The University of North Carolina’s online MBA program was just ranked as one of the top 10 best online mba programs in the nation. A big congrats to my alma mater, especially for being pioneers in the online space.

Many top-tier schools have been slow in getting an online program developed, leaving a quality gap for people who need distance learning. However, UNC has stepped up to the plate and offers a solid, reputable MBA education.

It will be interesting to see if traditional school rankings and online school rankings end up mirroring each other in the future, or whether there will be distinct quality indicators such that an online Harvard MBA doesn’t guarantee the quality of a traditional Harvard education.

Tourism in North Carolina accounts for over 190,000 jobs across the state, from the Outer Banks through the midlands and into the mountains, making it one of the most vital industries year after year in the state. Visitors spend more than $18 billion (yes, that’s a “b” on that number) in the state, contributing greatly to our tax revenues, to the tune of over a billion dollars a year.

So… tourism is still doing okay, but how’s the general NC economy doing? This question is significant for those from out of state who may be contemplating purchase of vacation property or would dearly love to relocate here – many from states with economies worse off than ours, who would like to get jobs or start new businesses. Columnist Michael L. Walden of the Raleigh area News and Observer wrote about the state of the state’s economy on the 9th of July.

Walden notes that North Carolina’s unemployment rate is the nation’s seventh highest, and will likely go higher before the year is out. A quarter million jobs have been lost in the state since the recession began, and property values have been sinking. While that’s bad news for old timers, it’s pretty good news for those in the market! And it’s not all bad news. Recessions provide opportunities for change that NC’s people are quite adept at taking advantage of, so we may come out of this one better off than we were before.

Tourism will still be a major industry, and serves to help protect our abundant natural resources because those are why people come to our state. We don’t cut the tops off our mountains because our mountains are worth more intact. We don’t grotesquely pollute our waterways because those waterways are much more valuable in a pristine state. The traditional jobs that have been steadily moving out of state, to other countries, or disappearing entirely are primarily of the low-wage variety that led to NC a generation ago being one of the poorer states in the Union.

Textiles, furniture manufacturing and tobacco. While fine hardwood furniture is still crafted in the western piedmont – thus is still a going industry – many old-time artisans are doing it for themselves these days rather than working on an assembly line. Their fine pieces still sell, and custom furniture returns a bigger paycheck to those woodworkers than the factory ever did. Tobacco growing is no longer the guaranteed income the base system was a generation ago, but inroads by the biotech industry and the move to agritourism, organic produce and fine wines is returning more for our farmers too.

And as the older ways fade, new things take their place. High tech concerns are moving in, including a new plan by Apple to build a $1 billion data center in Maiden, near Hickory and Gastonia. Construction could begin as early as next month. They’ll employ at least 50 people in high-tech positions, and could generate another 250 jobs servicing the plant. Optimistic estimates is that another 3,000 jobs could be generated in related areas in the region surrounding the site.

The strong banking industry in Charlotte has lost some jobs due to the crisis, but those are slowly coming back. In the Triangle Park area, jobs in biotech, pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology and other cutting-edge developing technologies are picking up as well.

So keep on making those plans for the future, consider that making the move may be more rewarding sooner rather than later due to better real estate prices, and bring your ideas with you! We here in North Carolina have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, useful skills and ample imagination. We’ll help get things going.

People young and old who have lived much of their lives in other places but have enjoyed North Carolina’s vacation offerings for many years, are among the many who choose either to build their own vacation home in our state, or find a way to live here full time. Even if that means moving their business to North Carolina, starting all over again with a new business, or just retiring to one of our spectacular communities specializing in making golden years golden.

