Month: July 2011

Wed update: Flyer BOM has started, Door of Hope tells Mr. Forbes what they think, cool bike sharing programs, fruit stand in Court Square, conventions in Memphis, Google+ cheatsheet

Voting has begun in the Memphis Flyer’s Best of Memphis poll for 2011. Click here to vote. Voting runs through July 29.

Sick of all the surveys rating Memphis one of the most miserable cities? One group is ready to tell Mr. Forbes exactly what they think about Memphis. Door of Hope will host the event at Caritas Village, 2509 Harvard, on Saturday, July 16 from 3:30 to 5 PM. Door of Hope’s writers’ group, made up of men and women who have experienced homelessness, will share personal experiences and Memphis stories as they tell you what they think. Door of Hope’s writing group meets every Wednesday. More info here.

Those lobbying for more bike lanes in Memphis should check out this Mashable article. Four cities have implemented bike-sharing plans, with Denver being the leader. If we get the bike lanes on Madison (which I hope we do) and other city streets, I’d love to see a program like this.

There’s a Dole mobile fruit stand at Court Square today. It will be there until 6, handing out samples and coupons.

There were a HUGE number of people out last night! The Saucer was packed, both early and late, and when I made my late-night stop at Bardog it was packed too. I knew there had to be a convention in town. A handy site to check when you’re wondering what convention is going on is this one. It told me that ServiceMaster is in town all week for their annual convention. Welcome, and if you need advice on what to do Downtown, hit me up with an e-mail to paul@paulryburn.com and I’ll try to respond quickly. Oh goody, the Jehovah’s Witnesses will be here later this month.

If you’re on Google+, here’s a cheatsheet that may help.

Plans for tonight: Hmmm don’t know. It’s Indian food Wednesday at City Market. Today’s special is vegetable korma, okra masala, tandoori chicken, zeera rice, and naan. I love Indian food, so I may have to eat there before I start my usual Wednesday night beer consumption. Probably will be out at the usual places later.

Build-your-own snack tray @ Flying Saucer

I checked our trivia team’s winnings before leaving the apartment tonight, and discovered we had a $25 gift certificate expiring tonight at the Saucer. So I “bought” the certificate from the team, spending it and pledging $25 cash toward the next party. With only two hours to spend $25 before Silly Goose trivia started down the street, I decided I’d have to have dinner.

I got the build-your-own snack tray, pictured above. On the left: Crackers, toast and German mustard. On the right, from top to bottom: Apple slices, brie, salmon, cotswold, black pepper salami, olive tapenade and almonds. Cotswold is a mild cheese with chives; I’m assuming I don’t have to expain brie. The brie went well with the apples, crackers and the olive tapenade. The salami went well with the mustard. The cotswold went well with the almonds. The salmon went well with the salmon. For a snack tray this was a lot of food, and reasonably priced at $13.99. Plus you can enjoy your food without the offensive odor of cigarette smoke.

We lost at Silly Goose trivia, but what a great turn-out for our team. Eight people total and all people I was delighted to have there. Despite being packed around a 6-top table, there seemed to be more room than usual for the 8 of us. We’re still first in the three-month cumulative standings.

Was going to hang out afterward, but both Saucer and Bardog were packed due to some convention in town. Decided in favor of a full night’s sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be out.

Flying Saucer non-smoking success story. Plus: Things happening Downtown tonight

Last night I was hanging out at the Flying Saucer for Pint Nite. A friend of mine appeared next to me at the bar, and while I’d seen him around town from time to time, it occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d seen him at the Saucer. “That’s right, I haven’t been here in a year and a half,” he told me. “I heard it went non-smoking and decided to start coming back.”

Previously he had done 67 beers for his UFO Club membership, in which you get a plate on the wall if you drink 200 different beers. “I had given up on it because the smoke bothered me,” he said, “but now I think I’m going to start working on my plate again.” He asked the bartender if he could get a replacement UFO card (he’d lost his old one) and got a Guinness for beer #68. This is the kind of thing I knew would happen. Former regulars who hated the smoke are starting to come back. Good to see.

