Chamblee54

The trip to lower Tennessee went smoothly. Yes, there was an SUV shining his bright lights and encouraging more speed, but that is expected for Cobb County. PG had driven for a living in this area, and found the house with little problem.
It had been a while, fifteen years, since PG had seen the hostess. He was warmly greeted, and given a plate for the storebought grapes. Food was the focus of this evening, not costumes, athletic drinking, or hooking up. There was even a cake called “Better than Sex”. Getting older can be boring, but you are not going to go hungry.
The hostess had a prosthetic backside, draped by a hospital gown. There was a witch, a young terrorist, and a blogger wearing a ralph lauren tie. The prize for best costume went to the father of the hostess. His costume had been put aside by the time PG arrived.
On the surface it sounds boring, but PG had a good time. You could eat until you found someone to talk to, and soon there were people to listen to. Before long it was time to go, and get lost in the subdivision on the way out.

The answering machine was flashing when PG got out of the shower. Even though his internal caller id told him it was Uzi, he listened to the messages before he called. The scheduled entertainment for the afternoon was a walk through little five points.
After a while, the honda was parked behind Manuel’s, and the walk to ElfivePee began. PG wondered if the Halloween Festival was over, and could they tell the difference? Coming down Seminole Avenue, into the closed off street by the pizza places, the thought came to go to the Vortex. No, that is a bad idea, they may be enforcing the no idiot policy.
The artist was urging the sunday visitors to Buy Art, and help support our bohemian lifestyle . PG needed to use a restroom, and thought the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club would be atmospheric enough. Past that was the former Bass High School, now a loft community. When WRFG went on the air, their transmitter was so weak that they could not be heard north of the high school.
Crossing Euclid Avenue required waiting for the cars to pass by. The former Sevananda/A&P/Piggly Wiggly of Miss Daisy fame is now a Rag store. They have stenciled parking spots, across from the mural infested wall of the Variety Playhouse. Uzi was once going to pay to park for a concert there. The parking attendant recognized his friend and gave them a prime spot for free. He does not remember who was playing. Meanwhile, the parade of the hairstyle enhanced trendoids continued down the well trod sidewalks.
Uzi was in the mood for a chocolate ice cream from Zestos. PG waited outside, and took pictures of ivy falling down in front of a brick wall. They crossed Moreland, and found a bench to sit on. It was across from the former fountain, which now has cactus growing inside. A dog got loose, and scampered down Moreland Avenue, while the traffic screeched to a halt. The pet went down Euclid into oblivion, as Uzi finished his ice cream. Deciding that they had enough hipness for the day, the pair went back to Manuels, and on the S&S cafeteria in the relative safety of Embry Hills.

If you go to the website for Jill Chambers, you will see a link to the State of Georgia Sex Offender Registry. No, her opponent is not listed. If, however, you search the last name Chambers, you get a list of nine people. These registries are like that…if you know names you can plug into the search engine, it can provide hours of entertainment.
A former duplex neighbor of mine is on the list. He is also on the Federal Sex Offender registry. His first and last name are common, but I prefer not to disclose it. The last time I saw him, he was being led away in handcuffs. I called the jail the next day, and found out that he was busted for “aggravated child molestation”. He had been babysitting the eight year old girl next door. This was in 1994. The conviction listed on his “WhySpace” was in 1998. He lives in Lawrenceville, and by coincidence another s.o.r. honoree ( both white), with the same first and last name, lives in Lilburn.
Another search engine is run by the Georgia Department of Corrections. It shows people that have been in Georgia Prisons. If you ever wondered about someone, you can take a look, and see if the state remembers him/her. A former co worker would spend hours looking at pictures of women behind bars. I never did find out if he hooked up with one.

Part of the new technology is the chain email. It is similar to the old chain letter, but with address book gizmos, it is much easier and faster. The story of Katie Robinson is a bit hard to believe…how could anyone not have five email addresses?
So, I get this letter. There is the finish: You must send this on in 3 hours after reading the letter to 10 other people. If you do this, you will receive unbelievably good luck. The more people that you send this to, the better luck you will have. SMILE, even through your tears!!!! What a deal. So I combine email mass mailers with the blog. Of course, on many days I have fewer than ten readers. I guess I have to take a chance.

