Can anyone offer advice to a soldier on where he can get married by Elvis in Gatlinburg? All I can think of to suggest is contacting the Gatlinburg chamber of commerce.

This is a repost from Reality Me.

My oldest son is doing a class project in ecology. He is writing two posts a week and soliciting comments which he will compile or aggregate into his report. He cannot complete his project without comments. Please take a moment and read his posts. If you are so compelled, please comment on as many as you can. Thank you!

His posts to date:

• Mountaintop Mining
• Tellico
• UT Environmental Ethics
• Busing
• Paper, plastic, or fabric?
• Water Dispute

Please make the comments on Tommy's blog.

His project's success depends on actually getting some feedback. Thank you!

The Knoxville Juggler's Club is meeting this Tuesday!

Jan Sanders Hall at Cokesbury United Methodist Church will be open to jugglers from 7 to 9 p.m. on the first Sunday and the third Tuesday of each month.

Jugglers and non-jugglers alike are welcome to attend. For the answers to "What type of people attend juggling clubs?" "Why juggle?" and "Who can juggle?" see Knoxville Juggling Club relauches. The answer to who can juggle is anyone! I have even seen a one handed man juggle 5 balls!

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Meeting Announcement

The upcoming meeting dates for the Knoxville Asperger Support Group are:

• Novemeber 19, 2007
• December 17, 2007

The support group has a Yahoo Group which can be found on http://groups.yahoo.com/ by searching for Knoxville_Aspie_Support. It meets the third Monday of every month unless there is a conflict or holiday at the West Branch of the Knoxville Public Library (map) at 100 Golfclub Rd from 6pm to 7:30pm.

The Knoxville Asperger Support Group is a no charge, open discussion on the subject of Asperger Syndrome. Typically attendees are caregivers of children teens, and adults although folks with Asperger's often attend to provide input, ask questions, or seek out others with Asperger's. All are welcome!

Potential Special Topic

Dr. Dan Murphy of the School Board has proposed turning KAEC into a middle school to serve the Sequoyah Hills areas. He is making the rounds to several PTOs (will be at Rocky Hill Elementary on Dec 10 at 6:30pm) to garnish support for his proposal. When asked directly as to what would become of the KAEC students, Dr. Murphy gave an ambiguous answer. In my mind that means they either have no plan or will bus the children to Karns. As a parent of a child with Asperger's, you stand a chance that your child will spend some time at KAEC. This is a topic that needs to be discussed immediately.

Just in case you missed it, Google Street Views is photographing Knoxville. I missed my opportunity as they have already whipped through my neighborhood at 90 miles per hour. You may still have a chance to put a sign in your yard with your domain name on it. Get famous on Google Earth and Google Maps! How will you pose? Can you moon the Google car?

Statement of Purpose: To restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United States.

Tennessee:
Alexander (R-TN), Nay
Corker (R-TN), Nay

[Source]

Kinda makes ya teary eyed don't it?

This is a reminder of the plans for this week's grand opening celebration of the Regal Riviera theater. More detailed information including the sweepstakes prizes. Monday night I will be juggling on Gay Street from 5pm-6:30pm for the Opening Ceremony street party. Michael Messing will be performing magic and there should be other entertainers. Come down and participate in the festivities!

I read the garnishness comments and I have to disagree. This is how theaters are supposed to appear. I think it complements Gay Street, the Bijou and the Tennessee. I think the only thing wrong with the Turkey Creek theatre is that they don't regularly have giant batmanesque spotlights out in the parking lot sending crossing beams of light into the sky. Turkey Creek (and all future supershopping areas) should be designed like The Irvine Spectrum Center. Visiting the Spectrum is like going to Disney for the day! If you are ever in Los Angeles (Orange County), try to get by the Spectrum!

PhotoEnforced is using GoogleMaps to document all the redlight cameras. Right now Knoxville only shows 6. Help by going to PhotoEnforced and adding the others. Send the admins a note encouraging them to list Knoxville so that we can see the cameras on the map rather than just a list.

Rich has moved the location of this weekend's Blogfest (July 28th) to Bailey's out west for the free wifi so that Blogathoner's like Cathy, Rich, Barry, and Doug can post every 30 minutes from Blogfest. Yeah live blogging! See you Saturday! Let's go for a better turnout than last weekend.

Rich has announced the next Blogfest! And hopes that everyone will show up as does Cathy Cathy Cathy.

Read more...

Are you for or against a national id? And why? The Senate votes tomorrow!

BoingBoing has some details as well as a link to a site which will fax your senator (if you oppose).

Personally I do not feel strongly one way or another about this one but that is probably because I have not followed the news on it. 17 states oppose it so there must be something bad about the proposal. I look forward to seeing comments here.

Rich Hailey has organized another Blogfest for this Saturday!

WHEN: Saturday, June 9
WHERE: Bailey’s in West Knoxville.
TIME: 6PM
[Source]

I have a round up of potential attendees, Michael Silence has posted an announcement, and Lissa Kay has challenged some people to show up.

See you there!

My father and a business associate will be passing through Knoxville this evening and staying downtown (let's assume the Holiday Inn). He asked for a recommendation on a steak house or other nice place to eat.

Considering I have sworn off eating out until my two year old decides that restaurants don't mean race track (I'm thinking 7) and when I forget and take us out anyway it means Chick Filet, IHOP, or McDonald's, I don't feel qualified to make a recommendation on downtown.

I assume The Butcher Shop and Chesapeake's are still going strong. Are there any treasures out there for consideration? If there was one restaurant and one sight to see downtown for an out-of-towner, what would they be?

I am working on a rezoning roundup. If you see posts or links that have been excluded (and there are many missing right now), please drop a comment with a link and I'll move it from the comment section to the list of links.

