Cookies and milk

Yesterday, Greg and Sammy had their last day of school. It was probably their last day ever on Hembree Springs Elementary. If all goes well, they will start the new school year in Texas.

So the summer season has started. Many summer nights will be spent like today's: swimming in our community pool followed by freshly baked cookies and milk before going to bed.

Go your own way

Last night, we were watching a couple of songs from a recent Fleetwood Mac concert. Shown in HD, it was clear to see that the seventies are a long time ago. Lindsey Buckingham lost his facial hair, and Stevie Nicks looked a little rotund in all those wide dresses, scarves and streamers.

But the concert brought back memories of 1977, when Rumours and Hotel California topped the album charts, and I was watching Top Pop every week to catch three minutes of Stevie Nicks. I love the slow pressure build up in Go Your Own Way, how drummer Mick Fleetwood is working hard to contain himself, how the song erupts in guitar noise, and how Stevie Nicks, in great contrast with the others, stays cool and unaffected throughout the entire song.

Music Video - Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

Petruk and Gareng

The international departure hall at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport features a puppet exhibition. There's a German Dr. Faustus, Czech puppets, a Chinese lion, an African pig, and from the USA there is a Muppet. My favorites, however, are the Indonesian puppets Petruk and Gareng. These clown brothers sometimes remind me of Greg and Sammy: Gareng with his long nose and Petruk with his big teeth.

The sign is up

After five and a half years in Georgia, time has come to move back to Dallas. We have mixed feelings about it. We love our house and we love Atlanta. The boys will miss their school, their teachers, and their friends.

But with San Antonio's AT&T taking control over Cingular and Bellsouth, our business is not going to increase in Atlanta. It will slowly move to Texas.

On Friday we put up the for sale sign. Our home is listed in the MLS, our agent created a slideshow, and www.2005hembreegrove.com is under construction

Touching up the house

We have been touching up the house lately, in preparation for putting it on the market. Ina discovered unknown painting talents. She painted nearly all baseboards, doors, and frames in the house. In addition we had a handyman doing all kinds of stuff for over a week. Right now, the house is sparkling and ready to be listed. It never looked this good.

Paris on Ponce

Ponce de Leon Avenue is one of the swankiest streets in Atlanta. It is home to trendy coffee shops, traditional southern tea rooms, sad snowman murals, majestic diners, funky neon signs, art deco movie houses, stunning trees, ATL scooters, seedy motels, Krispy Kreme doughnut shops, Our lady of the Kudzu, over the top store signs, the fabulous Fox Theatre, dogs on motorcycles, the Zesto lunchroom, the coolest Grolsch billboard, and the Paris on Ponce store.

Paris on Ponce is a three building orange colored warehouse filled with 18th century antique to new designer furniture. We passed it yesterday, on our way to another furniture store: Gado Gado where we bought an Indonesian wall mirror framed in carved teak wood.

Today, there was another kind of Paris on Ponce de Leon when the Tour de Georgia finished in midtown Atlanta. The previous tours finished in Alpharetta, at less than two miles from our home. This year, the tour finished with six laps through Atlanta. Greg had a soccer match, so we could not go to cheer on the cyclists. Maybe one day, we'll cheer them on in the real Paris.

Fast growing cities

One of my favorite website is the one published by the US Census Bureau. They release interesting statistics on a continuous basis. This week, they released growth figures for metro areas.

The Atlanta metro area gained 890,000 residents from April 1, 2000, to July 1, 2006, the largest numerical gain of the nation’s 361 metro areas. Atlanta passed Boston and Detroit and is now the 9th largest city with 5.1 million residents.

Dallas-Fort Worth had the second largest numeric increase at 842,000, and totaled about 6 million people. Houston (with an increase of 825,000), Phoenix (787,000) and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (771,000) rounded out the top five metro area gainers over the time period.

The ten largest cities in the US are now (population in millions):

1. New York -- 18.8

2. Los Angeles -- 12.9

3. Chicago -- 9.5

4. Dallas - Fort Worth -- 6.0

5. Philadelphia -- 5.8

6. Houston -- 5.5

7. Miami - Fort Lauderdale -- 5.5

8. Washington -- 5.3

9. Atlanta -- 5.1

10. Detroit -- 4.5