howRDUdoin? is a blog about Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

It’s the perfect storm of personal business and busy-ness — Ben and I are both moving, and then I’m going off to get married (with Ben officiating, to keep it in the family).

In light of that, updates will be sporadic, unpredictable, and ultimately unfulfilling until we come back in late July.

Stay tuned - we have a lot of exciting stuff in store for after the hiatus. If you’re already following us on Twitter or subscribe to the RSS feed, you’ll be the first to know when we’ve returned to the scene.

To tide you over, make sure you’re reading:

• 30THREADS for the best from Triangle area blogs
• Bull City Rising, the very best local news blog, focusing on Durham
• New Raleigh and gogoraleigh, focusing on Raleigh
• and everyone else on our blogroll, down and to the left

Thanks for your support in our first eight months — we’re having a blast, and we can’t wait to get back.

Obviously this was the biggest crime going on at NC State this week, and obviously everyone involved has nothing better to do, so let’s make sure we get criminal larceny charges pinned all over artist Joe Carnevale, the man responsible for the delightful Barrel Monster on Hillsborough Street.

Sure, technically, this is a crime - the barrels weren’t his to repurpose into public art. But come on. COME ON. Who’s the brain scientist that decided this was the best possible way to handle the situation?

[WRAL: N.C. State student accused of creating a 'monster']

UPDATE: The Smoking Gun has Carnevale’s arrest warrant.

[The Smoking Gun: Barrel Monster Bust]

• Despite the “best” efforts of Hagan and Burr, the US Senate voted to give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco. [WRAL]
• So, shut my mouth: Mary Easley got jack squat from NC State, not even the customary 30 days notice for such a termination. Oh, and the firing was the result of “the economy,” just so everyone’s clear. [N&O]
• Haha, Elizabeth Dole thinks she’s relevant. [N&O]
• Bill Clinton had dinner last night at Sullivan’s in downtown Raleigh, and tried the old “leave my credit card with the hot waitress to give me an excuse to go back later” trick. [N&O]
• Two American Tobacco buildings are being put up for auction, since their owners have defaulted on a few hundred thousand dollars in bills. [H-S] (reg req)
• Everyone loves time lapse videos of long processes compressed into a shorter scene where people move around really fast, so here’s one of the installation of the new scoreboard at the RBC Center. [30THREADS]

There’s not much to do after the explosion of the ConAgra plant in Garner but pray for the families of the three workers who lost their lives, and then pick up the pieces and work to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.

And in theory, in our society, we place our trust in our collective government institutions to help protect the public interest, especially when it’s in the private interest to skate by with the barest of minimums for safety. And in theory, in our state, the public interest of workplace safety falls to the NC Department of Labor, led by Cherie K. Berry.

But in practice, Cherie K. Berry is pretty famous for proudly not doing her job, and being little more than a signature in an elevator. Barry at Dependable Erection lays it out.

(In an unrelated note, the ConAgra plant produced Slim Jims - I feel pretty good about my personal conviction not to eat beef jerky from a factory that can explode and call the Environmental Protection Agency to the scene.)

After the sun goes down, all the screaming kids go back to their own cars, and you forget they exist.

Well, only if you count Henderson as “right up the road.” Still if you need a little hit of nostalgia, or if you’re too young to remember piling into the car for a movie under the stars but want to experience what us old people are talking about, Henderson’s got it for you.

The Raleigh Road Outdoor Theatre is among the 400 or so bonafide drive-in theaters still in operation in our once-proud nation. They play double features of first-run films seven nights a week, and for $5 a person, that’s a bargain to justify the drive.

The picture and sound were 100% acceptable - the projection was sharp and vibrant, and the sound came over our car’s FM radio and sounded great and shook our little VW Bug during the scary parts. We saw Up, and the privacy of our own vehicle made sobbing quietly that much more easy to do.

We were invited to hang around for Night At The Museum 2, but we politely declined.

The atmosphere was everything you could hope for - before the first feature, the kids ran their excess energy out, and then retreated to their families to fall asleep during the first act. Some people stayed in their cars, while others set up camp chairs in front with a boombox to take the soundtrack with them.

The only caveats: they have exactly two toilets in the concession stand, so pit at the BP on the way in and out. And the food looks awful, but they remind you a dozen times that it’s the only way for them to make money and stay in business. So, figure out a compromise compatible with your ethics.

