Free-For-All Friday 8/10/12
Decatur Metro | August 10, 2012Use this post to ask questions and make comments about local issues not discussed here over the past week.
Comments close on Monday.
Use this post to ask questions and make comments about local issues not discussed here over the past week.
Comments close on Monday.
Latest from Decaturish
Stu2
Liz
Parker Cross
Parker Cross
At Home in Decatur
Mary
Mary
At Home in Decatur
Robert Butera
AMB
Daydreamer
doc
Helen
Decatur Metro
DEM
Anyone know what’s being built across from Decatur High in McDonough? Appears to be three stories and added on to the front of an old bungalow.
The architecture firm LightRoom is moving from the building at the rear of the lot.
Many have asked! About every other FFAF! See:
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2012/08/03/free-for-all-friday-8312/#comments
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2012/07/13/free-for-all-friday-71312/
Maybe DM should just start off every FFAF with a brief explanation of that construction. Alternatively, maybe one of those QR thingamajiggies should be posted outside the building so passerbys can just scan it into their phones and get an immediate answer when they wonder “What the heck is this?”
As I was walking by the DHS Community Garden this morning, I thought about how much I have enjoyed seeing it grow this summer. It is in full bloom (flowers and vegetables) and really lovely!
Melissa, I’m the volunteer who is in charge of this garden, and I’d like to thank you. That garden takes up hours of hard work. Besides weeds, squirrels and pests, we have to contend with droughts and two-legged predators who show up with a bag and help themselves to the produce someone else has grown. Somebody has been trying to break into our shed. Earlier this summer, somebody started a fire in the back of the garden and burned up our plastic chairs. Last season, somebody broke off one of our apple trees.
But we persevere. Our garden is growing, getting better, and we are serving more and more people. On Saturday, Aug. 18, we will be having a work day, so feel free to come out and play in the dirt. We provide the tools, you just show up in old clothes and work shoes.
Diane- You’ve done a bang up job overseeing the DHS garden! I love it every time I’m by there, and it’s been fascinating to read about some of the projects y’all have tackled. I’m going to do my best to get over there to pitch in that Saturday so that I can finally meet you and learn from you! What’s the start/ planned end time?
Normally we start at 9 and end at noon, but during the summer, we try to start at about 8. Would love to finally meet you!!! We often have extra produce to share, and usually have some sort of yummy home-baked snack cake.
It really looks great. And I like the new tin roof pergola thingie that was just constructed.
Girls Softball Registration!
The Atlanta Rough Riders girls softball league is welcoming fall season registrations for girls 6-18 years old. I can’t recommend this league highly enough – my two daughters participate, and it has been a great experience for all of us. Games and practices take place at the field behind the First Baptist Church on Clairemont, so it is super convenient. The league culture focuses on instruction and encouragement, while developing our girls into skilled players who can compete at the middle and high school levels. You can find out more and register at:
http://www.eteamz.com/atlantaroughridersorganization/index.cfm?subsite=5700173
I second this recommendation.
Decatur BBQ, Blues & Bluegrass Festival
Next Saturday in Harmony Park in the Oakhurst Village … get your tickets now for a great event.
http://decaturbbqfestival.com/
I need a rug cleaned in my home – it is a shag type 12 x 10 rug. Any company around here reasonable that will come to your home? need it shampooed, etc
For rugs that size, we roll them up and take them to the cleaners. Most can handle that and they do a good job.
Decatur Education Foundation and the DBF are again auctioning off authors. Bid to spend 1 hour with an author at the Brick Store. Details: http://auctions.readysetauction.com/decaturbookfestival/catalog/view
Come out to Oakhurst Park today and tomorrow to support the Decatur High School Girls Varsity Softball Program.
DHS is hosting the Bulldog Bash featuring 8 teams from the area.
The DHS Girls games are 5:30pm this evening and 10:00am Saturday.
Parking will be scarce, so do the “Decatur” thing and walk to Oakhurst.
They have a website in the works at: http://decaturhighsoftball.wordpress.com/
This year’s team should do very well…
Are the approved projects like 315 W. Ponce, Trinity Triangle, the ACPE Property on Church and others still approved to be built, even though it has been years since the city approved some of these? Are these subject to re-review by the city or can the developer break ground whenever he wants?
If memory serves, 315 was never approved, Trinity Triangle is a fully-approved project that can resume whenever the developer and the economy get their differences worked out, and the ACPE property (if we’re talking about the parcel across from the Probation Office) only got approval for demo. They have not submitted any plans for construction.
Your memory ain’t what it used to be. It was approved with 34(!) conditions. http://www.decaturmetro.com/2008/12/15/commission-approves-315-w-ponce-w-34-conditions/
Whoa. Guess I filed those under “same thing.”
