customers served (give or take a few hundred thousand) since September 2004!
Comments and opinions expressed on THE KNIGHT SHIFT are those of Christopher Knight and not necessarily those of subjects discussed in this blog, of advertisers appearing on it or of any reasonable human being. Any correspondence/irate letters/lawsuit threats/Nigerian e-mail scams can be sent to theknightshift@gmail.com.
Lately quite a number of good people that I know have decided to start up their own businesses. Here's another one and as always, this blogger is more than happy to direct y'all's attention to it :-)
Based out of nearby Oak Ridge, Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping is a landscaping and lawn servicing company owned by Tammy Marcum Buck, Linda Marcum and Oscar Marcum. Don't have time to mow your lawn? Let the Two Girls do it for you! They can help you wherever you're at in the vicinity of Greensboro, Oak Ridge, Summerfield, Madison and Mayodan etc. And right now they're offering a special: $35 of cutting, weed-eating, trimming and blowing for up to half an acre. They're also offering a 10% discount for elderly and disabled. Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping will give you a free estimate on your landscaping needs and annual contracts are available.
So if your lawn is looking more and more like a bloodthirsty jungle, check out Two Girls & A Truck and hire them to tame it!
Seventeen previously unknown pyramids are among more than four THOUSAND newly discovered sites in Egypt that have been located using infrared imaging by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. One of the locations that is being studied is the real life city of Tanis (AKA the Egyptian city that was consumed by the year-long sandstorm and where Indiana Jones had to foil the Nazi raiders of the lost Ark of the Covenant :-)
Meanwhile, archaeologists at the Great Pyramid outside of Cairo are using a tiny robotic probe to get the first look at the inside of a newly-found chamber within the mighty ancient wonder. Among the images that haven't been seen in 4,500 years: red-colored graffiti that might have been left by workers building the pyramid. There is also evidence that the door to a whole new secret room has been discovered.
Maybe someday such technology will let us get really lucky and help us to find Jimmy Hoffa :-P
It was in 1935 that Connie Wright approached Samuel Knight to ask if he could have Ora Lee's hand in marriage.
Sam Knight - my great-grandfather - had six sons, and only one daughter: the apple of his eye. But Ora Lee was so synonymous with her half-dozen brothers and also quite the tomboy that she had picked up a nickname that would stick with her throughout her life: "Tom".
"No," Great-Grandpa Knight told Connie: "You can't marry the girl, but I'll let you take any of the boys off my hands!"
Ora Lee Knight was 16 years old when Uncle Connie came a'courting for her to be his bride. Uncle Connie passed away in 1984 and between he and Ora Lee they had 49 years of beautiful marriage that produced four children and a whole posse of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
This past Friday morning, the fine lady who so many of us knew best as "Aunt Tom" departed this earthly realm, to be with the Lord she had faithfully served all her life and to be reunited with her husband and so many others who had gone on before. She would have turned 92 next month.
Aunt Tom, well... she was a character and a half. She was so many things: wife, mother, grandmother, farmgirl, a country cook in the grandest tradition, and active in her church. When she was 65 she went back to school and earned her GED, which was something that we were all so very proud of her for accomplishing. Prior to that she worked for more than twenty years at one of the grocery stores in Reidsville.
Aunt Tom was someone that I saw quite often. Her house sat on the hill right above the road that I live on. It was common to see her mowing her own lawn until recent years. And I would stop by to see how she was doing every so often. A few years ago when I ran for school board, she told me that she was proud of me for running and she gladly let me stick up a couple of signs on her roadside.
And now, she's gone. And I'm only now realizing just how strong a fixture she was in my life and those of so many others. Aunt Tom was a sweet woman and epitomized so much of what I've thought it means to live the loving and humble Christian life. But gone though she may be, she'll never be forgotten.
Until we meet again Aunt Tom, I shall miss you. But I'm so very thankful that God has brought you and Uncle Connie together again :-)
(Very special thanks to Allison Stultz for providing such a great photo of Aunt Tom!)
Being reported this hour that a guy not far away from here in Lexington, North Carolina has been arrested for stealing two Slush machines from a Sonic Drive-In. He was caught when he attempted to sell them to a recycling center.
According to the Fox 8 report, the slushy makers are valued at $15,000 and George Jensen, Jr. tried to sell them for about $165.
