Relocate Triangle - An Insider's Guide About Moving To The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Area

Sports News in the Triangle

With spring around the corner, the Triangle sports scene is getting in gear as well. Plenty of activities are happening in the area, but a couple of them caught our attention as ones that you may want to check out yourself. So here they are …

ACC Basketball Tournament Tickets for Sale

For the first time since 1966, on Monday, March 2, tickets to the ACC basketball tournament are available for purchase to the general public due to the weakening economy, according to this article. That must be the reason, because for decades those tickets have been among the toughest to obtain unless you paid a scalper.

The tournament will be held in Atlanta this year starting Thursday, March 5. All remaining tickets available for purchase are upper deck seats and are priced at $363 for an 11-game tournament book (that includes the first game between the two lowest-finishing teams for the honor of taking on the top seed). And though Atlanta is a six- to seven-hour drive from the Triangle, depending on where you are located, you can bet that plenty of people from the area will be there to cheer on N.C. State, Duke, UNC and maybe even the other ACC teams as well.

A tournament winner is assured of a spot in the NCAA basketball tournament in March. Once those 64 slots are assigned, expect to see plenty of people at work or on the street in the Triangle distributing printouts which can fill your bracket choices and make a wager on who will be ultimate winner. Not that we encourage to you to gamble, of course.

New Baseball Stadium at UNC

A week ago (Feb. 20), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill opened its big brand new baseball stadium, which took more than a year to complete. The facility includes a luxury box for Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, whose daughter and son-in-law graduated from UNC. Steinbrenner and his family contributed $1 million to the stadium upgrade, and the courtyard at the stadium has been renamed in his honor.

A story about its new amenities mentions that the stadium has 4,100 new seats and a modern scoreboard. Six luxury suites lie above the regular seating, and the renovation totaled $26.5 million overall.

The old stadium was too outdated and small for UNC’s thriving college baseball program, which is ranked #1 nationally despite one loss already this season. The team’s schedule for the season, roster of players and other facts can be found here. We will see if the Heels make it to the College World Series in Nebraska again this year.

Green Tip of the Week - 2/27/09

In the market for a new computer? A laptop uses about half the energy of its desktop counterpart. Choose a model with the federal government’s Energy Star rating. It uses 70 percent less energy than a noncertified model.

For more information click here

Green Tip Of The Week - 2/20/09

Recycle

If everyone in America simply separated the paper, plastic, glass and aluminum products from the trash and tossed them into recycling bins, we could decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills by 75 %. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all our waste each year.

For more information click here

The Latest Big Deals in the Triangle

Just because there is talk of a recession does not mean that the economy has stopped, particularly not here in the Triangle. Sure, we have had slowdowns in the business sector. But at the same time, there remains considerable major activity in the region, including these items.

UNC and Southeast TechInventures

According to this recent article, Southeast TechInventures is partnering with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in a “master licensing agreement” that will make it easier for UNC inventors to license their technologies from the university. The deal comes on top of similar agreements with North Carolina State and Duke universities.

Southeast TechInventures, a business incubator for promising technologies at universities, negotiates a licensing deal with the university on behalf of the investor – a process that is streamlined by having a master arrangement such as the one STI has signed with UNC – and helps the inventor apply for a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the federal government. Those awards can run as high as $1 million, sometimes with a state match, and they can be used to take a technology from the drawing board to a prototype.

Red Hat and Microsoft

Raleigh-based Red Hat has announced a computer virtualization deal with Microsoft, where each company will join the other’s “validation/certification program” for virtualization as well as offer technical support to customers.

Virtualization is technology that allows companies to run multiple operating systems – such as Microsoft’s Windows and Red Hat’s specialized form of Linux – on a single server. The deal means that both companies will provide technical support to customers that want to use both Windows and Linux on their servers. Future versions of products from both companies are also planned to be validated under these agreements.

Red Hat provides open source software to businesses. On its Web site, it said the deal occurred in response to strong customer demand. It is one of the largest and most successful commercial operations in the Triangle.

