Knoxville Tennessee Blog

Chris Range emails:

I want to invite all my friends to stop by my booth at Adventurecon this weekend. I’m just across from Billy Dee Williams, so it ain’t hard to find me. Just look for the big line for his booth and go to the one with no line to his right

Here’s the guest list and schedule. Some of the people who will be appearing:

• Richard Kiel (Jaws from James Bond)

• Ron Glass (Shepherd Book from “Firefly”)
• Gigi Edgley (Chiana from “Farscape”)
• William Mapother (Ethan from “Lost”)
• Martin Klebba (Marty from Pirates of the Caribbean)

And from Star Wars:

• Dave Prowse (Darth Vader)

• Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian)
• Irvin Kirshner (director, Empire Strikes Back)
• Anthony Daniels (C3PO)
• Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)
• Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett)

I’ve never been to one of these, and I have plans for today and tomorrow, but I may go next year. Sounds fun.

Story at Knoxnews.com and video at WBIR. The bear was tranquilized and will be released. Watch the video to see how fast he can run and how well he can climb a downspout. It’s amazing video.

Semi-hemi-related kinda sorta - Lots of new posts over at Lawyerbear. I especially liked A Tense Scene from Lawyerbear: The Movie.

On the way back from Norris this afternoon we spotted a huge plume of smoke off of the interstate, so we pulled off to take a look. The fire is in a huge compost heap on Ailor Avenue near the intersection of Sutherland Avenue and Middlebrook Pike. Knoxville firefighters were already at the scene.

I believe the fire was at Shamrock Organic Products at 2501 Ailor Avenue.

Pictures here.

Email from Angie Clement

The Disc Exchange loves Vestival, the quaint celebration of life across the Henley Street bridge in the South Knox neighborhood Vestal. Food, fun and LOTS of great local music make this one of the coolest and most unique Saturdays you can spend with your friends or family. Read the release below and go!

The 7th annual Vestival will be held Saturday May 12th from 11AM to 7PM at the site of the old Candoro Marble Company (on the corner of Candora Avenue and Maryville Pike in the South Knoxville community of Vestal). The festival will begin with a Vestival tradition – a Mother’s Day Brunch (free to mothers) at 11AM. Music also begins at 11:00 and continues until 7PM. Fine food and arts and crafts vendors will fill the beautiful festival grounds (pick up those last minute Mother’s Day presents). Children’s activities and tours of the old marble building are also on tap.

The music schedule is as follows:

Candoro Café:

12:30 Greg Horne
1:30 Jim Myers
2:30 Sweethearts of the Bitterroot with Cary Masters
3:30 Trisha Gene
4:30 The Maid Rite String Band
5:30 The Bearded

Maryville Pike Stage:

11:00 Grupo Lavolta
12:00 The South Knoxville Persian Music Ensemble
1:00 Christabel and the Jons
2:00 The Lonetones
3:00 Sara Schwabe and Her Yankee Jass Band
4:00 The Hector Qirko Band
5:00 Los Breakfast Meats
6:00 Exit 65

www.myspace.com/vestival

Dog lovers should know that the 13th annual Bark in the Park will be this Saturday, May 12, starting at 11:00 AM at the Jacobs Building in Chilhowee Park. Admission is $5 per person. Because of the new indoor location the event will be held rain or shine.

Breaking news from WBIR about a sinkhole that suddenly appeared:

Its in the southbound lanes of Pellissippi, just south of where the Parkway merges with Oak Ridge Highway.

The hole looks to be about four feet wide on the surface, but a TDOT geologist says its at least 25 feet across, and goes under both southbound lanes. He says it was caused by water eroding the limestone.

Crews will work all night to get that sinkhole filled, but they likely won’t be finished by the morning commute, and it may take all day tomorrow. People traveling that way from Oak Ridge to Knoxville are advised to take an alternate route

Tomorrow is the sixth annual Free Comic Book Day. Go to a participating comic book store and get your choice of one of 28 free comics. Visit the site and enter your Zip code to find participating shops in your area.

Visit the site and enter your Zip code to find participating shops in your area. Locally, participants include Hastings in Maryville, S&G Comics and Collectibles in Sevierville, Clinton Cards, Comics, and Collectibles in Clinton, and in Knoxville Triad Comics and Collectibles, Comics Exchange, and Sci-Fi City.

Hat tip to Ace of Spades.

From Knoxplantswap.com:

The Spring 2007 Knoxville Plant Swap will be held on May 5, 2007, at the Shelter at Admiral Farragut Park, the same location as the Fall swap.

The Spring 2007 Swap Forum is up and running.

Setup starts at 9 a.m. and the swapping will start at 10 a.m. When everyone is swapped out we will have our famous potluck lunch. Bring plants, bring food, bring a friend!

There’s more information at the what to bring link, and a forum.

Another site of local gardening interest is the Tennessee Gardening forum at Gardenweb.com.

From The Knoxville News-Sentinel:

Brittnee Robinson, a junior in electrical engineering and chairwoman of the Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers at UT, said the project is volunteer and extracurricular.

She said she knew nothing of the Rubik’s Cube and had to look up World’s Fair history on the Internet. She wasn’t born in 1982.

“My dad came to the World’s Fair and said it’s kind of odd that I’m working on the Rubik’s Cube when I wasn’t even around when the World Fair came to Knoxville,” said the junior from Huntsville, Ala.

Kessel said he is trying to get the Rubik’s Cube ready by early May, in time for the city’s celebration of the 25th anniversary of the World’s Fair. He said the cube would return to the Fair site, although an exact spot remains to be determined.

That’s good news. Other than the Sunsphere the giant rotating Rubik’s Cube is easily the most recognizable icon of the World’s Fair. The East Tennessee Historical Society is managing the restoration.

From Sherylcrow.com:

I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming. Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of conserving trees which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don’t want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required. When presenting this idea to my younger brother, who’s judgement I trust implicitly, he proposed taking it one step further. I believe his quote was, “how bout just washing the one square out.”

Which leads Don Surber to song:

All I wanna do is wipe my bum
I got a feeling I’m not the only one
All I wanna do is wipe my bum
Until the TP comes off the roll by the yard

Crow is on a tour to raise awareness about global warming. Tim Blair wonders about that:

Apparently Live Aid raised substantial funds for famine-wracked Ethiopia, and not a single one of the performers was caught hijacking grain from silos in Addis Ababa.

Live Aid spawned Farm Aid, a US agricultural benefit headlined by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young. Again, no farms were incinerated, no farmers imprisoned, and no farm animals touched inappropriately – although they were subjected to the songs of John Denver.

Which brings us to Al Gore’s international Enviropalooza concerts, scheduled for July 7. Called Live Earth, this 24-hour, seven-continent Gorefest is intended to “combat the climate crisis”. Interesting way to go about it.

According to my colleague Paul Kent, writing on this last Thursday, the British leg of Live Earth could alone generate some 3000 tonnes of carbon – more than 300 times the amount generated by your average Britisher over an entire year.

See also:
- Imagine There’s No Benefit Concert / It’s Easy if You Try