Live Blog: UVa.-Eastern Michigan
Editor Chris Graham will be in the pressbox at Scott Stadium for Saturday’s game between Virginia (2-4, 0-3 ACC) and Eastern Michigan (1-6, 0-3 MAC).
Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. The game is being webcast on ESPN3.
Join the Live Blog for live score updates, commentary, analysis and more.
The building of a program: A progress report
I swear I could hear some Al Groh coming out of Mike London.
The first-year UVa. football coach had just been asked by a reporter how he could maintain his positive approach to his rebuilding effort in the face of the Cavs’ third consecutve blowout ACC loss, 44-10 to rival North Carolina.
London was noticeably testy at what had seemed an innocent question.
“You’re talking to a guy nine years ago when a doctor said me giving my bone marrow to my daugher was 10,000-to-1 odds. I’m going to remain positive. I’m going to stay a positive guy,” said London, whose team stands at 2-4 midway through the 2010 season, and appears to be regressing after a September that featured two wins over I-AA teams (Richmond, VMI) and a surprising strong performance in a narrow 17-14 loss at Southern Cal.
The building of a program: A progress report
I swear I could hear some Al Groh coming out of Mike London.
The first-year UVa. football coach had just been asked by a reporter how he could maintain his positive approach to his rebuilding effort in the face of the Cavs’ third consecutve blowout ACC loss, 44-10 to rival North Carolina.
London was noticeably testy at what had seemed an innocent question.
“You’re talking to a guy nine years ago when a doctor said me giving my bone marrow to my daugher was 10,000-to-1 odds. I’m going to remain positive. I’m going to stay a positive guy,” said London, whose team stands at 2-4 midway through the 2010 season, and appears to be regressing after a September that featured two wins over I-AA teams (Richmond, VMI) and a surprising strong performance in a narrow 17-14 loss at Southern Cal. Read more
Stayin’ alive: Quality of life for seniors depends on physical, mental fitness
Larry Newman couldn’t have imagined getting in a car to travel eight hours over the mountains in West Virginia to see his grandson in Ohio.
“I couldn’t sit in the car that long. We’d have to stop so I could get out and walk around a little bit,” said Newman, who was beset for years with back problems.
That was before Larry and his wife, Anna Lee, decided to do something to make their senior years more enjoyable. Regulars at the RMH Wellness Center, the Newmans work out three days a week, and now it’s no issue when they want to go see their grandson, Austin Brown, a star defensive tackle at Miami (Ohio).
“When the kids say, Let’s go, we go,” said Anna Lee, recounting the details of road trips to Ohio and to Gainesville to see Miami challenge Florida in its season opener.
Bruised, battered, beaten – but not defeated: Business owner recounts attack, and fights back
This is a story of survival.
“All I could think of was, I have to stay alive for Dylan.”
Heather Owens had just taken her dog, Shadow, out to do her business. It was late on a Friday night, technically Saturday morning, around 1:30 a.m., Aug. 28, 2010.
Owens was sitting on the step of her back porch when she saw a figure dart from her left.
“And then he was on me,” she said.
Instinctively she fought back.
“I guess he wasn’t expecting that,” she said, and she could sense the anger in his voice.
“The only words he said the whole time were, OK, now I’m going to kill you, bitch,” she said.
More instinct: Owens teaches yoga at her downtown studio, Natural Beauty.
Economic engine: In the trenches with small-business owners
At the height of the real-estate boom, business was indeed booming for Brian Mininger.
“Our biggest issue wasn’t getting business, it was how in the world can we keep up with it and service it,” said Mininger, whose Fishersville-based home-remodeling business, Home Innovations, was doing hundreds of thousands of dollars of remodeling work annually before the bottom fell out of the market.
The business went under in short order, and Mininger is picking up the pieces with the launch of a new business, Blackberry Creek, that works with small-business clients on marketing and PR strategies using cost-effective social-media networking as the foundation.
“It really wasn’t until the last year or two at Home Innovations when I started getting a handle on how to use the web. I had a website, I had a customer-request form on it, fairly typical. But when the social-media stuff started coming along, I got excited, because here’s what we needed to build on relationships. Suddenly I felt like we had the tools to really effectively market local businesses on the web,” said Mininger, who admits that key to his decision to launch a new business in the wake of what happened at Home Innovations is the difficulty in finding a job in the still-cool labor market.
Monster’s ball: Movie makeup artist brings fright to light
“What do you want? A burn? A gash?”
I had a special-effects movie makeup artist at my disposal. Mariah Smith has been working the movie circuit since 2003, and she’s done a little bit of everything – from simple burns and cuts to head-to-toe zombies and boogiemen.
We decided on a deep gash on the left side of my face, and Smith got to work, beginning with cotton balls and adhesive.
