Ginny from the Blog

This weekend is shaping up to be the most gorgeous one of the year so far. With temperatures forecasted to reach nearly 90 degrees this weekend (they’re calling for sunny and a high of 89 on Saturday and 87 on Sunday).

So with the wonderful weather and the stupid recession in mind … Here’s your list of weekend events that might be worth checking out in the Triangle:

FRIDAY

* The 3d annual Bluesfest Benefit at Longview Center in downtown Raleigh sounds like a good deal. You’ll get to hear John Dee Holeman (who was one of the best performers at Shakori Hills last weekend. The 80-year-old Bluesman and Storyteller still has it.) and harmonica man Geroge Higgins. Tickets are $10. It starts at 7:30 p.m. and proceeds benefit the very deserving Music Maker Relief Foundation.

*Head to Golden Belt in Durham to see The Rosebuds, Midtown Dickens and Lost in Trees for $12! The money benefits the Durham Arts Council. (UPDATE — I accidentally posted this under Saturday, but the concert is tonight!).

SATURDAY

* Put the finishing touches on your spring cleaning by dropping off all the documents you need shredded at the NBC17 Shred-It Event (what, you didn’t think you’d get through this list without any shameless self promotion in this post, did you?). So if you have a box (or boxes) of old documents you need shredding, come to Village Square Shopping Center in Cary or Indigo Corners Shopping Center in Durham between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., we’ll handle the rest.

* Go shopping for random props, vintage screen art, signage and scenery at the Valentine Design Group and Aardvark Printing yard sale. The Clean Out The Clutter Parking Lot “yard sale” is from 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.  Saturday 1019-1021 East Whitaker Mill Road in Raleigh. If you still have the yard sale bug after visiting this sale, head over to the N.C. State Fairgrounds for the flea market. It’s always fun and completely free to get in.

* The Durham Earth Day Festival is probably your best bet if you want to be outside doing something different on Saturday. The growing festival features music, plenty of vendors and educational booths, and it gives you a chance to hang out in downtown Durham. It’s from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday in CCB Plaza.

* If you’re already in Durham for the Earth Day Festival, steer over to Duke Gardens for the Plant and Craft Festival, which runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

* Springfest at Chavis Park in Raleigh sounds like it could be fun for families. The free event will supposedly feature rides, vendors, entertainment and food. It’s from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.

* If you’re an aspiring photographer, but can’t afford to take an intense class. You can drop $12 on the Introduction to Digital Photography Workshop that the Raleigh City Museum is hosting. The class is perfect for those of you who haven’t dived into digital photography yet. It’s at 2 p.m. Saturday.

* Go to a drag show. Legends in downtown Raleigh is featuring a 9:30 matinee, a midnight show and another at 1 a.m. for you night owls. Be sure to get a Shish-Kabob afterward from the man who sets up his cart near the club’s entrance. They are delicious! (See my pic on the right … mmmm).

Please ADD YOUR EVENTS to the comments section so us Triangle dwellers don’t miss out on something cool!

Trips to Biscuitville have become a staple in my Sunday brunch routine. I’m hardly a biscuit connoisseur, but I’ve got to admit that the North Carolina biscuit chain has got it going on. They’ve got Texas Pete, awesome sausage patties, strong coffee, and — of course — tasty biscuits. And the Honey Buns deserve their own fan page on facebook. Breakfast for two costs about $10.

On Sundays, I take my copy of the News & Observer with me and sprawl out in a booth with my biscuits and boyfriend. Sometimes we’ll go on Saturdays too. Another huge Biscuitville brunch perk is there’s rarely a wait. I get impatient waiting for a table for Sunday brunch (unless you give me coffee like Elmo’s does).

But I know there are better biscuits out there. Somewhere in the Triangle, there’s a fluffy, golden biscuit that’s waiting to woo me. Help me find that place.

Tell me what restaurants you think have incredible biscuits (or biscuits not worth wasting my time on). I’ve had the biscuits at Elmo’s and Flying Biscuit, and I like them both. But certainly there are other locally-owned places that I’ve got to try.