Expression Analysis and Complement Genomics Ltd.

Durham-based Expression Analysis, which performs generic testing, has announced a deal with Complement Genomics Ltd. of Great Britain, which offers gene isolation services. Under the deal, Complement will perform gene isolation for its customers in the United Kingdom, which include pharmaceutical, biotech and university clients, then ship those specimens to Expression Analysis to perform genome-wide association studies.

Expression Analysis also announced plans to hire additional staff to bring the company’s total number of employees to 35, up from about 15 in 2006.

Keeping Well in the Triangle

Health is a big concern in this area, so much so that Durham bills itself as “The City of Medicine.” Before you become ill or injured, though, it would help you to know what is out there to assist you.

The Major Hospitals

People in Wake County either receive treatment at WakeMed or Rex Health hospitals. Both hospitals have multiple facilities in Wake, although of course their biggest ones are located in Raleigh. In Durham County, the main choices are Duke University and Durham Regional, although they are really the same, as Duke now operates Durham Regional. Additionally, Duke has a hospital in Raleigh. Orange County is home to UNC Hospitals, which are affiliated with Rex Health as well. Yes, our hospitals tend to be interconnected somewhat around here.

These hospitals are among the best known and respected in the nation, with physicians hailing from across the world. In fact, many people come from across the state just to receive treatment at them, particularly for specialized care. It is another reason why living in the Triangle is so attractive for many people.

The Emergency/Urgent Care Clinics

Clinics that can handle minor emergencies have proliferated here over the last 25 years. However, keep in mind that several of these are open only for limited hours on certain days, so if you have an accident after hours, you may have to go to a hospital instead for immediate treatment. Among these clinics are Rx Urgent Care in Raleigh, Prompt Med in both Durham and Raleigh, General Medical Clinic in Durham, The Family Doctor in Chapel Hill, and Chapel Hill Urgent Care, which is actually next to the Durham city border.

You should know as well that many dental offices in the Triangle now offer 24/7 service for emergencies, as do many veterinary hospitals.

As for the Triangle’s family practitioners, there are too many to name here. The best advice is to find out which ones are covered by your medical insurance and investigate them yourself. Till then, stay healthy and safe.

Green Tip of the Week - 2-13-09

Skip red meat once a week

Meat production is extremely resource-intensive. It can take seven or more pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, and livestock consumes 70% of America’s grain. Eat less of it and choose pasture-fed, sustainably raised beef whenever you can. If you alone gave it up once every seven days, you would save the 840 gallons of fresh water it takes to produce a single serving.

For more information click here

Construction Update for the Triangle

Despite the slowdown in the economy, as well as the recent cold weather, several major road construction projects have begun or remain underway in the area. Here is a summary of the status of some major routes.

NC 54 Widening – More than 6 miles of this road around the Wake-Durham border is being expanded beyond two lanes, and progress on this item is far ahead of schedule. With nearly 75 percent of it complete, it likely will be finished earlier than the November deadline scheduled for its completion this year. There will be signals added as well to this route, one of the busiest for people who work and live near the Research Triangle Park.

U.S. 15-501 Widening – Nearly 2 miles of the main connector between Durham and Chapel Hill are receiving an overdue improvement on the Durham side as you approach Interstate 40, including a bigger and better bridge over New Hope Creek. It is nearly a third of the way finished after being under construction for more than a year. The project is on track to meet its scheduled completion date of August 2010.

NC 98 Revamp – About one and a half miles of what is also know as the Wake Forest Bypass going east from U.S. 1 is under construction in northern Wake County. This will include new paving and signals for the busy route that connects Durham to Wake Forest and parts beyond east. More than 30 percent of work on this has been completed, with the estimated date of completion being the last day of June 2010.

There are many other projects occurring in the Triangle as well, of course. For a full listing of them, visit the state’s Construction Progress Report.

Green Tip of the week - 2/6/09

Free the lint bunnies

The average U.S. household spends up to $135 a year in energy costs drying clothes. A dirty lint filter can use 30 percent more energy to get the job done.

For more information click here