Blue Ridge Muse is headed downtown — downtown Floyd. On Wednesday, we agreed to lease space in The Village Green development on Main Street in Floyd and hope to open for business on Nov. 1.

Blue Ridge Muse at The Village Green will be a gallery featuring not only our work but also the photography, art and writings of other Floyd Countians. It will serve as an operating base for our photography, video and Internet services operatilons.

We will be joining a varied, and interesting collection of shops and businesses at Village Green — including a portrait studio by Jeri Rogers, a Citizens Telephone retail store, a Floyd location for Nancy’s Candy Company of Meadows of Dan and a men’s clothing store.

We’re looking forward to the new opportunity and challenge. Stay tuned for more details.

Well, not Hollywood. More like online infamy. The Knight Community News Network was kind enough to feature us as part of their online journalism education program.

The interview is now part of the "Tools for Community Journalists" section for the KCNN web site and we’re featured on their "Ideas" page along with two video interviews (part two here).

For the record, I prefer being the interviewer instead of the interviewee but if we can help those who want to start community-based news web sites it is well worth the effort. My thanks to Wendell Cochran of the American University media studies program for asking us to participate in this worthwhile project.

Del. Annie Crockett-Stark has a problem with campaign staffers who don’t have a lot of respect for folks in her rural district.

Stark’s district includes part of Bland, Giles, Tazewell, Pulaski and Wythe Counties: Not exactly dark of the moon Appalachia but hardly urban jungle. Two years ago a staff member got the delegate into trouble when she blogged about "rednecks" and tattoed freaks she claimed she inhabited Stark’s rural district.

Now another staffer, Elisabeth Beamer from Christiansburg, writes on her Facebook Web Page that Stark called her campaign contributors "shitheads."  Stark, of course, claims she would never, ever, say such a thing and we all know that politicians never, ever, lie.

That remark cost Beamer her job and has voters in Stark’s district wondering if the delegrate thinks she is better than the locals.

Labor Day, the final big weekend of summer, the unofficial end of the season.

The big weekend for Carroll County and surrounding areas because this is Gun Show weekend, the event that turns Hillsville from an sleepy town of 12,000 people into a mob of more than 100,000 who prowl the flea markets in town and the endless collections of yard sales that stretch out along roads over several counties in Southwestern Virginia.

It’s an event like no other and one that everyone should see once. (Photo from the 2001 Gun Show)

Construction, remodeling and rennovation dominate downtown Floyd these days as the business district redevelopment project continues at full tilt.

The availability of wireless internet (Wi-Fi) in Floyd continues to grow.

Now those with hunger pains can eat and surf the web at Subway and Pizza Inn. Both recently added Wi-Fi to their menus.

That raises the total of available Wi-Fi in town to four. Cafe del Sol and The Floyd County Store both offer Wi-Fi. If there are other locations locally, please let us know.

Michael Vick will plead guilty next week to dog fighting charges, ending his sham denials of involvement in that disgraceful, cruel excuse for a "sport."

According to reports, Vick will spend 12-18 months in prison under the deal and faces certain suspension from the NFL. Some say, and we agree, Vick deserves a lifetime ban from any and all professional sports.

Former  Virginia Tech football star Michael Vick is out of pro football for at least this season and probably out of the sport forever. The only real question now is how long the fallen sports hero will spend in prison on dogfighting charges.

The New York Times reports today that Vick’s attorneys are considering a guilty plea now that his three co-defendents have cut deals. Few athletes have fallen so fast.

J. Todd Foster, managing editor of The Bristol Herald-Courier, weighs in on the abuse of power by the Blue Ridge Parkway’s Criminal Interdiction Team (CIT) during FloydFest.

Writes Foster:

Perhaps these national park rangers should be spending more time hunting for black bear and ginseng poachers than hassling spectators at a music festival.

But for the second year in a row, FloydFest – our region’s own little, family-oriented version of Woodstock – has been mired by heavy-handed law enforcement.

Meanwhile, I’ve been digging around in the federal budget and find that part of CIT’s funding comes from The Department of Homeland Security, the "big brother agency created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

No wonder they threw the Patriot Act in my face during my encounter with their gestapo-like tactics.