So lately I’ve noticed I’m posting more because I “have” to post to adhere to Blog 365 than because I want to. The quality of my posts is not what it used to be. I love to write, but some days I don’t want to and will post a sub-par entry. Effective today, I will no longer be participating in Blog 365. It’s been fun, and I definitely could write every day for five years straight and still think of new topics, however, it’s just not feasible. I’m way too busy, have other websites to keep up with that have been neglected, and find myself “obligated” to blog some days rather than wanting to. It shouldn’t be that way.

I’ll still blog most every day. I love writing and sharing my thoughts and opinions. I think this will be a good thing and will allow me to write higher quality posts. Thanks so much for reading! And hey, six months isn’t bad, right? I’ve posted every single day since January 1, 2008!

If your mailing address is Richmond, Virginia, but you live most anywhere in Henrico County, your address will soon change to Henrico, Virginia. Why? Henrico County loses millions of dollars every year to the City of Richmond. Big corporate chains that are based outside of the area think that because the mailing address is Richmond, the taxes should be paid there. This adds up quickly. Well that’s interesting enough alone. But it gets better.

Henrico County sent out a mail survey asking residents if they wanted to change the name to Henrico or leave it Richmond. They also did a TV ad campaign. Fair enough. What I don’t get is that Richmond did an ad, too! Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder (leave it to him) decided it would be a competition and fought to keep the undeserved money in the city! Then again this is Doug Wilder we are talking about here. Should we be surprised in the least? He needs to go.

How’s this for ironic? The CEO of Lifelock, Todd Davis, has finally been hacked himself! He’s the guy that advertises his real social security number on billbords, trucks, television, and radio.

And while this may be to prove the point that he has total faith in his company, which protects you from any identity theft attempts and backs up the protection with a $1 million liability guarantee should anyone succeed in using your good name.

In my opinion, it’s just stupid to openly advertise your social security number, even if you do have this service. It serves him right. Here’s an online article about the whole thing. His picture should go on the FAIL Blog!

Why did Todd Davis, CEO of Lifelock, need to contract with an outside firm when his own identity was stolen last summer? Because true resolution does not come easy…. and is not a marketing gimick. Who did Mr. Davis choose to handle his personal financial recovery when his fraud alert system failed? An Identity Theft America partner, National ID Recovery.

According to an article that appeared in the Dallas Morning News on July 23, 2007, Mr. Davis became a victim when a man obtained a $500 payday loan in his name. This, despite the fact Mr. Davis was using the well-advertised Lifelock services.

According to the article, Teletrack, a subprime credit bureau that was used by the payday loan lender, doesn’t receive fraud alerts from the three national credit bureaus - Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. In the article, Mr. Davis admitted that “Fraud alerts aren’t always going to be bulletproof. There are areas where someone can still compromise your information.” This despite the fact that Mr. Davis advertises his social security number in the media to convince consumers that his system can prevent identity theft.

You can’t afford to be left with no where to turn and empty promises with fine print. Make the same choice that identity theft industry executives use when the chips are down. Identity Theft America assures quality, professional services to help with identity theft. Regardless of the advertising, there is no prevention for identity theft, so be prepared if it happens to you.

As bad as gas prices are now, they could be far worse. In fact, they already are in other countries. This article explores how things would change if gas cost $10 a gallon. There would be no more pizza or newspaper delivery, plastic water bottles or other daily things we take for granted. FedEx, UPS, and taxis would be a luxury for the rich. But, after a short recession and period of adaptation to fuel costs, this article suggests we just might be better off because of the push that would ensue for alternative fuel, telecommuting, home rooftop gardens, etc. Check out the “what if” article by clicking here.

If you wanna see why I haven’t been keeping up with my blog this week, check out my Downtown Short Pump site. It’s packed with stuff now. Check out all the news entries I’ve written. I will be back to my regular posting once this is done for the most part. Check it out at http://www.downtownshortpump.com. Then comment and let me know what you like, what you think could be improved, and what you think I should add. More information to come about this soon!

