Nothing local or business related here, just some happy Monday morning sounds.

I know New Mexico isn’t exactly local or that Soccer isn’t exactly business or technology related but seeing as how popular soccer has become I thought this story was worth posting.

If you haven’t caught this story somewhere else there was a semi final match of the Mountain West Conference between Brigham Young and New Mexico in which the “rough play” got well, out of hand. In the screen shots taken from the video Elizabeth Lambert of New Mexico is seen tossing punches, tripping and finally nearly snapping the neck of a player by grabbing her pony tail and tossing the player to the ground. Comments on this video have travelled all over the Internet as well as ESPN and national news.

In that last shot of her tripping a player she finally got a Yellow Card yet instead of just taking the penalty for what was an obvious trip what did she do, she got in the referrers face about the call requiring fellow junior Rachel Fields to step between Lambert and the Ref. 

Saw action in 10 matches last season and started six … made her first career start against Denver on Aug. 22 … used her size and aggressiveness to stop the opposing attack … named to the 2008 Fall Academic All-Conference team. 2009 Lobo Women’s Soccer Media Guide “Liz is a quality student-athlete, but in this instance her actions clearly crossed the line of fair play and good sportsmanship,” Kit Vela, Head Coach, DailyLobo.com “This is in no way indicative of my character or the soccer player that I am,” Lambert said. “I am sorry to my coaches and teammates for any and all damages I have brought upon them. I am especially sorry to BYU and the BYU women’s soccer players that were personally affected by my actions. I have the utmost respect for the BYU women’s soccer program and its players.” Elizabeth Lambert, DailyLobo.com

Now if those images were not enough to see this was one aggressive game with some less than sportsman like play then this series certainly should be. 

Lambert who is pictured multiple times in the Lobo’s soccer flyer has been suspended indefinitely which likely means until the storm blows over but time will tell. Apparently “aggressive” behavior in the athletic department at UNM isn’t exactly unheard of. Head Football Coach Locksley got in trouble for allegedly splitting the lip of an assistant coach. Not to be left out of controversy academics have their own problems with a lawsuit over a scandal in the English Department and images of a Professor on a sadomasochism website.

This is pretty sad to see Dell charge two different prices for the same product or service.

On the Dell Business site go select a Dell Inspiron 15 and at a base price of $659 it cost $100 to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional from Windows 7 Home Premium:

If however you select a Vostro 220 based priced at $419 and want to upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional it’s $70. The difference is the Vostro runs x86 or a 32 bit OS and the Inpiron x64 or a 64 bit OS for which Microsoft does not charge a difference.

A “Staff Writer” posted an editorial about Smith Reynolds Airport which was so poorly written it almost looked like somebody just grabbed paragraphs from a dozen other articles and pasted them together. Now I will admit I’m no journalism major but I also don’t pretend to be unlike it appears some of those at The Journal are.

Pace owes the airport commission about $890 million in lease payments. The commission is forcing the company to vacate.

Well no they don’t. The number is closer to $900,000.00 for back lease payments of $145,000.00 per month. I guess somebody can’t count zeros but I’m not surprised with the education system. The better comment on the above would have been to question why the Airport Commission allowed PACE to get that far behind without putting in protections to collect on the outstanding balance. Granted Falcon Air is still in the mix and if something is going on behind closed doors to divest PACE Air out of it’s debts to Winston-Salem so Falcon can come in on the cheap and rehire workers are lower wages only time will tell.

Better yet if I remember right it was this same Airport Commission that in 2003 pushed Timco out of it’s space at Smith Reynolds which it was sub-leasing to PACE in order to get PACE to setup permanent camp here. The deal was all about getting a commuter airline back at Smith Reynolds by having PACE run flights from Winston-Salem to Gary, Indiana.

But perhaps an innovative marketing effort, and yes, maybe even some incentives, could attract a regional carrier for business and pleasure flights.

Smith Reynolds Airport is starting a strategic analysis to map its future course, and consideration of bringing back a regional carrier should be part of that effort.

The anonymous poster of this editorial goes on to say both the Airport Commission as well as the City should be looking at bringing a regional carrier to the airport and to do so by even including offer incentives. Well to whom it may concern I think the use of Tax Payer Dollars for private business is a non-starter. Unless the city wants to backdoor another $50 million in private business funding that the public didn’t want or vote for the odds of having a citizen approved incentive is DOA. As far as regional or low cost airlines coming to Smith Reynolds that is just a non-starter and not worth spending a dime on. A quick look at PTIA shows that these types of carriers cannot make a business out of servicing this area. Of course one of the reasons they can’t make a business at it is this area is losing it’s middle class adults who are the ones which could be taking those flights. The chasing after Dell’s scraps cost this area millions both above and under the table yet it has provided little in the way of growth and certainly not the promised growth the Mayor and everyone else was citing to get approval of the incentives.

