Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local issues not discussed here over the past week.
Comments close on Monday
April 24, 2015 Free-For-All Friday 4/24/15 (137)
April 17, 2015 Free-For-All Friday 4/17/15 (79)
June 6, 2014 Free-For-All Friday 6/6/14 (159)
Scott
DarenW
Rick Julian
Bulldog
7.62 x 39
smalltowngal
4 Walls Realty
unclecharlie
Walker1
Christian Holyoak
sansho1
J_T
Decatur's Pub Shed
Seven hours to spring break.
Spring break? Please tell me that’s the one week during the year when people quit bitching about school issues.
TGISB
Be sure not to miss the Google Maps turn red. It’s tradition.
75 south already backed up from exit 218 back to Morrow. Oh, and starting to rain. Safe travels all!
Why do lemmings come to mind?
I run a business from home and was told by Comcast that I HAD TO subscribe to Comcast BUSINESS vs. just using my home internet (which obviously I have since canceled). The business service is WAY MORE expensive and although they claim it is faster…I doubt it. I am wondering if anyone else has a home-based business in DEC and uses the residential internet service and if so…any speed/performance issues? I would be curious to find out if there is a website that might compare the two speeds. (Or is it just sales/marketing BS?)
Can you just open the account as Mr./Mrs. Decaturright LLC? You can get some pretty darn fast speeds with “residential” cable internet. Not sure you need superfast for business anyway. Unless your business is Netflix.
Do you own and/or operate Netflix from your home? Congratulations, you are very successful.
I’m pretty sure the physical service is the same. What you get with the business product is an SLA for when it breaks vs. the consumer version (we’ll be there sometime next week or whenever we get around to it). Are you running/hosting sites at your home or just working/running a business from home?
Run away as fast as you can from Comcast. I had a terrible experience w them and not only is the business service more expensive, they sign you up for a long term contract (I think mine was 2 years).
I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so am a qualified CPA – Just get residential internet service, use it ‘for business only’ and have your company reimburse you personally if you want to be super tidy about it.
I want to put in a good word for Sunbrimmer Records, the new used/new vinyl store right in downtown Avondale Estates. Great selection ranging from punk to jazz, soul/funk to international. The owner is amazingly nice, so if Record Store Attitude Dude has scared you off from other stores, that will not happen there. Also a selection of new release cassettes from local bands (yes, new cassettes are super hip right now, so if, like me, you still drive an old Camry with a tape deck, you’re in luck!). Sorry if this reads too much like an advertising plug, but it’s just so nice to see stores like this opening in Avondale Estates – especially when they are run by folks who really want to be a part of the community.
Their reissue bin alone is worth the visit. Really great selection of stuff there.
thanks. my wife will send you the bills.
Cool shop for sure. Selection a little sparse so far (though I was there on opening day).
Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One-Tenth of an Acre, and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City by Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates (Jan 25, 2013)
$19.95 $11.62 Paperback Order in the next 30 hours and get it by Monday, Apr 7.
$10.99 Kindle Edition
I just wanted to brag on my cousin, who helped write and carry out the “growing” of this book. It is such an interesting senario that could probably be reproduced in Decatur. He and his co-writer have since been able to open their own business promoting and selling some of these unique plants. Check it out.
I am getting ready to lay some sod in my backyard. Does anybody have a landscaping company recommendation for this type of job? What should I expect to pay per square foot?
If you are looking for a good composting solution for your home, look no further than Compost Wheels (compostwheels dot com). We recently became customers and it has changed our lives. I have long tried to find a way to compost at home but just couldn’t come up with something I can handle. Now we just throw everything in a bucket that the company brings, and they pick it up every two weeks. I’m amazed that we fill the bucket almost completely every two weeks. Our trash volume is almost nothing now. We are paying $20 a month which is worth every penny to not have to worry about composting in our backyard. And they bring us back the compost!
Are those the folks who have a booth at the Decatur Farmer’s Market? Dumb question: So where do you store the bucket discreetly and how does it smell? Not that we are neatniks or anything but it wouldn’t take much to put us over the edge from merrily messy to downright trashy.