This is the kind of story that ever since finally reading Atlas Shrugged a few months, makes me giggle for all the wrong reasons :-\
This has to be a SERIOUS sign that the Apocalypse truly is upon us!
When game studio 3D Realms started work on Duke Nukem Forever in 1996, Bill Clinton was winding down his first term as U.S. President. "Broadband Internet" meant a 56K modem. The first Star Wars prequel was only in pre-production. You could board a commercial airliner without once taking off your shoes. The Simpsons was still consistently funny. Gasoline cost around a dollar a gallon. "Burning a CD" was uncommon vernacular. Pluto was still a planet.
Fifteen years, millions of dollars wasted, multiple changes in graphics engines and a studio takeover later, the game that has come to be called "Duke Nukem Never", "Duke Nukem Whenever", "Duke Nukem If-Ever", "Duke Nukem Not-Ever" and so many other mocking epithets is finally a finished product and has been released to manufacturing!
No, I'm not kidding. Even as you read this, shrink-wrapped boxes of the game are being prepared. Duke Nukem Forever will be published for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PCs on June 10th.
(Kinda hilarious when you consider that when work on the game commenced that Microsoft hadn't even announced the first Xbox yet...)
Now, not to be a "Doubting Thomas" type but I still won't be 100% convinced until I see it with my own two eyes. So if there is a midnight release for Duke Nukem Forever I plan on being at the nearest GameStop on the night of June 9th along with good friend and fellow blogger Steven Glaspie. I'm probably not gonna buy the game but after all this time of watching its development I just gotta make sure that I'm not hallucinating its release :-P
The Knight Shift's eclectic proprietor joins many, many other fans and admirers around the world in wishing Bob Dylan all the best on this, his seventieth birthday!
The Confederate Soldiers Monument that has served as the best-known landmark of downtown Reidsville, North Carolina for more than a hundred years is a shattered ruin this morning. The Confederate soldier statue himself? Resting in pieces.
Around 4:30 a.m. today the driver of a van apparently fell asleep at the wheel, sending his vehicle plowing into the monument. The impact was enough to shift the pedestal on its base and toppled the statue. As of this writing an auto shop is working to free the Confederate soldier's head from the hull of the van.
No word yet on what's going to be done with the monument. It would be great to see it restored, given how it's become such a notable figure on the downtown landscape.
Special thanks to Ernie Morris for providing the photo!
EDIT 12:12 p.m. EST: WGHP Fox 8 photojournalist Chris Weaver has posted this pic of the statue on his Facebook page. And there are more photos accompanying the Fox 8 story about the accident...
Okay, 'fess up: who else living around here has Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" running through your head while looking at this?
In all seriousness though: it's great that nobody was injured, and here's hoping that the monument can soon be restored to its former condition.
(And hey, who knows: this could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I mean, it could finally give us Reidsvillians the opportunity to settle once and for all which direction the soldier is supposed to be facing! :-P)
...lawmaker Dale Folwell said party affiliations noted on the ballot helps voters make their decisions.
Folwell said nonpartisan races attracted fewer votes in the last election in part because those races are at the bottom of the ballot and because candidates had no party affiliation to help voters choose.
"People, when they go to the ballot box, need as much info as they can get," Folwell said Friday.
Knowing what party a candidate belongs to is supposed to be vital information?
sigh...
And this is one of the biggest reasons why this country is so messed up, ladies and gentlemen.
Folwell's argument is basically this: that the citizens of Forsyth County are too LAZY to gauge a candidate's worthiness of being elected, without knowing what party that candidate belongs to.
In other words: the ballot for school board has to be - I know of no other way to put it - "dumbed down" for voters to sufficiently understand enough to participate in its election.
But let's be honest: this has nothing at all to do with serving the best interests of the people of Forsyth County. And it has everything to do with giving one party an edge over another. This has always been the motive of such attempts, regardless of which party has been behind them.
I have said it many times before: the United States can not grow anywhere close to its fullest potential, until we consciously and vigorously abandon blind ideologies and begin instead to return to the arena of true ideas. That politicians want to play partisan games with the realm of education - the pursuit of enlightenment and wisdom - demonstrates that said officials have no sincere interest in education at all!
Perhaps it is just me, but real life lately is way, way too much resembling the prologue of the 1980 movie Flash Gordon...
"FLASH! AHHH-AAAAAAAHHH...!!"
