KAYAK SaueiheI^kis
Saturday, April 20, 2013 Le
Tour de Bogue Banks Bike
Race/Ride
Friday, June 7, 2013 Kayak for
Warriors reception and
auction . . .What could be more
PineKno!ISIiorei,J/C exciting than watching your
neighbor write down a bid on a
sheet of paper? How about watching them bid in a hve auction
after a couple glasses of wine. Plan to join in on the fun!
Saturday, June 8,2013 Fun Bike Ride, Fun Kayak Race.. .AND...
“the BIG race” Here’s the question...could a slow racer who’s.a
fast talker with lots of friends and relatives win this race? Did the
tortoise ever beat thehare?
Watch for more details in coming months!
Fire Department
During November, personnel participated in 30.5 hours of
training. There were five false alarms or false calls, 20 rescue and
emergency medical service incidents, and three service calls.
Police Department
The Police Department logged a total of 1,589 events during
November. Seven incidents for a total of eight offenses were in
vestigated: two arrests for five total charges were made. There was
one accident, 27 citations issued and 11 warning tickets issued
for 13 charges. The two arrests were for driving under the influ
ence, and a traffic stop revealed that the subject had outstanding
arrest warrants.
There were two breaking and entering reports. One was in a
vehicle, and the other was in a residence.
Other events included three citizen assists, two motorist as
sists, one noise complaint, two impounded vehicles, 55 vehicle
stops, nine hang-up calls to 911, three alarm activations, 17 assist
fire/EMS, two disturbances, six mutual aid/assist other agencies,
three unlocked doors, 11 suspicious people/vehicles, 27 verbal
warnings, four well-being checks, 334 business checks, 86 resi
dence checks and 297 beach access/park checks.
Reminder
Lock your doors of your vehicles, house and garage. Report
suspicious activities or vehicles to the Police and keep an eye on
unoccupied houses.
Are You One Too?
Byjim Turner
I’m exhausted! I feel like I’ve just completed a marathon that began in October with the pre-Hallow
een mania (performed to the sounds of Christmas songs in the malls) and flowed non-stop through
Tlianksgiving and into the Christmas season. All this seemed to pass without much, if any, separation
of the individual events and the requisite time to savor each for its own significance. My New Year’s
resolution is to not let that happen in 2013. After all, the newborn year always holds promise and a
rekindled belief that all things wrong with the old year will be made right in the new one.
Wait a minute. The New Year is 2013, the thirteenth year of the twenty-first century. Does that mean
the whole year will be filled with bad luck? Some folks think the opposite is true, that the number 13
is a lucky number and, therefore, the year 2013 will be all about good stuff. Which glass is yours, the
lucky half full or the unlucky half empty? I’m not necessarily on the half-empty, unlucky side of the
argument, but just to be on the safe side, can we move right on to 2014? While reading an article by
John Grimond, a writer at large with The Economist, I learned a new word, triskaidekaphobia. This
tongue twister is the term for fear of the number 13. There is a good chance I could be one of these
rascals.
Are you one, too? Strangely enough, being afflicted by a malady whose name has that many letters
seems to give it some credibility. Heck, I might even be tempted to revisit Facebook and announce
that I am a certified triskaidekaphobiac. Maybe I can make some new friends in Nevada or California
or the state of Washington, or on second thought, maybe not. If nothing else, 2013 will be unique. It
will be the first year since 1987 to have all four digits different from one another. And, the sum of 20
and 13 is the number 33 and that is deemed by some to hold the mystical significance of being a highly
charged master number. I’m not really sure what that means, but it could suggest we might want to
sleep with the lights on all year
Although the word is new to me, Triskaidekaphobia itself is not a new phenomenon. The Romans
were spooked by the number 13, as were the Vikings. In his article titled “Unlucky 2013,” Grimond
points out, “It was Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, who brought the number up to 13 at the Last Supper.”
I guess you could say the same about any of the other disciples, though that doesn’t impart the same
element of pending doom. If you’ve looked closely at the calendar, you might have already detected
that Friday the thirteenth only occurs twice in 2013, first in September and later in December. That
could mean there are nine months free from worry. So is this lucky or unlucky?
In an article for Science Magazine, Rik Myslewski wrote, “In 2013, the Earth will be attacked from
space, with one possible outcome being mind-boggling severe disruption of our tech-centric way of
life.” He goes on to say that the sun is waking from “a deep slumber, and in the next few years, we ex
pect to see much higher levels of solar activity.” I didn’t know the sun had been asleep. Old Sol seems
to have been pretty active here on the Crystal Coast the whole time I’ve lived here. This scary little
prediction, though, begs the question; Can Time Warner cable be any more disrupted in 2013 than in
2012? Unfortunately, some things even more serious than the interruption of a Duke vs. UNC basket
ball game broadcast could be looming. In 1921, a solar storm induced ground currents that crippled
the New York transit system. In 1989, another solar storm brought down the entire Quebec power
grid and left six million people in cold darkness. That doesn’t sound like a fun Canadian evening.
A famous U.S. political figure once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” So what black magic does the
13*^ year of the 21®^ century have in store for our economy? Some business and news outlets are pre
dicting that triskaidekaphobia will have an effect on car sales this year The thinking is that believers
will want nothing to do with an unlucky 2013 car, and the non-believers might have strong concerns
about the future resale values. It sounds like a lose-lose prediction for sure. In Ireland, one auto in
dustry group estimates that the 2013 car sales will fall below 2012 performance by one third. This
represents a serious economic impact, and car dudes are scrambling to find creative ways to avoid the
dreaded number 13 to identify the new models. Some have suggested that the registration prefixes
be changed from 13 to 131 or 132. My personal favorite is to call them MMXIII. I might buy one in
bright red. I guess I’d look pretty silly driving my shiny new red MMXIII at a blazing 37 MPH along
highway 58 in Pine Knoll Shores.
365 days is a long time to be controlled by a phobia of any kind, especially one with 17 letters. I will
not let triskaidekaphobia get the best of me. While in New Bern recently to visit my grandchildren, I
checked out a new shop on Middle Street, It is a really cool new establishment offering about anything
you can imagine for dogs. It is a dog owner’s equivalent of Brookstone. Naturally, I thought of my
granddog, Bert. I haven’t giveji him a treat lately, so I selected some tasty-looking dog biscuits. I got
him a baker’s dozen. I hope I haven’t spoiled his year
;4
The Shoreline I January 2013