Yet by now almost all of us old enough to know it takes money to live are keenly aware of the housing crisis that began a couple of years ago, became steadily worse throughout the country as the bubble burst entirely, and is now affecting more and more people who got fine prime rate mortgages. So this is a pretty good time to check real estate trends in some of North Carolina’s most popular and/or populated areas, see how our state is holding against current and developing economic trends. If you’re planning or just dreaming about a North Carolina home, here are some constantly updated sources you may want to check regularly…

Realty Times NC Market Conditions
NC Real Estate Market Reports
NC Mortgage Guide: FHA

Forbes voted Raleigh as the #1 city in America for careers, and the U.S. Census Bureau projects that more than Three of the top five housing markets in America that have maintained their home values are in North Carolina.

On June 19 the Charlotte Business Journal reported that North Carolina banks are outperforming nearby states on real estate loans. Our banks are still lending, at record low interest rates. WITM reports that despite the 28% drop in home sales during 2008, 2009 so far shows sales have regained 4%. Property values have fallen a bit to what was average in 2003, and there are bargains out there.

Small business loans are also being made in increasing number as the stimulus gets allocated, so this can be a positive relocation consideration as well.

Economic prognosticators are all over the board in this current recession, which came with a collapse of major players in such a way that no one has real experience with making firm projections. Recovery may be long or short, the “liquidation” of assets and businesses out in the real world could slow or speed. But if your family are among the many who have not been utterly ruined, it’s a good time to begin looking forward to making your future dreams come true. And if those include a little slice of the Paradise we call North Carolina, get started! From now through at least the next six months some great bargains will become available wherever in our beautiful state you decide best suits you!

The photo above was taken from the cab of our pickup truck with my husband’s cell phone camera last week, while he was attempting not-so bravely to scare this ~300-pound she-bear away from our trash bin. Obviously, she wasn’t impressed. The next morning he left for work and found her not 8 feet away, in the drive right next to the house between him and the truck. She ignored him when he waved his arms and told her to leave (using his ‘gruff voice’), so he reached back for the shotgun we keep handy these days and let off some birdshot with appropriately loud bang into the air. She retreated about 10 yards up the hill, then stopped, turned around, growled grumpily and came right on back.

The first time I saw her was just a couple of weeks after our sweet old dog died, leaving us without the good bear-protection barking dogs have always offered. I’d just gotten my first cup of coffee and started out to the back deck when I realized that very large furry thing at the bottom of the deck steps (maybe 15 feet from the door) was NOT a dog, but an escapee from the wildlife sanctuary of the National Forest just across the railroad tracks. Yikes! Now she thinks she owns the place, and has lodged her complaints that we aren’t feeding her well enough.

While this bear is beautiful in her ursine way, she is a dangerous wild animal. We don’t want to kill her, and it would be illegal for us to do so anyway – it’s not bear season. So we’ve called a friend who hunts, some animal control people, a wildlife biologist at a local university, and even talked with a federal game warden about our “nuisance bear” and how to get her to move on. We’ve received some contradictory information.

• We’ve stopped putting out trash, which she loves to shred even though we don’t toss food – I compost kitchen scraps and we don’t eat meat in any case. That means we have to do dumpster runs more often, but that can be accommodated.

• We’ve been warned not to use the shotgun on her even just with rock salt, as it may blind or wound her and turn a bad situation worse.

• We’ve been told to ‘sting’ her with a pellet gun instead. It won’t break the skin but will smart and that may at least keep her away from the immediate house and yard.

• We’ve been told she’ll move on when the blackberries ripen, but there are more than enough blackberries here on the property to fatten her up just fine. I doubt she’ll cross the tracks, since once the berries are gone the apples and pears right here will be ripening. She’s counting on it, I’m sure.

• We’ve been told she might be pregnant, and has chosen our place to den-in because it’s safe and abundant. Great.

My family spends a good deal of time outdoors during the summer. It’s one of the reasons we live in these beautiful mountains. I’ve a half-acre garden going, plus the fruit trees and grape orchard, all right in the bear’s path from the ridge to the creek for water. We have friends and family who vacation here, usually camping in the back yard that is now right in the middle of the bear’s twice-a-day wanderings. She’s not bothered by number of people, flying frisbee discs on the course (which is now ‘her’ property), tents, cars, trucks or train maintenance crews. Ice coolers are no impediment to her hunger, and she’s not shy of begging (or demanding) whatever’s cooking on the grill or leftover by the campfire. Something has got to be done.

