Southwest Virginia Blogs

I recently wrote a post, "Attack of the all in one machines & customer service," about my purchase of a HP C6180 AIO, printer, scanner, copier, and fax.  The past weekend I had a chance to install it and try most of the features.

As is often the case, it turned out not nearly as easy as one might expect.  There were a couple of interesting challenges, one that was HP's fault and one that was likely mine.

The good news, as is often the case in technology, is that I kept working on it until I got everything working.

First off  I actually read the instructions and followed them.  The HP 6180 can be set up wireless on a 802.x network or wired as part of a standard network.  I just to hook it to my newly installed Ethernet network.   

The network has a cable modem hooked to a router with four ports.  One of the ports feeds an Airport Express.  I am running OS X version 10.4.8 on all the Macs.  The first system I attempted to install the software on was my dual G5 which I admit to neglecting by not upgrading it to at one gig of ram.  The first thing I notice is that didn't get very far in the installation before I was presented with was a drop down menu that would only let me select C7100 as the model for my printer.  Obviously that was not a good sign, but I went ahead an installed the software.  Of course when I tried to set up the printer, the HP software couldn't find the printer.  Being the clever Apple guy that I am, I used Bonjour to get the printing working.  Unfortunately when I went to use the scanner, it wouldn't initialize.

At this point I decided to backtract.  I un-installed the software that I had just finished installing and went to HP's website and downloaded the latest software for the 6100 series.  When I started installing I was presented with the correct choice of printer in the pull down menu.  The picture above is a scan of the disk that was in the box.  Unfortunately it appears that the wrong software is on the cd-rom even though the label is right.

Next I tried to install the software on my laptop wirelessly. It never could find the printer so I grabbed an Ethernet connection and the software installed correctly.  I went back to having my laptop on our wireless network and couldn't print.  It took me a while, but I eventually figured out that my Airport Express was distributing IP addresses so I ran Airport Admin and turned off the IP address feature.

So far I really pleased with the quality of the text.  I also have a Brother 5250DN laser on the network for quality printing but I'm not sure I need it.  The text coming out of the HP is much better than indicated in all of the reviews that I read.  Of course it's pretty hard to beat a laser for being really professional.

The photo printer also works well on the HP.  My wife is pleased with that.  Mixed color and text also looks very sharp.  The scanner works well and can scan directly to iPhoto.  I think my dual G5 might get an upgrade to 2 gigs on ram since the HP apps seem to be memory sensitive.  They work well on my MacBook that has 1 gig of ram but not on the dual G5.  I need another connector before I can test the fax, but I have little doubt that it will work.

Technology continues to get better, but there always seems to be a few glitches which require remembering stuff that I would just as soon forget.  My nightmare is one of these days I'll wake up and not be able to do this stuff.

As soon as I can "borrow" my Windows laptop back from my daughter I see how everything works with Windows and Linux.  I did install the Parallels software and Windows XP on my MacBook but I believe it needs to get upgraded to 2 gigs of ram to be really functional, and I need my genuine Windows serial number off the bottom of my Dell laptop to validate the software.

This stuff is never easy.  By the way, I don't see lots of people using the Parallels solution on a regular basis unless they're sophisticated software users.

About two years ago, I started blogging.  My first post, "My Welcome to Windows," was November 23, 2004. 

Since then, there aren't many topics that I haven't touched.  I have written about our family in posts like, "In honor of mom, the grand lady of Pine Street."  It's been a lot of fun doing restaurant reviews like, "Goobers, another backroads restaurant" and "Dining along the coast, Riverside Steak & Seafood."

I've also done some humorous pieces like the "The dangerous pillowfication of America,"  Then there have been serious pieces like "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth," and  "North Carolina, Competition or a Partner."

Certainly technology has been a big part of my writing.  Posts like "The Breezy Badger comes to the rescue," have been a staple of View from the mountain, while posts like "So what was the best part about being at Apple," have been the mainstay of Applepeels.

