Renewal marketing manager Kelly Cheek alerts us to the change…

Jan. 1, 2009 – Renewal Construction has taken a new name – Renewal Design-Build – to more clearly reflect the scope of its services and capabilities. The award-winning home renovation firm is based in Decatur, Georgia.

“We want people to know that we do more than just construction and project management,” says Renewal CEO Peter Michelson. “We design and build a project, working with the client from start to finish. The result is a close client relationship and a smooth renovation process.” Read the rest of this entry »

Dave over at Little Shop of Stories alerts us to an event that’s just too big for Little Shop to contain – so they’re taking it to Gaines Auditorium at Agnes Scott…

“Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School At A Time, will be speaking at Gaines Auditorium on the Agnes Scott College campus at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, January 28th.

Greg will be launching two new associated books: a young reader’s edition of this best selling book and Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg & Three Cups of Tea (a beautiful picture book). In 1993, Greg attempted to climb K2 and ended up lost and sick in the mountains of Pakistan. He wandered into a village where he was taken in by its residents and nursed back to health. Greg made a promise to these people that he would return someday and build the children of this village a school. And he did. Since then, Greg’s organizations, the Central Asia Institute and Pennies for Peace, have worked to build more than 70 schools in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and have brought educational opportunity to thousands and thousands of school aged children where before there was none.”

Little Shop has more details over on its own blog.

The AJC reports that MARTA’s financial situation is even worse than originally thought.

With a majority of funding coming from the penny sales tax in Fulton and DeKalb, and no support from our car-loving state (or Cobb or Gwinnett), our public transit service has to be ultra-creative in how to raise revenue and cut costs by $10 million.

The most impactful options currently on the table include a 25 cent fare increase and reducing (or even eliminating) weekend service.

Find out all about it tomorrow, Wednesday January 7th.  MARTA is holding a public meeting on the budget at the Decatur Library from 6-9p.

Our county’s new CEO was sworn in yesterday!  Cue the street-dancing.

I think as long as Ellis doesn’t make me feel like I have no right to know anything that he’s doing, I’ll be happy.

…So, can we settle this HOST dispute now?  What?  Too early?