the queen city observer made its first report of the day concerning unusual activities with its weather forecast. the afternoon high temperature in queen city on monday, november thirteenth two thousand and six would be up very close to eighty degrees farenheit. unseasonably warm for the middle of autumn, even south of mason dixon. the observer soon followed with more. downtown queen city traffic would be very packed around seven and eight pm eastern time due to a number of planned events, all of which would take place within blocks of each other.

a motivational conference at the newly minted bobcats arena.

a contemporary jazz art festival at the local art institute.

and some ball game. with some cheerleaders.

to help aleviate the traffic pressures, a number of downtown businesses sent their employees home early, so as to start rush hour traffic at three pm rather than four pm, adding considerable commute time to all. so when i got home from work in a record twelve minutes and thirty six seconds door to door, i began to wonder. what was happening? what is going on? and thus began the alignment of the stars that resulted in a very good night in the state of north carolina.

consider this:

- the carolina panthers, having scored no points in the first half of their monday night game versus the tampa bay suckaneers, scored twenty four in the second half. a touchdown each to brad hoover, steve smith, and keyshawn johnson. carnel and galloway? not so much.

- hours earlier, the univeristy of north carolina announced butch davis as the new head football coach. if you dont know who butch davis is, you can google him. just type in ncaa football championship.

- hours later, the univeristy of north carolina mens basketball team will begin its regular season play against sacred heart. this is the same mens basketball team that scored one hundred and forty points in its final exhibition on saturday night against pfeiffer. their are nba teams who regularly take the better part of three games to score 140 points. the over/under for unc's matchup against winthrop in the first round of the nit tip off: 274.2 points. ill take the over.

- speaking of the nba, former dook player and orlando magic first round draft pick jj reddick was a healthy scratch. again. reddick has not played a single game for orlando this season. in related news, the magic beat the celtics 92-89.

and with a feast awaiting at headquarters in the morning, a good day in north carolina becomes a good night under the stars. heres to more days like today and more nights of the same.

man i love this place.