My business experience has led me to write some management posts like "Integrity In Management."  Some of my favorite posts have been recipes like "Time For Clam Chowder" or movie reviews such as "Cars- A great movie."  Once in a while someone has gotten under my skin and got a tough post like "High tech car, low tech dealer" or "Repudiating our founding ideas."

I also haven't been shy about dispensing advice in posts like "Some Advice To My Kids."  I have had posts that have been controversial like many of the ones at Applepeels.  The pressure at Applepeels has not stopped me from creating feel good ones such as "The freedom to be interdependent."  There have fortunately been only a couple posts that interested few people other than me  and a number which have been read by thousands of people around the world.

I enjoyed more than anything else writing the travel articles like, "Swansboro, NC Travel Guide" and "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for doing that.

I have no fixed list of topics as I plan what to write for the next posts.  As usual I will write about what interests me and hope that it finds a receptive audience.  A love of writing as a craft is what keeps me going.  I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Yet with nine hundred ninety posts at View from the Mountain and Applepeels, I'm looking forward to passing the one thousand post milestone before November.   Actually if I wanted to get technical about it, I'm already over one thousand posts if you count the ones that I have done at Radio, Blogger, Bubbler, Dot Mac, and Live Journal where I've explored other blogging software.

Later today I hope to do a couple more posts, so let the countdown to one thousand begin.  After doing 990 posts, the next ten should be very easy.

About two years ago, I started blogging.  My first post, "My Welcome to Windows," was November 23, 2004. 

Since then, there aren't many topics that I haven't touched.  I have written about our family in posts like, "In honor of mom, the grand lady of Pine Street."  It's been a lot of fun doing restaurant reviews like, "Goobers, another backroads restaurant" and "Dining along the coast, Riverside Steak & Seafood."

I've also done some humorous pieces like the "The dangerous pillowfication of America,"  Then there have been serious pieces like "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth," and  "North Carolina, Competition or a Partner."

Certainly technology has been a big part of my writing.  Posts like "The Breezy Badger comes to the rescue," have been a staple of View from the mountain, while posts like "So what was the best part about being at Apple," have been the mainstay of Applepeels.

My business experience has led me to write some management posts like "Integrity In Management."  Some of my favorite posts have been recipes like "Time For Clam Chowder" or movie reviews such as "Cars- A great movie."  Once in a while someone has gotten under my skin and got a tough post like "High tech car, low tech dealer" or "Repudiating our founding ideas."

I also haven't been shy about dispensing advice in posts like "Some Advice To My Kids."  I have had posts that have been controversial like many of the ones at Applepeels.  The pressure at Applepeels has not stopped me from creating feel good ones such as "The freedom to be interdependent."  There have fortunately been only a couple posts that interested few people other than me  and a number which have been read by thousands of people around the world.

I enjoyed more than anything else writing the travel articles like, "Swansboro, NC Travel Guide" and "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for doing that.

I have no fixed list of topics as I plan what to write for the next posts.  As usual I will write about what interests me and hope that it finds a receptive audience.  A love of writing as a craft is what keeps me going.  I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Yet with nine hundred ninety posts at View from the Mountain and Applepeels, I'm looking forward to passing the one thousand post milestone before November.   Actually if I wanted to get technical about it, I'm already over one thousand posts if you count the ones that I have done at Radio, Blogger, Bubbler, Dot Mac, and Live Journal where I've explored other blogging software.

Later today I hope to do a couple more posts, so let the countdown to one thousand begin.  After doing 990 posts, the next ten should be very easy.

About two years ago, I started blogging.  My first post, "My Welcome to Windows," was November 23, 2004. 

Since then, there aren't many topics that I haven't touched.  I have written about our family in posts like, "In honor of mom, the grand lady of Pine Street."  It's been a lot of fun doing restaurant reviews like, "Goobers, another backroads restaurant" and "Dining along the coast, Riverside Steak & Seafood."

I've also done some humorous pieces like the "The dangerous pillowfication of America,"  Then there have been serious pieces like "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth," and  "North Carolina, Competition or a Partner."

Certainly technology has been a big part of my writing.  Posts like "The Breezy Badger comes to the rescue," have been a staple of View from the mountain, while posts like "So what was the best part about being at Apple," have been the mainstay of Applepeels.