Ha. True.
The 34 conditions. :0)
http://www.decaturga.com/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=208
I noticed today while walking that the ACPE building would be very close to the apartments proposed for the BOA site. So you would have apartments built above a bank, next to pastors-in-training, and across from a probation office. Not sure what that all adds up to, but there has to be a joke in there somewhere.
Actually, a couple of buyers have come forward for the Trinity Triangle, but the owner apparently thinks it’s worth more than they’re offering.
Over the past month, I’ve been taking a lot of photos while walking the dog. One of them was posted on DM a few days ago, and I was psyched to get some praise.
I’ve posted a bunch of them here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/108244973544322398953/albums/5772139171926175969
Most of them are of Decatur. A few are from a rural area near Callaway Gardens.
I hope it’s okay to do this. I don’t make any money off these, though if there were money in it (rubs hands together in a Doffenshmirts-y manner)…
Really nice stuff. There is definitely money in those!
Al- Really cool! Great eye (and patient dog on a leash!) too!
You know…. there’s lots more of that feelgood praise to be found here if you were to combine your talents with your enthusiasm for PTA efforts. Imagine a packet of wonderful postcards showing off a school in all its glory as a fundraising opportunity…
I’d buy them. There’s a set of Decatur postcards I’ve been using a lot but I’d love some fresh photos.
“Oh, myyyy.”
Nice. They look kinda like little Ruth Franklin paintings.
Love the Phineas and Ferb reference! Got to meet them once…cool dudes. Wish I could have met PERRY!!
That’s “Agent P” to you.
Chatter…chatter…chatter…
Hey, where’s Perry?
It’s terrible. I really dislike architecture firms that try to show just how modern and chic they can be.
Anybody else noticed that the corner of the building is about 2 feet from the house next door?
Since the Lightbox folks are building it as a live/work/play space, I imagine it’s being designed to reflect their own personal style. We all want folks to feel at home, right?
(If you’re a DHS Bulldog, there’s no way you can tell me you wouldn’t loooove to be sitting out on their rooftop deck enjoying the sounds of a Friday night game! Be sweet and maybe they’ll invite you over! :0)
Agreed. It is really tiring to have so many “open minded” neighbors complaining “it just doesn’t fit in”.
Thanks to whoever gave the recommendation for appliance repairman Jerry Jenkins — 678-492-8311 / 770-381-5334 — He was the sweetest repairman ever and very very very reasonably priced.
Anyone have a recommendation for a VERY LOCAL electrician to install a bathroom fan and a light? I’d like very local because there are some complications to the job and don’t want someone driving from super far away to figure it out, if possible.
Mathew Morgan, Oakhurst Electric, 770-256-7174,
Yup. He’s done good work at reasonable prices for us.
+1 for Mathew Morgan.
so glad you liked jerry j! he really is the sweetest and he’s good at what he does which is why i always recommend him!
Nathan: If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love a follow up on how your process goes (price, timeline, etc.). We pursued this with one handyman and were basically told it was too complicated and pricey…and then we dropped the issue. If you have a successful experience, I’d love to hear about it in a future FFAF! Thanks and good luck with your bathroom!
Sure! If you want to check in with me, I’m at nathan.nobis at gmail
It’s a bit belated, but now that the pain slowly, slowly subsides and I am walking and biking again, I’d like to thank the many people in the Decatur community who offered me help while I was hobbling around on a broken ankle last spring. From the bike guys at BSP, to the kind, older women who offered words of encouragement each morning at the bus stop across from First Baptist; from the parents at Clairemont, to the shuttle bus driver, colleagues, and students at Emory, to just about every person (I think) who had ever had an ankle injury before–it was uplifting to feel the support of others at a time when I was directly confronted with my own human frailty. Thank you, all.
Does this mean “Bike Dude” is back?!!
We look forward to your return and the first “Walk and Roll” at CES
A big thanks to the City of Decatur for the new water fountain in Harmony Park in Oakhurst! My pup and I are very appreciative!
And, if I could suggest we also look at availability of trash cans throughout the city . . . I enjoy running with my dog and I’m a responsible dog owner so when stuff happens, I always clean it up. But it makes me really, really cranky to have to run for a mile with a stinky bag in hand until I finally come to a public trash can – because it would be VERY rude to put my stinky bag in someone else’s garbage can.
I second the request for lots of public trash cans. Especially as we get kids walking more. I don’t think that kids mean to strew trash behind them but they have short attention spans. They eat something that comes in plastic or paper, look for a trash can, start walking along to find one, and then somewhere along their meandoring route the crumpled trash gets dropped from their hand without them being aware.
Oh, they’re aware.
How does a short attention span equate to littering? Just curious.
