another canon

small enough to fit in my pocket----i'm gonna be taking more pitchers i think----

i got my new camera today

but i'm just figuring it out so i didn't take this picture --- check out some amazing photography here

little five points halloween parade

maybe not as good as years past, but still entertaining----

dry but at least the sunsets are purty good

no rain to speak of here, but maybe the mussells in florida got watered---a foot of rain or something in the panhandle---the sunset is starting to emerge from behind the plaza as it slowly moves to the south----

poor kittens

de-privatizing socialized medicine

Anti-"socialized medicine" fanatics can quibble, (as they've done with the Wilkersons and the Frosts), over who can and who can't afford private health insurance, but it doesn't matter whether my family earns $40,000 or $120,000 per year. It doesn't matter whether comprehensive health insurance would cost us $7,500 or $12,000
per year. It doesn't matter whether we need file a claim for $1 or $1,000,000. It doesn't matter because health care has already been socialized - privately
socialized - by people who are pushing the costs higher and higher, at the expense of hardworking Americans who don't think our salaries should be drastically reduced by these exorbitant costs while the insurance industry continues to post ever-larger profits.

It's time to de-privatize socialized medicine.

improv

pretty funny---100 guys take off their shirts and go shopping at abercrombie & fitch-----

sad

"I forced myself. It was excruciating. Beyond embarrassing. Extraordinarily painful - especially for his wife. Why on earth they decided to subject themselves to prolonging this agony is a question worth asking. . . . If you want an argument for why the cause for gay visibility, dignity and equality is necessary and indeed noble, just watch that interview again. " Andrew Sullivan

i could only bring myself to watch a little of matt lauer's interview with larry craig and his poor wife, but i agree with sullivan----closet cases are a sad lot----

fat cats for hillary

The bulk of Hillary’s primary money is from people who contributed over $2300. Only a small proportion of her money came from small donors (those giving less than $200). On the other hand, the largest category for Obama’s campaign money is from small donors (those giving less than $200). That would be those of us who are $5, $10, and $25 people…and I give my $10 with pride.

a synopsis

George Bush and Karl Rove may have dreamed of forcing a long time Republican majority on the country, but their complete incompetence at governing along with the contempt for the U.S. Constitution have done them in. They have run up the largest federal deficit in history, made America into a country that tortures, undermined civil liberties at every turn, gotten us into the quagmire that is the Iraq war, gutted environmental and consumer protection laws, ignored the looming threats of climate change and millions of uninsured Americans all while drastically cutting taxes for the rich, destroying America’s international reputation and creating a culture of corruption.

staying clean

frances kidd took this at the baptist church in newnan---just gotta love that calvinist theology----

what's in a name?

a lot, i'd say----i'm still recovering from johntravious dixon and his little brother demontay who were pictured in sunday's paper----but this?

Commander Flex Plexico :This guy is a walking action figure. This one almost defies
analysis, because what kind of parents call their kid "Flex?" Awesome ones, that's what kind.

there's a great breeze from the northwest tonight----new air, cool air, fall-----------

the water bowl

dexter is mesmerized by the dog's water bowl, splashing around in it and making a big ol mess--he also likes to look through the water bowl to watch his feet on the floor--poor little retarded kitten----

what i did yesterday

robert and i walked down to check out the sweet auburn festival, which was a little sad, and then on over to oakland cemetery for their little "sunday in the park" thing----a beautiful day for a walk even if it was a little warm---they had an interesting master plan for a long linear park from the capitol to the cemetery that would be pretty wonderful if it were to ever get built---

graphic design disasters

you just gotta wonder what they were thinking---just so wierd on so many levels---

blogs

"Zillions of photos, videos, blogs, and more. Some of them have to be good."

lol

"shame, disgrace, and ruin"

too many of us have forgotten what made america a great country in the first place and what we all once took for granted---the courts rule against torture, and it makes not a bit of difference in what our military does---all bush does is redefine the meaning of the word and go right ahead doing what it was doing----

Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any
[prisoner] ... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and
exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend
to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and
in such a cause... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to
themselves and their country.

george washington, charge to the northern expeditionary force, sept. 14, 1775----that last line says it all about where we are today.