My business experience has led me to write some management posts like "Integrity In Management."  Some of my favorite posts have been recipes like "Time For Clam Chowder" or movie reviews such as "Cars- A great movie."  Once in a while someone has gotten under my skin and got a tough post like "High tech car, low tech dealer" or "Repudiating our founding ideas."

I also haven't been shy about dispensing advice in posts like "Some Advice To My Kids."  I have had posts that have been controversial like many of the ones at Applepeels.  The pressure at Applepeels has not stopped me from creating feel good ones such as "The freedom to be interdependent."  There have fortunately been only a couple posts that interested few people other than me  and a number which have been read by thousands of people around the world.

I enjoyed more than anything else writing the travel articles like, "Swansboro, NC Travel Guide" and "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for doing that.

I have no fixed list of topics as I plan what to write for the next posts.  As usual I will write about what interests me and hope that it finds a receptive audience.  A love of writing as a craft is what keeps me going.  I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Yet with nine hundred ninety posts at View from the Mountain and Applepeels, I'm looking forward to passing the one thousand post milestone before November.   Actually if I wanted to get technical about it, I'm already over one thousand posts if you count the ones that I have done at Radio, Blogger, Bubbler, Dot Mac, and Live Journal where I've explored other blogging software.

Later today I hope to do a couple more posts, so let the countdown to one thousand begin.  After doing 990 posts, the next ten should be very easy.

About two years ago, I started blogging.  My first post, "My Welcome to Windows," was November 23, 2004. 

Since then, there aren't many topics that I haven't touched.  I have written about our family in posts like, "In honor of mom, the grand lady of Pine Street."  It's been a lot of fun doing restaurant reviews like, "Goobers, another backroads restaurant" and "Dining along the coast, Riverside Steak & Seafood."

I've also done some humorous pieces like the "The dangerous pillowfication of America,"  Then there have been serious pieces like "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth," and  "North Carolina, Competition or a Partner."

Certainly technology has been a big part of my writing.  Posts like "The Breezy Badger comes to the rescue," have been a staple of View from the mountain, while posts like "So what was the best part about being at Apple," have been the mainstay of Applepeels.

My business experience has led me to write some management posts like "Integrity In Management."  Some of my favorite posts have been recipes like "Time For Clam Chowder" or movie reviews such as "Cars- A great movie."  Once in a while someone has gotten under my skin and got a tough post like "High tech car, low tech dealer" or "Repudiating our founding ideas."

I also haven't been shy about dispensing advice in posts like "Some Advice To My Kids."  I have had posts that have been controversial like many of the ones at Applepeels.  The pressure at Applepeels has not stopped me from creating feel good ones such as "The freedom to be interdependent."  There have fortunately been only a couple posts that interested few people other than me  and a number which have been read by thousands of people around the world.

I enjoyed more than anything else writing the travel articles like, "Swansboro, NC Travel Guide" and "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for doing that.

I have no fixed list of topics as I plan what to write for the next posts.  As usual I will write about what interests me and hope that it finds a receptive audience.  A love of writing as a craft is what keeps me going.  I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Yet with nine hundred ninety posts at View from the Mountain and Applepeels, I'm looking forward to passing the one thousand post milestone before November.   Actually if I wanted to get technical about it, I'm already over one thousand posts if you count the ones that I have done at Radio, Blogger, Bubbler, Dot Mac, and Live Journal where I've explored other blogging software.

Later today I hope to do a couple more posts, so let the countdown to one thousand begin.  After doing 990 posts, the next ten should be very easy.

About two years ago, I started blogging.  My first post, "My Welcome to Windows," was November 23, 2004. 

Since then, there aren't many topics that I haven't touched.  I have written about our family in posts like, "In honor of mom, the grand lady of Pine Street."  It's been a lot of fun doing restaurant reviews like, "Goobers, another backroads restaurant" and "Dining along the coast, Riverside Steak & Seafood."