It’s a rednecky throwbacky good time, both earnestly and ironically.  What more do you people want?

Mary Easley released a very short, very polite open letter to the NC State community today, to say farewell and take one last swing at keeping it classy.

Naturally, we did a little digging and got our hands on an early draft of this letter. As you can see, the final version was heavily edited.

June 10, 2009

Dear Students, Faculty and Friends (and by Friends, I mean people who give me things I don’t deserve in exchange for political patronage):

North Carolina State is and will always be a great university as long as you stay far away from the animal husbandry weirdos. It is a retarded special place with an outstanding faculty, staff and wonderful students. In case you can’t tell, I’m being sarcastic.

It has been one of the great privileges of my life to work with the brilliant and creative people at NC State. You always made me feel like the smartest person in the room, because I always was. It has been a joy to teach, encourage and help the students. For instance, “take Hillsborough to the Beltline to Wade, then 40 West until you get to a real school.”

I urge all of the North Carolina State family to now focus on the best welfare of the students and be mindful of the great tradition of the university system in North Carolina, or this slip of paper I left that says “How to keep a dummy busy, turn it over.” I will continue to fully support this outstanding institution almost as much as it supports me through the under-the-table payoff you’ll find out about in a few months once this blows over.

Peace, suckas! Most Sincerely,

[signed]

MARY P. “SLEAZELY” EASLEY

The N.C. State Board of Trustees finally sacked up and fired Mary Easley, after she made it clear that she had no idea that “we urge her to resign” means she should go ahead and resign. But the headline says the trustees “eliminated” Mrs. Easley’s contract — I did not know contract law worked that way. If they mean that they agreed to pay out the five year deal at its full value, or even settled it, well, I’d rather keep her in the fake job and kick her on the Internets every day.

But, good news still for her! If you resign, you’re not eligible to collect unemployment benefits, but if your position is eliminated, you go file, and $500 a week is $500 a week. In that light, it’s hard to blame her.

Also, in completely unsurprising news, there are emails linking Mike Easley himself to pimping his wife into this largely imaginary job. We’ll give you a minute to let that sink in.

[N&O: Trustees eliminate Mary Easley's contract]

[WRAL: E-mail: Easley involved in wife's hiring]

James Oblinger became the former chancellor at NC State this morning, stepping down in the face of increased scrutiny over the hiring of Mary Easley. Pretty soon, the only person left employed after the Mary Easley scandal resolves itself will be Mary Easley.

Over the weekend, the NC State Board of Trustees met to review the benefits package given to Larry Nielsen, the former NC State provost whose head was among the first to roll. And surprise - the deal cut with Nielsen violated University rules, and Oblinger’s prints were all over it. These academic people suck at grift.

Erskine Bowles better hope and pray he hasn’t picked up his phone or read his email in the past month or two. And naturally, with the school facing the prospects of massive budget cuts, this is an outstanding time to be rudderless in the stream.

[N&O: N.C. State chancellor resigns]

I’m sure somewhere, there’s a stringy-haired eyeliner-wearing person of ambiguous gender crying into their webcam, “LEAVE EASLEY ALOOOOOOONE!”

But not today, as a House panel voted to eliminate the NC State Millennium Speaker series, saving the state $105,000 (score!) and eliminating a good chunk of what Mary Easley is paid $170,000 to do.

Wait — we’re paying someone $170,000 to manage a $105,000 budget? That’s craaaaaazy! This woman should be under extreme rhetorical attack!

[N&O: Panel votes to limit funds for Easley's job]

I mean, it’s hard to be too terribly rough on Governor Perdue on this - deficit spending isn’t an option, the state of North Carolina can not spend more than it brings in. And perhaps when the gap between the two numbers stands at $4.5 billion, one could suggest that not enough of the “hard cuts” were made of state services. But every single state service is essential and can not possibly be cut! (Think of the children!) And we clearly didn’t elect the kind of leadership that could make “hard cuts,” we elected Democrats in Raleigh. Whoops!

So yes, since no further cuts are conscionable, it’ll be more taxes instead. Alcohol and tobacco, that’s easy and expedient enough, but other taxes are not being “ruled out.”

[N&O: Governor says tax hike might be needed]