My biggest problem with the planned communities is that the houses tend to all look either exactly or very much alike, which I find unsettling.

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The grandparents' houses were always fun on visits. Both of them lived on small family farms, but Gramma Moran's place was larger, with more out buildings and farm equipment than Grandpa Astrom's (all he had was a small barn with some tractors in it). The dairy equipment (which was still there even though they had sold the cows back in the late '50s) at Gramma's was really neat, and my great-uncle boarded his old horse Dolly in the dilapidated stable until I was about 7, when she died. The chicken shed was there until I was in junior high or so, but had been cleaned out years earlier. It was still a cool place to hang out--a little octagonal building.

We'd always play hide-and-seek at Gramma's with limits on where to hide (otherwise, they'd be looking forever!), and the apple trees were perfect to climb up (one of them had a notch about three feet off the ground that was the ideal first step up into the tree--the others were more difficult). On top of it all, the attic had lots of cool things stored up there, including old school papers of my mom's (she did a really critical analysis of McCarthy in 1953 when she was only 14--her liberal side came out early!) and a really neat victrola that my cousin convinced Gramma to give to him (jerk--everyone wanted that thing!!).

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I'm curious about it because the concepts seem good, but a) I'm wondering about the implementation and b) is there any residual weirdness from everything being under one corporate entity's control?

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The important question is, does Raleigh have any decent comic book stores?

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My major annoyance with Jacob was that he had seen the entire season of Dr. Who already, and he made sure that you knew it. It was very "I'm so-very-clever" to my mind and a bit condescending.

VERY much so. With a double-helping side order of "unnecessarily pretentious".

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Oh, Cindy, my Mainer coworker has a UCC church in Durham that I think you'd like. Also, if you'd like to email or call me on the phone at some point, we can do that.

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Good schools in North Raleigh, Cary is renowned for them. A realtor could tell you more. Raleigh had has such growth that they are going to mandatory year-round schools in some areas because they can't build schools fast enough to keep up with the kids.

My SiL's & nieces school just went year-round and they (esp. SiL) love it.

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I miss the northeast like crazy down here - the weather, the shore, the landscape and trees. But it's a decent place to live, and lots cheaper than Boston.

See this is what I'm thinking -- particularly the much cheaper than Boston. Scott's company is offering some good relocation deals and really pimping it, which says to me the jobs (with them) here are going to become few and far between. If it really is much cheaper, we'd likely be relatively well off.

On the other hand, it's nothing I've ever thought of doing before. I love it here. I am a homegirl. But then I think I probably love it here because it's where I've always lived. I just never had the wanderlust (as far as moving goes -- I do wish I had traveled more and intend to, one day). Scott's not even seriously considering it, but we started talking. I wondered if that was the area that people were pimping to Dana.

Hmmmmm.

Cary=Containment Area for Relocated Yankees

Heh. That's probably where I'd belong.

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The important question is, does Raleigh have any decent comic book stores?

I'm not sure if the Second Foundation is still open in Chapel Hill.

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Liese, look up Jim Rouse and Columbia. Columbia is built somewhat around that model.

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