Posted by Benji Riggins on April 8, 2010 under Interesting Info | 
North Carolina’s big-city motorists are losing nearly on average the cost of a tank of gas every week to pay for their troubles from pot holes, longer waits in traffic and perilous roads.
A national transportation group released a report this week estimating a driver in North Carolina’s two largest urban areas loses $1,350 a year because of lost time and gasoline costs sitting in traffic, car repairs and accidents where roadway design likely contributed to a wreck.
The study by the Washington-based nonprofit group TRIP, based largely on federal highway and traffic safety data, may reinvigorate the discussion state transportation boosters want to persuade the Legislature to approve new ways to raise road construction funds.
The state estimated years ago it had a $65 billion funding gap through 2030 between projected transportation needs and the current funding sources to pay for them.
“North Carolina is falling behind in maintaining its major roads, bridges and highways and the state lacks adequate funding with numerous projects that would greatly enhance economic development in the state,” TRIP executive director Will Wilkins said.
The $838 million in federal stimulus money for ready-to-build roads and bridges only provides short-term assistance for North Carolina, where population is expected to grow by one-third to 12 million and vehicle travel by 45 percent by 2030.
“The bottom line is our needs are growing in North Carolina. Our revenue stream is not,” state Transportation Secretary Gene Conti said at a Raleigh news conference where he agreed with the findings. “We need to continue to work hard and do more with less, but I don’t think at the end of the day that’s going to get the job done.”
The group TRIP said the costs above and beyond normal driving and maintenance for Charlotte drivers ($1,351 a year) and Raleigh-Durham ($1,350) area drivers are essentially the same, while drivers in Greensboro and Winston-Salem on average face $901 in expenses because there’s less congestion in the Triad.
Statewide, congested and deteriorating roads and those that lack improved safety features cost drivers $5.7 billion, according to the TRIP report. North Carolina has the second largest state-maintained highway system but ranks fourth-lowest in the nation for per-mile capital spending on those roads.
There are more than six million drivers in North Carolina. Wilkins discouraged calculating a statewide driver average because congestion figures were available only in the three metro areas.
Charlotte-area motorists spend 40 hours a year in traffic, compared to 25 hours in 1997. The average rush-hour trip is now 25 percent longer in Charlotte and 17 percent longer in the Raleigh-Durham area compared to a non-rush hour trip, the report said.
The calculation of the three regions is based on the per-driver cost for congestion, additional vehicle costs for driving on poor or mediocre roads and the economic costs of accidents.
A state blue-ribbon transportation commission recommended in 2008 raising the tax on car sales, raising vehicle registration fees and even charging motorists for every mile recorded on a vehicle’s odometer as a way to make up for a state gasoline tax eroding as people drive less and with more fuel-efficient cars.
Lawmakers approved last year the commission’s idea to expand to all 100 counties the option to raise local sales taxes for public transportation projects, but otherwise the “Legislature hasn’t really had the courage to enact many of these suggestions,” said Tom Crosby with the AAA Carolinas Motor Club.
Wilkins urged Congress to reauthorize the law setting out federal transportation funding to provide more road-funding stability, since federal revenues pay for about one-fourth of North Carolina’s road projects.
By Gary D. Robertson
March 26, 2010
Posted by Benji Riggins on January 4, 2010 under Interesting Info |
HANDBOOK 2010
Health :
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants..
4. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games
7. Read more books than you did in 2009 .
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.
Personality :
11. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don’t over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need..
18. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with His/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree….
Society :
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything..
28. Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
Life :
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. Our Higher Power heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come..
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank your Higher Power for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.
Last but not the least :
40. Please Forward this to everyone you care about, I just did..
Posted by Benji Riggins on July 31, 2009 under Interesting Info |
Laughter should be free. Amen. It’s how I get through a regular day. Check out Laughtub.
Simply put, it’s a free place to get user-submitted funny, true stories that are designed to
make you laugh. It’s absolutely free, covered by advertising.
Laughtub was started to bring laughter and happiness into people’s lives, especially in
such current times. Basically, as it says on the Laughtub site, “If you like laughing,
Laughtub is for you.” http://laughtub.com and @laughtub on Twitter.
Posted by Benji Riggins on February 9, 2009 under Interesting Info |
Be My Valentine
Years before there was a Saint Valentine to spice things up and bring some passion into the season, mid-February was an important date for lovers. As far back as 400 years BCE, ancient Romans took part in an annual lottery in the name of one of their gods: Lupercus. Young women’s names were written down and put inside a box and drawn blindly by eager young men. The ‘winners’ then found themselves legally paired for a year.
600 years later, the militaristic emperor Claudius II put a stop to marriage for young men — because he took it into his head that single youths made better soldiers.
An early Christian priest, Valentine, dared to disagree with Claudius and went against the law, carrying on marrying young people until Claudius dicovered his disloyalty and first imprisoned him, and finally caused him to be martyred for his faith on February 24th, 270.
The story goes that while he was locked up, Valentine fell in love with his guard’s daughter and after he was taken to his death, he left her a message signed, ‘From your Valentine.’
Taking Valentine’s name in vain, the by now established Christian Church, in AD 496, decided to finally abolish the pagan ancient lottery held to worship Lupercus the pagan god and so changed the rules:
After that, either gender would randomly choose from the box, but now they wouldn’t get the expected year of ‘marriage’ (or, indeed, the more earthy benefits that were implied), they now had to pick out a Saint whose character they had to spend the next year emulating.
How frustrated and cheated the youth of ancient Rome must have felt having their traditions upturned!
This new ‘celebration’ day was called after Saint Valentine whose selection, 226 years after his death, was in order to usurp the pagan god than to signify love.
As politicians through the ages often forget, public memory was stronger than the latest political ideas — especially when as unpopular as this and Saint Valentine’s name remained linked with love and lovers. Young Roman men, missing their traditional sweepstake, began instead giving notes to the women they fancied on February 14th.
So it was that the modern habit of distributing and receiving Valentine cards and messages was started over 1500 years ago!
The first known ‘modern’ card that is still in existence is owned by the British Museum. This first proper Valentines card was sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife in 1415. He was held captive in the Tower of London at the time and so outpourings of love were probably quite heightened!
Five hundred years ago the Bishop of Geneva tried to reinstate the annual Saint’s name lottery, but the people were not much interested. February 14th was by then too firmly associated with lovers for the Church to successfully interfere.
In 1797 a British publisher, who would have done very well in modern Internet times, published a guidebook called ‘The Young Man’s Valentine Writer’ which offered scores of suggestions of Valentines messages for the creatively challenged.
Anonymous Valentines cards all started in Victorian times. Those outwardly straight-laced folks privately adored anything sensual and passionate, but publicly were obliged to display a show of respectful purity. Hence, the messages in Victorian cards became really quite filthy, while the senders were still able to hide from behind their self-imposed anonymity.
The first seller of Valentine’s cards in the U.S., Esther Holland was able to charge up to $35 for each card. That was a fortune in 1870!
Finally, we still write kisses with the letter ‘x’ because in days of illiteracy, a person would ’sign’ their name with their mark — a cross. To convey the effect of an oath, people would kiss the cross they had drawn — in the same way that they would kiss the Bible. Unsurprisingly the hand-drawn X and the kiss became inextricably entwined — how poetic.
Have a love-filled Valentine’s day! X
