Georgia Carnival: Edition 60

Welcome to the Georgia Blog Carnival…

The bloggers featured here are all part of the extensive list of bloggers from Georgia I have listed in the right sidebar of this site. Any Georgia blogger can submit a post to the carnival, or a blogger from another state or country can submit a post for inclusion if the topic is Georgia related.

There has been so much going on in my neck of the woods this week with the flooding that it has made it a little difficult to stay focused and get the carnival together. I apologize for the lateness in posting. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced anyone.

The next carnival will be published here at Georgia on My Mind on Friday, September 11th. Submissions will be due Thursday, September 10th.If you maintain a Georgia blog and would like to host the carnival at your site e-mail me to set up a date. It’s a great way to put your own personal spin on the carnival.

The last edition of carnival can be found here and the carnival archives are found here.

Now on to the carnival:

In the midst of the floods in Douglasville a tragic crime occurred Monday night when Mary Ann Humphrey, a clerk at the Circle K convenience store on Stewart Parkway in Douglasville…..MY town…. was murdered…..I’ve embedded a video of the crime below.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office website states, “Wanted in connection with the homicide at the Circle K store on Highway 5 at Stewart Parkway that occurred Monday, 9-21-09. If you recognize the person in this photo please call Lt. Bruce Ferguson at 770.920.4902. The person is believed to be a white or Hispanic male approximately 5’2” to 5’8” tall.”

WSB-tv has also run a Crimestoppers story found at this link which includes an interview with the victim’s brother. I happened upon a meeting with him on Friday quite by accident and was amazed at his stoic strength in the wake of such a shocking tragedy.

From a local video company, A-1 Video Productions comes this video, and to see what citizens in the area are saying about this senseless crime check out the Topix threads here and here.

Homicide at Circle K on Hwy 5 and Stewart Parkway from Channel 23 on Vimeo.

Georgia Floods ‘09

Throughout the carnival you will see some of the pictures from of the devastation in my neck of the woods. The pictures were taken by Wayne and Melanie Bearden, very good friends of mine and Kevin McKoy, my pastor. …..Just two of the tragic flooding stories from west of Atlanta this week.

Shawn Allison is trying to Stay Dry and has a video of the flooded Chattahoochee River.
Over at Mostly Media Grayson D. shares Talking Twitter Hashtags In Crisis Communication/Atlanta Flood 2009

I didn’t have any damage to my home, but we did have a tree come down....




Arts and Crafty Stuff

Bugs Hugs is a new blog to the Georgia blogroll presented by Andrea. She’s a stay-at-home mom and she likes to sew and do a little painting here and there. In her most current post, Go Green! Buy Locally! Eat You Vegetables.... Andrea advises, “Every year, the Georgia Farm Bureau Women’s Committee chooses a different commodity to promote. This year, it is vegetables, with an emphasis on being green and buying locally!

Personalized Sketches and Sentiments is also a new blog to the Georgia blogroll written by Maria, a self-taught artist creating unique sketches. She’s been taking orders since 1985. Seriously….go look. Her work is amazing and unique, but the look of her blog is pretty cool as well. ok See her latest work here.

Jewelry anyone? Jenjie's Crafty Stuff has some great jewelry and other things for you to look at and buy. This is a new blog to the blogroll as well.

Donna over at The Barefoot PhotographerⓇ presents Shelter Dog in May -- Art Show Entry in October…..a picture and post about about a very special pet.

Salmongirl has posted Dreams of A Secret Agent over at Ashes and Glass…….more artwork inspired by dreams….AWESOME!

Hot Button Issues Including Politics

Freddie Sirmans over at Doomsday Log Book believes the Economic Recover is BS and thinks Teaparties and Townhalls Are a Waste of Time

Project Logic GA takes a look at Fox News and MSNBC……Yellow Journalism or Healthy Debate
William Cotter presents Health Care Option posted at Paw Paw Bill

Dan Matthews shares What is the future of Oconee County, Georgia? posted at Oconee County, Georgia Politics - Recreation, News, Art, Music, Culture, Sports and More, saying, "Lots of frustrating questions with no simple answers about the future of Watkinsville and Oconee County, Georgia, a great place to live if we continue to work together to keep it so."