“I was very nervous,” said Smith, of her start in the movie makeup business, which is now her full-time gig with her business, Bioduck FX. Her first paid gig was on the set of an independent movie, “Freshman Psych,” where she got a primer on the basics of doing burns, scars and other special-effects makeup and was on her way.
“There’s so much out there in terms of resources – online tutorials, books. What it really comes down to is experimenting. You experiment until you get it right. A lot of the more difficult things, you have to do that,” she said, applying color and texture to my gash.
Follow your passion: MBC alum’s designs have worldwide following
Lolita Healy didn’t like her name. “I used to get teased about it all the time,” she said.
Her freshman English teacher at Mary Baldwin College changed her perspective. “She said, Don’t be embarrassed. Lolita is one of the all-time classic novels. You should be proud,” said Healy, who with that encouragement started to come out of her shell.
The budding young artist/entrepreneur – who procured her first copyright, of a cartoon character named “Doodlebug,” at the age of 12 – double majored in marketing and fine arts on the counsel of her parents. “They gave me some wise advice,” Healy said of her parents, who still live in Greenville, where she grew up, and run the online store for her thriving design business, Designs by Lolita. The advice: “You need to take some business classes so you can figure out what you can do with your art.”
Lights, camera: Zeus brings Waynesboro back to the movies
Crews had just finished putting up the sign on the front of the theater. It was time for the big opening that Brett Hayes had been planning for months.
“I just wanted to see a movie,” said Hayes, a day before the Oct. 8 opening at Zeus Digital Theaters, the eight-screen, $8 million, 1,100-seat, digital cineplex on Lew Dewitt Boulevard in Waynesboro.
It was T-minus 24 hours to the opening, and there was still plastic on the seats in the auditoriums, construction ongoing in the lobby, pavers out front pouring the parking lots.
Hayes had had three hours of sleep the night before, “and I don’t think I get any tonight,” said Hayes, who began construction on the theater back in December with an aggressive schedule aimed at a fall opening.
He needed every minute, as the frenetic pace of work in the final week to get things ready for opening night demonstrated. That opening night didn’t quite go off without a hitch – Hayes let some early moviegoers in for free because of an issue with the computers controlling ticket sales; but everything else was as advertised.
On her shoulders: Report highlights impact of Alzheimer’s on American women
Nearly one in three Americans have a family member suffering from Alzheimer’s. And their caregivers, by and large, are women.
“Women, who are also working, who are also basically running our families, and also are the people who provide the bulk of our volunteer and community service, are the people who are also the caregivers for parents with Alzheimer’s. This issue has an important impact on the fabric of our country,” said Sue Friedman, the president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association of Western Virginia.
The numbers are staggering. A report compiled by Alzheimer’s Association and Maria Shriver’s California Women’s Forum – The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s – puts the number of women in the U.S. providing care for family members with Alzheimer’s at 6.7 million.
Beth Holland of Stuarts Draft is one of the 6.7 million. Her 85-year-old mother has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for six years. She lives in an apartment at the Stuarts Draft Christian Home, but Holland says her mother wants to remain as independent as she can.
Let the sun shine in: Solar project powers up EMU
The largest deployment of solar power in the state of Virginia is about to come online at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, and that’s just the start of what they have planned up at EMU.
“Colleges and universities across the state are watching us to see how this works out,” said Tony Smith, the CEO of the Staunton-based Secure Futures LLC, which is partnering with the school on the project.
Solar panels being put in place on the roof of the Sadie Hartzler Library will have the capacity to generate 104.3 kilowatts of electricity, with enough power to supply the total average annual electricity costs for nine homes in Harrisonburg. Plans are already in place to install a second array on a structure planned on the North Commons parking lot that will be three times larger than the installation on the library with a signature design featuring solar canopies that will support the panels and also provide the dual benefit of solar shading and solar electricity for cars.
Latest AFP News
-
AFP builds web video promoting Waynesboro Y - Chris Graham: A catastrophe in the making
- Poll: Virginians oppose 'fox penning'
- House subcommittee votes to remove abortion funding for low-income women
- VMI wins at Radford, 65-60
- Spring Fashion Debut: Spoiling you is her business
- UVa. bounces back, bests Boston College, 66-49
- Dukes get big win over Tribe, 59-47
-
The AFP on WREL: Oct. 22, 2010
Posted on October 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment
The segment begins with Chris providing an update on the latest news in congressional races in the Fifth, Sixth and Ninth. Republicans appear poised to hold onto the Sixth District seat and take back the seat in the Fifth from Democrat Tom Perriello. The Ninth District race is interesting with Democratic incumbent Rick Boucher and Republican challenger Morgan Griffith dueling to the wire.
The segment wraps with a discussion of the new 70-mph speed limits on many Virginia interstate highways announced this week by Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with bob mcdonnell, morgan griffith, rick boucher, robert hurt, the afp on wrel, tom perriello, vdot