I've also done some humorous pieces like the "The dangerous pillowfication of America,"  Then there have been serious pieces like "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth," and  "North Carolina, Competition or a Partner."

Certainly technology has been a big part of my writing.  Posts like "The Breezy Badger comes to the rescue," have been a staple of View from the mountain, while posts like "So what was the best part about being at Apple," have been the mainstay of Applepeels.

My business experience has led me to write some management posts like "Integrity In Management."  Some of my favorite posts have been recipes like "Time For Clam Chowder" or movie reviews such as "Cars- A great movie."  Once in a while someone has gotten under my skin and got a tough post like "High tech car, low tech dealer" or "Repudiating our founding ideas."

I also haven't been shy about dispensing advice in posts like "Some Advice To My Kids."  I have had posts that have been controversial like many of the ones at Applepeels.  The pressure at Applepeels has not stopped me from creating feel good ones such as "The freedom to be interdependent."  There have fortunately been only a couple posts that interested few people other than me  and a number which have been read by thousands of people around the world.

I enjoyed more than anything else writing the travel articles like, "Swansboro, NC Travel Guide" and "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for doing that.

I have no fixed list of topics as I plan what to write for the next posts.  As usual I will write about what interests me and hope that it finds a receptive audience.  A love of writing as a craft is what keeps me going.  I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Yet with nine hundred ninety posts at View from the Mountain and Applepeels, I'm looking forward to passing the one thousand post milestone before November.   Actually if I wanted to get technical about it, I'm already over one thousand posts if you count the ones that I have done at Radio, Blogger, Bubbler, Dot Mac, and Live Journal where I've explored other blogging software.

Later today I hope to do a couple more posts, so let the countdown to one thousand begin.  After doing 990 posts, the next ten should be very easy.

In case you haven't been near a computer department at one of the big box stores, prepare yourself for the holiday push.  My guess is that it is "AIOs" or what is actually a printer, scanner, copier, and fax device all in one piece of equipment.

Over the last couple of months I've been trying to set up a small home office in our coastal location.  With an office view that you'll see if you click the link, there is also the challenge of not nearly the amount of space that I have in my Roanoke office where I have a real copier, a real scanner, and multiple printers in a huge basement office with a view that often leads to the photos that I post on my photography site.  Since we had to redo my basement office, "The Saturday afternoon technologist, electronic hair," due to flooding, it seems like I have been setting up home or business offices all year.  That even got me to do a post, "The Instant Economy,"  on how easy things are today when it comes to going into business.

Yet not all of this happens without challenges as any technology user will tell you.  Being mostly a Mac OS X user with occasional forays into Linux and some necessary trips to Windows, I've been suspicious of most AIOs which have traditionally not worked well with Macs.

Part of my suspicions have come from seeing some rather full open box shelves at local electronic stores in Roanoke.  I generally find that open box shelves are a good predictor of what people are having trouble getting to work.

My own self demo experimentations on some of the all in one products confirmed that they aren't the most intuitive products.  Yet they are very compelling and almost a necessity to people like me who are trying to cram a lot into a small space.

I'm pretty picky about technology or a wouldn't be a Mac user.  I'm also methodical and not afraid to ask advice and do lots of Internet research.  Researching AIOs on the Internet turned out to be very frustrating with no real consensus opinions unless I went to a site that was trying to sell me something.

Going to the local stores in Roanoke was no better and almost convinced me that customer service is dead and that people under twenty five aren't nearly as technologically astute as some of the media would have us believe.  Perhaps their technical expertise doesn't go beyond iPods. The experience visitng the big box stores certainly made me wonder how the Roanoke area could be classed as a "Technology Corridor."

We could find no one in two local Staples, the Circuit City or Best Buy, who could actually make one of the AIOs work properly.  One young Staples sales person finally admitted that he hated AIOs because something was always broken.  We also had the misfortune in that store of running into a hostile young clerk when we actually purchased some other office items.  She wasn't very subtle about the irritation I caused by questioning the pricing she gave me on some folders which came from bins clearly marked with other pricing.  She was still snarky even after another staffer went back to check the pricing and confirmed what I said.  Obviously this wasn't a very auspicious beginning to our hunt for just the right piece of equipment.