I believe whatever is in store for us will be for us. The poem is very true, unfortunately. Make sure you read the poem! CASE 1: Kelly Sedey had one wish, for her boyfriend of three years, David Marsden, to propose to her. Then one day ,when she was out to lunch David proposed! She accepted, but then had to leave because she had a meeting in 20 min.
When she got to her office, she noticed on her computer she had some e-mail’s.
She checked it, the usual stuff from her friends, but then she saw one that she had never gotten before. It was this poem. She simply deleted it, without even reading all of it.BIG MISTAKE! Later that evening, she received a phone call from the police .It was about DAVID! He had been in an accident with an 18 wheeler. He didn’t survive! CASE 2: Take Katie Robinson She received this poem and being the believer that she was She sent it to a few of her friends but didn’t have enough e-mail addresses to send out the full 5 that you must. Three days later, Katie went to a masquerade ball. Later that night, when she left to get to her car, she was killed, in that spot, by a hit-and-run drunk driver. CASE 3: Richard S. Willis sent this poem out within 45 minutes of reading it.
Not even 4 hours later walking along the street to his new job interview with a really big company, when he ran into Cynthia Bell, his secret love for 5 years. Cynthia came up to him and told him of her passionate crush on him that she had had for 2 years.
Three days later, he proposed to her and they got married. Cynthia and Richard are still married with three children, happy as ever!

This is The Poem

Around the corner I have a friend, In this great city that has no end, Yet the days go by and weeks rush on, before I know it, a year is gone. And I never see my old friends face, For life is a swift and terrible race, He knows I like him just as well, As in the days when I rang his bell. He rang mine but we were younger then,  now we are busy, tired men. Tired of playing a foolish game, Tired of trying to make a name. Tomorrow I will call on Jim, Just to show that I’m thinking of him. Tomorrow comes, tomorrow goes,the distance grows and grows. Around the corner, yet miles away, ‘A telegram sir,’ ‘Jim died today.’ What we get and deserve in the end. Over there, a vanished friend.
Remember to always say what you mean. If you love someone, tell them.
Don’t be afraid to express yourself. Reach out and tell someone what they mean to you.
Because when you decide that it is the right time it might be too late. Seize the day.
Never have regrets. And most importantly, stay close to your friends and family, for they have helped make you the person that you are today.

PG was finishing another folder of picture manipulation. He made the sunday morning call to Uzi at 11:37, 23 minutes before noon. This is well ahead of the standard of slack that governs such things.
Uzi had an idea for the afternoon. The Sandy Springs festival was going on. The parking might be a problem, but the goings on were barely a mile from his house.
At 1:30, PG showered, shaved, and put on a shirt with buttons. This is Sandy Springs we are talking about. A little while later, PG and Uzi were in the Target, looking for a close parking spot. Now, part of the rationale for the festival was to walk, but a good parking spot was sought nonetheless. It is like people who drive like madmen to get to work early, when they hate the job.
The festival had a five dollar cover charge. The recently unemployed PG fretted about it, and determined to make it worthwhile with food samples and freebies. As it turned out, there was a car exhibit off the festival grounds, and the two were asked for the admission fee again. The gate where they had gone in had neglected to stamp their hands. PG made a note of this for next year… enter through the car exhibit, and say you had paid at the main gate.
These festivals are big sales parties. People give you samples of this and that, and ask you if you know where the joeblow market is. You learn to automatically say yes, I know where it is. If a Jew for Jesus looks your way, you are in a hurry to get somewhere. When a candidate asks you for your support, you live in another county. When the McCain lady asked PG if he wanted to buy a bumper sticker, he said “I don’t have a car”
Soon, a lady gave PG a shopping bag, and his pockets emptied out. Target had a booth, and gave away a lovely bandanna with the Target logo. Target is opening a new store soon, at the Prado shopping center. The Johnson Ferry Road store, the one a mile from Uzi, is going to close. Uzi was not pleased, but such is progress. PG remembered when the Winn Dixie on Clairmont Road closed, and he had to cross Buford Hiway to go to Kroger. All change is not progress.
A little amphitheater had opened in the park. A lady from Nashville, Brinn Black, was singing. It was time to sit down. The lady could sing good, but lots of people can sing good. A few minutes later, there was a girls chorus singing the national anthem. This is a tough song to get right, and the girls did very well. There was a children’s area next to this walkway, down by the gazebo with the original sandy spring. There was a puppet show. PG is easily amused, but he does have standards. It was time to go back to the Target parking lot.

