Craig Given

Although it's been cooler than normal for August, Labor Day made up for it as the family and I headed out for a few hours of hiking at the Elsie Holmes Nature Park on this hot and steamy day. The kids played in the water and we spotted toads, turtles, snails, and several beautiful mushroom patches that looked like coral and flowers. We also spotted, but did not touch, several cow killers (aka velvet ants). We found wild muscadines which were quite delicious and which were drawing in the box turtles who were cleaning up the fallen fruit. About half way through our journey we also ran into Team Bear-Cat who joined us for the last leg as we headed up and out. I caught up on my geocaching for this park and picked up six more finds. One of which was a puzzle cache I'd solved two years ago on May 20, 2006 but never finished because we had to flee a hail storm back then. After four hours of hiking we quenched our thirst with soft drinks from Sonic and rewarded ourselves with a ...

Tuesday night, the payroll ERP analysts & PM team faced off against the ERP developer team (about nine people each). We met at the FireBird Rotisserie which holds regular trivia contests. While the main objective was to beat the developer team, there were about eight teams total competing. The developers were hoping for revenge after being beaten in the physical challenge at the last meet (bowling), which had happened before I was onboard. They were sorely disappointed at the end of the evening (we were there from 18:30 until about 21:00) as they were soundly trounced. Not only did we beat Mike’s team, we actually took first place overall and won the $50 gift certificate to FireBird, so it looks like a rematch may be in our future. And it looks like another busy tonight as well, since we’re staging Kronos Smart Views for an impending roll-out. The upside is that we get off early this Friday so everyone can get a head-start on their Labor Day weekend.

Friday 08/08/08 is supposed to be lucky, but it ended roughly for me, although the week started fine. Susie, the kids, and one of their friends came down to Atlanta on Tuesday to stay overnight. Both our vehicles arrived nearly simultaneously at the apartment (about 5:30p) and after they unloaded we all headed to Ray's NY Pizza on Roswell Road. Harrison approved of the pizza and verified that it did taste as good as the Ray's Pizza he'd had in NYC last Thanksgiving. We supplemented our pizza with salads, a gyro, etc. and all of it was quite good and very affordable. Harrison also showed me his drivers license which he'd gotten earlier that day and told me about his driving test. After dinner the kids decided that they didn't want to go shopping after all, and we went back to the apartment. They got a chance to swim in one the pools and later watched a movie on my computer. That took a bit of tweaking since the dialog wasn't coming out of the speakers, but was so...

Today I finish out my first month at the new job, and I must say I love it. I really enjoy the perks here and there's nothing like free food to cheer anyone's mood. The department meeting included cake (for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.), small candy bars, and free soft drinks. For the employee orientation, they went one better and had both breakfast and lunch, with the latter including steak, chicken, and shrimp. The last meeting I attended was a training session that included milk and cookies, and it's hard to resist the soft, chewy Pecan Toffee Crunch cookies! And then there's the fresh fruit baskets at least weekly next to the coffee machines. Not all the best bits are free, but still appreciated. I haven't taken advantage of the car washes, but you can get a detailing for $25 while your car's in the parking garage. And being in the garage is great, since your car isn't scalding hot at the end of the day nor do you get wet on rainy days. Of course...

After pouring over apartment listings for months, and narrowing down the list each iteration, I set out today to check out my final three options in order of preference. With Susie's prayers added to mine, I'm happy to report that my top choice was available and I filled out the application today. It looks like I will be staying within minutes of work at the Post Dunwoody Apartments in Sandy Springs. It's actually located on the same street as my new job, and only two miles from work. You can see a really detailed satellite view and my unit is in the SW corner, on the East side overlooking a Japanese Maple. When viewing the Google Map, you can activate Street View and get a virtual drive-by view taken this past winter.

I think I’ve narrowed my hunt to three apartment complexes and I’ll be visiting each in order of preference. Since the leasing offices don’t open until 10AM I spent some time during rush hour checking the traffic flow from each property to my new job. There were no traffic problems, but morning rush hour isn’t nearly as bad as evening rush hour, so I’ll need to check again. While driving around and learning the neighborhood I stumbled across Ray’s NY Pizza. Harrison, while in Manhattan, had some Ray’s Pizza and said it was the best he’d ever tasted. I saw on the Food Channel that one key ingredient is the water, so when a NY pizzeria franchises they either ship their water from NY or process local water so it’s the same as if from NY. I wonder what Ray’s is doing? And speaking of pizza, the local Mellow Mushroom looked dead, but I couldn’t tell if it was actually closed or looked that way due to pizza not being a common breakfast item (outside of the home, that is) or because I h...

I had a decent night’s sleep considering being in a strange bed. I’d stayed out until nightfall the night before checking out area apartments. The Dunwoody area is looking more promising than Saturday afternoon’s hunt. Most leasing offices won’t be open until 1PM today, so I spent the morning researching on sublets to visit first. Although I found over 40 listings, the sublet search wasn’t too profitable: the price was the same as renting an apartment, they only wanted female renters, they were only renting one room of their multi-room apartment (i.e., roommate), the timing was wrong (it was only for July or wouldn’t begin until September or was just for one month), the location was wrong (South of Atlanta outside 285!), they were for luxury apartments or condos costing $400 per DAY, etc. Of the few remaining that were even feasible, they were simply assuming the lease at the regular rental rate, so I might as well just get an apartment in the same complex for the year instead of...

I packed this morning and headed for Atlanta. I arrived before check-in, so I checked out the immediate area for any apartments not listed in my catalogs and also stumbled upon Publix, Walmart, Walgreens, and other essentials. There was a light rain for awhile, but everything was sunny and dry by the time I returned to the hotel and checked in. After unpacking, I discovered the TV didn’t work at all. That won’t be an issue, but what’s a real problem is that the internet is VERY slow and drops the connection sporadically, which is a disgrace considering they charge extra (albeit not a lot) for the service. I checked the speed and after four failed attempts, it finally stayed connected long enough to measure: just a tad faster (119kbps) than dial-up. I have a full, strong, steady wireless 802.11g signal, so that’s not the issue. I cannot use my email client, since their proxy blocks Thunderbird, so I’ll be forced to use a web-based client. Using their internet connection to resea...