Winston-Salem’s image is changing. A nationally known biotech research park, a major computer manufacturing plant and a state-of-the-art downtown baseball park — not to mention a dramatically enlivened downtown business and entertainment district — once were the stuff of dreams. Our local leaders chose not to wait for fortune to find them; they went after it.

About all I can say is, If You Say So. You may want to look over my post from September 18 concerning the McKinsey $ Company report that is coming out on Winston-Salem which shows Winston-Salem is not progressing but failing behind similar cities.

Reports have surfaced that a “closed door” meeting was held on Friday in which all parties were to finalize everything on the mud bowel, I mean Stadium. At a reported meeting held at Womble Carlyle the final touches were put in place for what is now a $48.7 million dollar stadium project. If all parties agree and the banks sign off the city will be ready to announce on Monday the deal is done and construction will resume.

Of course we don’t know who was at this meeting, who the investors are and what deals are being struck as the Mayor has kept all these meeting closed and private. This is very likely a violation of North Caroline Sunshine Laws which are there to protect the openness of Government. There are exceptions to when a meeting may be closed to the public however considering this is a known transaction and there are no secrets as to the design plans and property assessments it would be this layman’s call that there is no legal right to be holding these meetings behind closed doors. Even if they are refusing to admit the public or the press the law is still very clear that the minutes of such a meeting must be kept and I have personally requested the Winston-Salem Journal to step up and do what’s right for the public and make a request for those minutes. Granted any citizen could make such a request but I think we all know how far the average citizen would get compared to The Journal or one of the local stations. If anyone has a direct line to one of the local stations I urge you to make the same request to them.

What we do know is the deal involves at least four banks and dozens of private investors who have put in at least $50,000.00 each. What we don’t know is who those investors are and what terms they are getting. We know the city has taken out at least another $12.7 million loan but we don’t know what guarantees the city has on ever collecting on their investment. We also know that Prim and Filipowski were the original partners but due to a falling out and messy divorce we don’t know any of the terms or agreements in place between the former partners or Veronica Filipowski. Basically the public has been kept completely in the dark on a deal which is using public money, public tax incentives, public federal money, and so on and so on. Are you seeing a trend here?

Your “public” Government at work.

In this day and age it amazes me how often people forget that once you put something online it’s out there for life.

In 1999 Mc­Kinsey & Company was commissioned to study the Winston-Salem area and report how the area stacks up against similar cities as well as what objectives need to be met in order for future growth. Of course this was at the start of the Winston-Salem Alliance and it’s hiring of Allen Joines whose prior job at the time was Winston-Salem’s Assistant City Manager for Economic Development not to mention being a director for both Downtown Development Corp. and Winston-Salem Business Inc. The follow up on that report coming ten years later will show not only has Winston-Salem not met goals but is falling behind other cities of similar size and background.

According to Don Flow the new report will say Winston-Salem has fallen behind in three areas, per-capita income, population growth and quality of life. So here we are ten years later, the same business leaders running all the same clichés, The Chamber, The Winston-Salem Alliance with Allen Joines taking over the Mayor’s office yet the report will say nothing had changed for the better, in fact it’s worse. Of course we have Dell now, oh yeah they have yet to meet their hiring goals and laid off hundreds. Oh wait we have a $24, no scratch that $42 million dollar stadium, oh wait scratch that, make that a $42 million dollar incomplete mud bowel. But we have Fedex, oh wait they not hiring as expected either. Well darn there is of course a growing airline service company at Smith Reynolds, oh I forgot PACE Airlines just shut it doors.Well that’s ok because we have United Guaranty, oh I guess I forgot again as they laid off how many so far?

So let’s see, ten years later, same business leaders running the same groups and a Mayor running unopposed. Sounds like Same Song and I expect the Same Dance from these “leaders”. I guess the only change this time around will be there won’t be a Bud Baker to say he doesn’t think the Winston-Salem Alliance would be around in 3-5 years.

If you haven’t been out I-40 towards Advance of late you may not have seen the new soccer fields for the Twin City Youth Soccer Association. Named the BB&T Soccer Park the facility has some 13 soccer fields with lighting on 9 of them. There is a Field House with lockers, showers, concessions and how’s this, wireless Internet access.

A pretty impressive setup and it didn’t cost $47 million and it actually is completed.