Being Amber Rhea

Today at work, we’re having a “cookout” (read: catered barbecue) at lunchtime, and the office closes at 2:00. I am so looking forward to the long weekend. -Not because work is stressful or I don’t like being here or anything like that. Actually, I quite enjoy being at work. But Rusty and I are going to take a road trip of some sort, and I feel like I really need it right now.

There’s been IRL stuff on my mind that hasn’t made it to the blog. Mostly, I’m worried about my parents. Without going into detail, I’ll just say I want them to be okay - better than okay, in fact; I want them to be well - but I feel powerless. I hate that feeling. And in general, this and other, smaller things have been leading to a subtle feeling of unrest.

So a day on the open road, with the sun shining down, in rural Georgia, is, I think, exactly what I need for some rejuvenation.

Rusty and I had been contemplating going to the 13th annual Redneck Games. I mean come on, how awesome does that sound? But we’ve decided it might be more awesome in theory than in reality. In reality, it’ll probably just be a hot, crowded gathering where I’ll get annoyed because I don’t like to be in large crowds in the heat. So we’ll go somewhere else instead. We just have to figure out where. When we get home this afternoon, we’ll study the big map and decide on a route.

Hopefully wherever we go, we’ll find some stuff like this to photograph:

Two years ago, Rusty and I took our first road trip together, and it remains one of my favorite memories.

That reminds me, I need to write a post about my affinity for old stuff, weird stuff, and especially old, weird stuff. I wonder how much of it has to do with scarcity? But, I must work now, so I’ll write that post later.

Here’s the latest video episode of Mostly ITP, chronicling our road trip last weekend and talking about why we do these road trips in general. It’s longer than we would typically make these videos, but we wanted to experiment a little, so that’s why.

I haven’t actually watched it yet because Rusty finished editing it late last night, and I don’t have sound on my work computer. But I had already seen the first ~half or so, and besides, I know it’s going to be good no matter what!

We’re back from our weekend jaunt around various parts of Georgia. We hit more small towns this weekend than I think we ever had prior, in one trip. Only about a third of my photos are on Flickr at the moment, but I’ll post the rest of ‘em soon.

Look at this crazy old jail we saw in Greensboro:

Is it a rule that every state must have a town named Greensboro? Like Springfield?

Sometimes I like to just go back through my Flickr photostream and remember fun and interesting times past. And since I’m nearing 5,000 photos (I’ll never catch up with Josh!) it seems like as good a time as any to post some of my favorites.

So have a look! You can click on each one to go to the Flickr page with more info, because I don’t feel like writing captions for them.
Read the full post »

We’re back from our weekend getaway. Actually, we got back last night. We had the foresight to take today off work to recuperate, and I’ve spent most of the day alternately uploading photos from the weekend and dealing with Sex 2.0-related business (and attending a fairly strenuous pole dancing class).

Rusty spent most of the day working on a video about PodCamp Nashville. He’s going to post it tomorrow.

I’ll write more later, but it’s been a busy day and at the moment I’d rather let these photos speak for themselves. So here’s some visual documentation of our weekend…

Our first stop was Adairsville, Georgia. It’s a tiny little town with a very well-maintained and (relatively) active town square. It’s important to say relatively active because this was the middle of the day on a weekday and there was hardly anyone around - and the Chamber of Commerce is right there.

Up on a hill we spotted the Gaines House, which has got to be haunted. (If only we had known about Barnsley Gardens ahead of time, we would’ve gone there, too!)

On Saturday, we went to PodCamp Nashville. My tweets from it pretty much sum up what I thought, and Rusty’s going to post a video. So instead, here’s a photo of downtown Nashville at night:

Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the Pancake Pantry, and I spotted these two bookstores across the street:

Back on the road for more visits to small Georgia towns, our first stop Sunday morning was Ringgold. There wasn’t much going on in Ringgold, but they do have a wedding chapel where walk-ins are welcome:

Dalton, on the other hand, was bigger than we’d expected. The highlight was definitely the Wink Theatre. Later, at a Starbucks, we saw the people who run the Rock Bridge Community Church that meets there. They were dressed in all camouflage. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching with your venti latte!

Our last stop was Chatsworth, where there wasn’t much of anything in the downtown area, but on the way out of town, we happened upon this fabulous abandoned motel:

Even though I’m sad about missing SoCon08, overall it was a good weekend and I was happy to add more pins and highlighting to our big Georgia map! Road trips with Rusty are some of my favorite things in the world.

We’re heading to Augusta for a few days. We’ll also be doing another excursion to small Georgia towns for photos and exploring. Not sure how much I’ll be on the computer over the next few days, but before the year is over I will put up a 2007 In Pictures post, following the meme Rusty started!

Also, remember to call 678.389.9441 if you have anything for our end-of-year podcast!