Over at The Other Athens James is advising about Property Tax Circuit Breakers and actions by the Athens/Clarke County Commission.

Out and About….Things to Do in Georgia

Sue over at Fieldtrips With Sue has some great ideas for trips with kids including picking your own apples, heading out to Piedmont Park, or Dauset Trail Nature Preseve in Hampton. Sue also clues us into a free parking deal at the Georgia Aquarium, and if you want to leave the state don’t miss her post regarding the Nickelodeon Hotel in Orlando .

Norcross recently hosted the Taste of Britain event….Felicia from Fluffy Flowers was lucky enough to attend and shares British Car Fayre.

Over at Southern Byways Apryl Chapman Thomas presents Southern Byways » Get Outdoors: “Hunting” for Treasures in Habersham County, Georgia.

Atlanta With Kid has a nice review of the Imagine It Museum for kids, and gives us 10 Fun Corn Mazes Around Atlanta

The Q Family Adventures wants to quell our camping phobia in 5 easy steps and gives us

five reasons why we like cruising with kids.

Georgia Sports

James over at The Other Athens provides the lowdown on South Clarke football here.

Georgia…in Days Gone By

Joe over at ATLHistory alerted me about this one….. Appalachian History provides a look at the Tallulah Falls Railway.

In case you missed it I posted a little tale about the four Georgians who founded Helena, Montana here earlier at Georgia on My Mind.

Watching That Dollar

Saving With Sadie provides some great information regarding Travel Bed-and-Breakfast Style

Georgia Eats

Visit Gena Knox for all sorts of recipes and food talk. Check out her Apple Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting……yum! Yes, she’s also a newbie to the blogroll here at Georgia on My Mind.

Georgia Lifestyle

Rich Single Momma provides 12 Ways to Thrive as a Single Mom…..married moms might glean some good advice from this one as well.

Social Media

Visit Media Connection….a program of conversations about social media news, trends and innovations. A recent posting includes a conversation with Marketing Expert Toby Bloomberg

Sherry Heyl presents Spotlight on Lens On Atlanta posted at LISTEN, CONNECT, INFLUENCE, saying, "I am very excited for PBA and for Atlanta that we have been able to launch this site as a means to connect the citizens throughout metro Atlanta."

Thomas L. Strickland presents More From the Director’s Vlog - Time Flies and Fair Is Foul posted at GRABBINGSAND, saying, "Our non-profit theatre company is producing Macbeth on the grounds of Barrington Hall. What better time to experiment with producing a somewhat irregular video blog?" So cool!

Georgia Gardens

Felicia Haywood presents Easy Gardens for the South posted at Fluffy Flowers where she explains what has kept her away from the computer so much this past summer.

Georgia Roads

Steve Williams, webmaster over at The Georgia Road Geek presents Georgia Announces Toll System Bid Winner. Which company won the bid for the I-85 High-Occupancy Toll?

Notices Received

I received an email notification from Brad Malone, Public Relations Supervisor at Six Flags Over Georgia. He was inviting Atlanta area bloggers to a phone conference that will take place on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 regarding the 2009 summer season, their plans for fall, and what’s already in the works for next season. Bloggers/citizen journalists will also have the opportunity to ask him questions. If you haven’t already received your e-mail invitation…..don’t worry. Six Flags will be posting a recording of the conference call on their website.

Sara over at the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau advises Atlanta is extending tourism programs for a limited time. Her email explains the following:

Atlanta’s Backyard Adventure hotel packages, extended through September on Atlanta.net, offer reduced room rates and discounted admission to major attractions. In addition to hot offers like Sheraton Atlanta’s Beat the Heat package (guests pay a rate equivalent to the outside temperature on the day of check-in), participating hotels are including memorable perks such as shopping and dining gift cards, in-room movies, complimentary breakfast buffets, iTunes gift cards, room upgrades and more.

Atlanta’s MVP, or Most Valuable Package, provides admission to five of the city’s top attractions for just $89, representing a 35 percent savings over standard admission prices. Available through Oct. 4 on Atlanta.net, the package includes tickets to the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coca-Cola, an all-day pass to Six Flags Over Georgia, an all-attractions pass to Stone Mountain Park, and an upper box section ticket to an Atlanta Braves game.

