Quercus nigra

The HUGE and beautiful tree across the street from us is coming down and I thought I would write it an obituary.

The awe-inspiring Water Oak (Quercus nigra) in East Atlanta is being fallen this week. It is an exceptional specimen with an estimated height of more than 120 ft and diameter near 6 ft. Despite some rot (found during autopsy/murder) in an upper limb, the water oak appeared(s) to be in perfect health. Sprouted circa 1900 the centenarian was one of the original neighborhood tenants to be annexed into the city in 1915. Having survived the Great Depression the tree will now fall in the New Depression (paradoxically at very high cost). The tree saw two world wars and Haley's Comet twice. It also served a role in WWII as a plaything for the children of GIs in the neighborhood. This oak played a part in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, increasing the property values of the nearby homes in an exemplary neighborhood for new black homeowners (see footnote). The majestic oak even withstood the Tornado that struck the area in 2008, but could not withstand the worries of its current owner. Despite its best efforts not to fall on the home with which it shares the lot, the tree could not dismiss the fears of Miss Merriam of East Atlanta and will be taken down. In its presence we were gifted with shade and only in its absence will we be shown the light of its worth.

Facts about the Water Oak

In the 1960s, the civil rights struggle was at its peak across the country. Because the Grand Dragon of the KKK lived in an adjacent neighborhood, East Atlanta was targeted by civil rights groups to be an example of racial integration of housing. Under the protection of the Fair Housing Act, middle class black families were assisted in efforts to purchase houses in the area. Some real estate agents seized the opportunity to fan the flames of fear and racial prejudice. At their urging, many white families fled the area selling their homes at a loss (as low as $1,500 for a 3 bedroom). The new Interstate 20 highway that cut through the neighborhood removed some houses and allowed easy access to areas farther out. Slumlord investor bought many of the available houses.

During this time many hardworking black families achieved the dream of homeownership in a nice neighborhood with yards for the children and good schools nearby. Many white families remained refusing to give-in determined to live in harmony with their new neighbors. Twenty years after the first blockbusting integration in East Atlanta, their neighborhood, unlike others that had resegregated entirely, remained integrated with a 60% black and 40% white/other racial mix.

When Pigs Flu

Anyone else on edge about this Swine Flu thing? I dare say that nowhere does such an event carry more gravitas than in the home of CDC epidemiologist in respiratory viruses. Lauren was telling me about these cases last week and when she noticed that I was only half paying attention she asked "is this sinking in?". I guess it hadn't until I put down what I was doing and imagined The Stand. Is anyone out there stockpiling food and water yet?

I did go back to Google Trends, the service that everyone was heralding back in November. Turns out we may still need public health surviellance. Google Trends barely showed a bleep on swine flu until this weekend. What's more it shows nothing about the historic CDC swine flu 'mishap' in 1976 that pushed swine flu vaccine on the public with claims of a coming plague. The story needs to be retold today. Goolge trends did pop up with this story about the Chinese trying to get out a swine flu vaccine three and half years ago.

Regardless of investigating the history the event is a bit sureal. It's interesting to think about the prospects of a global event that instantly puts everyone on edge, redefines stereotypes, and changes your routines (especially when you hear someone cough on the bus). I've provided links on the right-side banner and at the bottom of this post to info from the CDC.

CDC info on swine flu

This Bulls - Celtics series is awesome!!!

Tour de Ponce

Last night was the first ever Tour de Ponce. The brainchild of Miguel, it's a pubcrawl that features some of the finest and most eccentric establishments along Ponce de Leon Ave. in Atlanta. The tour was centered around the agglomeration of bars at the intersection of Ponce with Ponce Place and it began with food and beer at Cameli's Pizza. This is a place I have been a few times and have only once been disappointed. That one time was my own fault. See, the slices are HUGE and you can customize them but given their size, each extra item adds about a two dollars to each slice. I ordered two with about 3 items and was shocked at my bill, but the pizza was good.

