Month: February 2006

"A Meditation on The Speed Limit Around the Perimeter:" Amazing Video

“55 is too slow for anyone in Atlanta.”

Truer words have not been spoken. But if people drove the posted speed limit, what would it look like?

It would look like the movie (found here at Google Video) that was made by some local Atlanta hooligans who drove the posted speed limit on all 4 lanes of the perimeter (main loop of highway around the metro area.) Along with footage of the actual event, pre-drive video has the participants talking about the inanity of the speed limits. Watch and enjoy, this is low-level civil disobedience at it’s best.

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Picture snagged from Jalopnik’s post Oh Man, Bo Darville Would’ve Dispatched These Guys Right Quick-Like – Jalopnik

And this is Bo Darville.

Motel Palmont: Now Gone

I heard on NPR last night that the Palamont Motor Lodge was getting torn down, and today I managed briefly to stop by and see for myself. I first saw the motel in October and once again in Brook Novak’s pictures.

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CRW_0870, originally uploaded by brookenovak.

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CRW_0871, originally uploaded by brookenovak.

Now it looks to be cleared in an effort to develop Sweet Auburn.

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From the AJC – Historic Palamont Hotel demolished

Instead of What I Should Be Blogging About: Bad Back = World Travel

One of the easiest work days left me with an aching back. The Arlo Guthrie show on the 18th was a piece of cake: he had minimal music gear, no props, no hanging elements, nada. That left me operating the spotlight for all of two minutes, and then the rest of the show was just watching. After packing up all his gear, it was home for a night in with the sweetie.

Next morning, backache like I haven’t had in ages. That was 3 days ago and its just getting better. So while I was living in the bedroom, trying not to move, I started working with Google Earth. Here’s a saying that was posted on their BBS…

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to use Google Earth and the BBS and he won’t bother you for months, if ever, again.” – Mighty Pete

So freaking true. I’m in love with swooping through the globe, zooming in and out at various places, and compiling different folders with places of interest. It started out just fine… and then got a little weird…

The folders…

– Friends and Family (well, that’s okay)
– Atlanta Arts and Culture (in hopes of posting a list/maps of local places of interest)
– Las Vegas (for when friends visit)
– Rob’s List of Places of Interest (mostly places in Ireland, England and France that have been visited)
– Roadside Attraction, Etc… (an increasingly bizarre list, with an eye towards roadtrips from Atlanta)
– Conspiracy Theory Places of Interest (okay, let me explain)

… there are a myriad of conspiracy theories: from alien abduction, various paranormal happening and the machinations of secret societies. The New World Order is major topic with the U.N. takeover of the country, suspension of civil liberties and the creation of internment camps on American soil. Lists of secret bases and concentration camps are circulated on the Internet as proof of sinister happenings. What better way to see what’s up then with medium-res satellite imagery.

Now on my map…

Mount Weather – an unacknowledged Continuity of Government (COG) facility operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Completed in 1958, the underground bunker includes a hospital, crematorium, dining and recreation areas, sleeping quarters, reservoirs of drinking and cooling water, an emergency power plant, and a radio and television studio which is part of the Emergency Broadcasting System.

* A supposed concentration camp in El Reno, CA. Cleverly disguised as a water treatment facility.
* A supposed internment camp in the Desoto National Forest of Mississippi. (Infowars Exclusive — Detention/Training Camps)
* Supposed Fairbanks Mental Institute/Prison – “Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.” (AMERICAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS)

So far, kooky conspiricist aren’t doing very well in the fact-checking department. Crazy that!

My back is much better now, and soon it will be back to work. And that means that I will have to actually stop playing on the computer. For at least one day.

Work Pictures: Arlo Guthrie + 1

There’s a longer post to be written, but in the mean time, a couple of picture. Both from the Ferst Center, and in order…

H.M.S. Pinafore by Atlanta Lyric Theater
Grant Davis Arlo Guthrie, Feb. 18th, 2006

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HMS Pinafore, Atlanta Lyric Theater 4, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

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Grant Davis and Arlo Guthry, Feb. 18th, 2006, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

Communicating Through Design: Oliver Byrne, 1847 Style

Visual learning is my thing, I wrap my head around things better when I can see them. Way back when, a mathematician named Oliver Byrnes created a version of Euclid‘s “Elements.”

Euclid’s book was to clarify and codify the understanding of geometry. Byrne’s edition of Euclid was an attempt to further the clarification by adding color. It was an attempt of explaining by design.

All of Byrne’s version has been digitized and can be viewed online.

