Don't Back Down

It's that time of year again. For a while now, we've had to suffer through the torture while our favorite teams didn't win The Big One (unless you are a fan of the Giants, that is). Luckily, the game was a pretty decent one, and we got to see the Patriots - finally - fall. Most anyone could enjoy that. Everyone likes an underdog. Though a certain part of me wanted to see the Pats finish the first perfect season since the 1972 Dolphins, it's just as comforting to see it not happen. The Giants played a good game.

Still, for most of us, it means that the long, long summer was upon us, and we had to wait for what seemed like ages before football picked up again. As luck would have it, the NFL draft came along this weekend, and what used to be a mere afterthought has turned into a veritable sideshow. Just look at Keyshawn Johnson. He deserves pages all to himself. Did you see that suit he was wearing? A plaid shirt, pink polka-dot tie, reverse pinstripe suit and what looked like an olive green pocket hankie. I don't care that he played for the Panthers, how good he used to be, the fact that he made (or makes) all kinds of money or that he could beat me up. It looked stupid and was just plain ugly to boot.

Read "Carolina Panthers 2008 NFL Draft is (Finally) Over" »

After the third checkpoint last week, I was getting a little antsy for this to be over. Like I mentioned, it really wasn't the 'stache, as I don't mind it much. It doesn't itch nearly as much as a beard, it's just that I'm not a mustache guy. I'm just not much for shaving (as I've already said more than once), and I think more than anything, I like variety - having to keep to the schedule - at least as much as I have - is probably worse than anything else.

So it is with no small amount of relief that I announce the finish of the 2008 Mustache for Kids competition. The actual event won't be over until the Sweetest Stache is judged at 6:30pm on Friday night at Madison's Bar and Lounge, but I already told you that I wasn't much for the whole schedule thing, so consider this my official completion announcement. You can check out my final entry, as well as the details of my donation, below. Enjoy!

Read "2008 Mustaches for Kids: The Finish Line" »

The growing is now three-quarters of the way along, and this time I'm not quite so late to the checkpoint. I'm still running a bit late, because my camera is still wanting to act up a bit more than it should, but it's not as bad as it was at Checkpoint 2. In any case, there's only one week left (I'm sure that everyone is glad to hear that!), and this mustache is really starting to get going.

Whether you are growing yourself, or just sitting on the sidelines, Mustaches for Kids is working for a good cause. The donations that they raise go towards all sorts of programs, and perhaps most importantly, you have a choice in which ones get funded. The longer you wait, the less choice you will have, as that's just the way that these things work. The page currently shows that 77% of funding has been received for this goal - $19,412 out of $25,000. In other words, there's plenty of donating left to go (and I'm sure they will accept donations after the goal is met), but the choices may be getting fewer and far between as we reach the finish line next week.

Read "2008 Mustaches for Kids: Checkpoint 3" »

This checkpoint was delayed not by more broadband delays, (those have finally been fixed), but by the camera acting up. In fact, it still is, so the picture just doesn't look very good. I'll have to do some practicing with it to see if I can figure out what is happening. Now that the broadband is restored, I'll probably have to go out and get a new camera.

Anyway - since last week, you can see (picture below) that the mustache continues to come in. I did have to make a slight adjustment to the rules. Mustaches for Kids - the official organization, I mean - doesn't allow any additional facial hair, and you can't really tell from my less-than-focused picture, but I had to leave a bit of a soul patch this week, because of a small shaving mishap last week.

Read "2008 Mustaches for Kids: Checkpoint 2" »

I'm a little delayed in posting this, due to my continued broadband troubles. But better late than never, right?

In any case, the 2007 Mustaches for Kids event continues. After the kickoff last week, I now have a one-week growth of pure, corner-to-corner goodness. Or badness, I suppose - depending on whether or not you like mustaches. But regardless, it's here and it's growing. If you'd like to join in the fun, it's not too late - there are still three checkpoints to go. Well, there are two checkpoints and then the final Sweetest Stache Competition, which isn't so much a checkpoint as a race to the finale before Valentine's Day. But it's plenty of time to get growing is what I mean.

If you don't want to grow, but want to help out, check out the Donors Choose page and choose a cause (or more than one, even). You can do it now, or you can wait to see how big this thing gets before deciding what it's worth.

Read "2008 Mustaches for Kids: Checkpoint 1" »

You may have heard about Movember on Problogger back in November when Darren grew a mustache for charity. He eventually raised more than $1800, a pretty impressive tally for growing a mustache (of course, at least $1200 came from the premium sponsors, who ended up with their buttons on the site - but still).

