Mayor Sessoms of Virginia Beach

I first met the new mayor of Virginia Beach at the Farmer's Market in the Princess Anne area of Va Bch. He was Vice Mayor then and there was a logo contest for the market where I was one of the finalists who received an award from the city. All the logo entries were displayed in a barn-style room next to vegetable stands and country crafts, sporting phrases like "Home Sweet Home." There was music and refreshments.

Drive Safely on This Death Drive

In a twist right out of a Stephen King novel, less than one hour after publication of my story about the many vehicular fatalities that have happened on Shore Drive, a bicyclist was killed by an SUV in the same drive. Interesting enough, in my story published on Blogcritics, I mention my run-ins with vehicles where I used to work, which is on the 3700 block of Shore Drive, just blocks away from where the most recent fatality happened. The point of my artcle was to serve as a public service announcement to visitors to the tourist route. Read the relevant article published today on Blogcritics.

Teenage Bomb Enthusiast in Virginia Beach

Years ago, when the Independence Day movie was out with Will Smith, and a nut stock housing bombs was discovered, I did this take. There was a roughness and a bit of a backwardness about this nut. Here he uses a bike pump as an interactive device with his favorite part of ID4 movie. I dug it from my archives because of the latest news on a teenager found with bombs at his parents home in Virginia Beach. It's almost too difficult to find something comicky about it but that is part of the challenge in these shocking things that demand disbelief, which is why perhaps humor is paradoxical.

It's a Gas!

In the 1990's, a popular topic of contention was the Lake Gaston pipeline, miles and miles of piped water crossing many areas before providing hampton roads with more water. City leaders were instigated to fight with the mere mention of the word water. Here in this page of local history are the Fab Five city leaders on unicycles, the wheels of which are the respective city seals - the point was to see if they could get along in a physical activity other than fisticuffs, but it didn't work - someone changed the HOV lane to H2O and all hell broke loose. The Hampton Roadscholar proposed adding the other 4 city seals to mount trashmore alongside the already emblazoned Virginia Beach seal, but naturally he was met with severe resistance.

Summit at Mount Trashmore

Bringing the Fabulous Five - Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and Suffolk to a Summit to explore group activities was a good way to entice the respective leaders to at least appear as a team. Mount Trashmore was a good place for this to occur, as it was essentially the only mountain in the area and it made a great photo op for the press. Imagine each leader running up the many steps and then embracing at the top like Rocky climbing the steps of the Philadelphia Museum.

Neptune Festival

What's worse than the rising tide in destroying a sand sculpture at the Neptune Festival?

Virginia's Polluters Relief Act

The Virginia Polluters Relief Act had a couple of loop holes the size of a trashed tire. The Hampton Roads Scholar delineates a few of them from the past.