So Sarah Palin ( as played by Tina Fey) can see Russia from her back porch.
The closeness of Alaska and Siberia is well known. When I started to look for information, I began with the Aleutian Islands. They string along for hundreds of miles, and cause a dent in the International Date Line. As for which is the last one, and when does Alaska turns into Russia, those are good questions.
So, another search angle was required. The Alaskan government supplied this: Alaska and Russia are less than 3 miles apart at their closest point in the Bering Strait where two islands, Russia’s Big Diomede Island and Alaska’s Little Diomede Island, are located. In winter it is possible to walk across the frozen Bering Strait border between these two islands. At its closest, the American mainland and the Russian mainland are 55 miles apart where Alaska’s Seward Peninsula and Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula reach out to each other.
Alaska is a big place. It has ten times the land mass of Georgia, with less population than Gwinnett County. There is a town on Little Diomede Island called Diomede. It checks in at 65°N 168°W. ( For our purposes today, we are going to ignore minutes and seconds) The town of Wasilla is the home of Sarah Palin. It can be found at 61°N 149°W . In other words, Diomede is four degrees north of Wasilla, and Nineteen degrees west.
Lets put this in local terms. Atlanta is 33°N 84°W . According to my atlas, 37°N 103°W is the point where New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma come together. I cannot see that from my back porch.

Pulling into the parking lot on Edgewood Avenue, I was still a bit uncertain whether I wanted to go inside. Then a car pulled out of the full lot. I took this as a sign to go inside.
The first part of the evening saw twelve people sitting down. John was making a name chart, which does help a newcomer with names. John said something about Panama, and Duane kicked in with a palindrome. This led to moosehunter Palin. Harassarah was the closest to a Palin drome I could think of, although we may soon have eight years to ponder this.
Later, the possibility of a post election Playboy spread was discussed for hockeymom. And yes, she is smarter than George Bush.
There was a first downstairs. John asked me what my blog name was, and what I was trying to do. The concept of pretty pictures and ugly opinions got talked about. I then learned that the gentleman who came in after me produced foto404. We discussed multi colored text…he finds it difficult to read…and music players that come on automatically…I think they are terrible.
While this was going on, the waitress did an excellent job with the table service. I got a cup of coffee, with one refill. There were separate checks. I got out with paying two dollars, including the tip. I didn’t order any food, but those who did seemed happy.
After a while, the party moved upstairs to the pool room. Several discussions broke out, on facebook friends, life at the fishwrapper, karaoke, going back to school, and trying to prove the big bang. John had an idea for a pool game…two people would start, and then hand the stick to someone else to take the next shot. When he found out that it was ten dollars an hour to rent the table, this was forgotten. Before long I was wondering when to leave. I got tired of waiting on others to say goodbye, and went down the stairs.

whats the blog of the day ,PG
haven’t written it yet, but there are only 100 million others
well yours will blend
i just read a thing about lowering the drinking age, and that is always good for a few ill thought words
to what age ?
it is not going to happen, big brother federal government will not let it
well thats reserved for individual states
but if they want federal highway money the states must play by uncle sams rules
it all goes back to too much power in Washington
i agree..
and who lets them have it
*holds up mirror
lol
PG it’s 7 years bad luck if that thing breaks
i won’t let you look at it then
they buy power with all the entitlement prograns
dang PG, Mr. D has corrupted you and turned you mean LOL
the liberal conservative riff is a smokescreen, the cons love big government
and so do those at the trough
having 160k troops eight time zones away is big government, period
so thats the only issue ?
no, there are lots of others
how about the economy?
what about the economy
another issue
sending trillions of dollars to saddam land does not help our economy
I never said it did
wait til China calls in all these loans
PG the military does not eat up as much as all the entitlement prograns
it’s a;; of it that is a problem
all*
republicans are just as bad at entitlement peograms
yes they are
programs*
I cant type for s### tonight

