This is where I work

This is where I work
Originally uploaded by superpixel

I work in Knoxville. But I don't work for a company based here in town. Oh sure, I tried to work for some companies here. They wouldn't have me (and to be fair, some of that was my fault, not theirs). So now I work for a really big company based in NYC.

But I gotta say, if you're going to be a "virtual" worker, aka telecommuter, aka gadabout, this is a GREAT town to do it in. NYC is great and all, but I can't afford to send my kids to the private schools there.

Knoxville has excellent phone and internet service, wonderful city services, close to lots of great places to visit, plenty of local events and entertainment and Tyson-McGee airport is frankly one of the best darn airports you will ever happen to visit.

Oh, and the kids go to some really nice schools.

What is an anchor hotel?

Bill Brewer has a great piece in the KNS today about Sevierville's new convention center, and the competition it gives to Knoxville and Gatlinburg. Now, I had no idea Sevierville had such a great plan, or what a fantastic facility they've built. Really, if I were an event planner I'd probably go to Sevierville. But something Bill mentions is the lack of an "anchor" hotel. What is that? The Holiday Inn isn't an anchor? It's right next door! Doug McDaniel mentions an anchor hotel in Montgomery and points to their efforts to revitalize a portion of the town...

Unfortunately I'm not a town planner, and I've no idea what qualifies as an anchor hotel. My educated guess is proximity and capacty define this. Not sure how we have all these hotels downtown but none qualify as "anchors" apart or together...

Anyway, back to Sevierville, and the competition from there and Gatlinburg, and where Knoxville's convention center fits in. I see Sevierville as a nice mountain retreat. With the proposed golf courses and other ameneties it is certainly a compelling resort atmosphere. However, as someone who has seen corporate retreats become nothing but golf vacations, it might not be the place to "get things done."

Gatlinburg's convention center isn't really a competitor, in my opinion. Talk about no anchor hotel! What, that one up on top of the mountain? And isn't Gatlinburg a little hillbilly for most conventions? Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not seeing Gatlinburg fit into the grand scheme of things-- not with Sevierville's expanded offerings.

Which brings us back to downtown Knoxville. What we offer is a more cosmopolitan setting in the mountains of East TN. Not as idyllic as Sevierville, to be sure, and not as "redneck Riviera" as Gatlinburg, but more like a city in the mountains. Think about what we've got downtown. Nama and World Grotto come instantly to mind. Those two places are as nice as anything you'll find in Manhattan. The Sunsphere, our town's trademark landmark, is now open. UT provides a continuous stream of activities (though designed for students, I never understood why more folks don't avail themselves of these). And all those theaters, and now a movie venue!

What is lacking isn't so much stuff but the coordination and promotion of stuff. Wouldn't it be nice to have these hotspots or events highlighted in the convention center? In business, much of what defines success is in your ability to execute on a plan-- the coordination of disparate divisions working in concert towards a greater goal. What Knoxville needs now is a way to connect the dots. A way to put everything together on a sort of menu for the out-of-towners to pick and enjoy and digest.

Because if you put it all together, we'll beat Sevierville and Gatlinburg hands-down. Not on everything, but in the market where we find ouselves: a pleasant city in the hills.

Yar, how about Talk Like a Knoxvillian Day?

Today's Talk Like a Pirate Day (check out some pirate crafts or how to use your iPhone to make pirate faces). But I wonder what Talk Like a Knoxvillian would sound like? Do we have a sound? Other than East TN redneck, is there any particular phrase or colloquialism we use that would ID us? Personally, I pepper my sentences with references to the Sunsphere.

Spiders. Why did it have to be spiders?

Wow, killed our 2nd black widow in a week. First one was when we tried to vanquish some of those little ants from coming in the house and eating the marshmallows (curse you marshmallow guns!). I went outside and sprayed some where the siding meets the concrete. A few moments later a little bitty black widow dropped down, stunned. Another shot of spray (yes, I'm too afraid to squish her) and she appeared dead.

Today we go to clean up the porch and we move a folding chair-- BOO! A big, fat, female black widow who immediately curls around her egg sac! Oh my, time for Le Spray Juste, aka "RAID Wasp Killer." We really hope that did the trick, because before we could grab a shoe and finish the job, the darn thing flipped over (with surprising speed and distance) and scampered below deck.

Last year my kids got to see two females in the sandbox. What's really crazy is that my entire life I've been deathly afraid of spiders, even the harmless little brown ones. And yet in the past two years I have seen four black widows "in the wild"-- which is four more than I've ever seen in the wild before.

This makes me extremely nervous about building our house in the woods!

Welcome Jim Samples to Knoxville!

Most of this town won't have a clue who Jim is, but I've been an admirer for a while. He's the former chief of Cartoon Network who resigned *cough* after Boston lost its sense of humor and went kookoockachoo over those Adult Swim neon signs were strapped to poles in public view.

Well it looks like HGTV snagged the brilliant man who had the brains to OK shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Everyone who worked at CN (owned by Time-Warner, the same folks who pay my checks via AOL/Weblogs, where I work) said nothing but good things about Jim, and frankly I'm giddy that he'll be setting down roots in our squalid little burg.

Of course, we're not squalid. HGTV and Scripps in general is making some pretty good moves lately. While I doubt their Pickle video service will fly, I do know they've snagged other top talent from the likes of Yahoo, and while I may poke fun at the resilience of their News-Sentinel blogging efforts, the fact is they make a tasty meal of info EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Naturally, I do the same thing, and I do it a a lot cheaper, but we won't get into that now.

Welcome to Knoxville Jim, please don't be offended if I actually ask for your autograph. It's the closest to Frylock I'll ever get.

It's like I'm a psychic or something

I finally get around to reading the Sunday paper this evening, and what do I see? Well the paper has gone and made themselves a blog network. Good on ya! Granted, trying to join resulted in a 404 error, and my blog wasn't included (no shocker there), oh and bloggers won't really be able to monetize their blogs within the page, but hey, it's a start, right?

Anything that gets the blog blog flowing is a good thing. It doesn't necessarily change the fact that, overall, we are still a pretty technologically backwards town. In a moment of true funny I scroll down and see someone blogging about killing the battery on their Wall Street Powerbook. That's the Powerbook from 1998 y'all.

So I dunno, maybe it has been tricked out by MCE Tech and is a screamer with dual DVD-burners. Maybe Blognetwork.Knoxnews.com (catchy, huh?) will be a rocket ride of local success. And maybe, just maybe, Knoxville will learn what it really means to blog and the ethos of the blogosphere. Considering it took Knoxnews a few years to drop the whole "we don't need your stinking Google referrals" and remove the mandatory log-in, we've got an uphill battle on our hands.

UPDATE: As Jack points out in the comments, this blog HAS been added. In my efforts to build an SEO-friendly site, I named my blog "The Knoxville Blog" which is pretty generic when viewed against a number of other "Knoxville" blogs. So I couldn't find it, and complained, and that's my bad. Sorry folks.