Thinking that being armed with more information would help, I consulted with a couple of my trusted technology advisors and got mixed advice.  Andy of DesignNine first gave me a Xerox recommendation and then when he learned of my budget and space problems suggested a Canon.  I read some good reviews of the Pixma which is by Canon, but there were also some bad reviews.  My friend Russ, one of the great technologists in Happy Valley up at Penn. State, told me he had enjoyed some good experiences with HP products.

Armed with that information, I headed up to the local Staples in Morehead City, NC.  It was there that I actually had my faith in sales people renewed.  We had been in the store only moments when a Staples staffer probably in her early thirties approached us.  We told her what we were looking for and that we wanted to see the products actually work.  She immediately set off to get what she needed to make that happen.  She got the first test, a simple copy done quickly. 

That was actually more than anyone else had been able to accomplish.  I asked about why the next model up was $100 more, and she came up with a reasonable answer, Bluetooth.  I next challenged her with actually showing us a photo print.  She told me that if I had a memory card with an image, she would be glad to oblige. I went out to the car and got my digital camera, and she quickly got the HP6180C working on the task.  We got a photo printed on regular ink jet paper about a minute later.  I then suggested that I would like to see the machine actually produce a 4X6 print as advertised on photo paper. Another quick trip and she came back with some properly sized photo paper.  About a minute and a half later, we were looking at the print.

They had no Canon products in stock, but as you'll find out if you start looking, the Cannons don't have fax capabilities and also don't come with built-in networking, so they aren't a complete solution by any means.

I'll be reporting on how the HP does with my Macs, Windows, and Linux machines. I would be glad to review a Canon if they want to send me one for a comparison.  The traditional web can't seem to keep up with the slew of new products.  Most of the reviews I saw were from 2005 and on machines that are no longer on the market.

However, the real story today is that having knowledgeable customer sales people sells products and results in happy customers.  I congratulate Staples on having at least one very knowledgeable customer helper in their Morehead, NC store.  It was a real pleasure talking to someone who actually understood the technology and could demonstrate it.  That's something which is getting a little rare these days as big box stores dig deeper and deeper to find warm bodies.

I wonder if they'll ever figure out that having people like the lady in the Morehead City store is a better way of doing it than making their open box shelves larger?

In case you haven't been near a computer department at one of the big box stores, prepare yourself for the holiday push.  My guess is that it is "AIOs" or what is actually a printer, scanner, copier, and fax device all in one piece of equipment.

Over the last couple of months I've been trying to set up a small home office in our coastal location.  With an office view that you'll see if you click the link, there is also the challenge of not nearly the amount of space that I have in my Roanoke office where I have a real copier, a real scanner, and multiple printers in a huge basement office with a view that often leads to the photos that I post on my photography site.  Since we had to redo my basement office, "The Saturday afternoon technologist, electronic hair," due to flooding, it seems like I have been setting up home or business offices all year.  That even got me to do a post, "The Instant Economy,"  on how easy things are today when it comes to going into business.

Yet not all of this happens without challenges as any technology user will tell you.  Being mostly a Mac OS X user with occasional forays into Linux and some necessary trips to Windows, I've been suspicious of most AIOs which have traditionally not worked well with Macs.

Part of my suspicions have come from seeing some rather full open box shelves at local electronic stores in Roanoke.  I generally find that open box shelves are a good predictor of what people are having trouble getting to work.

My own self demo experimentations on some of the all in one products confirmed that they aren't the most intuitive products.  Yet they are very compelling and almost a necessity to people like me who are trying to cram a lot into a small space.

I'm pretty picky about technology or a wouldn't be a Mac user.  I'm also methodical and not afraid to ask advice and do lots of Internet research.  Researching AIOs on the Internet turned out to be very frustrating with no real consensus opinions unless I went to a site that was trying to sell me something.