I’m sorry, but that sounds nonsensical to me. Any child who can safely traverse the public byways unescorted is capable of not littering. A child who actually lacks the gumption to either put the trash in their pocket or pack or keep holding it until they find an appropriate place to dispose of it, should not be roaming around on their own.
Children derive 90% of their gumption through knowing what is expected of them and that there are consequences for not stepping up.
Well, you can complain or you can put out more garbage cans. I agree that children should not litter under any circumstances. Neither should adults. Reality is that more garbage cans will encourage correct behavior.
That’s silly. There is also a distiinct lack of public bathroom facilities around town but that doesn’t mean you’ll catch me pissing in my neighbors’ yards. Except for after the Beer Festival. And last Monday. And, well, nevermind…
Don’t you remember the thread about kids peeing in the bushes in the toy park because toddlers can’t wait to leave the park, cross the street, and go to Dancing Goats?
Ha! Didn’t even think of that. So there’s no question then, with all the kids and bars in this town, we need more convenient public peeing places!
Hence all the gorgeous porta-potties on the Square because the City knows what happens when the grown-ups party! The poor toddler boys get no such consideration! Toddler unite!
In addition to trash cans, it would be great to have dedicated recycling cans as well. If the trash you’re throwing away is paper or plastic bottles, it would be great to recycle those instead of throwing them away.
Excellent point! It’s always a dilemma if there’s no recycling bin around but carrying the recyclable trash all the way home would be a burden, e.g. you’re on a bicycle with no panniers or basket.
There are recycling cans around, but they’re poorly marked and not particularly well used, since they look like ordinary trash cans.
Agree we need more trash cans. There used to be one in the tiny park at 4th & Oakview and another at 2nd & East Lake, and I think there was also one in the median on Oakivew near the Oakivew Grocery. The one at 2nd & East Lake used to get crammed to overflowing with household trash every week, and I always assumed that is why it was removed. Instead of putting free WiFi downtown so people can update their Facebook everywhere they go, I’d rather see that money spent on restoring public trash cans with motion-activated cameras up in the trees to catch the garbage leaches. And, City Girl, on behalf of everybody who doesn’t get their trash can brought in the minute it’s been emptied by Sanitation, thank you for not putting your dog’s presents in our trash cans. If only all of our neighbors were so considerate.
You have to bring your garbage cans out to the street? I thought City of Decatur Public Works picked up trash from the back or side of house everywhere in the city. Or are people putting dog waste in the recycling bins put out at the street? That’s really disgusting and irresponsible.
I never thought until now about how another benefit of house vs. curbside garbage pickup, besides the obvious convenience for the homeowner, is that it discourages folks from messing with the garbage containers, either looking for things and creating a mess or taking the containers or dropping off their own household garbage into someone else’s containers. I sure do like COD’s home pickup.
I lived in Decatur for years before discovering that sanitation collection is supposedly from wherever you leave it, as long as it’s not inside a gate or otherwise obstructed. Someone who lived on the north side of town told me that — I had only ever observed all of my south side neighbors leaving theirs at the curb. I have experimented from time to time and found that if I don’t put it at the curb, sometimes they pick it up and sometimes they don’t. It’s not a big deal IMO — on weeks when I forget to put it out the night before, it’s handy to be able to look down the street and tell if they’ve come yet. (If the City has been by, the brightly colored bags are gone. If the recycling has been picked up, all the bins are tumbled in the middle of the sidewalk.)
In any case, yes, it’s not unusual to find dog waste in my trash can and also in my recycling bins when I go to bring them in. It’s particularly annoying to find it at the bottom of my big, wheeled trash can in a puddle of rain.
So, I have been shlepping my trash to the curb when I could leave it in back in the alley? How do they know to look there? I will give this a try next week.
You may have to flag them down for a couple of weeks to let them know it’s back there, since they won’t be used to picking it up there.
Some more benches around town would be nice as well. I realized that they would have to be secured to prevent theft, but seems like there are never enough places to people watch.
There’s a perfectly good and unnecessary one on Scott at Westchester that could be repurposed elsewhere…
That’s a good idea. That would put an end to all of these children with short attention spans sitting on curbs and in grassy areas all over town.
Never understood the “rudeness” associated with putting pet waste in someone’s trash can. Unless, of course, it violates some ordinance.
Decatur trash needs to go into the PAYT bags, meaning that the homeowner ultimately needs to handle whatever’s tossed in their trash can. Might as well just toss it in their yard.
What Scott said. Pretty rude to put any trash in my can that I now have to handle to get inside a trash bag. That it’s poop is just sort of an extra layer of insult.
I’m having a serious love affair with my new Kindle Fire that I got as a gift. Never thought I would be the e-reader type, plus it’s much easier than toting around a laptop for using the interwebz. But I can’t type comments on DM because the pop up key board covers the comments box. DM- can you assist?
