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July 2007
Put down that dipstick and help me out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I took my car in to the mechanic this morning to have a 30,000-mile service check.
I dropped my car off at a shop close to work. I have had them do some work on my cars in the past, so I felt pretty good about having them service my car now. I haven’t had to do anything with this car since I bought it four years ago, so we’ll see what kind of work needs to be done.
It got me thinking: Does anyone know a good mechanic? Years ago, I used to know a guy named Jimmy Morgan. Jimmy was the bee’s knees. He could diagnose a problem, fix it right, and charge a reasonable price. He was a nice guy, he was honest, and he always took time to explain how cars work. Jimmy used to have a shop off Buford Highway near the package store, not too far from Duluth Haircutters.
I lost touch with Jimmy. I don’t know what happened to him, but I miss him terribly. I went to a different garage shortly after I lost touch with them, and it was culture shock. I had to replace a steering rod, or something like that. The garage was nice and neat. However, they kept trying to sell me a bunch of different services that I knew nothing about. They charged me $300, but it turned out that they never replaced the rod. I found that out when I had to service a similar problem a couple of months later.
Back to the present. The dealer from whom I brought my is under investigation for trying to cheat its customers, both actual and potential. Other places that I have been to try to sell me services that I did not ask for. I don’t know about cars. Most people don’t.
My point is that, as with a doctor, you need to find a mechanic you can trust. Automotive repairs can be expensive. However, if you trust the guy doing the work, more likely than not it’s money well spent.
Do you know someone like that in Duluth?
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Fast Times at Discover Mills
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What is it between me and shopping lately?
I’m sorry, friends and neighbors, I don’t often find myself talking about this very much. I have had so much of Wal-Mart floating around in my brain recently, the very idea of going to a grocery store, a drugstore, or even a convenience store has made me shudder with dread.
So, it was with some sense of irony that I found myself walking through Discover Mills Mall on Sunday. We had gone to see the new Harry Potter movie. With all the hyperbole of J.K. Rowling’s last book having been released for sale on Friday night, I figured, what the heck. Might as well throw myself into the thronging masses.
The IMAX theater was completely booked up until 9:50 that night at Mall of Georgia. So, I figured that I would kill two birds with one stone. Take my semiannual stroll through a mall, and write a blog about it.
When I think of a mall, I immediately think of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Yes, I’m getting old. No need to rub it in. At any rate, while thinking about Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates, I thought I would walk my hobbled body through the hoards and see how much things have changed.
It seems to me that in my day, people walked either on the right side or on the left side of the mall. Not anymore. I was reminded of another movie, “Crocodile Dundee.” You know, when Paul Hogan is walking down the sidewalk of New York City against the flow of traffic. Compounding the chaos was a number of people on cell phones. They walk like they drive: oblivious and inattentive. Five people walking side by side, each walking very slowly, each talking on her cell phone. A lady pushing a baby carriage talking on her phone. A man yelling at his two little boys to slow down while talking on a cell phone.
I couldn’t imagine having a cell phone as a kid at Norcross High School. The kids still mill around, but now they share downloaded tunes, the latest video games, and other electronic blurbs that I can’t even begin to understand.
Yes, the world has slowed down quite a bit for me. I’m laughing at myself as I type those last words. I don’t know when I got so out of touch with things, and I’m not yet ready to be convinced that I am. So, help me out.
What are the rules of the mall today?
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Do you want a Wal-Mart in your community?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THIS BLOG WAS UPDATED JULY 19.
Just when you thought it was going to be a quiet summer, in comes Wal-Mart.
Nothing quiet as a community plans to build a Wal-Mart on Peachtree Industrial - a super Wal-Mart no less. People are all a flutter. “Not in my backyard,” they say. “We have two Wal-marts within an eight mile radius of us. Why do we need another one?”
To take pressure off the other two stores, Wal-Mart company spokesman Glen Wilkins repeatedly said, and meet the needs of customers who live here now and continue to move in every day.
It makes sense to me. There’s a super Wal-Mart two miles away from my house. There are two Publix and a Kroger within two or three miles of me. There’s a Whole Foods shopping center and a SuperTarget, as well as another Kroger on Steve Reynolds Blvd., all within five miles of my house. I absolutely need another super Wal-Mart in my area, or else I will simply have to spend my dollars in Norcross or Alpharetta or Johns Creek. Heaven forbid!
And of course, we have to take the pressure off the other two stores. I mean, in some cases, almost half of the cash registers are open at busy peaks of the day. Next thing you know, Wal-Mart will actually start having to hire full-time workers to help ease the pressure off those other two stores.
What really frosts my shorts is that we, as citizens, have no legal right to do anything about it. Ask Shirley Lasseter, our esteemed mayor, or any of the city council members. They posted a memo to their website: “…that the land in question already is zoned for commercial development. That means a Wal-Mart store or any other similar retail development is allowed…and that Georgia law does not allow the city to prohibit the use as long as the project is developed in accordance with City of Duluth standards. As such, this matter will not come before the Mayor and Council.”
