It’s official, I start working again next Monday. My bank account will be the happiest for this return.
I am scrambling to complete tasks before ten hours of my day are allotted to work-related activities. By this time next week I am hoping to be proud of the things I’ve accomplished over the past nine months, as well as having a better feeling about the ITP Estate and my relationship with it.
Zero Mile Post
The I-85 collapse finally affected me in the form of no parking at MARTA when I went to take the train downtown on Friday. CUE TINY VIOLIN!
On a glorious day to be outside I met up with a large group of folks at Alma Cocina for lunch before we all hoofed to the Zero Mile Post. The food at Alma Cocina was really good, and given their downtown location was fairly priced. I ordered the chips and salsa sampler ($8) to share with my compadres and the carnitas taquitos ($8) for my lunch.
As if seeing the origin of Atlanta, nee Marthasville, nee Terminus, was not exciting enough, we were informed that Atlanta Beltline architect Ryan Gravel would be joining us at the marker as he had never had the opportunity to see it.
(that’s Gravel in the doorway on the left)
After seeing the Zero Mile Post about half of the crowd walked over to Park Bar for a beverage.
It was nearly 4:00pm by the time I finished my beer, time for me to walk to MARTA and head north to Arts Center where I’d meet up with Hank, who works near 17th/Spring now, to walk over to Atlantic Stations for happy hour. Originally there were to be eight of us at happy hour, two bailed due to the traffic caused by the I-85 collapse, one was sick and couldn’t make it, and one mysteriously never showed up (which is not unusual for her). Four of us went to Yard House. Four of us sat for ten minutes with no server. I asked a server clearing the table behind us to please get our server. Five minutes later four of us left Yard House and enjoyed happy hour at Meehan’s.
Tech Me Out To The Ball Game
Saturday didn’t start out all that great, not because I had a hangover, but because as I went downstairs to ride my trainer my right knee started hurting again. I bailed on my workout.
Once a year I see a Georgia Tech baseball game with my friend Hank, and Saturday was the 2017 edition of this tradition.
Hank and I met up at The Barrelhouse for a few pre-game beers and lunch. I drank Monday Night Slap Fight and ate a delicious hamburger. I’m sure the cooks have changed, but I was pleased to see that once again when I ordered my burger “medium” that it came out with a pink center. Bravo, Barrelhouse. Bravo.
After libations Hank and I meandered down the hill to the baseball field, where we watched a decent game. Hank is a Clemson alum, so the game’s outcome was not how he hoped (it was the only game in the three-game stint that Tech won), but we had fun. I joined Hank and his family for dinner at Raku Ramen. I have seen a lot of ramen while binge-watching The Mind Of A Chef and Chef’s Table, so I was excited to eat some. Not seeing much in the way of ramen that thrilled me I ordered a bowl of Yaki Udon with beef. My meal came out nearly five minutes later than the rest of the table’s food and when I saw that the noodles were certainly not udon noodles, I may not be Japanese but I know the difference between thick udon noodles and the skinny ramen noodles in my bowl, I decided to shrug my shoulders and eat what was presented to me. I probably won’t return to Raku Ramen.
Happily Surprised
On Saturday morning I placed three pieces of furniture — a bookcase sized for CDs, a wooden chair that used to be my desk chair, and the dresser I mentioned last week — on the street in hopes that someone would claim them before the rain hits today. By my return on Saturday night the bookcase had been claimed, but the chair and dresser remained. While out doing yard work (!) yesterday, don’t get too excited I just cleared the carport area of leaves an pollen, someone drove up and took possession of the rest. These pieces of furniture served me well for many years and I’m pleased that these pieces have new owners.
I spent the rest of my Sunday cleaning, organizing, binge-listening to “S-Town” (not as interesting to me as advertised), and watching the first episode of this season’s The Amazing Race.
My Monday Agenda
On my agenda for today is some grocery shopping, and a trip to the library to return a book. Later today I will also be doing a KonMarie on my books, gathering up the ones that no longer spark joy (read “I realize that I will never read” in this case) and boxing them up for a trip to Goodwill some time this week.
Hope that your weekend was grand, and that you make it a great Monday.
