Federal Aviation Administration director Marion Blakely announced that Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport will receive a $1 million grant that will fund a 2 year study. It seems it’s going to take 2 years to determine if Hartsfield-Jackson International should be expanded or if we should build another airport somewhere else in the metro area to meet future demand. I’m not sure if you remember but Hartsfields–Jackson International’s last runway expansion was the largest cubic feet of earth (dirt) ever moved in the history of the US to build the new runway. They conveyed across 8 lanes of interstate. It was a mechanical marvel. I know somewhere in the US there is a big hole in the ground from where all that dirt came from.

So I’m taking it the federal government needs to figure out if Hartsfield-Jackson International has the space to expand?? It would seem to me the last runway expansion would have a feasibility study of some kind they could use to quickly figure this option out?? But what do I know?? In Ms Blakey’s opinion, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas and San Diego all have airports in the US that will not meet the demand in the very near future. She claims one of the reasons airline demand will be up is because gas prices will hit $4 dollars a gallon. As I read the article in the AJC I started to think out loud. Gas is going to be $4 a gallon and stamps now cost .41 cents. This isn’t a pretty picture Barry.

Marion Blakely I want you to know at $4 a gallon combined with the fact stamps now cost .41 cents in my household airline demand may be down…..and I FLY FOR FREE!! It’s simply because I can’t afford stamps!! We should be spending money trying to figure out why the US Postal Service can not seem to make ends meet. Has anyone been to a post office lately? Have you looked at the mailing date on mail you receive to see how long it took to get too you?? Something else that’s a little scary is the US Postal Service is now going to print a universal stamp with no set amount on them?? That’s like me asking a person to sign a contract without a purchase price. What we need is runway expansions at US Post offices to meet our immediate needs!!

Honestly, now I’m starting to feel that neither gas prices nor airline travel cost will be my problem. Buying stamps to pay my bills will be!!

(CBS/AP) Most of us would agree that a mother’s job is priceless.

But the folks at Salary.com take time every year to figure out how much the actual work is worth.

This year, they say the work of a stay-at-home mom would command an annual salary of more than $138,000. That’s up about 3 percent from last year, but not as much of an increase as employers predict for their workers: 3.9 percent.

For working mothers, the amount is put at more than $85,000 this year. That is on top of any money earned in the workplace.

Much of the theoretical salary, by the way, is figured on overtime.

“Mom works multiple jobs and rarely gets a break from the action, working an average of 52 hours of overtime,” said Bill Coleman, senior vice president and chief compensation officer at Salary.com, in a press release.

According to the Salary.com survey, stay-at-home moms work a 92-hour workweek while working mothers logged 49 hours, or nine hours more than their formal workweek.

On March 11 2007 the Marietta City Council voted to ban all Pit Bulls and Rottweilers from city dog parks, including the dog park at Lewis Park at 475 Campbell Street near Sessions and Radium streets. Pit Bulls and Rottweilers are allowed in Cobb County parks as long as they’re on a leash. But they cannot run free any more in designated dog parks.

I personally have friends with Pit Bulls and Rottweilers. They’re all good dogs. I don’t think you can find a person that will tell you I’m not a pet lover. But as we all know not all pet owners are committed to other human or domestic animal safety. I’ve seen these dogs get into fights and many of the owners (men or women) don’t have the strength to bring the animal back under control once a fight or attack begins. When I read in the paper that a child or older person was attacked and no one could even beat the dogs off of them with pipes or bats just horrifies me to think what they went through. When you see the after pictures they’re very traumatic. Most suffer massive skin and tissue damage. Victims are tossed around like a rag dolls during these attaches. And to beat it all, you cannot shoot one of these animals if their attacking a person by law. I think if a dog is attaching a person and no one can stop the attack….I would have to shoot the animal if I had a gun and suffer the consequences of the law later. As I’m writing this blog I thought about the poor woman that was killed in her Manhattan co-op hallway in New York City a few years back. You may remember the dog owners were two pretty strange attorneys. They obtained the dogs from a person they represented that was in jail at the time of the attacks. Bottom line the lady attorney owner just couldn’t bring the dogs under control once they started attaching this helpless woman. These New York attorneys were convicted and sentenced to jail. I’m sure when they took these dogs they never thought anything like this would ever happen. It’s horrible for all parties. I’ve shown homes that potential buyers loved. But if they see neighbors with barking dogs showing aggression the house is never considered again by that buyer! The home is pretty much condemned as long as those dogs are around.

