Free-For-All Friday 9/2/16

Book Festival Program 2016

Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local issues not yet discussed here over the past week.

Book Fest Weekend!!!

35 thoughts on “Free-For-All Friday 9/2/16”


  2. Sign ups now live for Solarize Decatur-DeKalb! This is a group buy program for solar for your house (and/or business). Pricing starts ~15% below market, and if we get a lot of people to sign up, can go as low as 25% below market.

    More information & sign up at http://www.solarizedecatur-dekalb.com

  6. Does anyone know of a good AC repairman?

    Maybe not having AC will encourage us to get out of this house and enjoy more of the book festival this year…

    1. RK Heating & Air Conditioning, (770) 833-8262. Just came out last Friday for us-on the same day I called-and fixed us up in under an hour. I highly recommend them.

    3. We’ve used several companies both large and small over the years. Our current AC servicer is Tom Bunch. We’ve been highly satisfied with their service and value.
      http://tombunch.com

  8. Really looking forward to this year’s book festival (which is now like “homecoming” weekend for me). I’ve read more of the books to be discussed than in any previous festival year I can remember. They are:
    Where We Want To Live (Ryan Gravel)
    Tiger Heart (Katrell Christie)
    The Serpent King (Jeff Zentner)
    Grace Without God (Katherine Ozment–still reading this one)

    The first two are local books, one’s about the creation of the Beltline and the other’s a memoir by the owner of Dr. Bombay’s Underwater Tea Party, It chronicles her life-changing journey to India. Both are great reads, and the Beltline book is essential reading if you want to know more about Atlanta in general.

    1. Thanks! Would love to hear more from others about what are the must-attends at the DBF. I’m behind on my DBF preparations!

    2. DBF is going to the dogs this year.

      https://www.decaturbookfestival.com/sessions/view/57606bbda939303b35e528c8

  10. There’s signage for “Golden Drops. American Latin Coffee Bar” at the former location of the Korean/Southern fusion place, Siobban (sp?) just northeast of the VA on Clairmont. Anyone know anything? If they have a drive through, they’ll make a killing in the morning with everyone commuting to the VA, State Lab, and Emory, not to mention to and from Decatur.

    1. First of all, thank you for not saying “drive-thru!” Second, I don’t think the two sides of the parking lot connect at the back of the building, so not sure how a drive through would work there?

      1. It connects in the back. Had to park in the back a lot when Sobban was open. Still mad about it being closed. I am looking forward to some good Latin coffee and food.

    2. Sounds like a potential good fit for the space. The parking lot does wrap around the back, I believe.

  12. How early do you think a family has to arrive to be able to get in to see Nathan Hale tomorrow night if the reading is at 5:30 at the Rec Center. My son is already bummed I waited to long to get Pilkey tix, so we’re missing out on that. I’m thinking arrive at 4pm?

    2. You shouldn’t have to arrive that early; usually people arrive about 10-15 minutes early. The rec center stage is in the main gym, so there’s lots of room for attendees. There are also authors scheduled at 4 and 4:45, so you could catch those presentations if you want to make sure you’re around for the 5:30 session.

    3. Nathan Hale should have a big crowd, but I would guess that if you come 15 minutes early that you’ll be okay. It is a good sized venue.

      Dav Pilkey will be signing at the AJC tent (Ponce and Clairemont) on Saturday from 11 am to noon, so you still have a chance to meet Dav, buy a copy of Dog Man, and get it signed.

      Eric Litwin (author of Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes and others) will be on the Children’s Stage at the Rec Center on Sunday at 5:15 for his new book, Groovy Joe. Andrea Beatty (Sunday parade and on stage at noon) and her new book, Ada Twist, Scientist, is awesome. Actually, there is a long, long list of great children’s authors.

      http://decaturbookfestival.com/sessions/index/venue:55eeeb4ccde160b474769189

      Dave
      Little Shop

            1. Does lower case dave answer to and generally validate upper case Dave in the hierarchy of voices within your head?

  14. Anyone else watch that Tennessee – Appalachian State game last night? The Vols don’t look like a top 10 team to me …

    1. Did App St. play as well as Jacksonville St. did against Auburn last year, or did Tennessee just stink it up?

      1. App State had no offense. Their defense just straight up manhandled their “dark horse Heisman” QB. If App State could’ve gotten something going offensively, Tennessee would’ve been blown out of the stadium. I don’t like their chances against Virginia Tech next week. Of course, as a Bama fan, I’m not too broke up about it. 😉

  16. An unsolicited review of last night’s Axl/DC concert.

    A nice song list of the new, the not-so-new, the old and the ancient.

