I think my dad would have been tickled to know that his birthday weekend this year had one of the largest ice storms we’ve had in years. As a licensed electrician for the Guilford County Schools and for lots of other regular folks on the weekends, He greatly admired the work of the electricians of Duke Energy and others did on the major above ground and underground lines. Yet, he didn’t just sit on the sidelines when power was out, he was always on duty, supervising and sometimes re-wiring the school buildings on the spot. Some of those regular people who had trees on lines and boxes fall off would also call him, allowing him to go fix a few extra electrical issues once the big stuff had been cleaned up. One of his late in life dreams was to purchase a bucket truck just like the one above and go work on “high voltage.” Of course, he’s at a far higher voltage than many of us now. And with that, here’s your daily news:

Guilford County Schools also had structural problems prohibiting them from opening before today after the weekend ice storm.

Prospect Brands will be moving their corporate headquarters from Stoneville into the old North State Milling Company building on South Elm Street in Greensboro.

An artist in Winston-Salem applies Jacob Lawrence’s world-renowned documentation of the Great Migration to Winston-Salem Black History.

It’s time to nominate your town for the American Planning Association-North Carolina’s Great Places to Live in North Carolina.

Take a look at the lot where Publix will establish it’s first Triangle-area store.

You can already shop at the new High Point Belk.

A new rest area on I-77 will be built in the median.

Rockingham County’s new poling places have been approved.

These are the wealthiest zip codes in the Triangle.

New apartments in Asheville are mostly welcome.

It’s expected to cost 1.4 million dollars to clean up storm damage in Wilmington.

Cumberland County has begun a parking lot clean-up crusade.

The state is cranking up a new anti-littering campaign.

Around the Nation and World: New York City still debating on ending stop-and-frisk; a university in Peru has created a water purifying billboard;  how Jimmy Fallon illustrates the notion that place matters; and what Paris looked like before gentrification.