I have also created an alternate proposal for rezoning.

Would you like to know how your new school performs compared to others? Visit SchoolMatters and follow the steps outlined after the jump.

You should end up with these results but if you click on the school names and others areas of the table (not mine..your results found at SchoolMatters) you will receive a wealth of information and charts.

Click read more for instructons on generating your own comparison...

I posted this to Reality Me but it should have been posted here to reach the masses. As a reminder, if you do not have children, this decision by the school board could impact your property value. If you have young children, they will be in high school sooner than you think, and this rezoning will likely be a model for the middle school and elementary rezoning which will follow soon.

On Aug 3 2006, Sam Anderson ran unopposed for the School Board 1st District, Dan Murphy ran unopposed for the School Board 4th District, Thomas A Deakins beat H Lee Martin by 372 votes for the School Board 6th District, Rex Stooksbury ran unopposed for the School Board 7th District, and Robert Bratton ran unopposed for the School Board 9th District. I am not sure about the other districts.

According to two commenters on No Silence Here, at least one school board member's neighborhood seemed to escape rezoning. (can anyone verify this? are there others?)

Isn't it amazing that Karen Carson's neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods are no longer in the rezoning area????????? Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Gee, what a coincidence. [Source]

I noticed that Chairwoman Karen Carson's neighborhood did not get rezoned to either Bearden or Hardin Valley even though the area is sandwiched between those being rezoned. Just curious if any school board members' neighborhoods are being rezoned? [Source]

Are we, the people, being properly represented by our elected officials or have these elected officials found an easy way to serve their own best interests? Seems to me that if I had the foresight to want to greatly influence this rezoning that I should have simply run for the School Board. If the majority of the people do not want this rezoning approved and it happens anyway, then the democratic process is failing and we, the people, need to remove the elected officials from their duties and replace them with officials that will better represent the people's wishes.

Now we beg the question, what does the majority want?

Reddog warned us that the draft was trying to be reinstated. Rangel has now introduced the bill. I have posted a couple of additional quotes and links the most important being a link to contact your representative.

In 2003, Rangel introduced HR 163; legislation that would draft both men and women between the ages of 18-26 starting as early as June 2005. It was defeated 402-2 the following year in the House of Representatives, with Rangel voting against his own bill. [Source]

The upcoming meeting dates for the Knoxville Asperger Support Group are:

• January 22, 2007 (Please note this is the 4th Monday, not the 3rd, as the library is closed on January 15th)
• February 19, 2007
• March 19, 2007
• April 16, 2007
• May 21, 2007

The support group has a Yahoo Group which can be found on http://groups.yahoo.com/ by searching for Knoxville_Aspie_Support. It meets the third Monday of every month unless there is a conflict or holiday (such as this month) at the West Branch of the Knoxville Public Library (map) at 100 Golfclub Rd from 6pm to 7:30pm.

The Knoxville Asperger Support Group meets the 3rd Monday of every month at the West Branch of the Knoxville Public library (100 Golfclub Road, Knoxville, TN 37919 map) from 6pm to 7:30pm. The support group is an open format consisting primarily of caregivers to person's Asperger Syndrome although the group is occasionally visited by adults with Aspergers.

Tonight's meeting (Nov 20th) will have three guests from Disability Law and Advocacy Center (Sherry Wilds, Staff Attorney; Anna Bass, Education Advocate; and Ron Emrich, Community Liaison). They are interested in hearing concerns from parents and students who are experiencing problems with school systems and other organizations.

We want to give (for free) our vhs video library to some organization or family that could make use of the movies. They are mostly Disneyeque, childfriend movies.

The library does not take donations of video tapes (or so I have been told). I've done my stint on Freecycle...not going there. I know the Monroe County family needs shelter and clothing first; however, if they can get a tv and vcr donated, perhaps an instant video library will help return some normalcy so I'll put in a call.

Any other suggestions of places that might use 50 or so videos?

Tonight is a good night to go out on the town. I heard on the radio and found details in the MetroPulse that musicians and artists will be performing at 10 different locations to raise money for the Thompson Cancer Survival Center.

If you go out ever, anywhere in Knoxville, chances are you’ve seen Laith Keilany play his guitar. You heard him accompany the likes of Jodie Manross and the Mikel Grubb Band. Or, perhaps you’ve had the unique pleasure of seeing Keilany play the oud, an 11-string middle eastern instrument. He’s played all over Knoxville, and around the Southeast and East Coast. And, it’s not uncommon for Keilany to be playing for free. For years, Keilany (along with Manross) has been the go-to guy when a benefit or fundraiser is in need of a good musician with a good heart. So it’s only fitting that the fourth annual Knoxville at Night will benefit the Thompson Cancer Survival Center and Keilany, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. [Source]

Starting next week Panera will be selling a pink, cherry flavored bagel in the shape of a ribbon to support the fight against breast cancer. A portion of the purchase of these bagels will be donated.

Anyone in Knoxville want to have an impromptu Net Neutrality brown bag type discussion? Borders in Turkey Creek is having its grand opening tomorrow (Saturday, June 3). How about we meet in the coffee shop at 7:00pm. We can chat for 45 minutes (give or take) then watch Todd Steed.

Todd Steed And Suns of Phere June 3, 2006 8:00 PM Knoxville, TN Knoxville - Turkey Creek The bands following is growing throughout the southeast. Their new CD is garnering super reviews for this rock n' roll crew.

If the coffee shop is where all the activity is happening we can just meet there and take the discussion to another part of the store or the fountain outside.

Update: I can be emailed at juggler at gmail.com. If you are coming tonight, I'll be holding onto something that says "net neutrality?"