Today was a good day. I woke up a bit late, but made it to most of the art history class I signed up for. We are covering the Gothic period right now. I had recently been wondering where the idea of love we carry around comes from, and the teacher seemed to suggest it emerged during this period. He referred it to the rise of "chivalry and courtly love." I thought it was just Shakespeare. I'll do some more reading. It does make me feel better that it's a relatively new development in human history.
After that I did some yard work. I managed to fix my lawn mower and then break it again within a span of 30 minutes. The bolt that holds the blade in place broke in half so now I am going to have to bore it out in order to reattach another one. The weed eater still works though.
Afterwards I had a very important meeting with two members of city council, the south region police captian, the city of Columbia captain, and his boss, the director of public safety and homeland security. We also had the neighborhood presidents for the two neighborhoods that border mine, other residents, and a reporter from The State paper. We had a shooting several weeks ago which enabled us to scream for a little more attention. As I have recently learned, never pass up a good crisis. They have since stepped up patrols as well as agreed to do more undercover sweeps. It's the best time to push for big change. We also had a member of city council who was recently arrested for tax evasion. He had long stood in the way of progress but now that he is out, the other members are able to come in and work to clean things up.
After that we had another neighborhood meeting for our community garden project. We are going to be breaking ground this Saturday. I also purchased my first digital ad. You also have the ability to target based on a variety of criteria (age, relationship status, interests). Basically all of the information you post on Facebook is used to help target ads you might find interesting. It's the research every advertising executive wishes they could have. It's also surprisingly inexpensive. I can get 1000 impressions for around $.30. It's much easier than creating flyers. I am curious to see how effective it will be. I am only going to spend $3 per day for the next 5 days. Aside from the ads, I am excited to see how this unfolds. We have a lot that has been donated by a local church and we also have another that the city has agreed to donate. It's also nice to see new faces for each new project we take on. I was only initially worried with cleaning things up, but the process of actually getting people to work together on different projects has turned out to be just as rewarding.
I finished the night off by attending the mayor's debate. It was well attended. There were easily 500 people there. Glad to see others are getting involved.
Tomorrow I have lunch with Dale. He wants me to meet another guy my age who is working with a SC economic think tank. I'm also going to go pick up two trees for my house. I decided on the Chinese Zelcova for a shade tree on the southern side of my house and a Pissard Plum on the front side. I also had a guy come by yesterday and quote a price to paint my house, repair a few bricks, and replace some rotting trim. Total cost is only $900 which seems pretty good. I need to get back in touch with him. Not sure what color I want to paint it.
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