautiful sight in the morning!

Wine, Art & Beutiful Scenery

This weekend brings one of the more interesting Art & Wine festivals in the area because of the location. Caledon Natural Area is hosting their annual festival on Saturday Nov 7th from 10am-6pm.

http://caledonnaturalareafriends.webs.com/artandwinefestival.htm

Sample wines while tasting local foods, listening to some music. They even are planning a hay ride through parts of Caledon.

Follow directions on their website, or google them here.

Children's Playtime

What to do on a rainy weekend? Or any weekend for that matter? This Saturday we took our child to Toddlin Time in Fredericksburg. It's on Princess Anne st, across from the Texaco, just down the street from Carl's. It's upstairs, with plenty of room for the kids to run around and play. On this Saturday, it was much brighter inside with the rain coming down outside. Just when we though Bennett had played with everything in the room, they got out the 'parachute', a huge colorful thing that the children rode on, then ran under. The laughter wasn't contained to the children playing. Public session is from 9:45 - 10:30 on Saturdays.

No Bees In The Burg

UPDATE: In a comment, I added a few good links. I'm also putting them here in the main story.
Virginia Beekeepers Association http://www.virginiabeekeepers.org/
VA Discovery Museum in Charlottesville keeps a colony http://www.vadm.org/
And for reference I went out and checked Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Winchester, Norfolk and VA Beach. None of these cities prevent beekeeping.


A little known, and unfortunate city code was brought to my attention tonight. In the City of Fredericksburg, Bee Keeping is a no-no. According to the city code/charter Chapter 14, Article VII, section 14-184 - It shall be unlawful to keep or permit to run at large any domestic fowl, pigeons, or bees or any like animal within the city limits.

Unlike many folks, I've had a swarm show up outside my front door (not in Fredericksburg). I thought I was lucky enough knowing a beekeeper. Unfortunately we couldn't get his equipment back to our townhouse before the neighbor called the city and the swarm was sprayed with a toxic substance. The loss of an entire swarm was terrible. It was a surreal experience to work with 10,000+ bees as if they were grains of sand. Sure there was one sting, but being able to easily more thousands of bees into boxes was an amazing sensation.

Many may not realize, but honeybees are crucial to everything from our food supply to the flowers that decorate our tables. And unfortunately, many honeybee hives have been devastated in recent years by a mite in a catastrophic event called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Long gone are the days like my grandfather would tell of, when he and friends would go out and collect natural honeycomb from hollow trees. One of the best tales of my young life was Pop telling of his brothers warning him against eating the honey too quickly, and him coming home with a swollen tongue after biting a honeybee.

Alas, our poor city is still keeping a law on the books akin to legally preventing someone from having a bald eagle nest.

PS, for anyone thinking - oh but what about a bee sting to an allergic person, would you be equally as alarmed by your neighbor raising peanuts? This is now a matter of looking at what is becoming endangered in our generation.

Child Friendly Dinner

This afternoon we were able to swing by Fredericksburg Pub (behind the mall) with our one year old. Here is a facility that isn't exactly child friendly, but it isn't in their business plan either. They did however have steamed veggies, which worked well with a few bits and pieces from our main entrees.

Compare this to our experience last weekend at Glory Days (http://www.glorydaysgrill.com). Here is an enterprise that understands that they will garner a larger portion of the dining crowd by subtlety offering a great children's option. Not only to they offer a child's menu, they have two different sizes available. Our one year old was able to finish the small portion, and we didn't feel like we paid for a meal fit for a 10 yr old. We say, enjoying a college game on one of the many tvs, while our child was well fed (with healthy alternatives), and we all went home happy.

If you get the opportunity, I strongly suggest you visit Glory Days in Massaponax (Cosner Corner).

Where are the bike racks?

This picture was taken at Oktoberfest last weekend. An impromptu bike rack. As I walked down the hill to the event I passed a number of residents and students with their bicycles. We've heard George Solley and Brad Ellis on city council talk about the need for a more bicycle friendly city. Where have those promises gone? Has the economy made us decide between fancy street signs vs. bike racks? Or how about demolition costs of Wings? Would it kill the city to install a few places to lock up safely? And if it really is too much for the city, how about downtown merchants stepping up to the plate?