I’ll be at the Saucer after work. This morning I checked our remaining uncashed gift certificates that we won at trivia there, and found that a 25 expires today! Yikes! We’ve fooled around planning a party, so I’m going to have to spend the certificate and pitch in $25 cash to the team. Gonna be hard to get there at 6 and spend $25 and still make it next door to the Silly Goose for trivia at 8. Guess I’ll be eating dinner at the Saucer. One of those sausage and cheese plates maybe.

Tonight is the fundraiser for Memphis Music & Heritage Festival at Maggie Moo’s from 5 to 9, so stop by and eat some ice cream. If you want to volunteer for the festival, go next door to the Center for Southern Folklore and they’ll sign you up.

It’s also trivia night at Ferraro’s (8 PM, $15 all you can eat and drink), trivia night at the Saucer (7 PM, and they’ve been talking about some new grand prize, a trip to Abita Brewery), and Pint Nite at Bardog (7 PM to 3 AM, all drafts $3).

If you’re looking for a place to watch the MLB All-Star Game tonight, my top recommendation would be Max’s Sports Bar on G.E. Patterson. 10 TVs and they’re sure to have the sound on. Not a bad seat in the house. Lauren is making a special Tuesday night appearance behind the bar.

Time for a quick Target run, then back to my desk to wrap up a PHP project. I hope this afternoon flies by.

Green Beetle opening night

After some Pint Nite beers at the Saucer, I wandered down to the Green Beetle for their (re)opening night. In case you missed it, I posted several pics yesterday in a sneak preview post. Here are some more.

Nachos
When I took a pic of the menu Saturday, I didn’t realize it was two-sided. Here’s the entree side.
Just so you have it all in one place, here’s a repost of the app/salad sandwich side of the menu.
When I was in there Saturday I didn’t get a photo of this awesome door.
View of the TV from my mid-bar seat. Not zoomed in at all. At the Beetle you don’t have to crane your neck. As for why it’s on the Joy Behar show, I don’t know. And guys, you know you own the TV now, you can remove the plastic packing tape around the edges.

Two other major improvements from the old Beetle that I want to mention. 1) They actually bothered to air condition the place a little. It’s no longer 5 degrees hotter inside than outside; and 2) clearly they brought in an exterminator. I loved the old-school Beetle but am glad I don’t have to watch Mr. and Mrs. Roach and Baby Roach race around the counter as I drink my beer. Nice and clean and sanitized now.

A very impressive first night. I’ll be back.

Mon update: Wrasslin’ movie comes to the Orpheum, Redbirds honor fallen cop, SMA meeting canceled, coworking survey

Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’ is coming to the Orpheum. The movie, which chronicles the history of Memphis wrestling from the Sputnik Monroe era of the ’50s through the Jerry Lawler era of the ’70s, will be shown on Friday, July 22 at 7 PM.

There will be some celebrity guests on hand. Jerry Jarrett, who broke away from another promoter in 1977 to form the Memphis promotion we grew up with, will be on hand. He’ll sign copies of his new book The Best of Times before and after the show. Also, one of the great announcing duos of all time, Lance Russell and Dave Brown, will be in attendance. More info about the movie can be found at memphis-heat.com.

The Memphis Redbirds are teaming up with a couple of corporate partners to benefit the Officer Timothy Warren Fund. For each ticket sold to Friday’s games (doubleheader, with first game starting at 5:05), the Redbirds will donate a dollar to the fund for the fallen officer. It gets even sweeter though: AutoZone and Fundamental Advisors, LP have each committed to match the ‘birds donations, turning that $1 per ticket into $3. There will be various items up for auction to benefit the fund Friday night, and if you want to donate additional amounts beyond the price of a ticket, the stadium will be happy to collect those donations.

The second Tuesday of the month is normally the South Main Association meeting. However, due to many members being out of town, this month’s meeting has been canceled. President Hank Cowles is working on getting plaques installed on historical properties, and is also working on the restoration of ghost signs around the neighborhood.

I’ve been asked to spread the word about a coworking survey going on in Memphis right now. If you have an interst in coworking, please take a moment to click through and fill out the survey.

Thanks to the folks who told me about Move2Picasa.com, which lets you import your Facebook photos into Picasa, for use with Google Plus.

Home from work. It’s Pint Nite at the Saucer, so time for a beer. Trying to decide whether to walk down to the Green Beetle for dinner later in the evening.

