Fancy Hats

I had to smile when I saw this. My neighborhood paper in Atlanta, which comes weekly, always has a pretty extensive section outlining the social outings and happenings of the previous week. Pictures of Atlanta's socialites dressed in their finest (or whatever dress is appropriate for the event) are plenteous. Last week I noticed an entire page graced with pictures of old ladies in fancy hats. Oh, how nice, I thought, and how boring:

And then I saw a different hat. I love it that this lady decided to top her frilly outfit with a diner hat from the Atlanta landmark Varsity restaurant, risking her social appropriateness. When I am that age, if I am invited to such an event, I will of course show up sporting my very own Waffle House diner hat.

Traffic Lesson

So I just got back to Atlanta from Augusta after a short 2-day visit. A very enjoyable visit, but that is not what this short post will be about. My 2 hour drive (ok, maybe 2 hours, 15 minutes) turned into almost 3 hours because of a majorly flawed decision as I drove into town. While I was still on I-20 but close to downtown, I noticed the handy little traffic board had the following message "Debris on I-75 NB near Northside Dr, 4 right lanes closed". Ok. So Northside Dr is the exit right before my exit. My initial thought is this would be a good time to take a detour. Then I think again (big mistake) and rationalize that it is almost 10:30 pm, not to mention I am nosy and want to see what is happening with this "debris". How many people could possibly be driving through downtown Atlanta at 10:30 on a weeknight? Answer: A LOT OF PEOPLE. So I didn't realize this mental error until I was stuck in the middle of a massive amount of traffic, hopelessly inching along through downtown. Then I hear a report on the radio. It's not 4 lanes that are closed on I-75 NB but ALL LANES. Well, this is in fact bad news. Meanwhile, I am realizing that if I were just a little smarter and a little less nosy, I would have detoured long ago and been safely home already. No such luck. I did finally wise up and realize that waiting to get past the "debris" was not going to be worthwhile. So I veered towards I-85 NB at the split and finally entered the mass of traffic that was actually moving. I took the first exit and very speedily found my way home on surface roads. Still no word on what the debris is, but I think I can wait until tomorrow to find out. Good night.

Update List

Ok, so I've gotten kind of behind on blogging, though I'm happy to say I'm not behind on life. I'm right here at Wednesday night just like everyone else, so that's good I guess. Anyway, here are a few things to report:

1. I did finish the Climb Atlanta race. Thank you to all of my wonderful supporters. I raised twice my goal amount! The race was shorter but harder than I thought it would be, and it was really fun to do with a bunch of other clueless people. It was almost like we were all in line for the newest Six Flags ride beforehand. We were standing around, kind of nervous and jittery, looking up in the sky a lot, wondering how we would make it and how long it would take, and talking small talk about what our expectations were. Then when we started all the anticipation was over and we were in survival mode. Everyone I saw on the way up was pretty much too out of breath to talk, so we kind of breathed heavily towards each other and grunted little encouragement grunts. Afterwards, and after we recovered from the quick energy zap, we were all elated and excited and patting each other on the back. Good job! Let's do it again!

2. Today is my mom's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! She's turing 29 again! Wait, I'm 29. Weird.

3. This past Saturday was the one year anniversary of my last day at Plant Vogtle! Ahh, what a joyous day it was. I can't describe the elation as I walked out that gate, and I am so thankful that one year later I am still quite pleased with the results.

4. Tomorrow will be my last final exam of my first year of grad school. Whew! Almost there, and I am still alive. This semester finals have really had me stressed. I can't wait for summer to begin... only about 18 more hours!

5. I went to a Van Morrison concert this weekend with Julie, who was in town visiting. Well, we sort of went. We actually went to the concert venue, and we heard the whole concert (it was outdoors), but we never actually got inside the gate. It's the most fun I've had being a beggar on the outside of the party. There were quite a few other ticketless fans, so we just hung out with them, enjoyed the nice weather, and listened to the old master do his thing. I'm kind of glad we didn't actually end up paying for tickets after all the fun we had outside the gate. If you look closely in the picture below, you can see that we were within sight of the crowd... we just weren't exactly in the crowd.

Van Morrison Concert, Chastain Amphitheater