Question: Do you also have a smartphone with Internet access? I got myself a Kindle Fire on sale about 6 months ago and have not been using it much. But I’m thinking that’s because I can email and access the Internet from my smartphone and it only takes 1-2 days to order a book from Amazon. I have yet to see Kindle prices be lower than Amazon for the things I was ordering. I do feel guilty about using up paper for hardcopy books but I always donate my used books or give them to friends.
Yep, I also have an iphone. Surfing for pleasure, the Fire is leaps and bounds superior to the phone, and fits right in my purse like a book so easy to tote. The only thing is you have to have access to wi-fi access, so I usually wind up buying coffee somewhere if I want to sit and surf in a public place. I have actually been using the free sites to get books. Good one for downloading: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top
Got my first available ebook book from the Dekalb Library yesterday, the wait was about a month and a half because they have a really limited selection, so that was kind of a pain but if it’s something you don’t want immediately it’s ok. I tend to go for the cheaper Amazon books when I do buy for Kindle, some of the older classics. And if I want a new “real” book, I’ll just get it in the store. I’m more of an impulse buyer for those.
I guess I’m just real slow at adopting new technology. Thanks for the advice.
Anytime. And give this article glance over:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/252821/get_more_out_of_your_kindle_fire_tablet_five_tips.html
I’m a fan of Project Gutenberg, too. The man-child in me has been enjoying the Tarzan classics this summer.
You’re never too old to appreciate a good swing. Back when I was still fun, I and my roommate used to sneak over to our neighbors house in the middle of the night, to use their old fashioned tire swing hung from a way high branch. Weeeeeeeeeee!
Thank you for telling me about Project Gutenberg, I’d never heard of it. Downloaded three books. (If I can figure out how to get them from my laptop to my Kindle, I’ll be all set!)
Sure thing, I’m not home right now but can help if you need a bit later. There’s a free program called Calibre that you use to get them in.
That’s very kind. Miraculously, I figured it out. What a wonderful discovery, thanks again!
I see a DM book club in our future! I love that site, but having tons of options is not always a good thing.
I also like http://www.bookbub.com. They have free or really low priced books and will send you an email with what’s available each day. You can also “like” them on Facebook and get updates that way. I’ve gotten loads of free books for my Kindle Fire this way.
Anyone know who I would call about our neighbors that have 15 dogs. I called the police, they said to call Code Enforcement, Code Enforcement said to call Police Department. Don’t get me wrong – we have a dog that will occasionally park but 15 barking dogs at 2:00 in the morning is LOUD!
Don’t deal with the police dispatchers – speak to Deputy Chief Lee and let him tell you what to do.
15 dang dogs! Whatever you do, don’t leave your back door unlatched on Christmas day. Until then, just shout “Bumpasses!”
Thanks to the folks who recommended repair services at Feather Computers. Daniel fixed my laptop for a decent price, without the fee to simply look at it, and I rediscovered the German Bakery next door for a lucious, reasonably priced chocolate chocolate cake!
Went to a funeral today. Does no one send flowers to funerals any more?
I’ve noticed the same thing.
I think a lot of families nowadays prefer charitable donations in the name of a deceased person over flowers. Usually the obit specifies the family’s preferences.
Just attended my grandfather’s funeral 2 weeks ago and the request was “in lieu of flowers please make a donation to . There was 20 something arrangements at the service! Although very beautiful and fragrant, I couldn’t help think that several charities missed out on donations in my grandfather’s name
I’ll do both. I like the flowers.
Think of it this way: florists are small business owners who likely support other local businesses and support charities as well . . . provided they have income to do that with. Income generated by providing floral tributes to the beloved dearly departed.
I recently was a a rather large funeral (about 300 attendees) and there were only two large wreaths present.
When my Mom passed away in March we specifically requested donations to Hospice Atlanta in lieu of flowers. That facility and its staff gave me and my family as much comfort as one can possibly have during that time. Frankly, flowers seem like a waste of resources when you realize that hospice care is heavily reliant on these donations.
+1
Seems like the anti Walmart people are still going at it. Drove by the corner and a few of them were out there, with the news truck.
Thirty seconds of fame…….
Why are there so many thrift / junk shops in Avondale?
Can anyone recommend a good wallpaper hanger? Thanks.
Glue
I’m looking for flea markets and second-hand shops with cheap garden furniture and random pieces that can be fixed up and turned into yard art. Any suggestions? (I hope that it’s not too late in the weekend to get a few responses.)
Horseback riding for kids? I thought I saw a place across from the QT on lawrenceville Hwy. What is the name of that?
Little Creek Horse Farm