Going to the local stores in Roanoke was no better and almost convinced me that customer service is dead and that people under twenty five aren't nearly as technologically astute as some of the media would have us believe.  Perhaps their technical expertise doesn't go beyond iPods. The experience visitng the big box stores certainly made me wonder how the Roanoke area could be classed as a "Technology Corridor."

We could find no one in two local Staples, the Circuit City or Best Buy, who could actually make one of the AIOs work properly.  One young Staples sales person finally admitted that he hated AIOs because something was always broken.  We also had the misfortune in that store of running into a hostile young clerk when we actually purchased some other office items.  She wasn't very subtle about the irritation I caused by questioning the pricing she gave me on some folders which came from bins clearly marked with other pricing.  She was still snarky even after another staffer went back to check the pricing and confirmed what I said.  Obviously this wasn't a very auspicious beginning to our hunt for just the right piece of equipment.

Thinking that being armed with more information would help, I consulted with a couple of my trusted technology advisors and got mixed advice.  Andy of DesignNine first gave me a Xerox recommendation and then when he learned of my budget and space problems suggested a Canon.  I read some good reviews of the Pixma which is by Canon, but there were also some bad reviews.  My friend Russ, one of the great technologists in Happy Valley up at Penn. State, told me he had enjoyed some good experiences with HP products.

Armed with that information, I headed up to the local Staples in Morehead City, NC.  It was there that I actually had my faith in sales people renewed.  We had been in the store only moments when a Staples staffer probably in her early thirties approached us.  We told her what we were looking for and that we wanted to see the products actually work.  She immediately set off to get what she needed to make that happen.  She got the first test, a simple copy done quickly. 

That was actually more than anyone else had been able to accomplish.  I asked about why the next model up was $100 more, and she came up with a reasonable answer, Bluetooth.  I next challenged her with actually showing us a photo print.  She told me that if I had a memory card with an image, she would be glad to oblige. I went out to the car and got my digital camera, and she quickly got the HP6180C working on the task.  We got a photo printed on regular ink jet paper about a minute later.  I then suggested that I would like to see the machine actually produce a 4X6 print as advertised on photo paper. Another quick trip and she came back with some properly sized photo paper.  About a minute and a half later, we were looking at the print.

They had no Canon products in stock, but as you'll find out if you start looking, the Cannons don't have fax capabilities and also don't come with built-in networking, so they aren't a complete solution by any means.

I'll be reporting on how the HP does with my Macs, Windows, and Linux machines. I would be glad to review a Canon if they want to send me one for a comparison.  The traditional web can't seem to keep up with the slew of new products.  Most of the reviews I saw were from 2005 and on machines that are no longer on the market.

However, the real story today is that having knowledgeable customer sales people sells products and results in happy customers.  I congratulate Staples on having at least one very knowledgeable customer helper in their Morehead, NC store.  It was a real pleasure talking to someone who actually understood the technology and could demonstrate it.  That's something which is getting a little rare these days as big box stores dig deeper and deeper to find warm bodies.

I wonder if they'll ever figure out that having people like the lady in the Morehead City store is a better way of doing it than making their open box shelves larger?

The slightly inaccurate thermometer on our deck read thirty two degrees Fahrenheit this morning. I checked some weather sites which reported low temperatures near thirty six degrees in the area.  Whatever the exact temperature, it appears fall is upon us.  The leaves are starting to turn, and my curiosity on the progress of the leaves prompted me to do a Google search on "Virginia fall foliage."

That turned out to be an unfortunate detour to mostly broken links.  The first link took me to "Virginia is for Lovers fall foliage 2006."  Unfortunately that site wanted me to install the latest version of flash which wasn't at the top of my to do list for today.  The next link took me to the "Virginia State Climatology Office Fall Color Information."  Since what I really wanted was information on the Jefferson and George Washington National Forests, I clicked on that link.  What I got was this.

The file you requested is not available.

The next link I tried was the Shenandoah National Park link.  A little wandering there took me to a very "helpful" page with the following information.

Question: When will the fall leaves in Shenandoah National Park be at peak color?

Answer: Usually, the peak season for fall colors is mid-late October. However, it is dependent on the weather. The fall colors start at the higher altitudes, and gradually move down the mountain to the lower elevations.

