Free-For-All Friday 11/20/15
Decatur Metro | November 20, 2015 | 7:42 amFeel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not yet discussed here over the past week.
Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not yet discussed here over the past week.
Kat
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Chris Billingsley
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Robert Butera
GreenTea
Decatur Metro
Walker1
GreenTea
Walker1
Walker1
Has anyone ever used a contractor/landscape architect to fill an old (early 1900s) well?
I’ve got a sinkhole in my back yard of a tear down home (torn down from an old duplex from 1950 and rebuilt). The hole is about 5 feet wide and 4 feet deep. The corner of the deck has sunk in the hole and is temporarily hanging in the hole.
I spoke with a few architectural landscapers and one has offered to excavate down about 12-15 feet, fill with a concrete cap, and then fill the rest with fill dirt. The price for this is quite costly, over $3000. So I wanted to know if anyone in the area has experienced the same thing before? Or if you know of a friend of a friend that has done so?
I would appreciate any advice or suggestions!
Our neighbor built a brick grill over the old well in his backyard. All the ashes from his fires just fall through the grate into the hole.
Thanks unclecharlie. Unfortunately I can’t do that at the moment because the corner of my deck sits there. But great idea.
Landscape architects don’t know “”nuthin'” about proper abandonment of an old water well, and improper abandonment threatens groundwater quality and surface water quality. Please check out this link, then contact the phone number provided by the Georgia Dept of Public Health in the fact sheet:
https://dph.georgia.gov/sites/dph.georgia.gov/files/related_files/site_page/EnvHealthChemHazWellAbandonmentFS.pdf
Thanks for that link Spreak. I’ll show it to the guy who is doing the work. He has been filling them for several years now and I have not heard of anyone else who fixes them.
Best place to buy an off-the-rack men’s suit? Thanks guys.
I’m pretty sure that Jos. A. Bank is running a good sale right now.
I have bought a couple of suits and a wool jacket there. Some advice:
Sales occur regularly – nearly every few weeks. Just wait for one. The nature of them vary, but occur with regularity.
The price of their suits on sale is offset by the prices of their shirts and ties. The staff there will try really hard to pick out/upsell several shirts and ties and push them on you. Just don’t give in.
I got my wedding suit from Jos A Bank but it had to be altered. Most of their suits do usually.
I got a regular suit from Express that fits me perfectly though. No alterations needed at all. Can depend on your body type though. I say do a department store and let one of their people help you find one that will fit off the rack.
K&G Men’s Superstore on Ellsworth Indstrial Blvd
You want a good fit, you need to go somewhere with outstanding customer service, Nordstrom’s. You will not get the absolute cheapest price. But, are you looking for a cheap look? They have good sales and a range of price points. Most importantly, the service is absolutely the best and the tailors are first rate. Be ready to resist all the great looking shirts and ties they will pair with the new suit. My experience, if you give them a budget range for your suit they will find something for you. The end game is a quality great fitting garment for a fair price.
It depends on your price range. Suit Supply next to Lennox has pretty good prices for the quality – a lot of suits in the $399/$499 range.
Suit Supply gets generally high marks for quality. I believe all of their suits are at least half canvassed, and their higher end models are full canvass, which is the mark of a better quality suit. They also offer cool features like horn buttons and functional button holes pretty much throughout their product line. This would probably be my pick, but their cuts are quite slim, so be advised if you are a bigger dude.
Jos A Bank, I am sorry to say, is priced according to its quality. You’ll get fused suits there (with the possible exception of their most expensive model, which I believe is Signature Gold) and generally have wool of fairly low quality. You might still get a decent fit, but this would not be my choice unless budget was an overriding concern.
Would be very wary of Nordstrom’s, where you can find suits of great quality (I think they carry Brioni, for example) but other big names of very middling quality. For example I’ve heard awful things about Hugo Boss and similar names.
At the higher end of off the rack (though far below the Brionis of the world) is Samuelsohn, a Canadian maker with fully canvassed suits that are quote nice. Pretty sure you can get an off the rack Sammy for under $1,000, which is not too far off Brooks Brothers. H Stockton sells them.
If you are considering spending much over $1,000, might as well go with made to measure anyway. You can get a decent MTM suit for around $1,500. And if you want to go crazy, the guys at Guffey’s or H Stockton will be happy to suit you in a hand-sewn Oxxford for . . . . well, basically all your money.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Does anyone know if the lake/pond at the Methodist Children’s Home has a name?
Colloquially known for years as Postal Pond.
Don’t know about the lake, but the creek that runs out from it is called Shoal Creek.
I’ve been here since the 50’s and never heard it referred to by a name other than the lake at the Children’s Home. It was built sometime between 1949 and 1955.
Definitely called Postal Pond by all my neighbors. I just asked the old timer down the street who knows this area well and he said he’s always known it as Postal Pond, decades before Katie Kerr was constructed. He says Shoal Creek used to be a little larger too.
Anyone know why the name of Postal Pond? USPS employees used to hang out there? Someone with the last name of Postal used to live there?
Someone threw the only copy of the Postal Operations Manual in there in the early 60s and no one at the Decatur Post Office has had any idea how to carry on ever since.
BAZINGA!
Here is a little analysis on the recent City Commissioner election that may be interesting. I took the latest campaign expenditure reports available, which granted are not the final, and calculated the cost per vote received. Here’s what I found:
Breedlove: no expenses reported, zero cost per vote.
Drake: no expense reported, but I know he had some since there were yard signs, so we would have to wait on the final report.
Tumperi: $ 1.69 per vote received
Johnson: no expenses reported, zero cost per vote.
