Swain County residents have finally learned where exactly its $2 million in grants from the Golden LEAF Foundation will go — to schools, job training and infrastructure.

It’s not quite Robocop, but the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office is getting a law enforcement boost thanks to technology.

Jackson County wants to bring high-speed Internet service to a greater number of residents, but doing so means convincing an Internet service provider there’s enough potential customers to make it worth their while.

As long as Realtor Sammie Powell leans back in his chair in his home office, he can talk on his cell phone all day long. But as soon as he stands up to reach for something across his desk, his service goes from good to nonexistent.

“I could be sitting at my desk, and if I lean over, I might not pick up,” said Powell, who lives and works from his home in Villages of Plott Creek neighborhood in Waynesville.

A state-of-the-art training facility built by Drake Software is the latest addition to Macon County’s economic landscape.

Go to scoopscott.squarespace.com on the Internet and you enter the world of Macon County resident Bob Scott.

It is now official. I am not young anymore. I guess I should have paid more attention to the signs, and perhaps it wouldn’t come as such a shock, but I didn’t and it does. My youth has expired, gone out of date like a carton of milk forgotten in the back of the fridge. When I reach for my youth to get a refreshing drink of it, the stench is unbearable. I play one game of pick-up basketball with the kids at school — these are college students and here I am calling them “kids” — and the next morning my legs feel like a mob guy tied me to a chair and beat my thighs all night with a laundry bag full of navel oranges until I finally admitted I was middle-aged.

Every patient knows the drill. Walk up to the window, tell the nurse your name, take the clipboard and seek out the comfiest seat in the waiting room while you try to recall every allergy and ailment you and your ancestors have had.