Isn’t the line between “merrily messy” and “downright trashy” the Kentucky/West Virginia border?
We keep it in our kitchen. It doesn’t smell that bad. Just keep the lid on it. We put coffee grounds in it and anything our chickens won’t eat: pineapple tops, apple cores, tangerine peels, egg shells, garlic skins, pea pods–it’s amazing how much material we had for composting that we were putting in the trash.
Wow, what picky chickens. I grew up eating nothing but pineapple tops and that’s the way it was and we liked it.
I mean actual chickens. They’re pretty picky.
Ahhhh, pineapple top casserole. Those were the days!
It won’t smell as long as you don’t mix in meat or grease. Agree that coffee grounds are very good, and if you use the unbleached kind, you can throw in the filter as well.
We use CompostWheels as well. We keep saying that it’s temporary until we get our own compost bin set up, but that’s still in the, uh, discussion stage. I’m very glad to have this as an option for food waste.
We keep it in our laundry room adjacent to the kitchen, where we have our recycling bin. I have never noticed a smell at all, which surprised me, and we definitely fill it up every two weeks.
Anyone else upset about Leon’s block party Monday night and the noise disturbance for Decatur residents living nearby? I don’t know how they got around the 10 p.m. noise ordinance (they and police claimed they had a permit until 11…it went until nearly 11:30). I hate to be a stick in the mud because I don’t mind a party, but the music was pain-staking with lots of (what sounded like) screaming. I called multiple times to politely ask them to simply turn it down a few notches and I’m pretty disappointed they had no concern for us downtown dwellers.
I have to say you are indeed a stick in the mud. 5 year anniversary party. Once every five years won’t kill ya.
Oh no no no. You can’t encourage people to live downtown then start making excuses and special rules for the bars with “connections”. Unless you want to live in Pottersville.
Does anyone know the name of the farm that sells veggies at the Decatur Farmers Market. They are the lovely husband wife team. Also if you ave contact info?
I’m happy to report that all concerns, issues, problems, and fights that were discussed, argued, debated, and contemplated on this website in the past few weeks have been solved. Now that those problems are behind us, let’s all focus on the real enigma that will bring this city to its knees in a matter of days. The fact that I awoke this morning to find my previously silver vehicle was covered in a yellowish-green tint of evil.
Darn @#$%^ trees again.
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow.
“Yellow”
-Coldplay
**Disclaimer: Yes, I realize it’s Coldplay. I’m a bit sickened myself, but hey, it’s what came to mind.
I’m always perplexed by why people are “sickened” by great lyrics and music, just because the lyrics and music are created and performed by groups who are commercially successful. Maybe they are successful because their music and lyrics are actually good…
It has nothing to do with success. ColdRadioPlayHead just sucks.
Guess what that is?
Here, let me fix that for you, Mr. J_T:
DaveColdRadioMatthewsPlayHeadBand
Actually it’s:
UDaveColdRadioMathewsPlayHeadBand2
Ya’ll aren’t really lumping in Radiohead with Coldplay and Dave Matthews are you?
Oh yes I am. Oasis, too…
Unfortunately, yes. Radiohead had so much potential, and never came close to capitalizing on it.
Tree sex!
Now that’s funny! and true!
Any recommendations for a good in-home TV repair service?
There are still people who fix TVs? 😐
My wife came across a stray dog on Clairemont the other day. She saw that it had a collar but no tags, and she couldn’t get close enough to try and help it get to safety. Every few days it seems like there’s someone who finds a stray dog with no identifying tags. I don’t get it. Why the hell don’t people put their contact information on their dog’s collar? Really? Is it so difficult?
Pet Supermarket has a handy dandy dyi tag engraving machine.
I fear I may have lost my bright pink FitBit pedometer at Glen Lake Park last night. If anyone came across it please email me at [email protected] .
It may be good that you lost it. I have 2 friends who have the horrible rash. It may cause permanent scarring. There are already lawsuits pending.
pffffft.