You can no longer doubt the power of Twitter to build meaningful communities (there weren’t any naysayers were there?). Last night, I was in a room filled with more than 100 Triangle residents who use Twitter, and so many sincere connections were quickly created. It was the first Triangle Tweetup (a meetup for people who use Twitter) of 2009 and the first Tweetup since “Twitter” has truly started to go mainstream. Triangle Tweetups have come a long way since the first one organized by @waynesutton in December 2007, when only five people showed up.

photo by @Dgtlpapercuts

Sincere Connections

It’s a fun rush to spy someone across a room and sort of recognize them from their Twitter avatar. If you’ve been following them for a while, you probably know a lot more about them than some of their close acquaintances and coworkers. When you approach your “tweep” (and you steal a glance at their nametag to confirm it’s the person whose life you’ve been digesting in 140-character bytes) and shake their hand it’s not like connecting with a stranger. Instead, it’s like meeting a pen pal or, in some cases, an old friend.

@jennafleur and @cammicam hang out with the Twitter bird. Photo by @dgtlpapercuts.

New Followers and Friends

Everyone who attends a tweetup is pretty much in agreement that Twitter is more awesome than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off made by your mom. So it’s easy to strike up a conversation with anyone you’re standing next to. All you have to say is: “Dude, what’s your Twitter name?” and follow-up with “Dude, when did you join Twitter?” or a “Dude, why did you join Twitter?” (You can omit the word Dude if it’s not part of your lingo). And from there it’s easy.

Here’s a roundup of the Tweetup that I made for 30THREADS.

Reconnecting with Tweeps

I love my tweeps, but we all lead busy lives, so we don’t get to see each other as often as we’d like. Luckily we have Twitter to keep up with each other, but there’s nothing like a hug, handshake or a knowing smile from an old Tweep. Tweetups are full of these.

Making a Difference

We decided to use our Twitter powers for good last night and turn the Tweetup into a food drive. We filled three boxes, a large Rubbermaid container and about a dozen plastic bags with cans and boxed goods. I’m going to drop the donations off next week at the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, and hope to get a tally on how many pounds we donated. (Photo to the right by @jreesnc).

Silliness Ensues

The clever and creative @ToastySnacks thought it would be fun to turn the Tweetup into a mock prom. She asked @InstantTaylor to be her date and then made gorgeous, detailed sashes declaring them the Tweetup King and Queen. And they decided to start their very own Triangle Tweetup Tradition and pass the sashes on, giving them to me and my boyfriend, @mammalpants. It’s now our responsibility to make them proud and select the King and Queen at the next Tweetup.

Photos by @Waynesutton and @abbyladybug, respectively.

Hopefully, Twitter won’t disapper anytime soon. I’m going to at least relish it as long as it’s around (or until it becomes the MySpace of the social web, whichever happens first). If you were at the Tweetup last night, fill me in on your favorite moment/connection.

And a special thank you to @waynesutton for doing an outstanding job of bringing us all together. It’s always a pleasure.

I can’t remember the last time I saw more than an inch of snow, but I know it’s been at least four years when I lived in Illinois.

So I got up this morning and made a snow angel before work. We also pushed my sled (yes I have a sled, I bought it last year when it threatened to snow but never did) down the hill in our neighborhood.

I’m still buzzing from last night’s 30THREADS blogger bash and it has nothing to do with the beer that was flowing.

I’m finding that when Triangle bloggers and Tweeple get together, there’s a certain energy that envelops the room. Faces light up with recognition when bloggers or Tweeple are recognized from their avatars. Bloggers connect with their readers, stories and ideas are exchanged, occasionally interrupted by a handshake or a hug from someone who feels like they already know you.

I connected with some bloggers I already knew, but I also met some whose words and photos I’ve been admiring for months. A brief recap, with apologies for the many moments I can’t squeeze in.

* Met Jeni, the Durham blogger behind I found happy. Turns out we both used to work at The Herald-Sun, so we briefly shared our war stories.

