Random stuff.
The Research Triangle area (Raleigh/Durham) is composed of NC State University, UNC Chapel Hill, and Duke University on the corners, with Research Triangle Park (RTP) in the middle. Needless to say, college basketball is popular here... The Park includes employers like Cisco, IBM, Nortel, Lenovo, EPA, GlaxoSmithKline, and various other tech and biotech firms. In the cities, you have RedHat, SAS Institute, Duke Medical Center, the state government in Raleigh, the Hurricanes NHL team, the Durham Bulls (AAA baseball), a couple of computer games companies, lots of law firms, and random other stuff. The NC Symphony is based out of Raleigh; there are various state museums around including the NC Museum of Art, Natural History Museum, and others. The Raleigh/Durham area tends to be in the 88-96F range and humid in the summer, but averages only a few inches of snow in the winter. It's not unusual for it to be in the high/mid-70s in December. Cold weather hits in late January/February. Last average freeze (for planting) is April 15. The metro area is about 1.2 million people. Because it's spread out between a couple of cities, it doesn't seem that big, but early morning traffic into RTP tends to remind you... The area keeps showing up on Best Places to Live/Work lists, Raise a Family, etc. The Town of Cary, somewhat of a suburb of Raleigh with 130K population, consistently ranks near the top of the Safest Cities in America (Over 100K pop). The last rank I remember was Third. Wake County, where Raleigh and Cary are located, has been averaging a 100 people a day moving into the area. This has led to school crowding, with 8000 new students just last year... They can't build fast enough, even including the recent $1Bn school bond issue.
The nearest beach is at Wrightsville/Wilmington, approx. 2 hours away on Interstate 40. I prefer Atlantic Beach/Beaufort which is 3 hours on US 70. The mountains are 3-4 hours, depending on where in particular you are going. There are two reasonably large lakes within 20 minutes of Raleigh, and a large lake on the Virginia border about an hour away. RDU is an international airport, with various flights to Europe.
In the mountains, Asheville has become a small version of San Francisco-east, including most aspects that that description evokes. Summer temps average around 85F, with less humidity than Raleigh, and typically a breeze blowing. Winters can be cold, and do have snow.
Asheville managed to not tear down all of the old buildings downtown, so there is Art Deco architecture from the 20s/30s all over. Asheville is the biggest municipality in the western part of the state, and has a population of around 120K. The National Weather Records office is based there. The biggest university is the liberal arts UNC Asheville, probably around 2500 students. The area has become a very popular place to live and retire, so housing costs there are slightly higher than the Research Triangle area (I really should have bought property up there ten years ago). Andie McDowell and Harry Anderson both live there now. The world's largest private residence (or at least used to be), the Biltmore House (Vanderbilts) is there. It's been used in various movies like Being There with Peter Sellers. The Asheville airport is very lightly used for commercial traffic, with about ten flights a day total.
At least I might be able to hang around and talk music and MLs!
