Posts in the "places" category - Chris Hardie

I thought I'd start a list of people in Richmond and Wayne County with active weblogs. If you have anyone to add, please let me know. The list will probably tend to exclude sites primarily dedicated to for-profit promoting of a particular organization, product or service. Enjoy!

My friends Glen and Donna Lawrence have teamed up to help me to come to an important and tragic realization: that I'll never be able to get a job at the new Frisch's Big Boy planned for location here in Richmond. You know, the one I pledged never to visit. Worse, my FAMILY won't ever be able to work there! WHAT HAVE I DONE? I didn't realize that boycotts can work in reverse!? I have crippled my children and my children's children, and all those of the 319 other people (to date) who have made...

The personal commitment I made late last week to boycott stores that might develop on the Hayes Arboretum land here in Richmond has gotten a bit of attention. The signatures of folks who share my commitment have been coming in steadily, with more than a hundred after just a few days. Bill Engle from the Palladium-Item called yesterday to interview me about the petition. He was friendly and understanding, but he seemed to have a hard time figuring out why I wasn't better fitting what I suspect...

In June of 2003, the folks who manage the Hayes Arboretum here in Richmond announced their plans to sell 33 acres of the Arboretum that runs along the main National Road in Richmond for commercial development...another strip mall, ugh. It was recently announced that the first three tenants signed on to the planned development are Menard's, Walgreens, and Frisch's Big Boy. I usually avoid activism of this sort, but I've launched a petition, where the signatories have pledged not to spend money at these...

I always look forward to seeing the speakers that my alma mater, Earlham College, brings to Richmond, Indiana because they often bring perspective, insight, and experience that you just can't otherwise get living in a small Midwestern town. Tonight's event was no different: William Kristol (neo-conservative pundit, editor of the Weekly Standard, Bush/Quayle advisor, and member of the American Enterprise Institute) would be giving a talk entitled "America's Foreign Policy After 9-11" on campus free...

The forthcoming closing of Richmond's Target store, reported in the Palladium-Item on November 6th, is certainly a troubling development for the local economy. Jobs will be lost, the convenient shopping will need to be found elsewhere, and yet another "big box" piece of real estate will need to be filled. But perhaps more troubling than these obvious effects are the more subtle implications of how we as a community think about and support local businesses. Our downtown, and our local small business...

Desperate for some sort of vacation and lacking anything formally planned (where has the year gone?) the stars aligned in such a way that I took a trip last week to Madison, Wisconsin. It ended up being quite a great place to visit on summer vacation - thanks to a little pre-visit Googling and my awesome tour guide, Dayna (thanks!). I experienced quite a range of destinations: ethnic food of all sorts, a vibrant and amazing farmer's market, touring the University campus and amazing capitol building,...

This piece was written for submission to the Palladium-Item during my time on the board of Main Street Richmond-Wayne County. It never made its way to the paper, but I thought I'd post it here since it's still relevant. It still strikes me how little we knew about everything that goes into running a business when we founded the technology company I work for, Summersault, in 1997. We were very confident about the services we wanted to provide and very focused on the clients with whom we wanted...

I'm usually very much in favor of using local vendors, service providers, etc. instead of big corporate versions whenever possible and reasonable. Current cultural trends make that a challenge. But I've recently had an experience where the branch of a big corporate bank impressed me much more than that of the local bank that I would usually like to celebrate on that basis alone. It turns out that it's mostly about the people. If you start comparing pricing, interest rates, etc. it's often hard...

I was actually looking forward to working late tonight. I had a client who'd asked me to do some work on a project related to some software I maintain. Because it's software I maintain outside of my usual duties at my company, I charge an hourly rate directly to the client, instead of going through Summersault. But even more than the higher pay, I was really looking forward to the particular problem space. The client sells real estate forms over the web, and maintains his order information in a database...