mr. dexter cupcakes

i decided that the cat needs a birthdate---we guessed him to be 12 weeks or so when he got here july 12, so let's pretend his birthday is april 12----

birthdays

so it was iris' 86th birthday last saturday---i picked them up about 11 and drove down to mike's place at lake jackson, which i had never seen----it was all goodness and light, and a good time had by all, even if i did eat barbecued pig while i was there, the first animal flesh that i have consumed in several months---i ate it for ma, ok?---


junior was, of course, the center of all our attentions----


and speaking of birthdays, yesterday cousin carol turned 123 years old, or something like that---

main street

hotel palomar

construction has begun, but not as originally planned---rather than 26-story, hotel/condo, it's now gonna be 20-story hotel only----they tore down a nice building from the 1940s, right across from academy of medicine, w. peachtree and sixth---

just kill me please

how can someone be so profoundly ignorant? "is the world flat?" and she doesn't know the answer? jesus god

big sky

robert gets the full view when storms roll through---

humberto

the breastplate of righteousness

Social conservatives who try to have extremely discreet and anonymous sex or drugs or whatever are not, perhaps, hypocrites as such. They recognize vice, do not deny it, see it in themselves, understand that some of it is simply irrepressible, and do not see their public moralizing as in conflict with it. Think Bill Bennett or Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly or David Vitter: all involved in various personal vices (often compulsively) - and arguably more socially conservative because of them.

truthiness

"The truth is incontrovertible: malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." - Winston Churchill.

main street

still have a long way to go, but there's a new roof and gutters, the portico has been repaired (rather shittily, if you look too close), and the exterior repainted (also rather shittily if you look too close).

rilla state

another financial debacle brought on by hubris and greed and shysters with absolutely no morals of any kind whatsoever---poor kevin---i hope he hasn't been caught up in all of this but i wouldn't be surprised if he has---at one point he had two properties in ft. lauderdale and something wierd going on with a 400k house in vegas----last i heard he still had the duplex in lauderdale, but i'm not even sure of where he's living right now except he's still in vegas---he sold the house he was in when i was out there three or four years ago----i'm still glad that i sold sinclair when i did---not quite as glad that i bought 1308 when i did, although still plenty glad---

Sept. 10, 2007 issue - Walking through the gated community of Black Mountain Vista on a hill in Henderson, Nev., Thomas Blanchard offers a guided tour of real-estate woe. A row of stucco duplexes that recently sold for as much as $500,000 sit empty. "That's a repo," the real-estate agent says as he stands in front of 678 Solitude Point Avenue. Then he points to the adjacent houses, where yellow patches blot the spartan lawns and phone books lie on front porches, their covers bleached from weeks under the desert sun. "No. 680, repo; 684, repo. Those two at the end, repo."

Three years ago, this Las Vegas suburb was teeming with modern-day prospectors armed with low-interest mortgages, all hoping to strike it rich in real estate. Now, what started with the subprime-mortgage mess and subsequent credit crunch are turning communities like Black Mountain Vista into luxury ghost towns. Buyers who got in over their heads are being forced to abandon their homes, leaving behind empty McMansions on the California coast and see-through condominium towers on Miami Beach. Real estate is turning into a money pit, sapping the fortunes of home buyers, hedge-fund managers and house painters alike. The really bad news? This is only the beginning.

and fauna

flora

it's always nice to make things look different---robert and i have been slowly narrowing our respective collections of plants----i took some cacti and the giant (7' plus the pot) euphorbia trigona and finally shed myself of the palms, both of which required constant attention to even begin to keep the mealy bugs under control----i like the structural forms of cacti and succulents, especially here----i put my grandma hart's big ol' rhipsalis cereuscula in my office---it's by far my oldest plant----probably 80 years at least----

these modrun times

This wasn't as much a problem in the old days, of course. Some of us remember having only three channels on TV. That's right. Three. We're talking about the '80s here. So there was something unifying in the way we all sat down to watch the same news, all of it coming from the same point of view. Even if the point of view was retarded and wrong, even if some stories went criminally unreported, we at least all shared it.

