Staying alive on a bike in Knoxville

My first year out of UT I lived in a nice house just a mile away from the big Kay's Ice Cream in South Knoxville (the one with the big ice cream cone on Chapman Hwy). From there, one of my roommates would bike his way to campus each day. Noah wasn't afraid to bend the rules of the road, like biking on the sidewalk as he crossed the bridge. But then, Noah was known to do a little graffiti back in the day...

Anyway, Patrick Beeson has a revelatory guide to commuting via bike on his blog. It certainly helps that he is 2.5 miles from work, but I wonder if our greenways or side streets help others bike to work? I'm hopeful our country will someday make bike traffic more user-friendly, like Holland. Perhaps when gas hits $10 a gallon?

Bloggity Boom

In the past couple of weeks I've been able to track down quite a few bloggers and work-at-home types, all of whom are creating these amazing content gardens all over Knoxville. One caught my eye: Knoxify, an incredibly well-done blog by Casey Peters and Brandon Clarke. From there I found Instaknox, a local version of Twitter (basically), and Knoxd, which looks an awful lot like one of the Alltop sites.

I really think localized versions of these larger services is where it's at, and while I'm sure there's plenty of this elsewhere, I can't express how fantastic it is to see such effort here in Knoxville. Just a month ago I was worrying aloud about the vivacity of our local creative and techy populace. Turns out I just don't get around much!

Well, we are SO having some big ol' meetup. Don't know where, how, when or what shape it'll take (social event or barcamp? panels or keynotes?)

Surely we are weirder than this?

Using my old new friend StumbleUpon I found StrangeUSA's list of "strange stuff" in Knoxville. Pretty disappointing! Cemeteries and our haunted locales and one UFO listing... I guess it'd be hard to replicate what Jack Neely dug up over the years, eh?

In Oak Ridge they've got a statue of Mary with the atomic orbits symbol on the base-- that's pretty funky. Unfortunately I see less weird stuff in Knoxville each year, mostly due to our ever-expanding strip mall populations and the "updates" our fine contractors do to existing properties. 

For example, there was a pressure-washing rental place on Clinton Hwy. that was painted purple with big, pink circles all over it. I guess the owner thought it'd stand out more if they painted it white, which they did. Sad.

So where's the weird stuff you've found in Knoxville?

Knoxville is No. 10 on Forbes' list of Best Places for Business and Careers

Is it any surprise? A couple of weeks ago Forbes posted their "Best Places for Business and Careers" list, and Knoxville wound up at number 10. Here's the 9 above us:

1. Raleigh, NC
   
2. Boise, ID
   
3. Fort Collins, CO
   
4. Des Moines, IA
   
5. Lexington, KY
   
6. Atlanta, GA
   
7. Richmond, VA
   
8. Olympia, WA
   
9. Spokane, WA
   

Durham, NC made #12. It makes me glad to see so many Southern cities on that list!

Sure, some folks I know may prefer Southern California, or the New York area, but I'll keep my little Southeastern hamlet, thanks.

Look ma, I'm a blogger!

A couple of weeks ago I wound up at SXSW, the Interactive part of the festival (I'm not yet cool enough to stick around for the music portion). Lots of designers, developers and a TON of bloggers. I ran into Darren Rowse, the guy behind Problogger. Darren has a lot of hustle, and truly knows how to monetize a blog. He was kind enough to interview me, which you can read here.

Late last year I was interviewed at length for the book "Blogging Heroes," which is still in print. I highly recommend it if you've got friends or family who ask "what is this blogging thing anyway?"

And a quick update on my plans for a blogger meetup here in Knoxville: there has been some interest, so I'm pushing forward and hoping for a late summer or early fall date. I'm also hoping it won't be boring, which means no boring panels of interesting people. While SXSW had some good panels, it had a few stinkers too. The last thing I want is for our local meetup to be a simple meet-and-greet. Instead, I'd like everyone to come out of it with something we can build on. More to come...