It has been found!
Has anyone else had the pleasure of getting randomly subjected to higher than average water bills? This month we got one that was double what our bill has been averaging for the last 10 years. Any tips on how to handle this?
Exact same thing happened to us. For years we’ve received a bill that said “estimated” as opposed to an actual meter reading. Then recently saw evidence that someone had dug out our meter and taken an actual reading so I’m hoping they’d just been estimating a little low and we needed to “catch up.” The next bill will tell the tale.
We had the same experience and your theory was the explanation. However, with further questioning, it was revealed that our meter was very old and broken (so how the “now we’re accurate” reading was taken remains murky) and it was replaced. Now the consumption reading is actually less than the previous “low” estimates.
To determine if you have a leak on your side of the meter…1) stop all water use in your home (shut off all water-using appliances, tell everyone not to use water during the test or just go out for a while. Do not shut off supply valves to toilets.) 2) write down the numbers you see on the meter 3) come back in a couple hours or more and see if the numbers changed. If they did you have a leak.
If there’s no leak it could be that you just got a new meter installed… meters slow down as they age and under report usage. Double is a lot though… I’d suspect a leak or a billing error. Make sure the reading on your last bill makes sense in comparison to the numbers you see on the meter itself.
Yes! Our water bill has almost doubled since a year ago. I’ve been keeping an eye on our water usage to try to see where we may be overusing but I really don’t see where our water use habits are any different from now to previous years.
Every third cycle, I would get a bill for just under $400……for a small, two bedroom, two person home…..I finally sat in the supervisors office at Watershed Management until they agreed to install the new digital meter. I no longer have varying fluctuations. This was after I took a video of their meter reader driving their truck by the meter instead of getting out and actually reading it.
i try to have a “live and let live” philosophy.
as long as you aren’t sticking your chips in my queso, we’re good
but this Bruce Jenner stuff is another matter
good god man, you were on my box of Wheaties—an Olympic champion!
and now you’re most famous for your manicures and laryngeal shaving?
still, i remind myself, “live and let live”, “live and let live” . . .
until i saw a picture of him all dolled up this morning
and god’s honest truth, i laughed until i cried and my mascara began to run
Any suggestions re the following? …
Often takes 1-3 refreshes for some web pages to load fully. Running Win 8.1 on brand-new Samsung ultrabook. Security software is ESET Smart Security. Just upped to Win 8.1 a couple of days ago, this was happening on 8.0 as well. It doesn’t happen all the time but does happen often on Facebook, NYT, Gmail, DM.
I first suspected my shiny, new UVerse connection isn’t all that it could be, but ran two different speed tests (Ookla and Speakeasy) today and consistently got 7+ Mbps download/0.9Mbps upload.
My go-to geek is spring-breaking, so hoping someone is around with a suggestion on how to diagnose. Any help deeply appreciated.
Speed isn’t everything – sounds like you’re getting errors and retries. Could also be the way your network parameters in your router are set. Are you directly connected to the router via Ethernet or are you on WiFi?
Connected to the router via WiFi.
STG, try using adblocker and/or noscript or similar – I use firefox with those plug ins and stuff seems to load pretty fast.
Likely culprit is background scripts on those pages.
thanks, brad! will do.
Me too! Thanks, Brad! :0)
Installed Adblock for Chrome. It cleans out a lot of nonsense I was seeing, which is very welcome. But did not solve the original problem. (Can’t remember why I switched from Firefox to Chrome as default browser, months ago. But there was a reason. Never had this prob using Chrome on the older, rickety Win 7 laptop. Aarrrghhh)
There seemed to be an awful lot of sirens going by the CVS around 5 PM this afternoon. Anyone know what was up?
Probably just a normal response by Decatur Fire Rescue, unless you saw some blue lights.
It sounded like more than what I usually hear for a single incident, but that’s a subjective call and I may have judged wrong. Didn’t see anything on the West Ponce side of town.
Keep in mind that Fire/Rescue responds with at least 2, if not 3, units for a commercial alarm or call and that will make a lot of noise.