Old Towne Butcher ready for customers

Had the chance to get by our new butcher today. Olde Towne Butcher is located on William Street next to University Cafe and across from Kybecca. Tonight there will be two beautiful rib-eye's sitting on the grill getting the heat treatment. I like a place where you get to pick and choose the best cuts available. I was eyeing a couple of Delmonicos, but went with a little less fatty steak. While I was there waiting, several people stopped in and just looked around. Mr. Russell was working hard in the back, slicing garlic for their sausage specialty.

DRMI & Fredericksburg need to close Caroline St.

You've heard the speculation, the predictions, some have said it would fail. Well, anyone who was downtown today saw that yet again, closing Caroline St brings many times the number of people. Imagine if every weekend there were outdoor dining, places to walk, events or music. For years I've heard residents and business owners complain about the city needing to get more people downtown. Well, I was there, and Oktoberfest was able to pack the block. Under Caroline St are original cobblestones. From what I've heard from witnesses, is that they go well with the granite slabs lining the road on select blocks.

So to all the naysayers, every time the city has chosen to close Caroline St. on Saturdays, the reaction has been overwhelming. It's time to get with it and proactively go after the Saturday foot traffic.

Foti's Scores Again

The Chef at Foti's in Culpeper deserves a ton of praise for the Shaps Wine Dinner the other weekend. Our group couldn't even pick out which of the items we liked the most, and of course the selection of wine was impeccable.

Bill Howell's Spin

It was reported today in the FLS that Bill Howell continues to harp on an anti-gas tax platform, yet he refuses to answer to reasonable workable solutions to come up with a revenue stream to fund transportation. Now before my hard core republican friends stop reading, at least get through the math and discussion below. On two separate occasions I have engaged Mr. Howell in a personal discussion of the gas tax and both times he has avoided proposing a specific solution or alternative.

In 1986, the gas tax was set at the current rate of 17.5 cents per gallon. This is not inflation adjusted, so today that 17.5 cents is worth the equivalent of 9.2 cents (calc). That means road users are paying just about half the tax to use the same roads that they used in 1986.

Howell's most reasonable explanation for stalling a change to the gas tax is that as users transition to more efficient vehicles, the revenue stream is reduced, as it is based on the number of gallons sold. He seems to forget that every year that goes by also reduces the equivalent buying power of this revenue. He also leaves out that his own republican party is regularly voting against increasing fuel mileage standards. When prodded about how to relate transportation costs to impacts and use, his conversation wanders to the only fair solution being one that taxes on per-mileage. These technologies are years away from being affordable, cheap and hack-proof. Any manager would point out that you can only work with what is available today, and the best (cheapest, easiest, and closest to scaling to impact or use) is to look at the gas tax.

Instead Howell and others are proposing a one time fix of privatizing Virginia's ABC store. Isn't this much like selling the family cow? Now, for other reasons I fully support this plan, but not as a long term fix for Virginia transportation. How does this go for paying years of maintenance and road improvements?

I hate spin. If we're really going to find solutions, and I mean fully implemented systems approaches, it's going to take a combination of actions and compromises.

The Pub rocks starting in Dec

A local favorite is The Pub. Its the original, not to be confused with Fredericksburg Pub. David over at Musings Over a Pint has written about this place starting a true brewpub. http://www.musingsoverapint.com/2008/06/brewpub-for-fredericksburg.html

We ate a great dinner here on Friday. Gail enjoyed a tasty hot ham and cheese, and my french dip was delic. They even had a good selection on the child's menu. Our one year old likes pickles - who would have guessed that one?

I am happy to report that brewing is set to begin the week of September 28th. They are planning three batches to start with, an ale, red and a hefferveisen. Expect the first to appear on tap in 3-4 weeks. Once the first batch is ready, The Pub is planning some type of brewpub opening party.

Come December, when the smoking restrictions kick in, this may become one of our top recommendations. Until then we won't attempt bringing our child back which is a shame since he enjoyed the food. December can't get here quick enough.