Paulie [eatl/ga]
If you have Little Free Libraries in your area, that’s a great place to drop off some books too. 🙂 There’s one quite near me and I often will leave some there.
Aren’t they nice? We have like 10+ in Decatur. One on our street.
(Most are Ingress portals. Don’t judge.)
JG/HamWithCam
what is an Ingress portal?
So not judging! People have been telling me to get into Ingress for years. For as much as I like to go out walking, I really should already! 🙂
Dixie, you are such a walker and a “girl about town” you really ought to give it a try.
Ingress is a location-based, augmented-reality mobile game (iOS or Android) developed by Niantic, a company spun off from Google. Where players are divided up into factions, Resistance (blue, yah!) and Enlightened (green, boo!).
Each faction tries to capture “portals” (physical places previously designated as Ingress portals) by placing their “resonators” there. Eight resonators per portal, levels of resonators vary. A portal with all L8 resonators is the best. Players “hack” these portals (by physically walking/driving to them) to get “XM” (energy) and “resources” (resonators, bursters, shields, etc, etc). Portals can be linked, fields established, etc.
There much more to it, but it’s easy to catch on as your work your way from an entry level 1 up to Level 16. Level 8 and above is where you need to be. L8 everything is the best (resonators, bursters, etc).
Players “Level up” by accruing points gained from “blowing stuff up”, “building out portals”, etc, etc. L1-L3 are pretty quick then it starts to geometrically double. Folks have leveled up to L8 in a day or two but that is definitely not the norm.
There is an associated backstory, (“Enlightened” versus “Resistance”) but nobody I know cares much about that aspect.
Portals are literally everywhere, at least in urban areas. I submitted (and subsequently got approved by Niantic) dozens of portals in/around Decatur. There are 1,000’s in/around Atlanta (“They walk among us…”), all up/down Peachtree, downtown, Butthead, etc, etc.
You have the have the free app on your iOS/Android phone to “see” them.
Portals change sides frequently. large groups of portals (ideally L8) linked together are called “farms”. Players go to farms to “hack” and get resources (L8 portals typically give L8 gear). Higher is more better. Gear is to used to populate more portals, blow up the other side’s portals, etc, etc.
The OK Cafe is a portal (two in fact). If lunch makes there for Thursday I will bore anybody to tears that may be interested (while I hack those portals over lunch).
If you decide to play Ingress you MUST join the >> Resistance <<. Period.
There are provisions in the Atlanta resistance team for a new player to get help "leveling up" quickly. It's a great way to see the city and meet some pretty cool (and a few really weird) folks.
Here's a screen shot of me blowing up a Enlightened Level 8 Farm. (To deprive them of resources). I'm bad.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hamwithcam/9843800326/
JG/HamWithCam
"HamWithCam"
OK. Good to know. 🙂
I think I understand all that, I think. I’m not really a game player. Maybe you can make me comprehend at lunch…….. maybe.
Watching the fire & bridge collapse from FB posts & text messages while hanging around a campfire with hashers was interesting. Both Allan & Burnt Rubber were so happy they weren’t there. (though both of their fire stations are far enough away, they probably wouldn’t have been there anyway) I wonder how toxic that smoke was.
I guess they brought 1 of the foam truck from the airport, and there is 1 there in the city somewhere.
Hash campout was the usual shenanigans – we were told we are going to Hartwell, I’m not sure about that yet. 3 nights of not enough sleep due to people staying up too late making lots of noise, I’m getting old. I like to get some sleep at night.
We hikes Table Rock trail on Friday – damn that’s a tough hike. I thought I could handle 3.6 miles to the top, but at mile marker 2, I decided I’d had enough, as my knees tend to give me trouble on the downhill. (and they did). Gorgeous park, waterfalls were awesome due to the storm Thursday night. Hail & tornado warnings were also interesting that night.
Saturday’s hash trail was a doozy – I decided at the last night to bimbo, when I realized that Surly wasn’t joking about how much climbing there would be. Allan told me I made the right call to bimbo, it was a bitch of a trail. We ended at a biker bar in the middle of no where called Bob’s Place. It was at the corner of a couple very windy steep roads, saw just a few cyclists, I wished I’d have had a cowbell to ring for them climbing. Most awesome bar. You have to go there to understand it.