What a bunch of cowards. Thomas Jefferson once said that if a country didn’t have a revolution at least once a generation, then that country would die of stagnation. Or something to that effect. Mayor Lasseter is too busy working on her bid for the Gwinnett County Commission.
Thank goodness that this matter will not come before the Mayor and Council. It makes things easy for them to ignore. I won’t even discuss the legislators who ensured that voters would be neutered and docile. Pat the tops of our heads and say, “run along and play now. We have money to count.”
It seems that our neighbors are flexing their muscles. Chris Collins, a spokesman for the city’s Planning & Development Department, said that the city is reacting to pressure from outraged neighbors. The Zoning Board of Appeals is postponing the variance requests until Aug. 22.
“Ideally,” he said, “you would hope that those opposed and the applicants would continue to work out some kind of compromise. That’s what I would hope would happen with extra time.” It doesn’t sound like there’s much compromise to me. I’m for business, I think most of us are. But business has to profit a community, not just its stockholders. It’s not personal.”
However, the juggernaut Wal-Mart keeps rolling on. Closing old Wal-Mart stores to open bigger, better stores, leaving building shells and asphalt lots in their efforts to meet the needs of the customers. The trees in our neighborhoods will be replaced with streetlights, mangled cars playing rap music, the sounds of screeching tires drowning out the crickets and nightlife.
Yep. Sure is going to be a quiet summer.
Do you want a Wal-Mart in your community?
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Would stores marked in English, make it more inviting for you to shop there?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was driving down Pleasant Hill Road the other night. I noticed how many Korean buildings had gone up over the last several months. It was kind of rainy that night, and with the iridescent glow of the signs written in Korean, it made me feel kind of like I was in a Chinatown in New York City or San Francisco. Korean script looks different than Chinese or Japanese script, and though I can’t read any of those languages, I can usually distinguish among the three.
I have seen the Korean population growing Gwinnett County, particularly in Duluth. The Korean people are nice, polite, and hard working. I note with some interest that I see more churches catering to the Korean people as well as businesses. I say good for them, and I wish them much success.
I thought about the different businesses that I passed by, wondering if they were restaurants, department stores, computer firms, what this strange language was trying to explain to me. But then I had a thought: how would I tell someone who was lost how to find his or her way?
Someone could call me, for example, and tell me that they missed a turn, and ask me which way they need to go. “Where are you now,” I would ask.
“I don’t know,” they would reply. “The buildings name is in Chinese or something like that.” Given that they would be on Pleasant Hill Road, that could be any number of buildings along the strip.
Take that one step further. What if the building caught fire, or building was robbed, or an ambulance is required. How would you tell them where to go? It’s bad enough that none of these buildings has any kind of street address marking on the building. We can’t read the language. How will we know where to go?
Norcross addressed this issue with regards to its Hispanic population. They passed a law that said that signs have to mark in English, as well as Spanish. It seems to me that we can do a similar thing in Duluth.
I have no wish to step on the toes of our Korean friends. However, in the interest of promoting communication between our unique cultures, I would simply like to find a way to assist those of us who do not read Korean provide services to the community. And maybe, in the process, I can buy some goods in a Korean grocery store. That is, if I know which of these stores sells groceries.
Would stores marked in English, make it more inviting for you to shop there?
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Have you found a place to hang out in Duluth?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was out with my girlfriend a couple weeks ago, tooling around Duluth. It was a Friday night. We’d finished dinner and were trying to think about what we should do.
I suggested going downtown to see what was going on in the burg. There was a concert going on, and we did some window shopping while we listened to music. I kind of felt old timey to me.
It was about 8:45, and we really didn’t want ice cream. I remembered my dad telling me about a new coffee shop in Duluth, so we set off to find it.
We soon came across the Main Street Coffee Shop. It was across the street from the theater, with the park behind it. The building itself was set off the sidewalk, a little away from the street, which left a little patio area in front of it, big enough for a gazebo and some tables. We went inside.
The folks there were really friendly. I had a latte with hazelnut syrup on it. The guy put some whipped cream in their, and shaped it so that it looked like a maple leaf. I thought that was really cool. The sign on the door said that they were closing at nine o’clock, but he said, “We’ll probably be here for awhile, so if you want some more just ask.”
We went outside and sat at one of the tables. There were several people on the patio, and a couple of people sitting on the bench is in the gazebo. All were drinking coffee, chatting, listening to the music coming from the park. I thought to myself that if we weren’t so American, this could almost be a scene from a street in Paris.
It would have been easy for me to miss had I been looking for the place. Main Street in Duluth is not easily accessible. There’s a lot of through traffic on Lawrenceville Street in the morning and in the evening, so it’s not an easy place for a commuter to stop in. In Norcross, parking is very accessible to the downtown. In Duluth, the traffic on Lawrenceville Street makes it very difficult to get in and out. It seems to me like this could be something that the city Council should be able to address one of these days.
I would have to say that my experience was a good one. I look forward to going there again, perhaps on a Sunday, when I can grab a cup, sit on the bench in the park, read a book, watch people, and enjoy the day.
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