I didn't participate in Movember, mostly because I didn't read about it until it was already under way, but I did manage to catch wind of a charity with a similarly-odd name, Mustaches for Kids. No, it doesn't actually provide mustaches for kids who don't have them (though that might go over well), it raises money while growing mustaches, and the proceeds go to help kids. Simple enough, right? Well, yours truly will be growing a mustache for the next four weeks to help out the cause.

Read "2008 Mustaches for Kids: Let's Grow!" »

It's finally over. The Carolina Panthers have mercifully ended the season that at one point looked like it would never end. It went from 2-2 after four games to 4-4 after eight games and slid to 5-7 after twelve games.

What did the final quarter of the season hold? Amazingly, the team still had a chance at the playoffs. Though Tampa Bay sewed up the division fairly early on, and Atlanta floundered without Michael Vick - and got worse when Bobby Petrino bolted to return to college. Somehow after thirteen games, the Panthers just had to win out and get a little help to find themselves a wild card.

Read "Carolina Panthers: 2007 Wrap-Up" »

Over the weekend, the Charlotte Observer reported that since opening to paying customers on November 26 - nearly a month ago - the Lynx Blue line had taken some 12000 passenger trips. I'm thinking that's a misprint, but I haven't been able to find a retraction or a correction. Perhaps they meant to print that they are doing 12000 trips per day. But 12000 total would be, well, pretty bad, to say the least. They were supposed to do over 9000 per weekday, and 12000 total would just suck.

They did announce that there will be a couple more ticket vending machines added at the I-485 station, and even a pre-fabricated ticket booth for someone to dispense tickets. I can't imagine that they would need to do that if the ridership was so poor, unless they are following some strange publicity track of trying to convince people that ridership is so good that they need more when there really isn't anyone riding.

Read "Just How is the Lynx Blue Line Doing?" »

In various places around the world, they hold meetings with some regularity for people who have similar interests. Meetup has thousands of groups where you can get your group together and organized, but unfortunately they started charging people to organize things a while back, which means if you are just casually interested in getting things together, it may not be worth it.

Which leads me to my question in the title: Is anyone interested in a Charlotte Blog Meetup? It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Chow has dinners fairly frequently, and even if the food in our area may not be as interesting as his Dim Sum, it is certainly something we could check out. We could even just do coffee or something, though I don't really dig coffee, so I'd hope there were alternatives.

Read "Is Anyone Game for a Charlotte Blog Meetup?" »

On Saturday night in Wake Forest, the Independence Patriots, fresh off one of their closest games in recent memory, a 10-8 victory over West Charlotte last week, fell victim to New Bern, 28-17. The season that started with head coach Tom Knotts wearing a shirt with a large number 8 on it ended in much the same way (though he hid the shirt under another).

When the Patriots lost to Cincinnati Elder early on to bring an end to their 109-game winning streak, you knew that something was different. It just wasn't the same. When they lost to Butler late in the season, the winds of change were blowing. But the team still had a chance to keep one dream alive - the shot at a record eight straight state titles. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

Read "Independence Patriots Miss Chance at Number Eight" »

The numbers are in, so what can we learn? After a monstrous opening weekend, which saw some 100,000 riders over the two-day free preview, the first day of paying riders (last Monday) saw somewhere between 4500 and 5000 "passenger trips", well short of the estimated 9100 per day during the first year. To be fair, it's the first day, and you have to give people a chance to step up to the new patterns - but that's pretty far off the mark.

Notably, if the ridership is so low in the opening days, that means the numbers will need to be made up somewhere in order to meet the average. It's also worth noting that that is a "weekday average". I haven't been able to find a good number for weekend averages, but you would have to assume that it would be lower. Naturally, on a Panthers home game, it might be higher, but other than that, there really isn't a lot of reason to use the train - and other cities severely curtail transit on weekends, so it seems logical.

Read "One Week of the Lynx Blue Line" »

The first quarter of the 2007 season for the Carolina Panthers ended with a 2-2 record. Probably not as bad as it could be, but not as good either. The second quarter started with two victories, and at 4-2, things looked good. But then the bye week came and things went bad quickly. Two quick losses left the second quarter with a 2-2 record, and at the end of the first half we were 4-4.

Would things get better or worse in the third quarter? If Jake Delhomme was playing, then chances are decent that it gets better. Though many don't like to admit it, Jake is one heck of a fourth-quarter player. His third quarter may not be great, but the second half is where he shines, and he can play with the best of them, ugly passes and all. Unfortunately, Jake is gone for the season, Vinny Testaverde is aging by the minute, David Carr seems to be a total bust and for whatever reason, the coaches don't want to play Matt Moore. Who knows what will happen.

Read "Carolina Panthers: 2007 Third Quarter Review" »