Other deals include:

Cheer on the Atlanta Braves as they contend for the National League Wild Card with home game series against the Washington Nationals (Oct 1-4).

See nearly 500 years of African American contributions to this country at America I AM: The African American Imprint exhibition, through Sept. 27 at the Atlanta Civic Center.

Witness the largest outdoor exhibition of British sculptor Henry Moore’s monumental bronzes ever presented in North America at Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Moore in America exhibit, on display through October.

Experience the Georgia Aquarium’s 10,000-square-foot interactive exhibit, Planet Shark: Predator or Prey, opening on Oct. 3.

Beginning Oct. 6, more than 50 of Leonardo da Vinci’s works will be on display at the High Museum of Art in the new Leonardo da Vince: Hand of the Genius exhibition.

After a $10 million transformation, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum will re-open on President Carter’s 85th birthday, Oct. 1, with a new exhibit featuring a unique area called A Day in the Life of a President.

And finally…..

The Margaret Mitchell House recently introduced a new visitor experience which includes a new exhibition, Margaret Mitchell: A Passion for Character.

Well, that’s it for this edition of the Georgia Carnival.

If you have a Facebook profile you can now become a fan of Georgia on My Mind. Look for the link to join the group located in the right sidebar.

Please support these fine Georgia bloggers by letting them know you have visited them with a comment. Your continued support with your links and shout-outs at your site helps to alert others to what we Georgia bloggers have to offer.

The next edition of the carnival will be found here at Georgia on My Mind on Friday, October 9th. Posts can be sent to gamind@mail.com or use the handy submission form. Submissions are due by Thursday, October 8th by 6:00 p.m.

Thanks for your continued support of the Georgia Carnival!

Rain, Rain....Go Away!

So far my family has come off easy regarding storm/flood damage. While I'm in the lowest spot in my subdivision my home sits up fairly high. However, the creek that runs along the back of our property is very, very angry. It washed out the dirt around one of our trees and down it came. Luckily it missed the house.

It will be a long night. We have several large trees on the front of the house, and IF they fall....they WILL hit the house.

Still, I have many friends who report they have lost their homes or have severe property damage. They are hurting, and my hearts go out to them.

Wordless: Gainesville Tornado

Following the terrible 1936 tornado that destroyed Gainesville, Georgia, President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the town when they dedicated a new civic center including a new city hall and Hall County courthouse on March 23, 1938.

The Digital Library of Georgia states, “Roosevelt praised the people of Gainesville for their remarkable achievement in rebuilding the city better than it was before the storm, and suggested that this excellent example of local good citizenship could also be usefully applied in a national setting.” You can see the transcript of Roosevelt’s speech here.

You can find out more about the 1936 Gainesville tornado here.

Just a reminder…the Georgia Carnival will be posting here on Friday, March 13th. Submissions are due tomorrow. If you have a Georgia blog or you have written a post about Georgia you can submit it here.

You can find other bloggers participating in Wordless Wednesday here.

It's Snowing in Georgia!

A few shots from our ride home from church today. Snow is so rare in Georgia.

Yes, I'm a silly southerner....taking pictures of snow. I love snow!

Entering my neighborhood.

My house is somewhere in those trees.

From the back door.

Another view from the back door. Yes, I just happened to get the obligatory plug for UGA in the shot. :)

From the front door.

Well, Hail!

It’s been an on again off again kind of day here along the tornado corridor known as I-20. The same goes for communities to the north and south of it. After some initial excitement at 5:30 this morning it was pretty quiet around here even after storms began to barrel through around noon. Most were far north of here, but I stayed glued to WSB and Glenn Burns.

This is the second time I’ve written about storms today so I guess it’s pretty clear they are foremost in my mind. While it’s true Fridays aren't so wonderful lately, today wasn’t so great either.

The husband came in and told me things were going to get bad around here pretty soon. I said, “You’re crazy. I’ve seen the radar. It’s all north of here.”

Hubby remained adament. “Nope, it’s gonna get bad. The llamas know.”

“Llamas?” I asked.

We have quite a few llamas living down the road and it seems even though there was no wind and the sun was out the the llamas were all huddled together in a circle. Hubby took that to mean the llamas knew something we didn’t.

Well, hubby was right, and so were the llamas.

