Meeting Jason Carter

Last Friday Democratic candidate for Georgia Governor Jason Carter came and spoke at Laura's American Politics class. Carter is President Jimmy Carter's grandson and currently a Georgia State Senator for District 42 which is in East Atlanta. The event was open to the public so I tagged along and as I was the husband of "Dr. Dean" I got to have a pretty good seat. He reminds me of John Edwards [I say that in the most positive way possible] and has certainly earned my vote on Tuesday.

And here's a view of a photo taken by the campaign:

I was hoping to get a chance to score an autograph from him and so I brought along a card of his Grandfather to sign. When I asked him if he would sign it he told me he hadn't seen one of these cards before so maybe I'll track down another copy and mail one to him.

I like the card and maybe one day when I run into President Carter down at the Piggly Wiggly maybe he can sign it too. It reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons which shows on of the treasures at the comic shop The Android's Dungeon was a photo of Sean Connery signed by Roger Moore.

Revisiting Olde Towne Morrow

A few weeks ago I wrote about visiting the abandoned Olde Towne Morrow area near our local mall and mentioned that in a few weeks the city was going to have an End of Summer get-together there. I was very interested to see how the area would be transformed and so we headed over see what was what.

I'll start first with the carnival that was set up at the Olde Towne's entrance.

They had a little Ferris Wheel, some other rides, and, of course, fair food.

Here are two "before and after" photos...it helped that the two days were very different in enhancing how different the two experiences were. 

Here an empty row of shops and offices gets transformed with some tents from local organizations and some food trucks.

As we were leaving they announced the start of the hot dog eating contest. It was standing room only and a nice way to end a fun afternoon.

Visiting Spooky Olde Towne Morrow

Down by my my local shopping center, Southlake Mall, there is an odd little "neighborhood" called Old Towne Morrow. There is a sign in front of the main road saying that the Olde Towne is closed and undergoing a face lift but that didn't stop us from driving in and taking a closer look at what it was all about. What's the worst that could happen, right?

Driving around it is a little spooky as there is no one around yet the building look close to brand new. This should definitely be a setting for The Walking Dead, which is filmed in Georgia after all! 

A little research after we returned home found that Old Towne Morrow was opened in 2009 as a mixture of park space, office, restaurants and shops. In total about $13 million went into the development. It was closed by the end of 2010 after only bringing in a few thousand dollars. 

And so there the buildings sit. Several have broken windows and although it felt like we were there by ourselves I imagine there were several people squatting in the buildings. This smaller buildings were intended for offices and on one of them you can see that the Morrow Police Department occupied one at one time. 

In a few weeks the City of Morrow will be hosting an End of the Summer party at Olde Towne so at least a few hundred people will be in attendance and it will be very interesting to see what changes will happen to "The Towne" between now and then.

There is also talk of building a college and high school football stadium on the grounds but as there is no particular college that would call the stadium home it sounds like another half baked idea.