Back to the point, the tour. We continued next door to the Model T. Both of these bars reside on the ground level of a large building that was formally a Ford Factory, also it's a popular haunt for local transvestites so the name fits. Our group, which fluctuated around people, stuck out like a sore thumb. You could almost hear the record scratch when we walked in. We were greeted by a woman dressed completely in black, including a witch-like hat, who stated simply that AA didn't work. After a game of pool we moved on.

Next we walked through the parking lot (almost getting backed over by a car) and across the street to Friends on Ponce. This place sits above a set of small retail spaces including an internet cafe. The bar is decorated with random knick-knacks from all over the place. One that I remember was the old brushed metal sign for the Armory, a former Atlanta all-male cabaret club. Perhaps the coolest thing about this place is the patio that overlooks Ponce. I heard a lot of comments about how cheap the draft beer was ($1.75) and how gay the place was. I just noticed that there were several flamingos around the place including the one in the photo with the disco nuts.

After Friends we walked over to the Bookhouse Pub. This is a relatively recent addition to the Ponce corridor and features a number of craft beers and fine woodwork. The place was much less crowded than the last time I was there and pretty enjoyable. You could walk around from conversation to conversation and they were playing The Darjeeling Limited. This most conversations revolved around Bill Murray in Rushmore and Natalie Portman nude scenes.

Miguel took off early and got all of us into MJQ for free (I think). This was my first time in the labeled dance joint. It's very cool to know that you are literally underground when you're there. The entrance takes you down a path that makes it clear that you're descending below the parking lot. The dance floor was a bit slow but I could see how of would be very fun in about 2 hours. The music sounded good and the artwork along the walls was equally entertaining. Kissatlanta.com was parked outside in a pimped ice cream truck.
Next was the Local where I ran into a friend outside and talked to him until we left. I have been here on weeknights an it's always pretty crowded and very smoky. Saturday night is very similar. It's appropriately named because it is nothing special but feels comfortable for people who live around there.

We crossed Ponce again and tried to hit the Clermont Lounge. This is the storied establishment in the back of a 'hotel' that has most recently gained press because the hotel has gone up for sale. The lounge, however, is not for sale and the line on Saturday showed why. This place is a hit, a local favorite with true unique flavor. Unfortunately we did not wait in line to get in but we did get to witness an outburst by the bouncer when someone disregarded the yellow sign and tried to take some photos.
Disheartened but not dis-going-to-bed (we all felt like Lance Armstrong at a time trial after a rest day), we trotted down to El Bar, Atlantan for The Bar in the basement behind El Azteca Mexican Restaurant. This place is a small, loud, crowded, windowless room of a club (so basically it's a club) with great hip hop DJs on the regular. I have ended up here several times and usually find my way into some dancing. Drinks are in plastic cups and beers are simple. One thing that would make it even better would be free chips and salsa.

From El Bar, we disbanded. Kris was back to Clermont to find Nicole whom he had left there in line with some other friends. Chernock and Kate had already left us. Matt, Priya, Leslie, Lauren, and I were committed to the Majestic Diner down the street. Miguel, Rebbecca and Dave had a hankerin' for a burger and cabbed it to the Vortex. "WTF, mate!?," said Priya. I thought this was the Tour de Ponce. Not to be persuaded otherwise we continued to Majestic where we once again ran into Chernock and Kate. We ate our early morning mediocre breakfasts declaring the first ever Tour de Ponce a success, and then proceeded to culminate the tour with a jaunt home (on North Ave).

Spirit the Hawk

Wednesday night I went to the second playoff game in the Atlanta Hawks' series with the Miami Heat. Looking down from our $12 seats we felt like hawks perched on the side of building or the edge of a canyon cliff. As the Hawks were about to be introduced a real hawk flew through the space of the arena and landed on a corner of the jumbotron located in its center. This is standard issue for Hawks' games. See the hawk with Dominique Wilkins and the the proud handler and the very jealous apprentice handler behind him. The Hawk even has a name (Spirit), a handler, and probably a steady diet of small mammals. It probably even goes through practice drills just like the team; fly to the jumbotron, head back to the handler, repeat. But Wednesday night something went wrong. After the lights were dimmed to call in the starters, Spirit went AWOL. The lights were brought up and Spirit was gone. Spirit returned about a minute into the game, swooping over the hardwood with incredible speed and grace. The refs had to stop the game as Spirit found a new perch on the backboard-mounted camera. Surprisingly, the refs and players continued to play until Spirit took another spin around the arena and over the fans' heads, landing this time on the top of the glass. Then the handler came out and Spirit returned to his arm.