Welcome to the new “I-85 shut down” reality…
Living ITP (City of Decatur) I’ve noticed significant increases in volume on Clairemont, and especially Ponce. Scott Blvd swas backed up and moving so slowly I had to bail and go neighborhood streets to get home Friday. Dekalb Ave worked well for me both times I used it Saturday/Sunday. Further, Cheshire Bridge Road is a hot mess end to end. It’s picking up near 100% of the Piedmont Lenox Road volume. Avoid at all costs.
The good news is I-75S seems to be running smoothly, at least until you get to the downtown connector usual jam-up. The I-75S to I-85N option is open, at least until you hit the damage. And the Southbound Express lane.
The anticipation of heavy traffic caused us to change our normal Friday night OK Cafe routine to Saturday night. Far less crowded than usual. Some of that might have been a lack of Butthead “Spring Breakers”. We did Sunday lunch at Colonnade (don’t judge) and the “Southside church crowd” was visibly absence. Cheshire Bridge Road was jammed, both ways.
I spent Friday afternoon and Saturday at the Atlanta Woodworking Show at the Galleria (thus my use of I-75). Cheap entertainment ($12/3 days), plus I got a handful of new shrink wrapped Irwin drill bits, etc. for $1 each, and got to see a bunch of popular YouTubers, including Jimmy Diresta, David Waelder, Izzy Swan, etc al. Weeeee.
Today is back to 2016 Federal income tax prep. And with a pollen count of 2507, and big storms a coming, staying inside.
73 de JG/HamWithCam
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hamwithcam/
A jammed packed weekend indeed. Breakfast Saturday morning at “Rising Son” in Avondale. An odd menu with little typical breakfast but still good. A nice bike ride of 25, then on to the “grand opening” of a new part of a Newnan restaurant, commonly referred to as “The Bays at Firestone” which sounds like a cute name until you realize it’s literal- the space used to be the Firestone, and the space is the old repair bays, complete with big garage doors on both sides! Great for a beautiful day, but we figure it will be hard to heat and cool. The bands were good, with our friend Doug sitting in with all of them. Service was overwhelmed. When we went to close out check, as we had had so many servers, they asked us what we had ordered. Not a great business model.
After breakfast Sunday there was mowing with the tractor as well as the riding mower (after a bit of battery charging). And I’m finally winning the battle of the spreader. I managed to get the 2 control surfaces separated, so now to get them to actually do their job!
More folks in the Marta lot than normal. No surprise.
-FP
Great updates all!
Back from Aldi where I picked up my basics and a German oddity or two. Still have to make it over to Decatur for some banking issues. I want to get this all squared away before I lose my daytime freedoms again.
Don’t forget, if you can make it to OK Cafe on Thursday for lunch (11:30/11:45 all?) then please join in.
I don’t know when Debbie’s 1 week follow up is- should be Thursday, so that’s a big maybe.
An 11:30am arrival at OK Cafe will work best, depending on the number attending. Given an expected head count, I can give the host(ess) a heads-up, as I typically arrive anywhere…early.
– Paulie
– HamWithCam (me)
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JG/HamWithCam
I’m a probably – but won’t know for sure until that morning. Allan is working, so he is a for sure no.
That fire was crazy! The fact that the wheelhopper rode past those PVC coils a few days before was even crazier! Hard to believe a major artery like that will be closed for months.
Saturday I helped with the ChattaPhoolithon challenge where the Chattahooligans paddled on the Hooch for a mile, rode 15 miles, then ran 3 miles. Great times were had by all. As we were packing up everybody’s boats the park police stopped by and asked if we had a permit for this organized activity. I told him we are FAR from organized and just out having some fun. Good thing we worked that out as it could have been a very expensive day.
This weekend was tough being around the house a lot with no dog. Paulie you may not know but we had to put Snoop down last week due to a large tumor. I still expect him to meet me at the door when I get home. I wonder when or if that expectation will ever pass.
Aw man, sorry to hear about Snoop. Seems as is 2017 is going to be that sort of year. 🙁
Far from organized! So true and so funny.
Again, so sorry to hear about Snoop. I’m sure he and Farley are having a grand ol’ time.