Curacao Vacation

Friends have known where I disappeared to the other week, vacation, glorious quiet, cell phone free vacation. I was so impressed by the place we stayed, that I wanted to share the experience so that other folks on the internet can get to know about this place. If you love clear blue water, warm temperatures, the beach, shopping and friendly people, then I highly recommend Curacao. Specifically, if you're looking to take a few people, I will give a resounding recommendation for Flamingo Villa (http://www.flamingo-villa.com/) , a family owned rental on the country side of the island. We found them through home-away (http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p182407) but they are also on VRBO (vacation rentals by owner). Let me start off with there are lots of internet scams out there. I was initially concerned, but several well known news shows have covered VRBO and HomeAway, so those fears were somewhat calmed, but I really wasn't sure exactly what we were going to show up to. Let me tell you, it far exceeded expectations. The house was exactly as shown in the pictures. Even as a rental, it showed no wear an tear. The family that owns this property really takes care of the home. Emails exchanged indicate that they are as much regular users as their renters.

Following are a few photos, and notes on our trip. If you ever go on a trip like this, hopefully you will find the property manager as friendly as Don - Don called us on Sunday giving us the inside story on places to go such as a Landhuis where local artists display there goods once a month, along with a steel drum band and local foods.



Curacao has a flamingo sanctuary at the salt ponds.


This was the view that greeted us on all the beaches. Clear blue water, unspoiled reef systems, dramatic coastline.


The Punda area of Willemstad was a beutiful Netherlands inspired city. The streets offered a variety of shops and food, along with friendly locals that would help you in any way needed.


This is the pontoon bridge, which is open to foot traffic when it's not moving out of the way of shipping traffic. Here it was being moved out of the way for a large containership.


This alley led to the Nena Sanchez gallery. No fear of street art here!


By Thursday, there were a few spots that needed relief from the sun. (Curacao is only 12 degrees off the equator and results in sunburns just about anywhere you don't regularly reapply sunblock.) So it was off to the other side of the island to visit the Aloe Vera farm. We didn't make it to the Ostrich farm or the herb farm nearby, but I hear they are also popular places.


On the way back into town, we searched out the practially hidden Curacao factory. We weren't looking for a place this small. It's amazing that a facility this small can produce all of the Curacao liquer. They were happy to let us taste several varieties, as well as mix a few samples to come up with combination flavors. And here is a tidbit of trivia - the Curacao factory has NO orange groves, they get all of the product from locals that bring in the indiginous fruits.


And of course this type of vacation wouldn't have been complete without being able to get below the surface. We went with friends, one of which is a dive master, so the two of us snuck out for a few days of compressed air intake. The shore diving was incredible. We were able to explore Cas Abou near our rental, then went with friends-of-friends that were local to The Tugboat near the southernmost point of the island. On Friday we hooked up with Neils at http://www.divechartercuracao.com for boat dives at Watamula and Mushroom forest off the northernmost point of the island. As you can see in the slideshow below, the coral around Curacao was pristine. I've never been on a reef where you stop to look around and don't see sand somewhere. Macro fans will love these reefs.

8 Things I Will Miss From the DC Commute

After beating up on VRE yesterday, I was getting coffee this morning thinking about the things I will miss about going to Crystal City every day.

1. Having Mocha Mo's on speed dial for the best Vanilla Skim Latte for the train ride
2. Catching the sunrise over the Potomac
3. The Tue afternoon street market with real farms in Crystal City
4. For that matter, I will miss Crystal City and the active BID, arts, music, parks and vibrant life
5. My afternoon nap on the long "heat restrictions" ride home (VRE reference for the non commuter)
6. The beauty in a designed city: skyscrapers, 2500 car underground lots, the ability to stroll inside from one end to the other.
7. Buses that run every 10 min
8. Having time to blog and twitter every morning and afternoon.

Symbolism and VRE

I shot this picture in the Fredericksburg city VRE parking lot wondering if it is symbolic of where VRE has been or where it is headed. The tagger probably doesn't even ride VRE, yet I find it interesting anyway. For three years I have hopped on the big grey train to dc. This is my last regular week (hooray!).

This picture pretty accurately describes my opinion of where VRE is headed. I won't miss the nanny PA announcements about queuing in the isles, or the conductors saying the are requires to write x summons in a day. I surely won't miss the broken down engines pulling brand new cars nowhere. VRE's excuses and sorry's will be a thing of the past.

