Party Weekend

Yes, we republicans/conservatives do party. I went to Atlanta with a friend to see Mac McAnally in concert and to party with some Atlanta area parrot heads (Jimmy Buffett fans). Mac was fabuluous as usual and partying to the sounds of the great Jeff Pike and the A1A band on Friday night and after Mac's concert on Saturday night was awesome. If you don't know who Mac is, google him.

I'm very glad to be back home in Birmingham, though. I decided to move to Atlanta and get a job there after I graduated from college. We won't mention when that was. After living in Atlanta for about a year, I decided that Alabama was not really that bad and I wanted to come home. I was successful in getting a job where I would be re-located to Birmingham and to Birmingham I came.

After moving back here, I didn't make it to Atlanta that often and eventually lost contact with anyone I knew over there. After many years of only changing planes in Atlanta, I made it back to Atlanta in June 2006 for a Jimmy Buffett concert. I then went to Atlanta twice in 2007, once to see Mac in concert and once to visit a first cousin who lives in Dunwoody. In 2008 I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert and to the SEC championship game. All of these were pretty quick trips and virtually no sight seeing was done.

This past weekend was a little different because we rode MARTA downtown to see the much heralded Georgia Acquarium during the day on Saturday. I enjoyed looking at all the fish, but overall, the acquarium was disorganized and chaotic. Of course, there were tons of people there, with lots of kids that were running around all over the place. I doubt I'll ever go again unless they get some new fish that I can't live without seeing. Sunday morning before heading back to Birmingham, we decided to drive to downtown Atlanta. I wanted to see the building where I once worked and my friend Kay wanted to go to a market that she had seen on TV. Things have changed so much that it was so very difficult to just get feel for things and I just couldn't seem to get any kind of familiar feeling. We did find the building which is next to the downtown MARTA station. It was all locked up, but looked like it used to be some kind of residential building. When I worked in it, it was the main office of Georgia Federal Savings. Georgia Federal doesn't exist anymore, but I don't know the history. I suspect it was acquired by another financial entity at some point. I've lost all contact with the folks that I worked with. I know some of the older ones are probably dead. I'm going to try to establish a connection to that former life of mine, and I think I've located a man that lives in Colorado that may be the son of a man that I worked with. I just need to give him a call.

After I found my old building and took some pictures, we tried to find the market which is located on Auburn Avenue, yes Auburn. It took us a while to find it even though it was very close to where my old building was. When we did find it, it was closed. Oh well.

After this adventure, I was ready to head west. My favorite places in Atlanta are the I-20 West ramps. There's really nothing in the metropolitan Atlanta area that I can't live without. I would like to go to Stone Mountain, though. When I lived there, Stone Mountain was one of my favorite places. Other than that, I can't think of anything that I especially want to see.

I plan to visit Atlanta for Alabama's opening game against Virginia Tech in the Georgia dome. For that trip, I plan to do the same thing we did last year...drive to the first MARTA station, take the train to the dome, and take the train out when the game is over. After that, I don't know.