We’re back from our trip to Columbia, and on the way home we also stopped in three small Georgia towns: Washington, Warrenton, and Camak. I love the peaceful feeling of driving along rural Georgia highways… and then coming upon little ramshackle towns (or remnants of towns) to photograph… good stuff. Road trips with Rusty are some of my favorite times.

I managed to get all the photos from our trip uploaded - and properly labeled! - on Flickr. I have yet to begin scanning all the interesting family history documents I found; that’ll be a separate post, or more likely, series of posts. I spent a good chunk of time in the Records and Deeds department at the courthouse; the Probate Court office; and the South Carolina Archives and History Center. And my quest is not completely over, as there are still people I need to call and/or write.

On a less happy note, I’ve been feeling an unpleasant sense of blog inertia for the past several days, where I feel like I can’t write about anything “controversial” anymore, and like I don’t have anything worthwhile to say and/or nobody wants to listen. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. Instead, here’s a sampling of some photos…

Unknown pair, First Presbyterian Church cemetery, Columbia, SC:

The Leaning Christmas Tree of Columbia:

Busted Plug Plaza, Columbia, SC:

The Wilkes County Republican Party has their headquarters in a trailer:

Knox Theatre, Warrenton, GA:

Camak City Hall:

Check out the full set here.

After work today, Rusty and I will be heading to Augusta, where we’ll be staying overnight. Then tomorrow morning, we’re heading to Columbia, SC, to continue my hunt for family history (as previously described), take photos of the city, and just relax.

We’ll be in Columbia until Saturday. We’ll probably record a podcast while we’re there; we actually have topics ready for two separate podcasts: one talkie, and one movie review podcast. It’s also likely that I’ll finish Bob Jensen’s book tonight (only a few more excruciating pages to go) and write some sort of book review.

Maybe it will rain in Atlanta while we’re gone.

Rusty and I are back from our 4-day road trip to the Carolinas. It was a good combination of planned and spontaneous; I just wish we’d had a few more days.

First we went to Greensboro for ConvergeSouth 2007. We got there in time for about half of the final session of the day, wherein Jason Calacanis demonstrated the power of Twitter by Twittering his phone number and then Robert Scoble called him. Based on what I’ve heard and read, people seem to be split into two groups - those who thought this was cool/amusing/impressive, and those who thought it was obnoxious. My reaction falls somewhere in the middle, but leaning toward the “obnoxious” side, I think. Part of that is just because I’m non-starstruck with Scoble.

Speaking of which… well, I’ll get to it in a minute. Friday night we went to the ConvergeSouth barbecue at David Hoggard’s house (and they actually had veggie burgers!) and met BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort and contributing editor Laurie White. They were both so nice, funny, and down-to-earth; I really enjoyed hanging out with them. Oh, but how this relates to Scoble… well, somehow he came up in conversation, and I mentioned being disgusted with his behavior at ConvergeSouth 2006. Elisa said she’d seen he and Maryam give the same presentation at a different conference, but they were very much co-presenters. We wondered whether she had seen them after I had, and maybe Scoble took my criticisms to heart. Later that night I did some research on Google and it turns out, Elisa did see them after I did. Ha!

Saturday we had a good time at ConvergeSouth; I liveblogged Elisa’s keynote and did a bit of Twittering throughout some of the other sessions. Of course, the inevitable J-School/B-School session - otherwise known as “journalists vs. bloggers” - got ugly pretty fast; but I’ve yet to be in one of those sessions where it doesn’t turn ugly. At 1:00, I led a session entitled Podcasting and Beyond. It seemed to take the folks there a few minutes to understand that they weren’t just “the audience” and I wasn’t going to talk at them for an hour; once that became clear, we had a good discussion. I recorded it and will put it up as a podcast soon.

Sunday morning, we left Greensboro and headed to the Carolina Raptor Center. This is a place just outside of Charlotte where they rehabilitate injured birds of prey. Their goal is always to release the birds back into the wild, but some birds aren’t able to be released, due to the nature of their injuries. These are the permanent residents at the CRC.

I highly recommend this place to anyone who has even the remotest interest in birds! (Which should be everyone.)

After leaving the raptor center, we decided to head to Columbia, SC. We’d been meaning to go there eventually anyway, so we figured there’s no time like the present. Columbia turned out to be a pretty neat town. We didn’t have as much time as we would’ve liked to walk around taking pictures, because it was almost dark by the time we got there, and on Monday I spent most of the morning doing research at the courthouse. I’m trying to track down some family history there… but I’ll do a separate post about that. Rusty did sneak away and photograph two Kress buildings for me, though:

We’re planning to go back to Columbia the weekend of December 8th. At that time, I’m sure we’ll take five million photos.

On the way back home, we stopped in Augusta for lunch with my parents. It was a totally last-minute decision, so I was glad they were available for lunch!