    As always, a big to-do, with lotsa lights, some pyrotechnics, cannons, and 61-year old Angus (not so) Young running and skipping around, wailing on his guitar. Never gets old, because he’s so fun to watch.

    Axl Rose is the right choice to finish out the tour. He kept his ego in check, and had no problem giving a lot of the spotlight to Angus. He’s still got the voice, but the sound production had difficulty managing it within the instrumentation. Axl has done his homework on AC/DC material, and he looked very comfortable with it.

    “For Those About to Rock” is still my favorite AC/DC song. 🙂

  18. There is a great story today in the ajc by Gracie Bonds Staples about Walter ChadwIck and his short but influential coaching career at Wills High School. The Chadwick Boys were legendary football players at Decatur High School during the Sixties (maybe one played at Marist). Games between Decatur and Avondale High School drew thousands of spectators. I started teaching at DHS in 76 and remember meeting Walter around town. He was usually riding a bike and was always willing to stop and chat. Shaking his hand was like grabbing a stone. I knew he crush my hand if he had wanted to, he was so strong but he was gentle and friendly.
    Its been a long time since I’ve seen Walter around town and I no longer live in Decatur but the story brought back fond memories about a legendary trio of athletes.
    One more thing, the father of the boys, maybe Mr. Walter Chadwick Sr., was also a fine man. He was well known around Decatur and I remember buying life insurance from him sometime in late Seventies. Great Guy!

  20. Dairy Queen getting some press!
    http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/decatur-dairy-queen-to-be-serving-again-soon/nsQqz/

  22. The topic for comment for this week’s AJC’s “At Issue” section by Bill Banks is “Should Decatur district get rid of its 4/5 Academy?” You can send your comments to [email protected].
    Having experienced the CSD K-5 model for a while then the K-3/4-5 model, my opinion is that either one works but the key is to do them well. Not all of the potential of the 4/5 model has been utilized IMHO, probably because we’ve been distracted by growth and construction, K-5 can be done well or it can be done poorly as the variable success of public elementary schools shows. Research shows that smaller schools, smaller classes, and high quality teachers are among the most important drivers of success, taking into account socio-economic factors that public schools can’t control. The healthiest model according to research may be the K-8 model but that’s not going to happen for logistical reasons. So CSD should consider which model is most likely to be successful in terms of space, feasibility, cost, instruction, teacher satisfaction, community involvement and support. It shouldn’t do somersaults to keep the 4/5 model just because it’s been done that way for a decade. But there will be change and disruption if CSD goes back to the K-5 model so that shift would have to be done carefully and well.

    No matter what course is chosen, there will be shifting of attendance lines and schools. There’s always at least two grade cohorts of students involved in shifts. CSD should pay attention and give special attention to the students and families involved in the shift. CSD has done a much better job with that in recent years.

    1. I was a skeptic of the 4/5 academy when it was first announced, for just the reasons you note. As a customer, I have been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the product. However, I do acknowledge that as a 4/5 parent I have been less engaged in the school than I was with the K-3. Part of that is increasing independence of my child, but it’s also because the size of the school makes it less personal.

      One factor I’m curious to hear about is whether pulling the entire district together at 4th grade makes the transition to 6th grade easier. Hormones and tween-age insecurities make middle school bad enough – hopefully it’s more palatable when the kids are transitioning with a broader network of friends.

      1. Re pulling kids together at 4th grade:
        1) That was more important when the elementary schools were tinier, more insular, and socio-demographically more disparate. Now the elementary schools are all much larger and composed of the same homogenous gentrified, upper middle class with some remnants of working and middle class. That doesn’t mean that the mixing at 4th grade isn’t still valuable, just less critical.
        2) The mixing isn’t occurring at the 4/5 as much as originally planned. Some of that is due to the colossal growth in student population and some is because the original plans for mixing, e.g. pod structure, were dropped or never carried out.
        3) There are many more after school programs for CSD students, besides the wonderful Animal Crackers and Whiz Kids programs, which are resulting in a lot of “mixing” of students across elementary schools, not to mention sports and camps.
        4) If two 4/5 Academies are needed because one can’t handle the volume, kids will have to mix again at the 6th grade again anyway.

        It’s tough to know for sure whether the transition to Renfroe was made easier by the 4/5 model because so many things happened at the same time–a big improvement in Renfroe (which went from having a bad rep to wonderful and warm in just a few years), gentrification, young family explosion, and the 4/5 Academy. I do know that change is always with some pain, never seamless, and is never carried out completely as promised. So one of the many factors to consider is which model(s) can be implemented well on a tight time frame. While 5 years of implementing a change and getting it right is nothing to a school system, it is more than a third of a child’s school years.

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