Well, at least we've been spared the hot hail so far.
I have a confession to make: Flash Gordon is on my short list of all-time favorite "guilty pleasure" movies. It's a film so exorbitantly bad that it's insanely good! But I doubt that Dino De Laurentiis ever intended this to be a "serious" movie anyway. It's just good clean tongue-in-cheek camp, made even more awesome with that classic soundtrack by Queen! I've also read that Max von Sydow considers this to be one of his favorite movies that he's worked on, because of all the outrageous costumes that he got to wear as Emperor Ming the Merciless.
(And c'mon, Sydow's Ming is one of the greatest film villains in the history of anything. You know it's true :-)
Here's hoping that all the stuff going on lately is just bad coincidence. I'd hate to think that Ming really is out there on Planet Mongo, waiting to see if anybody is noticing his handiwork :-P
I just want to say, to The Knight Shift's faithful readers and to those who are fortunate(?) to find this blog...
Don't ever stop being thankful for the people that God has put into your life.
And I know that I have said much the same before. But, I wouldn't be led to say it again, if I didn't have to be especially appreciative of that lately.
This week my family went through one ordeal after another. Later today is the funeral for one member who I loved and cherished very dearly. Several days earlier, we almost lost another.
None of us are guaranteed next year, next month, heck not even the next day. Today is the present and that is exactly what it is: a present, a gift from God! And it is one that is priceless beyond all measure. Every moment, every iota of it is too precious to squander on things like indifference, or anger, or lack of forgiveness.
The loved ones in your life, Dear Reader, today I ask you with all my heart: remind them that they are loved. Remind them that you love and appreciate them. Tell them that you thank God that He has blessed you with their presence! And if there is anyone that something has come in between you, well... don't let that stop you either. Because you just never know...
That is all, for now. But in the next few days, I am going to write about Aunt Tom. Because, she was and always will be a character worth remembering :-)
Dear Mr. Harold Camping: "Would you kindly..." stop with this nonsense? We are told in the Bible that no one but the Father in Heaven knows when the end of days will come. This shouldn't be anything we're meant to be concerned with anyway. In his epistles to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul taught that we are to occupy with the business of living for Christ, and not be swept up in this sort of fear-mongering.
Yes, I look forward also to the return of our Lord and Savior. And I do believe that He is coming again. How? Because I believe that He came the first time. The path that I took to my faith in Christ, it's not one I can honestly wish for anyone to find themselves on, because I couldn't find it within myself to believe without seeing. Indeed, I consider my own faith to be inferior to that of most of those who God has blessed my life with.
In the end, it came down to this: the historical record of the life of Jesus Christ, is something that I cannot deny. He came before and I cannot doubt that He will come again.
And I wish that He would come soon. I do want to be reunited with so many loved ones that have departed already. I long for the reunion and renewal of too many relationships that have gone by the wayside, that I see now will have to await the presence of Christ for that healing.
I don't know the date that He will come. And I am extremely doubtful that He will come this day. But I do know that He will come, in the Father's due time.
Until then, there is much left for us who follow Him. We are to show His love, His light, His life within us to the world around us. We aren't called to a spirit of fear and cowering, but of hope!
I can wait for His arrival. In the meantime, there's plenty to keep ourselves busy with.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opened yesterday and I am hearing extremely disparate word about it. The descriptors being most bandied about this movie are that it's "bad" and "rotten", and only a few saying they were entertained... but even those are pretty lukewarm about it. I'm waiting to hear from one of the coolest cats I know, who's seen it and he's supposed to have a review soon. So I may or may not catch it this weekend.
But seeing as how Edward Teach aka Blackbeard the Pirate is a prominent character in this latest chapter of the saga of Captain Jack Sparrow, I thought it'd be fun to reflect on a bit of North Carolina lore about the legendary pirate. Namely: the long-enduring story that Blackbeard's skull is today being used as a wine goblet for a secret society's dark rituals! Yes folks, depending on you believe and who you can get in good with, there is a place here in the Tarheel State where you can swig a healthy-sized libation from the noggin of history's most infamous pirate captain!
Most versions have it that a fraternity or somesuch a few miles away at Chapel Hill is in custody of Blackbeard's silver-encrusted skull. Others say that it's being kept around the Outer Banks. Here is one account of drinking from the skull of Blackbeard, originating from no less an authority that Charles Whedbee: the late respected collector of North Carolina stories.