Smith: $ 4.08 per vote received
Powers: $ 4.47 per vote received
Ridley: $ 70.64 per vote received
my neighbor had a Drake yard sign that was recycled from a previous campaign – there was blue painter’s tape over the a previous election date. Don’t know it the neighbor did the recycling or if the Drake campaign did. But at least one of his signs had been previous purchased. 🙂
Is the Decatur High School Close Up Club doing the Rake and Run this year?
I need actual raking. I have too many sweet gum balls, and twigs and pine straw that blowing and mulching (which is what all the professional yard services do) doesn’t help with.
Happened last weekend.
Oh no! Did I completely miss it? 🙁
I have a question about stopping for a school bus. I know that you are not permitted to pass a school bus in either direction when its lights are on (yellow or red), unless you’re traveling in the opposite direction and there is a median. What if the bus is stopped on a street perpendicular to where you are traveling? Do you have to stop for it? I know that if I turned onto the street with the bus, I would need to stop. Do I have to stop if I’m going straight and the bus is still on the other street? I’ve seen people stopping in that situation recently, and it’s made me question my understanding of the law. I can’t find anything online that says we have to stop in that situation.
I don’t know the law, but I’d say a rule of thumb is if you can imagine a kid darting across your path, whatever path that might be, to catch said bus, stopping is probably a good idea.
On that topic, the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association Facebook page featured a post this week from a good friend of mine with a special needs 5-year-old son. There is the occasional day when it takes a little longer to get him onto the bus, and she (not unkindly) requests that people who witness this not respond by honking their horns.
Mozgirl,
No, you do not have to stop if the bus is not on your road. If you are turning onto the road, you don’t technically have to stop either until you are actually on the road with the bus. I’ve cut and pasted the relevant law below the line.
Having said that, you should always exercise caution around a school bus, especially for one stopping near an intersection as kids are crazy 🙂
Hope this helps.
_________________________________________________________________________________
OCGA 40-6-163 (b) The driver of a vehicle upon a highway with separate roadways need not stop upon meeting or passing a school bus which is on a different roadway, or upon a controlled-access highway when the school bus is stopped in a loading zone which is a part of or adjacent to such highway and where pedestrians are not permitted to cross the roadway.
So bummed about the Bishop closing!!!!!
@ Mozgirl, Georgia School Bus Stop Law
http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/transportation/operationstoparm.pdf
Who is the best tailor in town? Looking to get a suit tailored for a wedding.
Stitch and Sew in Avondale
Bangkok Tailor across from Green’s on Ponce. Wonderful older couple, terrific work.
Just a gripe about the street sweeper that never comes. On the City of Decatur website there is a schedule that mentions each street being cleaned once a month. I see them about twice a year. Does anyone know what’s up with that? I’d like to see my taxes in action on this service!
I went to the open house last night at the new public works building and asked the question but never talked to anyone who could answer. I think there is a Scott in Sanitation that could answer. If not, ask for Lena Stevens.
We’ve got a bad thermocouple in our gas fireplace. Got one estimate but it sounded pretty high. Does anyone know a reputable person/company that could fix it? I don’t mind paying whatever it costs; I just don’t want to get ripped off.
Most thermocouples are straightforward affairs with a screw-in coupling at one end, attached to a transfer tube that goes to a heat sensor usually attached at the point of the pilot flame. Unless there is something unusual about your set-up, you should be able to replace the thermocouple yourself with just a few minutes of work.
Recommendations for a natural gas supplier? I had two properties with Gas South (GS) for 17 years. My office building was sold and I directed the new owner to use GS. I’m loyal.
Alas, GS charged me a $150 termination fee. After 30 minutes on the phone (and me willing to pay half the penalty) they wouldn’t budge. Crazy, because Scana will pay up to $50 against my GS penalty and $100 over 10 months to get my business.
What don’t I get here?
http://www.clarkhoward.com/ga-natural-gas-guide
We’ve used GNC for over 20 years.
Just wanted to give you a heads up about this new Health Insurer Harken Health care. They are on the Heathcare.gov site offering really reasonable rates and a Provider directory that lists all of the doctors and hospitals in their preferred network. I Used that directory to make sure that my doctors and Dekalb Medical and Emory were on their preferred list and they were.
So today when i called to make my first premium payment, i just made sure that all the information i was given on the website was still valid and that’s when i heard. well, ah, there was some mis information on our site regarding the directory……I’m like what? And that’s when i found out that Harken Health care has 6 or 7 Centers in Georgia. You have to use their doctors, which are employees of Harkin health and none of my doctors work for them. Emory and Dekalb Medical are also NOT in their preferred network, so all of the reasons why i chose them have turned out to be …..i don’t know what to call it……misrepresented….not what they promised? I now have to start all over again looking for a new plan. Just want to make sure no one else gets surprised when the doctors and hospitals you go to..are not going to be in network and what ever deductible they advertised will not be honored unless you use one of their employees in the centers. I feel duped.
Harken is owned by United Healthcare, a traditional insurer. I would guess that is why you got misinformation.
The model for Harken is similar to Kaiser Healthcare. Tight control of referral patterns means tight control of expenditures. The primary determinant of cost to the insurance company is how many tests and physician referrals get ordered.
My experience with Kaiser is that they company allows for reasonable care without a free rein to the providers to get extraneous test. I expect Harken would be similar.
“Effective Nov. 1, food service regulations established by the Georgia Department of Public Health have lightened up with regard to dogs. Now, dogs are allowed within outdoor dining areas as long as those are accessible from the outdoors. The new regulation is applicable to the entire state of Georgia.”
http://atlantarestaurants.blog.ajc.com/2015/11/20/dining-with-your-dog-in-atlanta-just-got-easier/