Chamblee54

In the modern workplace, there are subjects you don’t want to talk about. Discussions of religion, politics, race, and celebrity footwear can spark unwanted controversy. The question then arises, what can you talk to people about? What do you have in common with a diverse group of people?
One subject, usually safe for conversation, is your ride in to work. In an freeway crazy place like Atlanta, everyone has a story. Last week, PG took notes on his ride. What follows is the journey one day, from a Brookhaven house to the Vinings office complex. The day is April 30. The next day is May Day. The parade has been cancelled, due to lack of communists.
7:41 am Leave the house. The idea is to report at 8:30 am. You want to allow a few extra minutes for unforeseen problems. The good news is that, in the morning, going west on I285 is against traffic. East bound, or the inner loop, is a traffic nightmare.
7:43 am /0.3 miles Turn the corner on Eighth Street, and the start of New Peachtree Road. In the pre-marta days, Eighth Street went over the tracks to Peachtree Road. When PG was a kid, there was a sign for the railroad crossing. There was no red flashing light.
7:44 am The Southern Crescent passes on the Norfolk Southern line, next to New Peachtree. The train is going to New Orleans. The people on that train are probably having more fun than you.
7:45 am/1.1 miles This is the first red light. You turn left onto Clairmont Road. Peachtree Dekalb Airport is down the hill, across the street. At certain times of the year, you can see the sun rising over the airport on your morning run.
7:47 am/1.4 miles You have gone over the wonderful bridge. In the pre-marta era, to get from the end of Clairmont, to Peachtree Industrial, you had to make a left turn, cross the railroad tracks on a bridge made from telephone poles, and cut through the Krystal parking lot. Now, a bridge takes you over all this. At the end of the bridge, you take a left turn onto Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.
7:48 am/1.7 miles Turn right onto Johnson Ferry. You will probably need to slow dawn for the traffic ahead of you. Welcome to Atlanta.
7:53 am/2.4 miles This is the confluence of Johnson Ferry Road and Ashford Dunwoody Road. When these roads were built, they took farmer Jones to church once a week. Now, they are lined with subdivisions. For some reason, these two busy thoroughfares merge, go forward on two lanes for about a hundred yards, and then split up. There are lots of angry soccer moms making left turns.
7:54 am/2.6 milesWhen you get to the fork in the road, take it. If you lean left here, you head towards Cobb County. This stretch of road is a long downhill run, a bridge over Nancy Creek, (7:56 am/3.7 miles,) and a long uphill climb. This is all on two lanes, with double yellow lines in the middle. The speed limit is 35 mph. At least once a week, there will be an SUV behind you that wants to go faster. This is bad for the composure of everyone involved.
7:58 am/4.5 miles There is a red light at Peachtree Dunwoody Road. You are in Fulton County now. This is the area known as pill hill. There are three major hospitals, and enough medical office buildings to cause insurance apoplexy. The traffic creeps ahead at a stealthy pace.
8:00 am/ 5.0 miles A bridge takes you over Highway 400. You are not the only person who is over Highway 400. At least you are not on it.
8:00 am/ 5.1 miles Turn right onto Glenridge. If you had gone forward at the light, Johnson Ferry would have turned into Glenridge. This can get complicated.
8:01 am/5.3 miles Turn left, and get onto I285. This is exit 26 of the Perimeter. This is a seminal moment of the Atlanta experience. You are no longer ITP, or OTP, but OnTP.
8:03 am/6.2 miles You go under Roswell Road, exit 25. This is the first disappearing lane. The far right lane is exit only. If you are to continue, you must go over one lane.
8:06 am/10.4 miles You cross the Chattahoochee River, and enter Cobb County.
8:07 am/11.1 miles I75 is approaching. I285 splits in two, with one part dedicated to the exchange of vehicles, and the other half going merrily forward. You need to get in one of the two lanes to the left. This is scary for people who like to drive the speed limit. As someone said to PG once, “you gotta be as crazy as they are.”
8:08 am/12.1 miles This is the reunification of I285. Since you get off at the next exit, you need to go from the far left side, to the far right side. You have 1.4 miles to do this. This competitive lane changing is complicated by the appearance of uphill entry ramps. You settle into a lane, and discover a speeding pickup truck making a surprise appearance on your bumper. However tempting alcohol might be at this time, it is not recommended.
8:10 am/13.5 miles You get off I285. Paces Ferry Road is exit 18.
8:15 am/14.7 miles You get through the concrete obstacle course, find a parking spot, and turn the car off. The work day is about to begin.