Drinking wine from Blackbeard's skull. Ehhhh... makes me all the more thankful that I'm pretty much a teetotaler :-P
The official site for The Dark Knight Rises has gone online and much like the gradual reveal of Heath Ledger's Joker during the lead-up to The Dark Knight a few years ago, the Warner Bros. marketing team has left it to the fans to figure out how to get their first glimpse at the next Batman movie's big villain.
Well, he doesn't have the tubes running to the back of his skull for the Venom drug... but I can definitely dig this being Bane. Hardy looks the part without the mask being "Gimp"-y at all.
Maybe this'll be the final nail in the coffin of the bad memories still lingering from Batman & Robin... :-P
My beloved alma mater, Elon University, has just been named #1 on the list of 50 Most Beautiful College Campuses by collegiate review website The Best Colleges. Also on the list are Duke University, Wake Forest University and UNC-Chapel Hill (all here in North Carolina), Texas A&M, Ole Miss, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale, and Princeton.
Yowza!
The Best Colleges cited that "this campus not only offers an exceptional education but has been the site of several films... Elon has been named the prettiest campus in the country on multiple occasions, including landing at the top spot in rankings by the Princeton Review and the New York Times. We can't argue, and Elon takes the top spot in our list of the prettiest college campuses."
I have to heartily agree... and I'd do so even if I were not a proud Fighting Christian errrr, "Phoenix" (still getting used to that :-) But Elon is not only a very beautiful place, it also epitomizes everything about what it means to most fully experience the pursuit of higher education: not just in the college years, but for life. Elon was the place where I learned not only much about the world, but much more about myself than I ever had before... and probably even since.
Yeah, I'll recommend it to any prospective students ;-)
Anyhoo, congrats to Elon University on the recognition!
As of this writing I'm in the midst of an emergency that has me... well, occupied, to put it mildly. Can't say enough how thankful my family is for the thoughts and prayers that a lot of people have been sending. And that's all I should say for the time being.
But I've a dire need to post something upbeat. And all two of my readers (okay there's more than that, and this blogger appreciates every one of you who takes time to read The Knight Shift on a regular basis :-) deserve something uber-kewl to tide y'all over until I get back to regular postin'.
So let me preface this by saying thusly, that you heard it here first: this movie will make a billion dollars at the box office. At least.
It was the summer of 1993, during my crazy two-week visit to a good friend in Belgium, that I was introduced to The Adventures of Tintin. And in spite of the sad lack of availability of the Tintin comics on this side of the pond, I most certainly consider myself to be a fan of Tintin: the intrepid young investigative journalist who along with faithful canine sidekick Snowy, has a lot of neat... ummmmmm... well, adventures :-) Tintin is a huge phenomenon all around the world but not in America. Not yet...
I told my friend Bennie in '93 that Tintin would make an awesome movie. I've been waiting for that to happen ever since.
Well, coming this Christmas to movie theaters everywhere, it's The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn. Directed by... Steven Spielberg (it's his first time ever directing a CGI film)! Produced by... Peter Jackson! The screenplay by... Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish! Orchestral score by... John Williams! Starring... Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Cary Elwes, and Daniel Craig! Among many others!
Holy Toledo. Just seeing Spielberg's and Jackson's and Williams' and Moffat's (currently the showrunner of Doctor Who) together like that alone gives me geek cardiac infarction.
That is... totally Tintin and Snowy. The darkness and ambiance of this image, is spot-on the world of Tintin.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!! Now behold the first teaser trailer that got released yesterday. Is this not the most GLORIOUS computer-generated animated EVER or what?!?
Can not, can not, CAN NOT wait until Christmas! This is going to be epic on a generational scale.
Okay, that should satisfy y'all until I can get back good 'n proper in the next few days :-)
Based out of nearby Oak Ridge, Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping is a landscaping and lawn servicing company owned by Tammy Marcum Buck, Linda Marcum and Oscar Marcum. Don't have time to mow your lawn? Let the Two Girls do it for you! They can help you wherever you're at in the vicinity of Greensboro, Oak Ridge, Summerfield, Madison and Mayodan etc. And right now they're offering a special: $35 of cutting, weed-eating, trimming and blowing for up to half an acre. They're also offering a 10% discount for elderly and disabled. Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping will give you a free estimate on your landscaping needs and annual contracts are available.