But that burst of freedom, an instance where Spirit truly lived up to his name, has earned Spirit the trendiest of administrative mandates, the furlough. Spirit has been suspended from duty for the remainder of the Hawks' playoffs run. See the AJC's coverage here. The article expands on the details of Spirit's suspension saying that the hawk will be involved in the games but will not be flying during player intros.

Postscript: When I began to tell Lauren this story she jumped ahead of me and envisioned Spirit getting (literally) burned by flame shooting apparatuses (apparati?) that were going off while it was flying around the arena. This is a pretty wild image, bird of prey gliding near the heads of people while flames erupt from the tops of basketball hoops. Alas: the flames do not go off while Spirit flies.

If I lived in coffee county I'd get the VANITY licence plate CLDZNMY

College of ARTchitecture

It's finals time at GaTech CoA and for the architects that means anything but papers and exams. Instead they have exhibits and panels and present perspectives. I have been snapping pictures of some of the works in the last week or so. Warning: I know nothing about any of these projects, I just look at them everyday.

This first one was only up for a day or so. I stopped to read it once and it was Dr. King's I Have A Dream Speech with hand prints and pictures of the Dr.

There are several of these, but I think this is one of the best. The drawings fit in with the real tree outside.

There are tons of posters everywhere. They take days to make and they can stay up for less than an house. And they cost a lot to print.

This is an exhibit that's been going up for over a week now.It's in the courtyard of the College. The first picture is last week and the newest one was earlier tonight.


The last one has been going on the longest. I've seen a lot of people working on it, usually late at night. Assembling these things on the floor, setting the tension lines to lift them up to the ceiling and then using a lift to get up there and arrange them.

If I was in a sweet jazz ensemble I would want to play Life in a Glass House for an encore.

Outbreak

Last Friday at around 3:30 Lauren got called into a meeting and was asked if she wanted to take a field assignment to assist state and local health officials in Pennsylvania working to contain and explain a small outbreak of measles. Saturday she shipped off to a small town outside Pittsburgh to do what people do when they try to contain outbreaks.

You might think this involves huge numbers of infected people but an epidemic or outbreak is just anything above the normal rate of incidence. You also might expect quarantine, monkeys, spaces suits, overcrowded morgues, and Morgan Freeman but actually it's much less dramatic. One of Lauren's jobs, as I understand it is to track down anyone who may have come into contact with the infected people, particularly the first infected person; in this case a man from India. I think they try to track his movement and then let people know if they may have been in the same place and then if they've seen any symptoms to seek medical attention. Then they process samples from the infected patients and verify cases. It's one part detective work, one part accounting, one part robo-call, and, in Lauren's case, one part mixed martial arts.

It's easy to imagine how the task of tracking down everyone who came into contact with an infected person is a monumental task. Here's the list of what they're telling people about this PA case.

Exposures may have occurred at the following places and times:

• The Emergency Department of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC any time on March 10; between 8 p.m. March 21 and 11 a.m. March 22; between 6 p.m. March 25 and 5 a.m. March 26; between 6 p.m. March 27 and 3 a.m. March 28; and between 2:30 p.m. March 28 and 4 a.m. March 29.



• People also could have been exposed to measles anytime on March 23 at Children's Hospital's third floor Ear Nose and Throat and Specialty Clinics.



• Alle-Kiski Medical Center's Emergency Department, main lobby and ground floor public areas in Natrona Heights, between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. March 28.



• During an EMS-1 Conference at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Somerset and Fayette counties, exposure in the Snowflake Room and the main dining room might have occurred between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. March 26.



• On the following Allegheny County Port Authority buses: Route 28X (Airport Flyer) between 10 a.m. and noon March 24 and between 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. March 28; 33X (West Busway all stops) between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. March 27; and 71A between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. March 24 and between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. March 27.