Within 30 minutes WSB was tracking yet another storm bearing down on Villa Rica and heading for us. We sat and watched until it began to hail. We ended up in the basement. We watched from the garage doors. The rain began to fall….the hail began to get larger and larger. With every crash and bang Hubby worried about the vehicles. Using my best wifey voice I snapped, “That’s what we pay insurance premiums for.” Still….

We retired to the laundry room as the hail became large enough to bounce up into the windows. It was over in just a few minutes and we ventured out to collect some hail to examine. It littered the yard like Easter eggs. The image to the left is some of our collected eggs...er....hail.

Later we were able to see the storm system that moved over us taken from an airport tower camera and seen on WSB:


Oh my.....what a monster.

When will this be over?

Shelbinator has posted two videos of Vine City Damage here and here.

…and one of my favorite haunts Oakland Cemetary has sustained storm damage from last night.

If you have posted storm pictures or videos at your site leave a comment and link.

Fridays Aren't So Wonderful Lately

Don’t we all simply live to get to Friday? Fridays just have a different sort of feeling to them. They are normally that little bend in the racetrack where you can catch your breath for moment, look back on a week accomplished, and begin to plan for the week ahead.

Around here though, the last two Fridays have been knee deep in tornado terror. As a native Georgian tornados and stories of tornados have been a part of my life since birth, but lately……

Last Friday night I was working on a post while there was a nice little rain coming down. It was already dark and I was waiting on my husband to get home. News reports had mentioned rain and had mentioned the possibility of wind but no mention of tornados. As I was working with my laptop the lights suddenly went out…..pitchblack except for the light of the laptop which had switched over to battery.

I kept working as the power went on and off, on and off, on and off, on and off, several times in succession. The rain had stopped and it was very quite and still. Five minutes later the storm sirens went off. I didn’t get scared until the sirens went off. I think that sound is more scary than the wind and the rain, quite frankly. It was so confusing to hear the siren because there was nothing going on outside.

There I was computer in hand, no warnings from my television, no warnings when I checked the local tv sites…..nothing but quiet. I thought maybe I should go to the basement, but there I was in the dark with no flashlight, and I’d probably kill myself just trying to get down there navigating the maze I’ve created with “important stuff” I keep telling myself I need to store.

Come to find out while it was so quiet and the power kept going on and off a tornado was overhead and was traveling to its dismise just a few miles away. In fact the storm had hit a Kroger store and some houses about 5 miles away from me and had done quite a bit of damage.

Witnesses there said the sirens didn’t go off until ten minutes after the storm had hit. What’s the point? Later in the week the National Weather Service confirmed a touchdown of and EF1 tornado with winds of 110 mph. The track of the storm was seven miles long and approximately 100 yards wide. The touchdown was at Hampton Mill Road, and the track continued northeast through the Kroger across Chapel Hill Road through Brookmont, and finally disappating at Vulcan Drive near Groover Lake in Lithia Springs. Since I’m near Vulcan Drive I know that all of that time it was so quiet the storm was moving overhead.

Scary.

That brings me to last night when the city of Atlanta made history. A tornado hit the city for the first time that we know of. The damage pictures are absolutely amazing. Fellow Georgia blogger Spacey G from Mostly Media shares her own video from last night.

Details from Atlanta’s oldest local news channel, WSB-TV, can be found here along with a slideshow of images taken by media types, and a slideshow of images uploaded by
everyday folks. A paper from Kentucky has a few daytime images of highrises as well as the many condo buildings (concerted factories) that dot the downtown area.

It is amazing to see Atlanta landmarks like the Equitable Building and the Peachtree Plaza with windows blown out. Also, as much as many Georgians complain about the craziness that can go on with Atlanta government and politics it seems the city did a great job last night handling a situation that could have resulted in utter chaos. I’m sure we’ll hear somebody complaining in the days to come though.

As I am writing this today another wave of storms are racing across the state and fatalities are reported in Polk County, Georgia. For a time they were mentioning my father’s community of Macedonia near Canton, so I have been in prayer for folks I know and love as well as folks I don’t know.

Springtime in Georgia….it appears it will be a bumpy ride this year.

….note for you grammar-type folks--- tornadoes and tornados are both accepted as proper plural forms….just in case you wondered. :)