Hey all you OP posters,

Unless Ruby hasn't updated the chart, the contributions for helping her support this site have dried up more than our water supplies did last year.  With what might be a very interesting election season coming up and with some critical issues facing the towns and county (growth, density, taxes, transfer station siting) I expect that this site will become very busy and a popular spot for some very interesting (heated?) discussions.  For all those who enjoy posting here (and even the lurkers), if you value this site you should realize that it is unfair to expect Ruby to bear the financial burden of keeping it going.  If you haven't yet contributed (there is usually a link at the bottom of the pages) please consider doing so today.  I'm sure Ruby will appreciate it and we can all continue to enjoy the site knowing that we pitched in to help.  Thanks.

OK, here it is: the Official OrangePolitics NCAA Men's Basketball Pool. No money is at stake, only bragging rights. (Sorry, Facebook membership is required to play.)  Some of you will remember that last year's pool was won by Chapel Hill Town Council Member Mark Kleinschmidt and Orange County Transportation Board Member Robert Peterson. Think you can beat them?

This year we also have an Official OP Women's Pool over on the ESPN web site (where you have to register yet again, ugh) because Facebook doesn't do the women's tournament (boo).  Participation from all genders welcome. ;-) 

I'll post a reminder here when the men's and women's brackets are available. Start getting your stats warmed up...

As was noted in the OP calendar, the site will be taking vacation for about a week, starting Saturday December 27th until Sunday January 4th.  Users will be unable to post new content or comments, but everything will remain here for your historical browsing pleasure.

Have a nice week and we'll see you on January 5th!

The annual break where posting is disabled in an attempt to get OP readers to relax and enjoy some time off.

Dates are subject to adjustment.

It's today!  Happy anniversary to all of you who make this community kick ass!

I've been too busy to organize a party, but you are are owed one. How does Wednesday, October 15th sound?

I'm also going to kick off another annual fund raising drive. This one is for 1 year's worth of hosting costs. Last fall you all raised $1,000 to help move the site from WordPress to Drupal. I think it was definitely worthwhile, as we are now reaping the benefits of a more powerful community platform. The new software uses a new host and that costs me $35 each month. 

Last week I was at Mayor Chilton's office in Carrboro talking about how to make the most of the Inter-City Visit to Ann Arbor (which my fingers keep misspelling "Ann Arrboro"). He suggested checking out some local blogs and we started Googling away. I only found one (Arbor Update) that seemed like OP, but there are definitely some interesting sites, although several haven't been updated since this summer.