AND the first patient could have come over on a plane with people that went to places all over the country. Add to that the fact that measles is an extremely contagious airborne agent and you have a high probability of transmission to others places and people. Add also that the man attended a conference of emergency health care professionals and your imagination can begin to run wild with shortfalls in the EMS departments around the region as their workers develop rashes and miss work for weeks at-a-time. In spite of all this hyperbole, you can start to see how important this one case might be. Even with high vaccination coverage, there was still transmission to other people. Luckily it looks like it's under control. Lauren can hopefully come home soon.

More news coverage

Tweeter

Growing up I had a sort of electronics and stereo fetish where I wanted surround sounds and big, loud speakers to watch movies and listen to music at incredibly high volumes. A tweeter was the speaker that gave you the high range of the sounds. Now, tweet is a commonly-thrown-around verb, and it's not just for the birds anymore.

As I turned 30, one thing I intended to do to try and keep n tun w/ da yuth was to finally, once and for all, figure out Twitter. I was going to create an account, maybe read something on the site and then begin using it. To be honest one of the most enticing things about the whole idea was downloading a new iPhone App, which I am pretty sure exhibits how little I know about the way it works. But yesterday, at almost exactly the same time I intended to sit down and write a post about getting old (trying to stay young) I found this clip on The Daily Show. I was glad to see that I was not alone in my hesitating to get on Twitter. I do think it's cool that this networking tool puts so many people in touch so quickly. Nonetheless, I still may wait, or dismiss the idea altogether.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Twitter Frenzy
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Plus, here's a look at what's next from Slate, via Hunfington Post, by way of Chad.

75 plus four pennies

Yesterday I turned 30 years old. I am rarely finding time and interesting motivation for blogging and, no surprise, I don't have any revelations to disclose as I move into a new decade. In fact, even in throwing a party for the event we tried to shift some of the focus onto other things (counter to the entire notion of a birthday party, perhaps). On Saturday we reserved a room at Manuel's Tavern and tried to celebrate some of the other great things turning 30 this year. Jimmy Carter, GA's only native son to lead the country, was president, Pinwheel began on Nickelodeon, and smallpox was finally eradicated. For the music, Matt provided the Billboard top 100 and we gathered a few favorite movies from the year to play while we partied. In looking at this media I noticed a few things that I encourage all those who remember 1979 to confirm or dispute.

First, disco died a hard, sudden death and in 1979 it looked like Chris Farley around the time of Beverly Hills Ninja. The Billboard list is littered with hits by Donna Summer, the Bee Gees and other dance floor classics, but that same year The Clash produced London Calling and Pink Floyd put out The Wall (#2 in Billboard's 1980 list). Pardon the pun, but the writing was on it for disco. I hate commenting on music because it always feels like as soon as you do there will be a bunch of people telling you how little you know, but this doesn't a simple passing of the torch to new artists of a similar genre. One artist that seemed to keep a presence and healthy output into the 80s was Michael Jackson.

For movies Kramer and Kramer was one that my mom remembered the best. Manhattan was also released that year but my favorites include Apocalypse Now, The Warriors and The Jerk. Life of Brian was another one we had on hand, and Mad Max and Alien also came out that year. Watching these the thing that comes to mind is the lack of movies set in the present. The only one of the movies I listed with any cars or settings from 1979 reality is The Jerk, and then it's a young Steve Martin (with unimaginably gray hair) running around as someone who was born a poor black child, so how real is that. I guess Kramer vs. Kramer is pretty real but I haven't seen it. Was there a pressing incentive to escape reality in '79?

My parents came down and surprised me for the weekend. They showed up in the car with Lauren on Friday afternoon when we were supposed to head out to dinner. The rain broke on Saturday and we got to head to the Brave's game and they were conveniently playing the Tigers. My parents also brought with them old video tapes of a crazy kid named Jason Vargo hyped up on Pepsi and picking his nose. Luckily everyone at Manuel's got to see it since they had a VHS player. They've always helped me to try and be more humble.

Now I'm 30, hyped up on coffee, and pickin' my nose.