The bear population is growing rapidly, and those of us who live in the same locations that bears find most hospitable are bound to cross paths occasionally. The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that in my area of WNC bear incidents have “exploded” in recent years from 13 complaints in 1993 to 302 in 2008. And this was in a story about a woman in a nearby town who was injured just yesterday by a mama bear with two cubs who swatted at her little dog. In her own driveway. Yikes again!

Alas, the C-T also reports that wildlife officials won’t trap and release because there’s nowhere to put the bears – we’re saturated. Stay tuned to keep up with developments. She may move on, she may decide to give us some space, we may get a new dog who will convince her to move on, or she may have to be hunted. Meanwhile, we’re moving the company onto the living room floor this season, just to be safer than sorrier.

As Memorial Day signals the beginning of the annual vacation season, North Carolina’s tourism communities are happy to note that the soaring gasoline prices of the summer of ’08 have settled back down to reasonable. More families should be “getting away from it all” this season, seeking the comfort of natural beauty and feeling close to the land to leave behind for a little while the stresses of normal life in uncertain times.

The mountainous western region of the state is among the most popular destinations for out-of-state visitors, and not all of them are among the millions who populate the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, hike the highland portions of the Appalachian Trail, or cruise along the lush peaks along the Blue Ridge Parkway. There are many rural and somewhat city-fied attractions in western NC to tempt the family vacation planner.

WLOS Channel 13 in lovely Asheville offers a total of five (5) mapped day-trips in the western counties that look to be great fun to the inveterate sight-seer. There are viewable and printable maps, photos from each trip, lists of attractions, activities and goodies to keep an eye out for along the way. The drives are loops and do not take more than a couple of hours if driven straight through, though they can easily last all day at a leisurely pace with some stops planned-in. There are also hints for making the trip more pleasant, and even some detail about where to pay special attention to the speed limits.

Most of these day-trips meander through wilderness, occasional towns, and rural byways that, depending on when you visit, offer all sorts of agricultural goodies. There are farms where your family can pick your own fresh produce, fruit and berries straight from the fields, and others that maintain convenient off-road market stands for what’s fresh. Some offer delicious mountain delicacies such as sourwood honey, apple and cherry ciders, fruit and pumpkin butters, exotic jams and compotes, and often there will be a fine display of regional crafts as well. Bird and bat houses make of gourds, various styles of hand-painted decorative and/or musical gourds, yard and garden ornaments and scarecrows, even textile offerings destined to become heirlooms.

There are National Forest and state park campgrounds along most of the trip routes, natural waterfalls and swimming holes, fine whitewater rafting adventures, a few good eateries and some popular developed attractions listed. Here are some of the listed “Tips” for different day-trips, offered to ensure you get the most out of your adventure…

• Trip 2 – Southern Rim: If you are looking for a little day hike, right before coming to Caesars Head is the trail head for Raven Cliff Falls, a spectacular 420 foot waterfall. The hike is moderate and is 2 miles to the observation platform or 4 miles to the base of the falls via a suspension bridge.

• Trip 3 – Hickory Nut Gorge: If you are in no hurry to get out of the area, there is a wide assortment of activities to do. Chimney Rock Park offers hiking trails with spectacular views, waterfalls, and unique rock formations while Lake Lure has a beach front, boat tours, and a wide assortment of spas and vacation rentals. Chimney Rock Village is also the home to several souvenir shops and restaurants.