Now that PG was driving, he was more willing to push for an otp destination. For a while, Uzi did the driving. This was when Wonder, the blind dog, was their companion, and PG was all too happy to let Uzi’s car smell like a dog. However, Wonder was old and feeble, in addition to blind. With Wonder left behind, PG drove, and would push for destinations like the Autry Mill Nature Preserve.
Autry Mill is a chunk of land off Old AbbalamaAlabama Road. PG knew the way, and realized that it wasn’t that far otp. After the usual anxiety about finding the place, there was a big sign and a paved road leading to a parking lot.
Autry Mill is a very well organized Nature Preserve. There are signboards, a fully equipped farmhouse, and a restroom. The hikers found a path behind the farmhouse, and went into the wild.
This is a well organized place. There were boardwalks all over the place, often over dry land. Many of them had bronze signs, indicating an eagle scout project. Before long, the hikers were at the bottom of a hill, beside a creek. The creek was adjacent to a broken sewer line, and had lovely brown fuzz at the bottom. A couple of minutes later, the hikers came to a crossroads, where you could go this way on this trail and that way on another trail. Since they had only been walking for ten minutes, they took the longer trail.
The idea of a nature preserve is to get lost in nature. AMNP was between a subdivision and a water works project. There was barely a mile of trails all around, and no danger of getting lost and struggling back to the parking lot. On the other hand, the trees and creek did look better than a subdivision.
As PG and Uzi peaked the last hill, past the concrete cartoon characters, the organization reared its head again. A group of people were building a shelter. This would compliment the dozen or so amphitheaters, picnic shelters, and gazebos already there. As PG went up to the recently painted mens room, a lady invited Uzi to come out and help build something.
This wasn’t enough outdoor adventure for a Sunday, so the hikers stopped at a park by the River on Holcomb Bridge Road. The park was more of a picnic facility than a nature preserve, but it did afford a few nice views of the river. It also had a sign, which struck both PG and Uzi as being in excellent taste. It was also misspelled.

When PG arrived at Chastain Park, a slight drizzle was starting to fall. Within a minute, it had increased to something that could be called rain. Then Uzi arrived, and the downpour went away as quickly as it had arrived.
Uzi had a collection of umbrellas in his car, and loaned one to PG. He loathed carrying objects, and felt that the umbrella would get in the way of his camera. And it did not rain the rest of the walk, although it would have if the umbrellas had remained put away.
There was a road sign across from the park that said Power Ferry Road. Both hikers were certain that this was a mistake, and that the Powers should be plural. A look at a map later confirmed this.
A few doors down was the shoe mailbox. This mailbox was protected by Noble Security.
There are always dogs when people go to walk. PG learned a while back that people like to have pictures taken of their dogs. While most dogs are camera shy, today there were some exceptions.
The weather had been cool and breezy when the two decided to go walk the golf course loop. After the rain, there was a lot of steam in the air. This was not pleasant to walk in, and made the car A.C. appreciated on the way home.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
chastain- chastity, chastise, chasten, chastely

When you don’t have anything to say, you can take a test.
There are lots of online quizzes now. Tonight it is The Cadaver Calculator…Find out how much your body is worth When I was a kid, there were studies showing how the chemical value of the average human being was $4.20, not adjusted for inflation.
A few years later, I was in a place called camp K. It was a moonie place, although they didn’t tell us that. They had lectures, and one was about G-d. It finally came down to
G-d being the difference between $4.20 in chemicals and a human being.
This quiz does not refer to being reduced to component chemicals. As the fine print says So you’ve bitten the big one and instead of pushing up daisies your loved ones decided it would be best to sell your body to science. This survey will tell you approximately how much money they’d get for it. Cadaver values are primarily based on overall health and the level of interest your corpse holds to the medical research industry.

