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Archive for December, 2016

Happy New Year Columbia!   no comments

Posted at 11:59 pm in commentary

Written by ted on December 31st, 2016

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A Great Disturbance In The Force   1 comment

Posted at 11:55 pm in commentary

Yesterday my sister was finally able to get my youngest niece to sit down and watch Star Wars. (I had tried a few years ago with her older sister, who wandered off as the droids were traversing the desert after the escape pod touched down..). She was pretty sure it was a "boy movie", but my sister assured here there was one girl who told all the boys what to do.

That girl, of course, was Carrie Fisher in her iconic role as Princess Leia. I've written how I first saw Star Wars and the impact it had on me, and of course Fisher was a big part of that. The "spunky girl" character has a long pedigree, but Leia was one of the first to actually take charge of the action rather than just supporting her love interest's plans. It wasn't a perfect role by any means: she rarely got scenes as good as the one above, but then in the end, for better or worse, the original Star Wars trilogy is Luke Skywalker's hero's journey, not Leia's.

Having an iconic role always risks type-casting, but Fisher didn't lack for work when she wanted it, and managed to re-invent herself as a writer too, all the while wrestling her demons, sometimes into submission, sometimes not.

I think both my sister and I realized from the news accounts that Fisher had sadly suffered the kind of episode you don't come back from, and I'm sure that prompted the selection of Star Wars rather than one of the many movies the girls had gotten for Christmas.

Farewell Princess, farewell Carrie.

Written by ted on December 27th, 2016

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Silent Night   no comments

Posted at 6:11 pm in commentary

Written by ted on December 24th, 2016

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Wrap Music   no comments

Posted at 11:00 am in closing

Written by ted on December 24th, 2016

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To A Very Happy Ending   no comments

Posted at 12:09 am in commentary

Written by ted on December 24th, 2016

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Don Pablo's Mexican Kitchen, 8717 International Drive (Orlando): October 2016   10 comments

Posted at 2:25 am in closing

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Well, Don Pablo's continues to dwindle away to nothing. As I wrote here, I used to like to go to the Columbia Mall location. Then when that closed, I was working in Augusta and used to like to go to that location. Then that closed, and I would hit the Charleston location from time to time, then that closed and I would stop by the Charlotte location once or twice a year, then that closed, and I would try to go to the Arlington location when I was in DC on business (hard if I had no car..), then that job evaporated and I would stop by the Atlanta location once a year or so, then that closed and I would hit the Greenville location when I had a leisurely weekend, then that closed, but I figured I could still hit the Orlando location on one of my periodic runs through Florida..

Well, no more. Orlando closed in October after the chain filed for Chapter 11 on 4 October 2016, as I found well after the fact.

It wasn't a total loss, driving down International, I had seen another Mexican place, Chuy's, so I backed up to there and had an excellent chile relleno, probably the best one I've had since I was in San Antonio.

Oh, and I don't think I know of a good way to be fired

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but this *definitely* is not it.

Written by ted on December 23rd, 2016

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Cheap Chuck's Tire / Buy & Save Tire Center, 2420 Broad River Road: 2016   7 comments

Posted at 1:29 am in closing

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I noticed that this tire center on Broad River Road was vacant last time I drove by. For now you can see a good picture of it in operation as Buy & Save in Google Street View here.

The sign proclaims that it will soon be another tire operation: Tires & Beyond. Beyond *what* I'm not sure.

Written by ted on December 14th, 2016

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imPress Printing, 6525 Two Notch Road Suite C: 2016   no comments

Posted at 10:57 pm in closing

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I just noticed that this print shop on Two Notch by the old Mayo's Suit City was vacant. They list in this year's phonebook, so I'm going to 2016 on the date.

The name caught my eye because when I first started work, we had a bunch of Imagen printers on our network and would deploy them to various clients. The engines were 300dpi Canon behemoths that would keep working through flood, fire or the zombie apocalypse. It was the same engine, in fact, that Apple used shortly thereafter for the first LaserWriter. The engine however, sat on top of a cpu box with a 5.25 floppy that booted the printer operating system and provided Imagen's page description language: Impress. After the LaserWriter came out, suddenly Diablo 630 daisy-wheel emulation wasn't enough, and we spent a lot of time and effort trying to make those sunk-cost Impress printers work like Apple PostScript..

Written by ted on December 12th, 2016

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Isn't It Time?   no comments

Posted at 1:13 am in commentary

Written by ted on December 10th, 2016

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National Distributing Co, 1009 Airport Boulevard: Circa 2010 (moved)   1 comment

Posted at 12:18 am in closing

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As you can see, it was raining pretty hard, so I did not get very good pictures, but I noticed the For Sale sign on this office building a few weeks ago when I was in the Owens Field area. That's right, Columbia has *two* roads named "Airport Boulevard", something I did not know.

From what I can gather National Distributing Co is a wine wholesaler, which left this building around 2010 for a site off of Bluff Road. They no longer seem to be listed in the phonebook, so I believe they left the Columbia market after that, though they are still in business nationally.

Note the City Roots greenhouse (or whatever you call it, since it is not enclosed) to the right -- I didn't realize this was where they are located.

Written by ted on December 9th, 2016

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