That's over. There effectively is no "mass media" anymore so, where before we disagreed because we saw the same news and interpreted it differently, now we disagree because we're seeing completely different freaking news. When we can't even agree on the basic facts, the differences become irreconcilable. That constant feeling of being at bitter odds with the rest of the world brings with it a tension that just builds and builds.

We humans used to have lots of natural ways to release that kind of angst. But these days....

last night at robert's

elitists

please tell me that these people (who, judging from their furnishing of their balcony, are clearly straight) are not going to leave a plastic plant out there---- unfortunately, i'm sure there is no condo rule against plastic plants, simply because no one ever contemplated the possibility that peope-who-keep-plastic-plants might want to live here----

ex-sen.craig

excellent point about the priorities evident in this whole mess:

Given the constant, daily harassment women endure ... -- harassment that makes us compress our daily activities into daylight hours, that circumscribes where we go, who we go with, and even what we wear; intrusive harassment, ruin-your-day, make-you-feel-powerless/angry/depressed harassment -- the overzealous prosecution of the toe-tapper really pisses me off. It's like those sophomore discussions one has of human trafficking, in which someone invariably says "but what about the men?", and then the rest of the discussion, in some form or another, is overwhelmingly preoccupied with those minority cases. Heaven forfend we don't keep men front and center....

Look: if there'd been groping, a physical risk, or even just a persistent advance in the face of a single "no" (which doesn't seem to have ever been uttered), I'd be supportive regardless of the gender base-rates involved. But "he tapped his foot and looked at me funny"? Please! Men! Grow a pair!

However.

In much the same way that it's a shame the OJ case involved framing a guilty man, it's unfortunate that they're unjustly smearing a guy who so richly deserves to be taken down.

I derive comfort from the way the cop's meticulous narrative continues: "he exited the cubicle...without flushing."

If they want to arrest, sentence, and bring him up on Ethics charges on that basis, I'm cool with it.

cuteness

justice

Yesterday a judge in Iowa ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Today the first same-sex couples in the state was married.

katrina

two years ago today, a great american city was destroyed----

goddamn republicans

this pisses me off; it oughta piss everybody off---they've done more or less the same thing here in atlanta with now nearly all of the old New Deal public housing demolished----well-built, well-designed buildings, simple but attractive buildings, built with concrete, brick, slate roofing, and copper gutters that meant they would last----now all wasted---

"They wanted them poor niggers out of there and they ain't had no intention
to allow it to be reopened to no poor niggers, you know? And that's just the
bottom line."

damp, too

new air

immature?

or just totally fukd up---

“What I did was totally immature and so that means I need to grow up....
Dogfighting is a terrible thing. Through this situation, I found Jesus. I ask
him for forgiveness and turn myself over to God…I offer my deepest apologies to
everyone in the world who was affected by this…”

michael vick

republican perv of the month

this time it's idaho's sen. craig---

his record?

*voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
*Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
*Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
*Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
*Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

all of which led the human rights campaign to give him a rating of 0%---

glass houses

this one is in paris, built 1928-----it captures the light but not the view---

mt. dooom

some of those crazy japanese are proposing to build a 13,000-ft tall building, housing over a million people, called x seed 4000---(for comparison, taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world, is only 1,671 ft tall)---that would be one helluva penthouse----

the projects

the new roof is really quite lovely---but now the old gutters really look like shit---maybe that will get done next week----meanwhile they are working away on the interior---that's michael, our contractor, working in the entrance hall----

meanwhile the defoliation work is proceeding, as the image below will attest----a nice little fence has

emerged, and there are not as many places for the boogers to hide---

dark night of the soul

On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the "Saint of the Gutters," went to Oslo.
Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite
below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate
worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa,
whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in
1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message
the world had come to expect from her. "It is not enough for us to say, 'I love
God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God
had "[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one." Jesus'
hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned
abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she
suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that
radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere — "Christ in our hearts,
Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we
receive."

Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual
confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public,
she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus
has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me,
the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen
and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you
to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant.
The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds
as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they
suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction — that one of the great human
icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably
connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and
seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera,
was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape
from which the deity had disappeared.