So I go to the quiz. It is pretty standard health stuff…do you drink or smoke, are you overweight, and are you exposed to noxious chemicals. There are a few surprises, and they quiz does not let on how they affect the overall score. It has been a while since anyone asked if I was an albino. ( I did go to high school with one). The quiz also wants to know if you are tall, and how long is your hair. Maybe a wig maker is investing in this.
So you answer question twenty, and await the result. First you have the pulsating full screen ad for Mingle2, a Completely Free Online Dating Site
There is small print at the bottom of the pulsating ad for you to bypass the dating site and get the results of your test. And the results are ( kill the drum roll please) Congratulations, your dead body is worth $4725!Doesn’t that make you feel great?

Wednesday the thirteenth was the monthly meeting of the Atlanta bloggers group. It had been eleven months since I made one, and sometimes you just have to get out of the house.
The night can be divided into three parts. The first was the drive into town. The freeway was crowded and scary, with lanes disappearing and beemers refusing to let you get over. This is to be expected. I got off at Williams street, and was doing pretty good until I got to International Blvd. Turning left by the former bus station, I turned onto what I thought was Spring Street. Instead, I was going by the library and onto Forsyth. I turned by the gussied up Rialto, and wondered what on earth was so special about that building. Going down past the Olympic park and the omni complex, I found a street that seemed correct to turn onto. A couple of turns down increasingly desolate streets put me in front of the Elliot street pub, the scene of the festivities. I was past it before I knew what was going on, and had to go back around the block. The street names seemed to change from the last time I had been on those streets just a minute before. Finally I found Elliot street, and saw a parking spot on the street that did not have a no parking sign.
The second part of the evening was pretty neat. The Elliot Street Pub was a classic little joint, with lots of cool stuff on the wall to look at. There was a tv behind the bar, with the scrolling words on the screen. The scrolling words were comparing Michael Phelps to Tiger Woods. I decided not to look at that anymore.
David was the first person to greet me, followed by Lori. I made my way to the bar, and the bartender agreed to make a pot of coffee for me. That is the reason I am typing these notes now instead of going to sleep.
I stood in front of the carved wooden man and took in the scene. Duane was discussing his counter tops. David was talking about the Olympics, and a discussion ensued about what events were in the Decathlon. I wandered over to the side, and talked to Mr. and Mrs. Chutney about Frank Zappa and bands that don’t do well in concert. The napkin began to be passed around, only this time it was on solid paper. The medium is the message. Before long, the blogging crowd was leaving, and I left my third cup of coffee unfinished on a bar.
Outside, I formally introduced myself to Duane, and listened to him and Chutney discuss life in East Atlanta.
Then the third, and least pleasant, part of the evening started. I sort of know my way around downtown, and the plan was to find a street that would lead me to Piedmont. I wound up on Trinity, which worked well until it got to the deadend at Memorial with no street light. Little did I know that a Braves game had just let out, and there was a non stop line of cars going past me on Memorial. I had to turn around in the other lane on Trinity and go back towards Peachtree.
I found Peachtree, and dashed into an intersection when the light changed to get in front of a long line of cars. I went up Peachtree until I got to Fifth, where I made my move to get to Piedmont. There is a house on Fifth Street that is playing revolving restaurant…a new place will open, go bankrupt, and then someone else will try his luck. The current occupant of the building had a red neon sign that seemed to say STRAIT. That is not a good name for a business on that street.
So I turn onto Piedmont, and when I pass tenth street the rain starts. Hard. Very Hard. I go past the park, and see signs saying that the two right lanes would be closed ahead. The street was condensed to two lanes, and the sky was falling in. I made it to Cheshire Bridge and turned right. Surely by the time I get to Buford Hiway things will be better. Again I am wrong. Buford Hiway is being repaved, and is down to two lanes. I am behind a Marta Bus, and it is raining cats and dogs. I get to Clairmont and slide around the bus when the turn arrow comes on. Through extreme familiarity with the intersection I can find the lane to go north. At this point the rain becomes less intense, and I got home intact.
Somehow, I285 won’t seem so bad later this morning.