My blog entries lately have been sub-par. Okay, just flat out poor. I’m aware. I’ve had technical issues with my computer, wireless internet, my hosting service, moving to a new server, and other things. I promise I’ll be back to my normal posting habits tomorrow.

I’ve also been working non-stop on getting my web business up and running. It’s finally getting where it needs to be visually and content-wise. I’ll write a big post about that soon. I have so much on my mind I wanna write about, in fact, that my head might explode. I’d say I have a mental list of topics that will get me through at least the next three weeks.

Hang in there. I’ll see you tomorrow for some much more in-depth and interesting content. I promise.

Some people will do anything to try and be famous. This guy, William Bernstein of Virginia Beach, has started his own fake news studio (done by green screen) and posts daily videos to CNN’s citizen reporting service called iReport. Honestly he scares me. Watch how he freaks out as he goes to provide “exclusive coverage” of the Suffolk tornado. He acts as if there’s a tornado right next to his car, but it’s actually just a thunderstorm. He loses it at about 53 seconds into the video. Too funny. Click here to watch.

I’m still having major issues with my websites. They’re all down but my blog (this was down, too but I figured out how to fix it last night), but there are still some issues on it. I’m not going to make any major posts until I figure out what’s going on. Please bear with me while I try to resolve the problem!

Just wanted to put out a note ahead of time that I’m in the process of upgrading my hosting account (moving to a bigger server) because I’m getting serious about my web business, Short Pump Media Ventures. I’m moving all seven of my websites (domain names, files, et cetera) to one massive server. I’ve made backups of everything on every site, so while there’s no chance of data loss, there’s a pretty good chance all of my sites, including my blog, will be either seriously disabled or completely down for a day or two. Everything should be peachy by Monday (I hope). Self-hosting is a tricky thing. The server seems to have a mind of its own. It’s a lot more customizable to host websites yourself, but at the same time it’s a lot more work. See you soon (hopefully)!

As I posted about two days ago, there was a huge tornado outbreak across southeastern Virginia on Monday. Colonial Heights, although faced with an estimated $2 million in damage, faired much better than Suffolk, with $18 million in damage. The Colonial Heights tornado was confirmed by the National Weather Service as an F1 with winds of up to 112 MPH (The “F” stands for the Fujita Scale, which rates tornadoes on a scale of F0-F6) and the Suffolk tornadoes were mostly F3 intensity, with winds up to 206 MPH. The devastation was widespread down there, but remarkably no one was killed (I reported on Monday that one person was killed, but later found out, along with the news sources, that the death was unrelated to the tornado).

Now I don’t believe things can be cursed, but the Colonial Heights Wal-Mart sure has some bad luck. It’s now a Sam’s Club, but so many things happened to it as a Wal-Mart it’s almost inconceivable. There’s a theory that the place is cursed because someone was killed there in the Garden Center shortly after the place opened in late 1989 or early 1990. Shortly after, the Garden Center was flattened by either downdraft winds from a severe thunderstorm or a weak tornado. In 1993, Virginia’s most intense tornado to date (still), an F4 with winds up to 260 MPH, ripped through the store, killing two employees and a customer. Monday, the F1 tornado took the exact same directional path, 400 feet from the former Wal-Mart (now Sam’s Club). I don’t think there was any major damage to the Sam’s Club, but what is it about that store and Dimmock Square that so many tornadoes have come through? The place is a freaking tornado magnet!

Like I said, I don’t believe in curses, but check out fellow blogger Carrie had to say about the place even before Monday’s events. This is baffling to me. It’s so crazy this place could be hit by tornadoes three times when Virginia barely has measurable tornadoes, much less catastrophic ones like this.