The page also offered a download of a Word file which was current as of October 6.  Just for kicks since this was turning into something of a battle of wills I downloaded the file (not something I like to do) which starts out with the following text.

"Fall is definitely upon us here in the mountains of Virginia, bringing with it shorter days and noticeably cooler temperatures. The colors and textures of autumn are changing daily. Although we’ve come close, we still haven’t had our first official frost this year, once that happens, we’ll see even more rapid changes in the foliage....."

"The bright red Virginia creeper vines are very showy right now as they wind their way up trees, along rocky outcrops, and even over the rock walls that line the Skyline Drive."

Since the picture of the Virginia Creeper which I took earlier this morning was the impetus to start thinking about fall foliage, I would have to rate my Internet fall foliage tour as a bust.

I did try clicking on the Blue Ridge Parkway link and ended up with a little better results.  I got a nice slider prediction of fall foliage in NC and a more up to date report.

Fall Foliage Report: Week 4, October 11, 2006

Red and yellow, purple and orange – as the mercury dips, people reach for sweaters and mugs of hot cocoa and the trees begin a full-fledged metamorphosis to brilliant color. With evening temperatures reaching the 30s in some areas, fall color reaches its peak in the higher elevations of the North Carolina Mountains this week. Even trees in lower elevations are blushing with color.

For Virginia I got a phone number that I could call, "1-800-424-LOVE."  Just to fair to Virginia, I went back and installed the latest version of flash and visited the Virginia Fall Colors site which had a nice little slider that basically showed the Roanoke Valley well past its peak by this time in October.  So much for accurate web information.

All this leads me to believe that most of the reliable information on leaf change in Virginia isn't going to come from our state managed web sites.  For those of you looking for fall foliage, I can offer this shot I took of the Roanoke Valley last November 5th.  Based on the weather I would guess the peak in Roanoke will be in the next ten to fourteen days.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes we get overwhelmed in it.  In the time that I spent wandering the web looking for information about fall foliage, I could have driven over towards Newcastle and gotten a much better idea of what things look like for this fall.  Fortunately the view from my kitchen table is better than most drives, but this would be an outstanding time to go visit the Homeplace over in Catawba,  just a few minutes from Roanoke.

Tonight we might see some frost which would be very early for this mountain, and it's pretty hard to believe since the grass in the front yard looks like spring green.

Jumping to another subject which will eventually lead back to fall foliage, if you are into Barbecue and Wine, and not necessarily at the same time, the NY Times had an interesting article about the North Carolina versions of both.

THE Piedmont in North Carolina is holy ground for barbecue connoisseurs: a place where pork shoulders are still pit-cooked over smoldering hardwood, and men with names like Snook and Boney live on through their smoky legacy.

The old-school barbecue joints they’ve left behind would alone warrant a road trip through this patchwork quilt of old farms, small towns and distant mountain views that sprawl south and west of Winston-Salem. But they’re not the only reason for food-minded tourists to visit here.

Just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, in the Yadkin Valley, a fledgling wine scene has taken root, one that doesn’t feature just the sweet native muscadine, but also pork-friendly Old World varietals like cabernet franc, sangiovese and even nebbiolo.

Glenda, my wife, and I actually had a very nice meal  a couple of years ago at the "The Wolf's Lair Restaurant" which is situated at the Black Wolf Vineyards near Dobson, NC.  If that's a little fancy, you're in the neighborhood of the Depot at Cody Creek a very popular area restaurant.

Actually it's a great time to visit that area of North Carolina, if you don't mind some traffic.  This weekend is the annual Mount Airy, NC Autumn Leaves Festival.  There looks to be plenty of good old time music on the program.  If you need a place to stay, check out the Sobotta Manor which is the lovely Bed and Breakfast now being run by our friends the Hesters out of the Sobotta family home place.  It's within walking distance of most of the Fall Festival exhibits. 

When you come back up Fancy Gap make a note of the foliage and send me an email.  I'm more likely to find out about the changing leaves that way than I am from the Virginia websites.