Gribblenation

In today's New York Times, there was a wonderful feature about a Pennsylvania family that has been taking annual New Years pictures in front of road signs since 1979 .  Starting with a photo at the junction of Interstate 79 and 80 north of Pittsburgh to this year's photo in front of a PA 17 shield in rural central Pennsylvania, the Droz family has been incorporating road signs into their holiday cards.  The theme behind the cards is that the road sign in the photo represents the coming year.  Many of the photos are in front of Junction signs or have arrows in them to signify how time marches on.  It's one of those things where you turn to your significant other and say, "Why didn't we think of that?!"  It's just another example of how you never know what people think when they see a photo of a road sign.

Wake County Roads and the blog's own Brian LeBlanc will again be on the radio airwaves Wednesday night, January 6th, 2010. Brian will be the featured guest on WPTF-AM's Open Line with Tom Kearney from 9pm-10pm. If you are in the Raleigh, NC area tune into 680AM or you can catch a live streaming broadcast at http://www.wptf.com . This is the third time that Brian has been a featured guest on the Open Line with Tom Kearney show. Be sure to tune in!

Tonight, Brian LeBlanc will be on the Tom Kearney Show on 680 WPTF from 10 pm - 11 pm. Brian will be discussing North Carolina Highways past and present with Tom. If you are outside of the WPTF listening area and want to hear the show, you can listen online !

Tonight at 10 pm on Raleigh's 680 AM WPTF - Open Line with Tom Kearney show, our very own Brian LeBlanc will be a guest discussing the history and trivia of Raleigh and NOrth Carolina Highways. Link: http://www.wptf.com/showdj.asp?DJID=15932

Bridges BBQ - Shelby, NC Originally uploaded by Adam's Journey This past spring on a small early Sunday roadtrip around Gaston County, NC , Steven Duckworth and I stopped at Bridges BBQ on US 74 in Shelby. We stopped to take photos just as the restaurant was opening. The owners of the restaurant invited us in and gave us a tour of how they make their famous bbq. And of course, I took photos. Well the photo you see above from inside Bridges kitchen has been published on a small write up of the restaurant in Trazzler.com .

Late last month, I mentioned how I was interviewed with the Pittsburgh Suburban Weekly Newspaper - South Hills News Record on PA 51, specifically how Saw Mill Run Blvd . and Clairton Blvd. got their names. It was to publish on July 24th, but I couldn't locate it online. Well, when I spoke to Mom on the phone this evening. She told me it was indeed in the July 24th South Hill News Record, and she's saving me a copy of it. I did find the article online and it is here - " What's In a Name? " I really do need to update and upgrade the PA 51 page and this one as well.

Those of you who know me well know how I'd love to have this roadgeek/travel/photography hobby of mine become a possible job vs. a hobby. And to those of you that have heard me talk about this for years, I should buy lunch for putting up with me talk about it and various ideas over the years. But anyways, another small item of being published happened this week, when I learned that a photo I took of Casa De Suenos on vacation last year in Albuquerque will be used in an online travel guide for Albuquerque. The online publication is called Schmap Albuquerque - Fifth Edition . The link goes directly to that page. It's another extremely small start...but it's nice to have credited published online work outside of the website. In other news, two weeks ago I was interviewed by the South Hills Record (Pittsburgh Suburban Weekly Paper) on Saw Mill Run Blvd. and PA 51. It hasn't been published yet, hopefully it will be soon.

Recently, I have contributed photos to City View Magazine in Fayetteville. In their February/March issue, a few of my Carolina Crossroads photos were included on their story about odd small town names in North Carolina. I received a copy of the magazine yesterday, and I must admit I smiled as wide as a kid on Christmas Day when I saw my photos in print. It's a small start, but it's very flattering to have a publication ask to use your work and also ask to do more work for them in the future.