• Trip 4 – Forest Heritage Scenic Byway: Pisgah National Forest is full of attractions that the entire family can enjoy. Some of the more popular attractions and picnic areas are:
- Sycamore Flats Picnic Area
- Looking Glass Falls
- Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education
- Bobby N. Setzer Fish Hatchery
- Coontree Picnic Area
- Davidson River Picnic Area
- Sliding Rock
- Cradle of Forestry
- Moores Cove

• Trip 5 – Cherahala Skyway: Also located off NC 294 is Hiawassee Dam, turn left onto Hiawassee Dam Access Road shortly after passing Field of the Wood. It’s about a 5 mile side trip to the dam. At the dam there is a parking area with restrooms and lots of photo opportunities. The dam itself is 307 feet in height and has been providing power for the TVA since 1940.

Do check out the offerings at WLOS: Cruising and start making your family vacation plans now!

The April showers have been ample and the vines are budded all across North Carolina’s verdant wine country. Wine has proven itself one of the most popular and lucrative agricultural, agritourism and value-added production success stories since the demise of Big Tobacco, and the many public offerings of wine country promise to remain one of the strongest sectors of the important North Carolina tourism industry in these troubled economic times.

First, in a big first for NC’s wine industry, the Duplin Winery in Rose Hill near Cape Fear, has become the first North Carolina winery – the first winery outside the west coast, in fact – to have earned the Adams Beverage Group Fast Track Brand award as well as the Impact Hot Brands Award from Wine Spectator publications.

Duplin’s champagne is being served at Mount Vernon, its Magnolia was named a favorite summertime wine by Martha Stewart. The winery now has a 1 million gallon capacity and receives over 100,000 visitors annually. There are daily tours and tastings, weekly music with wine and cheese in the courtyard, and even a popular dinner theater.

In other news, the Haw River Valley is now the third wine growing district in North Carolina to receive federal recognition as an “American Viticultural Area” [AVA], establishing that grapes grown in the 868 square mile area produce distinctive wines. The piedmont valley joins previously recognized AVAs in the high country Yadkin Valley and Swan Creek within Yadkin’s broader AVA. This brings multiple piedmont vineyards and six wineries into the prestigious designation and is a significant boost to the wine and viticulture industries expanding in our state.

Check out some of the coming season’s events at Visit Alamance, beginning with the Art on the Haw River Wine Trail on May 2 and 3, 2009. This is a free for the whole family event and will combine a winery tour and tastings with exhibitions and demonstrations of fine arts in the style of traditional artist studio tours. Visitors can travel the 50-mile scenic drive through the heart of the rural piedmont to find unique, hand crafted furniture, hand blown glass, distinctive pottery, metal sculptures, paintings and photographs, collectable quilts and fiber arts, the cultural crafts and fine arts kept alive and thriving by the friendly people in this friendly region.

North Carolina currently ranks 10th in the nation for wine and grape production and is home to more than 80 fine wineries. That’s triple the number that existed in 2001, so this diverse agriculturally-based value-added industry continues to lead the way as a valuable model of successful rural development in this time of general economic insecurity.

Legendary mountain moonshiner Popcorn Sutton died at his home in Cocke County, Tennessee of natural causes, a family member says. He was 62. Sutton managed to escape spending 18 months in prison after federal agents found some stills and hundreds of gallons of moonshine in a Haywood County storage shed last summer. He’d pled guilty to the charges, was sentenced this past January and was supposed to report to a federal prison in Kentucky.

Chalk one last mark on the board for the Whiskey Rebellion vs. The Revenoo’ers, as rumors abound that his death may not have been so ‘natural’ after all…

As ‘Moonshine’s’ daughter wrote in her book, “Daddy Moonshine”,

“It isn’t surprising that Popcorn has attracted so much attention. His slippery craft and his old-timey antics appeal to something in our collective past. His overalls can be seen as the blue denim flag of old pick-up trucks and cork-plugged clay jugs. His colorless hat is the nod of a gentleman, his beard the badge of a wild man. His high reedy voice carries the echoes of banjos and fiddles. His stealth and focus speak volumes for the cunning and moxie of who he is: a Smokey Mountain moonshine master.”