And in fact, that appears to be the case. A new, innocuously titled
book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of
correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of
66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its
works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested
that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the
last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever —
or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes,
"neither in her heart or in the eucharist.

roofing and rain

it's raining here---first time in a while---they were supposed to finish up the roofing on main street today---john says they were working on the porches last he looked.

barack and roll

from his 2004 illinois senate race against alan keyes, who is arguably one of the craziest people alive today----

more good eats

aunt charlotte, who with 7 children routinely cooked for a crowd, sometimes did a tuna fish/potato chip casserole, which is the sort of abuse of perfectly good sea food for which there is no excuse----still it's a great, easy dish, and even julia child had a recipe---i made this the other night:

TUNA CASSEROLE

2 cups of drained canned tuna in a bowl (i used solid white, but any type would do, i think)
2 or 3 cups cream sauce (a bernaise sauce from joy of cooking)
3 hard-boiled eggs (cooked precisely 11 minutes as per julia's instruction)
swiss cheese

Flake the fish; fold in 2/3 of cream sauce; fold in 2or 3 sliced hard-boiled eggs; fold in 1/3 cup coarsely grated Swiss cheese.

Correct seasoning. [i love that; she uses it where other cooks just say "salt and pepper to taste"] Spread seasoned and buttered cooked rice or noodles [i did jasmin rice] in the bottom of a 2-1/2 qt. casserole, turn the sauced fish over it, and cover with the remaining sauce. [mine turned out a little dry because i didn't use quite enough sauce] Sprinkle with 2 or 3 tblspoons of grated Swiss cheese and a tablesppon of butter cut into dots. Half an hour before you are ready to serve, set the casserole in a pre-heated 375-degree oven until bubbling hot and the top as browned.

half moon and then some

roofing

it's still a dumb name

i can't actually see viewpoint from my place, so here's an update on its construction---i like the little mockups they do to show the building finishes (they did a similar one, in the same place in the parking lot behind bulldogs, for 909 juniper)---the designer people have decided that the raw concrete look needs a little fru-fru, in the shape of fake-stone facades at the first and second floor level----the white here looks a little wierd with the concrete---at 1010, they're using something that looks like sandstone at the first and second floors

roofing

and the roofer is supposed to start tomorrow----going to tear off all four layers of roofing, repair decking as necessary, and reroof with "certain teed x25," three-tab, asphalt shingles, which consumer reports recommended as a best buy---have settled on a lovely nickle grey shingle---

the projects

continued my defoliation of the main street property today, generating a second enormous pile of brush and what not----

a new start

looks like they have started site work for construction of the hotel palomar, (above right), at northwest corner w. peachtree and sixth---a welcome change to the design originally proposed after dropping the condo portion of the project in favor of more hotel---and a view of 1010 peachtree as the tower portion starts to rise

good eats

inspired by the bio of julia child that i just finished, i cooked dinner for the 106+robert club last night---turned out pretty good, i think---except i didn't have any fresh ginger for the melon soup----

couture

http://www.uglydress.com/

another benefit of tax cuts for the rich

failed levees, dead pets, falling bridges, poisonous toys---had the consumer product safety commission not been gutted as a result of tax cuts for the rich, this would have been caught much sooner—one consumer advocacy group said that cpsc staff was down 59%—all the stupid cpsc director could whine was, but it wasn’t our biggest recall—

The CPSC doesn't have the authority to test products before they go on the
market nor the staff to conduct extensive inspections. Instead, it relies mostly
on manufacturers to report problems with their own products.

failed levees, falling bridges, poisonous toys and food, cheap-ass tiles on the shuttle that are always getting damaged by something falling off during lift-off—that’s just some of what you get when you do govt. on the cheap—

s. r. young

we lived on temple avenue 3 or 4 blocks southeast of the new house in 1954-55, during which time gary went to s.r. young elementary school, 5 or 6 blocks east of the new house--the new house was apparently first occupied, if not actually built, by the school's namesake samuel r. young---he lived there, or at least owned the house until his death in 1979, when the house was sold---

i found the family in the 1920 and 1930 censuses at 423 main---he was a civil engineer with the railroad, native of pennsylvannia, as were his wife, sidney, both of them born in 1886---with them were their sons samuel, jr. (born 1916) and robert g. (born 1923) and samuel, sr.'s widowed mother laura----according to the census, the house was valued at $10,000 in 1930---

oddly enough, sameul r. young, jr., died last saturday, two days before we closed on the sale--i can't decide what sort of omen that would be, if i believed in omens, but this is the obit that the family ran in the ajc:

Samuel R. Young, Colonel (Ret.) USAF, age 91, died peacefully at his home
on August 4, 2007. Sam was born on March 29, 1916 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania
to parents, Cydney Alta Young and Samuel Rollo Young. As an infant, he traveled
with his parents to College Park, Georgia, where his father was senior executive
for three railroads. He graduated from Georgia Military Academy (now Woodruff
Academy) and received his Civil Engineering degree from Georgia Institute of
Technology in 1937. At Georgia Tech, he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega
fraternity, served as captain of the Ga. Tech Football and Military Bands, and
enjoyed many weekends playing at the Fox theatre with his band, the Tech
Ramblers. In 1968, sent by the USAF, he completed the Harvard Advanced
Management School. He worked for a short time with Robert & Company
Engineers in Atlanta until his love of flying and world events of the 40's led
him into service to his country. His military career began in the Army Air Corps
as a pilot instructor during World War II. After the war, Sam served proudly
another thirty-three years in the United States Air Force stationed around the
world until his retirement in 1970. He was able to combine his love of flying
with engineering skills in the Air Force - maintaining his flight status in
training jets for twenty- plus years and holding senior positions responsible
for building the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters at
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, and landing bases in Northern Thailand during the
Viet Nam War. Following his military retirement, Sam returned to Atlanta and
Robert & Company to work with the Atlanta Airport Engineers Expansion Plan
for Hartsfield Airport. Sam was instrumental in the production of the airport
basic securities manual - an FAA requirement in order for the City of Atlanta to
receive federal funds. Sam was preceded in death by his wife of fifty-seven
years, Elizabeth Rawlings Young, of Montgomery, Alabama. He is mourned by his
three children: sons, Samuel R. Young, Jr. (wife, Suzanne) of Edenton, North
Carolina and Michael M. Young of Los Angeles, California; daughter, Laura Young
Palmer of Atlanta; granddaughter, Emily Young Auer (husband, Kris) and grandsons Samuel Aaron Young (wife, Amy) and Dacklin R. Young. He was preceded in death by his brother, Robert G. Young of Atlanta and is survived by a number of Rawlings
and Young nieces and nephews. The family expresses sincere appreciation to
caregivers Eleanor Bryan and Ida Barrow for the dedicated care given to their
father during his last years and for the many years of special care and service
of Mary Pettway. A service celebrating Sam's life will be held at Peachtree Road
United Methodist Church at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday August 14th. The family will
greet visitors at 1:00 p.m. at the church. In lieu of flowers contributions may
be made to Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, 3180 Peachtree Road, NE,
Atlanta, GA, 30305, to Hospice Atlanta at 1244 Park Vista Drive, Atlanta, GA
30319 or to a charity of your choice.

a new project

so john and i have embarked on another joint venture, and this one i'm really excited about---it's a 1916 house in college park that i've always admired---sort of a distress sale, so we got a good deal i think---rent it for a while and if i ever get sick of the concrete jungle, i can retire to college park---

the house was well-built and nicely-detailed from the beginning, it had the good fortune of having been relatively well-maintained since that time---there was a fairly significant fire at some point, but repairs were also solid and restored the original design it seems---in recent years, it has been somewhat neglected, especially over the last couple of years---but it's gonna be a great house----

tonight we met with the contractor, michael, who did some of the work on our wells drive project---there is a large amount of overgrown this and that---saturday i start chopping---

keeping up with brian

update your bookmarks, y'all---
http://tancred62.wordpress.com/

the war on terra

everybody got all freaked out about the unidentified vessel floating in the east river within yards of the queen mary II---turns out it was some fool in a his replica of an 18th-century submersible----it just goes to show you. . . . .

A man in a Revolutionary War-era submarine was cited by the U.S. Coast Guard for drifting into a security zone, and for unsafe sailing in New York's East River near the Queen Mary 2 luxury liner, the Coast Guard and New York City Police Department said Friday.

plus there are claims that some major terrarist attack will occur in the next 6 weeks----