The Curse Of The Original Southpark Wal-Mart

It was a really big deal when the Southpark Mall opened in my hometown. The land on which the mall was being built was privately owned and barren, save for a lawnmower store (guised as a shack), a few swampy plants and maybe a farm animal or two. I have vague memories of my father telling me that the landowner also had a snake farm on this property, but that seems too exotic for Small Town, Virginia. Then again, a snake farm is just the type of feature my small town would boast.

It was highly rumored (amongst the kids at my elementary school) to be the biggest mall in Virginia and possibly even the country. I should say that this is a one story mall with only 4 “major” stores: Dillard’s, Hechts, Sears and JC Penney’s. We even didn’t get a Gap, a mall staple, until 2001 years ago, and it went out of business and in its place a store called Man Alive opened. (ManAlive sells spiky high heeled sneakers and oversized “Lets Get Crunk” t-shirts and is just down the way from the kiosk that sells confederate flag and NASCAR paraphernalia.)

The mall opening was a huge event. There was a search light, balloons, free Chick-Fil-A samples and human mannequins. HumanMannequins! They posed, perfectly still, wearing parachute pants, ruffled skirts and 1988’s finest double breasted suits, for hours on end. The next day in class, no one was talking about the actual mall or the many stores contained within. We were all arguing about whether or not the human mannequins ever blinked. I don’t think they did.

Shortly after the mall opened, they built the World’s Busiest Wal-Mart adjacent to the mall (At least it was rumored to be The World’s Busiest Wal-Mart amongst the kids at my middle school). This meant we didn’t have to travel to the Bradlees in a next town over to get our B-B guns and Fisherprice record players. Unfortunately, this Wal-Mart was cursed.

In either 1989 or 1990, a man walked into the Wal-Mart and shot and killed his ex-wife, a Wal-Mart Employee, in the Garden Section. This was a really big deal because a) a man walked into the Wal-Mart and shot his ex-wife to death in the Garden Section and b) this was only the second or third murder that my home town had ever experienced. The third or fourth happened on Mall property as well. Everyone (my classmates) was talking about the Wal-Mart Garden Center ghost. I shuddered every time I drove by Wal-Mart or drank a Sam’s Choice Cola. But time passed and the Wal-Mart became busier than ever.

Shortly after that fatal shooting, in May 1990, a terrible storm brewed over the Wal-Mart, damaging the very Garden Section where that poor ex-wife was murdered. There was a continuing debate at CHHS as to whether or not it was a tornado or just a very bad storm, but it was confirmed to be an F2 tornado. Thankfully only minor injuries were sustained. Wal-Mart employees worked overtime to cover the gaping roof with a tarp and clean up all the stray kiddy pools and terra cotta shards. Within days, the Wal-Mart was back in business. But that wasn’t the end of it. Bad things come in threes.

On a Saturday afternoon, in August 1993, a huge F4 tornado, (Virginia’s worst tornado, according to the 1994 High School yearbook), plowed through that Wal-Mart and put it on the national news for its casualties (three) and injuries (198). I derived a lot of pleasure from the attention I got when my friends found out my brother was in the mall when it happened and helped people out of the rubble. Plus, just moments before the twister touch-down, my father and I had just driven past the mall on I-95 on our way to Raleigh, North Carolina to visit my aunt. And my mother was on the turnpike bridge and was gusted into another lane, just missing the path of a Mack truck. The tornado nearly leveled the Wal-Mart– along with a MJDesigns craft store, a mattress warehouse and the tree where Pocahontas saved John Smith, to name a few.

And although the second and final tornado didn’t actually happen in the Garden Section, it did blow contents of the Garden Section all over the store and into some people’s heads. Cue Twilight music.

Officials finally accepted that the Wal-Mart was cursed, because they razed the original Wal-Mart and built a new, improved and blood-freeSuper Wal-Mart about a quarter of a mile away in the new Southpark Commons development area. The new Wal-Mart is just down the street from the World’s Largest Arby’s.