I’m on Google+ now. First thoughts

Yesterday afternoon I received an invitation to join Google+, the new social web that is similar to, but different than, Facebook. I accepted the invitation, although I didn’t have a lot of time to play with it until I got home from work. After work and this morning I gave it a try.

Google+ is based around the concept of “circles.” The idea is, most people run in several different social circles, and may want to share different information with different circles. Default circles include friends, family, acquaintances and “followers,” who are people you’ve never met but whose information is of interest to you. You can create circles of your own. So far I’ve created two new ones:

  • A circle I call “inner circle,” which will contain the 12 or 14 people I hang with most every day. I’ll likely share more with that group than the 200-300 people who will land in my “friends” circle.
  • A “social media/tech community” circle. There are a lot of people in Memphis who post excellent stuff about social media, PHP programming, WordPress, etc. I want to hear what they have to say, and hopefully contribute to the discussion as well. I talk to them on Facebook and Twitter already, but I’ve always hated it that they’ve had to read “Woohoo! Tube top sitting two seats down from me nearly had a malfunction!” and similar posts and Flying Saucer checkins and so on. Now I can keep that group separate. People can be in multiple circles at once, so I can put tech contacts in my “friends” group as well if I want them to see my tube top and drinking posts.

One thing I really, really like about Google+: When you add someone to a circle, they are notified they’ve been added, but they aren’t told which circle. This addresses a big problem I’ve seen with another social network, Foursquare. Have you ever got a friend request on there, and you don’t really want that person knowing where you are, but you also don’t want to hurt their feelings and ignore their request? (This has been a big problem in my group of friends lately.) On Google+ you can add such a person to your circle, and they’ll get notified and be happy, but you can actually add them to a circle you don’t plan to share much with.

I also like it that Google+ uses Picasa as their photo app, and there is now unlimited photo storage. Problem is, I used Picasa up until about 2009 when I started using Facebook for photos, so now there’s a two-year hole. I wish there were a Facebook-to-Picasa photo importer. Maybe there is. I’ve only been playing with this for a day. I do think Picasa is superior to Facebook’s photo app.

Also interested to see what they will create as the equivalent of Facebook fan pages for businesses. As of right now, they’re asking businesses to hold off on joining. They’re still working on business presence and they want businesses to join the correct way, when it’s ready. Since I manage our social media presence at work, I’ll have to keep an eye on news about Google+ in the coming weeks.

Obviously there will be a lot of plugins written in the weeks and months to come, to integrate Google+ with other social media and web platforms. (Interested to see future WordPress-Google+ interaction.)

I’m just getting started with Google+, so it’s too early for me to agree that this will be the Facebook-killer some people think it is. They’re not off to a bad start though. Right now Google+ is invite-only, but they should have it completely rolled out to the public by the end of the month.

 

Fri update: LUNCHBOXeats, TGI Friday’s supports fallen officer, beer pairings

LivingSocial has a good deal today: $10 for $20 worth of food at LUNCHBOXeats.

I know a lot of the locals avoid the TGI Friday’s in the Doubletree because it’s a chain, but today would be a good day to make an exception. 100% of their proceeds today will be donated to the Officer Timothy Warren Fund.

Good article in the Memphis Daily News about beer pairing events in Memphis.

Yep. That’s all I got. Slow day. They’re putting some kind of treatment on the windows here in the office, and making all kinds of weird scraping noises. I want to spend as much of my lunch break as possible away from my desk, so I’m outta here. If more news comes in I’ll post after work.

Sea of Blue

At 8:15 I staked out a spot in front of AutoZone Park for the “Sea of Blue,” the procession of police cars assembled to honor fallen patrolman Timothy Warren.

I had never been to a “Sea of Blue” before and didn’t know what to expect. I thought I’d be cheering on the officers that passed and saying “thank you.”

Then, as the first cars rolled by. I realized the night meant something entirely different to them. It was a salute to a fallen comrade. I understood but not in a way like they did. I got quiet and put my hand over my heart. I’d heard 150 police cars would participate. Wrong. It was more like 600 to 700. In addition to MPD and Shelby County, there were officers from nearly every surrounding city, as well as from places as far away as Franklin, Knoxville and the border patrol.

R.I.P., Officer Warren. My sincere respect to all those who honored him tonight.

(Edit: There’s a video of the Sea of Blue here)