Knowing that a child of mine will be learning geometry in the future, I look to this book as an option to learn in a different way. That’s why the whole book is living on my computer.

Pointless Post Powered By Google: Stephen Colbert's Childhood Home

In his interview, Stehpen Colbert said that he grew up in James Island, South Carolina… on Willow Lake Road.

Thanks to the internet, here’s the map. If he gave a street number, well, that would have been just weird.

Billions in technology infrastructure investment to find a satellite map of the street a comedian grew up on.

For Your Bettermentness: Stephen Colbert Interview

Salon posted an article about Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, and links to SF Gate’s downloadable interview with the man.

From Salon, “Stephen Colbert, as most people know him, is the host of “The Colbert Report,” the hilariously deadly satire of cable news talk shows. He is also, less famously, the youngest of 11 children from a dirt road in James Island, S.C., a former philosophy student at the ultraconservative, men-only Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and a practicing Roman Catholic. Between his deadpan comic persona and unusual life story, Colbert makes for a great interview.”

Chronicle Podcasts : Podcast special: TV critic Tim Goodman interviews Stephen Colbert (part 1)
Chronicle Podcasts : Podcast special: TV critic Tim Goodman interviews Stephen Colbert (part 2)
Chronicle Podcasts : Podcast special: TV critic Tim Goodman interviews Stephen Colbert (part 3)
Chronicle Podcasts : Podcast special: TV critic Tim Goodman interviews Stephen Colbert (part 4)

Post-Work Post & Miscellaneous Idiocy

My work schedule is ending tonight after a long week and even longer two days at the Ferst Center:

Saturday 8am – 2:30am (14.5 hours worked) Bocca Tango

Sunday 9am-10pm (11 hours worked) Aquila Theatre Company’s Hamlet

It is good to see well-done dance and theater to be reminded that they actually merit the attention they often get. The Booca Tango group was Argentinian tango. Beautiful dancing, live backing band. As a person who never felt dancing expressed anything in me more then a severe-whitness problem, I never search out dance for entertainment. But this was great.

Being that I was never an actor, nor incline to be dramatic, I never went to drama on stage. So, seeing Hamlet performed was a bit of a revelation. But being on the side of the stage instead of in front makes a difference, so I didn’t get the full impact. But hearing and seeing the language live gave me better insight as to why I should care about William S.

Now that I am on a brief work hiatus, I’m looking forward to some chill time.

And know for something completely different…

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When misspellings in Google searches result in strange results.

Stock Photo of Two women hodling mirror ball

They really look like they are hodling the mirror ball.

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Jellio Design: Retro-tacky furniture and decorating items like this model-car parts piece…

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“Unemployable choreographer and amateur harpist (M, 62) seeks recovering alcoholic with feeble mind. Own tap shoes an advantage.”

“Beneath this hostile museum curator’s exterior, lurks a hostile museum curator’s interior . . . ”

And you thought the Craigslist personals were strange.

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Normally on display at the Smithsonian, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly was not open to the public on our Washington DC trip. Disappointed, but Masonic Robotic George Washington was pretty craptastic.

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Large Book-Sculpture

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Unplanned continuity in this post, shiny objects in pictures.

Atlanta of Old: Panoramic Maps 1871, 1892, and 1919

I’ve loved the American Memory site from the Library of Congress for years , and NO!… that’s not sad!

The following images of Atlanta come from the Panoramic Maps Collection. The collection includes cities from all over the country and the maps combine landmarks, streets and geography in a slanted perspective. As you will see the images go from broad overviews to highly magnified details of specific areas. The specialized .SID file type used by the Library of Congress allows to zoom in and out, and the maps are captured beautifully. For those inclined, links to Windows and OS X .SID viewers can be found here

Birds eye view of the city of Atlanta, the capitol of Georgia 1871. Drawn & published by A. Ruger.


Note the two railroad round houses (top left lower right) they will be pictured in another map below.

Bird’s eye view of Atlanta, Fulton Co., State capital, Georgia. Drawn by Aug. Koch. Hughes Litho. Co. c1892


Here the area’s around the roundhouses (top left lower right) have been developed, with the addition of the capital building.


My neighborhood, a little changed.


Oakland Cemetery

Foote and Davies Company (Atlanta, Ga.) c1919

Under Where?… Underground Underwear

I’ve found the underwear I want to give my anglophile wife for Valentine’s, but hardcore-googling of the internet is not giving me hope.

So, anyone that can help me find this London Underground Map underwear pictured in this not-work-safe post from Sexy UK Girl will have my appreciation.