Public schools don’t spend much time on the Whiskey Rebellion generally, though it was one of our new nation’s first insurrections, beginning when our first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, convinced Congress to impose new taxes on distilled spirits and carriages in 1791. The tax was inherently unfair by taxing small producers a third more than big producers, a particular burden on producers in the western frontier areas where whiskey was a tradable commodity. Civil protests on the frontier soon became armed rebellion, so President Washington decided to make an example of western Pennsylvania and assembled a militia. They marched west out of Harrisburg – with Washington himself in the lead – but found no sign of the rebels. Eventually fines were imposed, people were jailed, victory was declared, and folks started worrying about other things.

The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania served to encourage distillers in Kentucky and Tennessee, which remained outside federal control for some years. These areas and portions of North and South Carolina began producing and selling on the sly, and moonshining remained a regional art form in some people’s books. For instance, did you know that NASCAR has roots in the Rebellion?

At any rate, our hats are off to perhaps one of the last notorious moonshiners from our mountainous region. Here’s to you, Popcorn! May there be banjos and fiddles in heaven.

Links:

Legendary Moonshiner Dies
Moonshiner Popcorn Sutton Dead
Popcorn Sutton
Wiki: Whiskey Rebellion
Whiskey Rebellion
Friendship Hill National Historical Site

The current dismal state of the economy everywhere has had some involved with North Carolina tourism at a loss as to what the state can expect in 2009. North Carolina ranks 6th in tourism out of all 50 states, with entire sectors and large swaths of land dedicated to hosting visitors throughout the year and for special occasions, holidays, seasonal offerings and fun festivals.

100 of North Carolina’s counties benefit from tourism as our welcome visitors spend more than $15 billion dollars here every year, making tourism one of the biggest contributors to our economy. Thus when last summer’s high gas prices and the autumn gas shortages cut into the number of visitors, many citizens got a pre-taste of the coming recession.

Tourism promoters and attractions are are stepping up their on-line marketing efforts, new attractions are opening and others are getting face-lifts, and tourism boards are defending – and in some cases increasing – their budgets to keep the tourism dollars coming in.

Because North Carolina is within a reasonable day’s driving distance for tens of millions of Americans living in neighboring states and has such a wide variety of experiences and landscapes to offer visitors, we can expect that tourism will remain strong even in a depressed economy. Even when 10% of Americans are out of work and struggling, 90% of Americans will still be working and wanting to take vacations. Whether to connect with nature at any of our beautiful state and national parks, spend a leisurely week at the shore, visit cities full of artists and museums and concerts, or take in some NASCAR excitement just for the glorious fun of it all, North Carolina will still be a destination of fond choice.

Planning and budgeting are taking place now all across the state, with a good deal of networking going on to make the best of all the tools available to keep our visitors coming. Reaching out to in-state citizens to boost attendance at events and attractions is also getting quite a marketing boost this year. So instead of setting up a competitive situation between the mountains and the sea, or the city and the countryside, each destination can instead offer something new to those whose normal environs are someone else’s dream vacation spot! City people can be enticed to visit some agritourism farmsteads. Coast dwellers can be enticed to visit the high mountains. Rural dwellers can be enticed to visit the city and take in the sophisticated sights and sounds. Everybody wins.

So rev those engines and start looking around at what North Carolina has to offer even to people who call North Carolina home. With such an appreciation of the ‘big picture’ comes the kind of enthusiastic promotion that can be exported to draw visitors from other states in numbers to match or exceed records set in the past. A positive attitude will get us through depressing times better than depression will get us through good times. Or, something like that…

Links:

N.C. tourism can stay exciting in troubled economy
Travel & Tourism to Step Up Online Marketing
NC Tourism News
Tourism Officials Discuss 600 New Hotel Jobs
Tourism Board Allocating Funds for Fiscal Year
Emissaries of Peace
Blue Ridge Parkway Destination Center

My family watched the movie National Treasure the other night, in preparation for Tuesday’s historic inauguration ceremony swearing in Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States.

