The Aiken County Public Library is conducting a silent auction on two card catalogs. Bidding opened at $25 and will run through July 27th, 2010. Bids must be placed at the library building. There's a little over a week left!

Instances of criminal activity have been increasing during the past several weeks around Aiken County. Law enforcement officers throughout the county work hard to solve crimes; however, preventing a crime from happening is the best option for everyone. Deputies with the Aiken County Sheriff's Office state that forming a Neighborhood Watch can prevent robberies and other criminal activity from occurring in your area.

As I passed the Burger King on York Street a little while ago, I noticed that there were two fire engines outside of it with fire crews working, numerous Aiken Public Safety squad cars in the parking lot, employees in the parking lot talking on mobile phones, grey smoke occupying the inside of the building and a smoldering odor emanating from the property. As I proceeded down US 1, I noticed several volunteer fire fighter vehicles from the Center Fire Department going to the scene.

A great many things happened in Aiken during the past year. When we entered 2008, we were in the height of the Presidential Primaries with constant visits from candidates and their representatives. As we leave 2008, we are in the midst of a vastly changing economy affecting some Aiken businesses. What happened in the 360 days between then and now? I'll highlight some of the notable changes after the break. If you think I've missed something or just want to add to the discussion, leave a comment!

Ellen and Rick Huston traveled to Milton, WV in order to visit the two-day Festival of Glass.

On Wednesday, August 13th, 2008, the Aiken Standard ran a story about a 20 year old Graniteville woman being charged with numerous counts of assorted sex crimes. Immediately after publication, commentary backlash began appearing on the story's online version at aikenstandard.com.

Ramona Sullivan was asked to return to work last week following the Town Council meeting. Instead of returning to work, she resigned.

Steve Carver, who is the Mayor of Wagener, has been caught in the middle of an email scandal involving other people at the Town Hall and resulting in a Town Council meeting this past Tuesday night. The scandal centers around Mayor Carver sending sexually suggestive email messages to Town Clerk Tina Salley, to which he openly admits, and the messages being discovered by Ramona Sullivan. Mayor Carver explains that he sent the messages in order to catch Ms. Sullivan snooping through Ms. Salley's email.

I've also added a link to an NBC Augusta article which contains more details, especially regarding the contents of the emails in question.

A few nights ago a 20 year old woman left her job at the Aiken Brewing Company. She says that as she was leaving, she noticed a white, two-door car following her. When she arrived at her home on Ashwood Drive, she says that she noticed the same car parked in her neighbor's driveway.

Yes, I'm one of "those" people who clean their laundry at a laundromat. I find that it's cheaper to pay a few dollars every couple of weeks to clean my clothes rather than spend money on my own washer and dryer and also pay for the water and electricity every time I wash a load of clothes. I also find that it's faster. I can have all of my clothes done in an hour with commercial equipment, rather than having to divide everything up to fit in a smaller, residential washer and wait for hours.

That said, I find that the cleanliness of the equipment has declined over time.