Over the years I have witnessed the reality of little viable competition allow VRE to use their monopoly position to their favor. It really is a case study in a captive customer base. Management doesn't use the service, at least not like commuters do every day, and the government board is substantially made up of representatives that don't use the service. Using the service is just different than listening to our complaints. It would give each decision maker an appreciation for the issues. The biggest of which is communication. Communication between VRE and customers, CSX, NS, elected officials and even their own employees!

I say all of this because VA rail has the potential to be a great service! New locomotives are on the way, several stations are getting makeovers and new platforms. Fredericksburg is even supposed to get a station fix, with concrete repairs to the underpasses. VRE has yet to make a statement on the impacts from the fredericksburg station repairs. This reflects the perceived history of keeping the customer in the dark as long as possible (much like the dark status boards at all the stations).

I wish I could say 'wake up' to VRE management, but it doesn't matter because people keep riding no matter what changes they make. So I guess I should just say thank you VRE for the 75% good job! Way to go.

OK, after writing this, I envision at least one person asking - well what would you do? So here it is:
Monthly what's coming next statements on the web, in the seat letters, on the station screens
When things start going wrong, an immediate continuous comm link with CSX
A backbone in negotiating the next Amtrak and CSX agreements
An renewed emphasis on cutting costs across the network
Accountability of paid management to the city/county governments and customers, perhaps its time for a management change.

Parthenon Restaurant is a Must Eat Here Location

I have failed you, loyal readers of the blog.  Life has been very busy lately, and what free time I have has been spent doing things other than writing.  Oddly, I miss it, and a few ideas for posts have been kicking around just waiting for time to get down on paper.  Even Gail asked yesterday if a post was coming.  A great dinner with Gail actually sparked this post, as you will read in a bit.  As most know, having a 9 month old does take away some time, so we have been trying to have a babysitter keep him one night a week so that we can get out for date night. 

Last night we had the most wonderful, quiet, relaxed, delicious dinner at Parthenon Restaurant in the Park & Shop (or should this now say Eagle Village) shopping center.  2024 Augustine Ave., Fredericksburg, VA 22401

Based on a suggestion, we both had the Greek Salad with Grilled Gyro meat.  We were both trying to stay on the light side of things, but who can resist Tiramisu.  I've also read several reviews complimenting their souvlaki. The Greek wine was just incredible.  But the food is only part of the reason to visit, it's also the hospitality of the Psaras family.  We chatted away with Mrs. Psaras about the 26 years they have been in the same location, and how this summer things seemed to be just a little more quiet than usual.  She expressed her interest in seeing Eagle Village develop, and what that might do to benefit their small restaurant.  Gail told her about visiting Parthenon for pizza in her college days across the street.

It's nice to see unique family run businesses in today's fast pace cookie cutter world, and Parthenon is just the place to step away to enjoy a nice home cooked meal.  You've probably driven right past this wonderful gem a number of times and not even noticed it's there.  If you get a chance, stop in and enjoy.

Business Lessons From Bloggers on USS Nimitz

When I first read this article (http://www.damniwish.com/uss-nimitz/), several things came to mind.  First, holy crap - they let 16 bloggers loose on the Nimitz and let them blog their experience? The US Navy is more open that I thought.  I wonder what they had to do for clearances!  Wow I'd love to get in on this!  But all of these reactions are small potatoes when you read the content.  This first blogger details four best practices that would work in just about any business. 

    1 - Keep it simple; it's not about the technology.
    2 - Helping people be good at their jobs.
    3 - The power of complete openness.
    4 - What appreciating our troops really means.

If you're more into pictures and video, head over to Guy Kawasaki's blog about the same visit (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2009/06/24-hours-at-sea-on-the-uss-nimitz.html).

Let me give you a few quotes from Sernovitz:

What would happen at your company if you let 16 bloggers talk to anyone they wanted, including the CEO? (Besides needing to send an EMT to resuscitate the panicked PR team?)

•Do you have a culture of openness and trust?
•Do you have something to hide?
•Do you trust your people to know what topics aren't appropriate to talk about publicly?
•Most important: Do your employees have the pride in their work necessary to happily represent you to the world?
...
1. Details matter.
2. Everyone knows their jobs.
3. Special places matter.
4. Proven is better than newer.

Fredstock '09

Yet again this year an event almost slipped past without any major advertising. Fredstock happens this weekend. See the Weekender story for more info.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/062009/06252009/475581