The film stars Nicholas Cage as the last in a long family line of treasure hunters seeking the fabled treasure of the Knights Templar-turned-Freemasons, said to have been brought to this country before its beginnings and carefully hidden by the Founding Fathers beneath Trinity Church in New York and found only after following a trail of clues long thought to have been lost to time.

But there are other, less obscure treasures in our nation that we can proudly protect and gratefully enjoy. Some of them are included in Brainz’ scenic post about 16 Incredible North American National Parks, though most of those are out west or up north, including that ‘other’ North American nation, Canada. What was not included is North America’s most beloved, most visited National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park which straddles the North Carolina-Tennessee border and includes some of the tallest peaks and most folded landscapes east of the mighty Mississippi.

Whether your family pitches a tent in one of the well-kept campgrounds, makes use of the rustic shelters along the park’s portion of the Appalachian Trail, stays in luxury hotel accommodations in one of the nearby towns or cities, or rents a cabin or chalet nearby or in the park, there’s plenty to see and do that keeps millions of visitors coming back year after year. 2009 is the year of the park’s 75th Anniversary, so be sure to make your plans well in advance if you’re planning to stay for awhile.

Hike some of the 800 maintained trails, take in some beautiful scenery along the Parkway, play some golf in a landscape that harkens back to the Scottish Highlands where the game first began. Take up mountain biking or engage in a leisurely horseback ride. Attend a festival in a nearby city or get good and wet at an area ski resort, most of which offer summer activities for the whole family. Take a tour of area organic farms or artists’ studios, hit some of the westernmost hotspots on the Mountain Music trail and get to know some of the best fiddlers, banjo pickers and washtub base pluckers anywhere!

You’ll love our beautiful National Treasure nearly as much as we who live here do, I promise. See you there during the Great Smoky Mountains National Park 75th Anniversary year!

Links:

North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains Golf
16 Incredible North American National Parks

Once again the North Carolina Symphony will be hosting a spectacular New Year’s Eve bash, this time at Raleigh’s Marriott City Center downtown. The extravaganza will feature the symphony under the able leadership of Music Director Grant Llewellyn and guest artists, along with the UNC School of the Arts School of Dance to lend the music some thrilling rhythmic visuals.

The evening begins at the Marriott (just steps from the City Center venue) with cocktails and hors d’ouvres. Then to the Meymandi Concert Hall for the concert, then back again to the Marriott for a formal dinner with Llewellyn and the guest artists. The dinner menu includes salad and dessert, with a choice of gourmet main courses for confirmed meat-eaters and vegetarians.

Following the meal there will be dancing to the big band sounds of Leon Jordan’s Continentals, leading to the big champagne toast at midnight to ring in the New Year. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.

A great alternative New Year’s celebration for those who enjoy the slopes and want to bring the kids is the annual Appalachian Ski Mountain New Year’s Extravaganza which offers a night of fireworks, torchlight skiing, moonlight ice skating and more, fun for the whole family. The resort near Blowing Rock offers full packages including rooms, meals, ski lift passes and events, so book now!

If you love big band music and dancing any time of year, don’t miss the Big Band/Swing Dance Weekend at Asheville’s spectacular Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa. On January 23-25 the Inn offers the music of the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Charles Goodwin Orchestra featuring vocalist Maddy Winer for the annual weekend of swing dancing fun. There will be dance instruction Saturday morning for those just starting out, so by Saturday night even amateurs will be able to swing along to the music. Packages include two nights’ accommodation, breakfast each day, two tickets to all three of the Big Band events plus admission for two to the VOP reception Saturday night before the blowout show. Book early, this event is known to fill up fast!

Links:

North Carolina Symphony
Appalachian Ski Mountain New Year’s Extravaganza
Big Band/Swing Dance Weekend