* Noshed on some tasty wings with @RobertFischer, a Durham blogger who reminded me of some funny advice I offered during one of our live Threadcasts. Apparently, I had declared my love for buffalo chicken wings, but warned that if you want to impress someone during a lunch meeting it’s better to order the buffalo chicken salad because it’s easier to eat. Haha. That so sounds like something I would say. (Robert is the one talking in the photo on the left).

* Reminicsed with Lenore about the days when Broad Street Cafe (the venue for our bash) was the funky Ooh La Latte.

* Met some of the anonymous folks behind one of the best Durham food blogs, Carpe Durham.

* Finally had a chance to congratulate Kevin Davis in real life on the recent redesign of his popular Bull City Rising blog. Also caught up with Valerie and found out some of her exciting future plans for We Love Durham.

* Immediately recognized Leandra and Eric, a Durham wine-loving couple I feel like I already know because of their well-written blog.

* Shook hands with a recently-blogged about High School Musical Build-a-Bear and met Jeff Cohen’s two precocious children. Check out this photo that Grace took with her dad’s Nikon D40X.

Other people I met/reconnected with included:

* Paul from That’s No Bull.

* Kate, Jill and Jake, who are among the folks building Raleigh Public Relations.

* Ellen from CoookingEatingDurham.

* Local comedian Larry Weaver.

* Barry Ragin from Dependable Erection (probably not what you think, get your mind out of the gutter).

* Rachel Nabors, a local cartoonist, web designer and overall stylish chick.

And many more.

It was a fabulous evening, filled with new connections and lots of smiles. I think Anora McGaha summed it up well when she wrote this on my facebook wall today:

The bash was amazing. The buzz in the Broad Street Cafe side area was intense, could have lit up half a city.

Thanks to everyone who came out. Hopefully we’ll have another chance to reconnect soon. If you were there and I didn’t list your blog above, please give yourself a shout out in the comments section.

The Triangle is definitely an outstanding hub for social media.

I’ve been honing my thrift shopping skills since fourth grade, when I used to pick through the boxes of a corner store thrift shop in Chicago looking for something trendy that I could afford with money I earned from doing household chores and from our regular summer lemonade stands.

In high school, we had about 50 minutes to leave campus and scarf down lunch somewhere (because eating in the cafeteria at a school that opens its campus at lunch was so uncool). During my freshman year, when I had yet to make friends with anyone who could drive, my friends and I would occasionally walk to the Rescue Mission and Bargain Box to shop instead of eat.

So I was a little disappointed in myself when my best friend asked me where the good thrift shops were around here. I told her about my personal favorite, Thrift World in Durham (pictured above). In Raleigh, I’ve been to the Goodwill on Hargett Street and Cause for Paws on South Saunders Street.

As for vintage shops, I’ve been to Time after Time on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Dolly’s Vintage in Durham’s Brightleaf Square. And Vintage Nation (anyone know if this place still open, BTW? It has looked closed the past couple times I’ve passed by) and Father & Son Antiques. I would recommend all of these places in a heartbeat as they are reasonably priced and have eclectic selections.

(I snagged this 101 Dalmations dress at Vintage Nation for $20 earlier this summer).

There’s also Everything But Grannies Panties in Durham, which I haven’t been to in years. It’s not the best place to snag clothes, but if you’re looking for some awesome kitsch and aren’t clausterphobic, then go get lost inside (although maybe it’s not open anymore either).

So please help me beef up my Triangle thrift shopping skills. Tell me all the thrift shops I must visit and why (do they have crazy kitsch, cheap retro clothes, more modern, trendy stuff?). And let me know which ones aren’t worth my time.

If you still haven’t been to Durham’s American Tobacco complex, you might consider checking it out on Labor Day. There will be a free concert in the lawn from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday featuring John Brown & The Groove Shop Band, an R&B and funk band that are likened to Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder and KC and the Sunshine Band.

It’s a good opportunity to explore the restored tobacco warehouses while enjoying some free music. Bring a blanket or some lawn chairs, a cooler with snacks and make a Labor Day evening of it. American Tobacco is a must-see for Triangle residents who don’t visit downtown Durham as often as they should. My favorite part is the urban stream that runs through it and the strategically placed concrete slabs that allow you to cross it.