So that’s what we did on our 4-day vacation. I love road trips, and I’m already ready for another one. Hopefully we’ll be able to get in a few day and weekend trips between now and December.

October is always my favorite month. I can’t put my finger on exactly why (I swear it’s not just because my birthday is at the end of it), but the weather plays a huge part. October weather in Georgia is just perfect to me. The air gets a certain autumny smell that makes me feel refreshed and generally optimistic.

A lot of shit has gone down over the past month and a half, and a lot of it has been (and currently remains) un-bloggable. It’s certainly not going away with the advent of October, but things are feeling so much better overall. We’re in our new apartment in Decatur, which feels way more like home than the old place ever did, even with furniture positioned haphazardly and boxes still stacked everywhere. Our plan is to stay here for a year, and then buy a place. This is going to be a good year.

And October is going to be a good month! It’ll be a busy month, but busy with good, fun, life-affirming stuff.

Upcoming awesomeness for October:

• Oct. 5: North Fulton Drama Club’s production of Merry Wives of Windsor.
• Oct. 6: Harvest ‘07 Erotic Art Show
• Oct. 12-13: BarCamp Atlanta
• Oct. 14: PoleLaTeaz student showcase - I’m performing!!! :D More details to follow.
• Oct. 18: Sex, Wine and Chocolate. (If you’re planning to come, buy your tickets now; space is limited.)
• Oct. 19-20: ConvergeSouth - I’m leading a session entitled “Podcasting and Beyond.” (Hmm, gotta make some PowerPoint slides this week… but only a few, I promise!)
• Oct. 21: After we leave Greensboro we’ll be visiting the Carolina Raptor Center, and then moseying back toward Atlanta, stopping along the way to photograph various small towns and Southern oddities.
• Oct. 22: Day off work for continued moseying if necessary, or sleep and whatever else.
• Oct. 26: Club 2Risqué new facility opening party.
• Oct. 28: Recording a new episode of the GA Politics Podcast at Manuel’s. (This is the part where I sit around and sip tea while other people talk about politics).
• Oct. 30: My birthday a.k.a. 28 Years of Amber Rhea.

Somewhere in there I’ve gotta find time to do mundane things like renew my driver’s license and upgrade the blog to WordPress 2.3, but that hardly warrants placement on the List of Awesomeness. Oh, and Jenny… are you still coming to visit? :)

Rusty and I spent the weekend in Milledgeville, which is about two hours south of Atlanta. (Don’t you love how it’s possible to measure distance in hours?) We went on some tours, took a bunch of photos, and spent a lot of time in the big comfy bed at the B&B where we stayed.

I love when we take these little weekend trips. Even though the inn had free wifi of which we partook a bit, it still felt like we were “off the grid” for the most part. And even though I don’t usually go for touristy stuff, I make exceptions when the touristy stuff involves history or other nerdy pursuits. We really enjoyed the tour of the Old Governor’s Mansion and the trolley tour of downtown.

One thing that stood out to me about Milledgeville was that everything is so old. I know there are plenty of old small towns in Georgia, but something about Milledgeville in particular… it seems older. I don’t think that’s just a random perception, either. First of all, it wasn’t burned by Sherman’s troops during the March to the Sea, so there are a lot of actual antebellum buildings. (Peeve: we stayed at a bed-and-breakfast called the Antebellum Inn, but it was built in 1890.) It also didn’t get hit with a bunch of “urban renewal” in the 1960s. (I overheard someone talking about that while we were on the trolley tour, and I gleaned that Milledgeville had an active historical society way before most other places.) It was the state capital from 1803-1868, and, as the tour guide was saying, when the capital moved to Atlanta, Milledgeville pretty much became a ghost town. Its heyday was in the early/mid 1800s.

Speaking of ghosts… yes, of course we went to Central State Hospital! We didn’t go inside any of the buildings, because we’re not down with the B&E; in fact, we didn’t even get out of the car. (We rolled down the windows to take photos.) The place had a very creepy vibe, and I just did not want to be walking around.

Nevertheless, I may have inadvertently photographed a ghost. Generally I think the talk of “orbs” as something paranormal is crap. It’s dust on the lens, people. But what showed up in my photo was much bigger than your typical orb/dust. And I see the vague shape of a face in it (you have to view the original size to be able to make that out). Who knows, it could be something else… but, well, judge for yourselves:

There will be a podcast about our Milledgevile trip soon. In the meantime, check out my photos on Flickr: Downtown Milledgeville and Central State Hospital. And don’t forget to listen to our podcast reviewing two Atlanta swinger’s clubs!

For some reason today, I’m thinking about good times in rural Georgia:

And if anybody can identify where all four of those photos were taken (without clicking through to look at the Flickr descriptions, of course), then you deserve a crazy prize.

Blogging for Sex Education post to come later today. Keep checking here for the round-up of all posts on the topic.