Greenville Children's Museum on Final Stretch

It appears that the opening of the long awaited Children's Museum at the Heritage Green in Greenville, South Carolina is all but ready to open it's doors. The museums mission is to empower kids to see more to themselves and the world around them. The museum should finally open in just six more weeks. Named the Children's Museum of the Upstate, the new attraction will provide yet another family destination to the constantly evolving downtown area of Greenville, South Carolina.

http://www.tcmgreenvillesc.org/

Cleveland Park - Troop 19 Trail

Checked out a cool little trail at Cleveland Park today. Troop 19 trail is right next to the Greenville County Vietnam Veterans Memorial and that main parking lot, but the trail seems to be largely unused. There is a great little sitting and cooking area that I presume was made by the troop, and there is also all sorts of little trails winding around up there. Pretty steep area if your looking to do some workout on the hills as well. You should be able to find the trail head if you look around where the parking area spills out to the road and war memorial. No pics, managed to forget my memory card.

Here's some pics that a group doing trail maintenance took earlier this year.

Greenville Sky Line

Found this nice shot of the Greenville sky line

Credit - Carolinaliving
Copyright - GNU Free Documentation License

Bear Wanders into Easley, SC

Greenville News reports that a lost bear was spotted wandering in public just out of Easley, South Carolina. Thankfully, the bear got the heck out of dodge without causing anything more than an adrenaline rush in a few local citizens, a sign that the bear maintains a healthy fear of people and probably was just off-course. The fellow was estimated to weigh about 150 pounds.

In more hemmed in areas of the Appalachian foothills such as Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, local bears show considerably more bravado around man and have been known to enter populated areas to scavenge for food in waste receptacles.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090609/NEWS/906100306

Swamp Rabit Trail - Full Route Info

Although the full network of trails that will make up the Swamp Rabbit Trail system will not be complete until some time this year, I've been trying to get more information on just what the actual route will be and what portions are and aren't complete. Since this took a fair amount of foot work, I thought I'd pass on the information for anybody who wants to know just what the Swamp Rabbit Trail will look like when it is complete.

Greenville Portion of Swamp Rabbit Trail

The full trail will not be complete until some time in 2010, but you can get a pretty good idea of what it will look like by walking the Hincapie Path portion that begins in Cleveland Park

Unemployment in Greenville

The statewide unemployment rate in South Carolina currently holds at well over 11%, and the second highest rate of unemployment in the nation next to Michigan. That's a record folks, and, while giving into despair isn't helpful, it's also time to face the music and get serious.

While we can be a little grateful that unemployment in Greenville runs at 9.6% according to GreenvilleOnline, it's still a pretty dire situation for folks who are out of work and running out of savings and unemployment coverage. A look in the Sunday classifieds shows an employment section that is half a page long and mostly filled with either health care and commission based jobs or just outright fluff. For a while, the local plasma center was running an ad "hiring" people to sell their plasma. I know plasma is important, but you know it's bad when bleeding for living is the most promissing job lead in the paper.

It's not much better on job boards online. I've spoken with a couple of people who put up employment ads on Craigslist, and they report that received mind blowing floods of emails and resumes for very basic jobs. Major retailers report that they are simply overwhelmed with thousands of applications for a retail position everyday. Many of these stores are cutting their own staffs hours and aren't hiring anyway.

Given the situation, people who are looking for employment just have to face facts. The traditional job market is very small in town right now, and it will take some hustling to land a full time position. That means getting out and networking, putting out the word, and, maybe, redefining yourself a little. Sometimes it's not until your backs against the wall that you realize how strong you are. Think about what you're good at and how you can make it valuable to others. Almost all of the success stories that I've heard of in the new economy, are about people who did just that and branched out on their own, freelancing, networking, and doing the hustle until they found something works.

Wisteria on the Way Out

As spring continues to slip on by, the wisteria of Greenville appears to be on it's way out. The coming and going of the wisteria is a very visible sign of the passage of the early flowers of spring into spring proper.