5:32 pm Start the vehicle. You are the only person that warms the vehicle before driving.
5:40 pm/0.3 miles Get out of the parking deck. Turn onto a side street.
5:42 pm/1.2 miles Turn right, and take a bridge over I285. On snow jam day, this part took 45 minutes. The pace on I285 below is not much faster.
5:44 pm/1.7 miles You are across the street from Cumberland Mall. Turn right.
5:49 pm/3.0 miles You turn left after crossing I75. You go into a series of concrete ramps. They will take you to I285.
5:58 pm/9.1 miles You exit I285 at Roswell Road, exit 25. This is your first opportunity to do so.
6:00 pm 9.8 miles You turn left onto Glenridge Road. You sometimes have to wait through a few lights. The idea is to get here by 6:00 pm. It can take a half hour to go the last quarter mile on I285, and go through this light.
6:03 pm/10.3 miles You turn onto a side road, which takes you over Highway 400.
6:07 pm/11.8 miles At the bottom of the hill, you turn left onto Windsor Parkway, and cross Nancy Creek. You will go up a long hill, and the traffic will creep and crawl.
6:13 pm/12.7 miles At the top of the hill you get to a four way stop. This is the reason the traffic continues to progress, however slowly. This is Lynwood Park. It was formerly the oldest black neighborhood in Dekalb County. The location has led to gentrification. It is now another trendy neighborhood, just what Atlanta needs more of.
6:19 pm/13.9 miles Turn left onto Peachtree Road. .
6:21 pm/14.3 miles Turn right under the railroad tracks. You are almost home.
6:23 pm/15.0 miles Home. Pictures are from The Library of Congress

using the knob handle lock makes it easier to lock yourself out ~ Will you take monopoly money? ~ this will mean work for some law firms, when the inevitable challenge lawsuits are filed ~ I drive by there every afternoon. It is a great place to sit in traffic ~ “Respectability politics will always be in conflict with drag, an art form with countercultural subversion at its heart. When these parvenus create new taboos around language, they’re practically begging drag queens and kings to violate these taboos.” Many queers fancy themselves as taboo breakers. However, the various queer communities have their own taboos. Violate them at your own risk. ~ a great song for an overcast sunday ~ All we know about Jesus… or think we know … is what the council of Nicea chose to tell us. What you say about Jesus says more about you than it does Jesus. ~ that’s ok mom why don’t you try the mashed potatoes ~ Not respecting an office populated by ambitious politicians is a good start. Maybe you could extend this to not respecting the so called son of g-d. ~ the large print giveth and the small print taketh away ~ I just realized what the abbreviation for I Love Lucy was.~ In paragraph one you say “full paragraphs necessitate the formation of full thoughts, which only come to those who write because they actually have something to say.” Paragraph five was “Fine. Maybe not.” ~ There is a town in Pakistan called Mybad ~ Item Five is the truth. You might get called racist. You simply cannot believe everything that people say. With the internet, it is so easy to provide a link to the quoted item. The person making the statement is responsible for providing the supporting source information. Like I said earlier, some people call asking for backup information racist. It makes you wonder who has the problem. ~ Yes, that is insulting to a dog’s ass. ~ With the earth running out of oil, and the government bankrupt, can we afford the Blue Angels? ~ Is Jimi at monterrey the one with Otis Redding on the other side? ~”I don’t care how likable Obama is in interviews or how kind he is on an interpersonal level. He’s a war criminal.” ~ ditto bush clinton bush reagan carter ford nixon johnson kennedy eisenhower truman roosevelt hoover coolidge ~ if bho had a son he would not look like any of these children ~ few things are in more abundant supply than unique people ~ we call our group radical faeries so we can tell ourselves apart from your group of ordinary faeries ~ twitter suggests following @PeeWeeHerman, who is followed by @SharonNeedles it is better to follow him than to sit in front of him. ~ it is more than a parable it is three units of bull ~ I don’t know how, or if, this fits in, but I am going to throw it out. I read this neat quote today. “If G-d hides in the details, maybe we do as well”. ~ Q- Bette, Barbra, Kylie, Donna, Diana, Madonna. Have ANY female pop artists enjoyed decades of popularity without a wildly devoted gay fan base? A- Margaret Thatcher ~ that is an attractive graphic presentation of the thought ~ “Apparently it’s hip now to call people racist, sexist, bigoted etc. just for being ignorant.” Maybe the person applying these labels is the ignorant one. Especially when this person thinks that something worthwhile will happen as a result. ~ This post was auto abbreviated by facebook. The last sentence fragment of the shortened post: ” After class, I finished an ass… See More ” ~ The tree museum charges more than a dollar and a half these days ~ Is this about Cliven Bundy? Why is anyone paying attention to him? The spell check suggestions include cloven bunny.~ “anthropological consensus” sounds like an oxymoron. ~ Did you know that the Pythagorean Theorum (singular) can be disproven? I was told that by a geometry teacher in tenth grade. She took part in the army LSD experiments, and said a shot of whisky would do more for you. And no, a hypotenuse is not a device for hanging people at a ninety degree angle. ~ that is innoveracist ~ A meme is different from a peanut butter sandwich. There are too many words in that meme. If they had stopped after “negativity”, there would not be two words at the bottom by themselves. The result is a top heavy graphic. The words “in your life” do not add anything to the overall message. This is not negativity, this is editing. ~ if only cleaning up after a dinner was as easy ~ When the housing discrimination was going on, the Clippers were the worst team in North America. Maybe continuing to own them was the punishment. ~ why did the white trash fight for the right of their snooty neighbors to own slaves? ~ pictures from The Library of Congress. ~ selah