Damn the torpedoes! Full carbon ahead!

This is the object that Converse, the shoe company, sent me as a marketing piece recently. Why, I don’t know; perhaps my involvement with SUGAR, our women’s style and health section, got me on their mailing list. In any case, this is a big old pile o’ wasteful indulgence on the part of Converse, if you ask me.

Spiders squashed by Cavalier defense

The UVA athletic department decided to go “retro” for Saturday’s football contest against Richmond. The players wore the electric orange jerseys of two decades prior. Michael Jackson and Different Light were blasted through the speakers at Scott Stadium before the game, and during halftime, the marching band moved through a medley of ’80s songs from Phantom of the Opera and Top Gun.

Net zero house is coming together

At an undisclosed location in Albemarle County last month, I got to see an impressive number of solar panels being installed on the roof of homeowners Richard and Melissa King. Thirty-six panels, in fact. They nearly cover the south roof face of this 2,500-square-foot house, which is being built on a fairly ordinary lot in a small, quiet subdivision.