I’m starting to see more communities and subdivisions banning Pits Bulls, Doberman Pinchers, Rottweilers, Mastiffs, venomous animals & insects, large snakes,etc from living in a building, community or subdivision. The liability is huge for a pet owner if their animal attacks. You stand the risk of losing everything. I recently read that many insurance companies aren’t going to cover home owners liability as they have in the past. If a home owner has a dog which the insurance company has listed as dangerous they will not extend liability coverage if the animal attacks. If the animal bites someone it could cost you everthing. Many communities are enforcing laws requiring the removal of certain animals from a home if located in a community governed by covenants or the homeowner’s will be heavily fined or both. I’m very sorry to say that even if the animal is 35, friendly and blind with no teeth, walks on 3 legs with only 2 currently working he’s leaving or you’re moving with him. I truely hate when this situation happens. I hate we have to discriminate against certain breeds. But I understand citizens concerns. Please email me back a solution! Where do you draw the line? It’s very hard to govern sometimes and not discriminated against the helpless caught in the middle. It tears at my heart! Everytime they show a picture on TV of a dog that just killed someone they look so sweet and innocent too me. Something in me wants to give them another chance.

I’m by no means trying to tell people what kind of pets they should have or like. But I do feel communities have the right to say that certain animals with an aggressive or venomous pedigree shouldn’t live in well populated areas. Anything that can catch me and squeeze me to dead shouldn’t live near me either. I once had a friend that liked snakes. One evening he was bathing his Python in his apartment tub. Somehow he got distracted for a while (you know those crazy snake lovers) and when he came back into the bathroom all he saw was the tail of this 6 foot snake going over the lip of the toilet bowl. The drama and inconvenience he put his apartment building though was unbelievable!! I don’t believe they ever found that snake….I think about that snake every time I pass that building. I would hate to meet Herbie the snake reading my morning paper and not having my pants in the correct running position. You know what I mean!! I had a real estate agent friend duck walking under a old home off Bolton Rd in Atlanta with a home inspector and the buyer one day. Now we have three grown men under a home at the very back end of the house away from the small entry door they entered. Guess whats rapped around the top of a hotwater heater? It’s cooper alright, but it isn’t piping….it’s a big Python. Now I know these are two snake stories. But I find it funny that someone will post a picture of their LOST DOG offering a big reward if found. I’ve never seen a picture of a Big Python Snake stapled on a phone pole saying LOST…CALL IF FOUND. Be a good neighborhood. If you lost your snake please tell your neighbor so they can put the kids and the Yorkshire up! It’s the least you can do! For true….Do you remember a few months back when some lady living in Buckhead was feeding what she thought was a big fat cat that showed up at her house? I was totally freaked out when we were told it was a neighbors escaped exotic Lynx. A neighbor that was a licensed big cat breeder. Why in the WORLD OF COKE do we have any large exotic cat breeders in any part of Fulton County much less in the heart of Buckhead? This cat was appoximately 30 lbs or more. I cannot believe someone in their right mind would issue a licenses for an exotic cat breeder in this type if urban density. Listen it’s a free world but to be breeding large exotic cats within a stones throw of the governors mansion isn’t right!! It’s just stupid to take such a chance!

If you plan on getting a questionable pets I wish you the best and hope you get a wonderful loving animal. But do yourself a favor and check with you landlord or covenants committee first. It may save you a lot of hassle you didn’t expect. I know it would be awful to get a new pet only to be told you have to get rid of it! It very emotional! You need to be aware that your living options will get harder and harder to find if you have certain animals as pets. There are now a lot of animals that urban and suburban Metro Atlanta will not tolerant as part of their community any more. I grew up where all the dogs ran free. They very seldom got into a fight. Once in a blue moon a few dogs would gang up on a cat. They never chased the horses or cattle. We had very few dog attacks, nor were we bitten. Most of the time when a kid was bitten it was because they messed with the dogs food or tried to yank their tail off. Only the slow learners were bitten twice! We had Irish Wolf Hounds, Dobermans, German Shepards, Yorkshires, Labs, Huskies, Hounds and tons of Mutts. They all got along. Even some of the cats hung out with the dogs in my old neighborhood. When I was young if a kid had a snake for a pet he caught it. Most of the time they were of garden variety not boxed and shipped from the Amazon.

I soley put the blame for most dogs behavior on their owners. If you treat your dog as if their your body guard then their not going to understand how great it is to be a dog. Remember to error is human, to forgive is canine!

Atlanta’s growth tops the nation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Atlanta was the number one metro area in the country for population growth. Atlanta added more residents between 2000 and 2006 than any other city!

Atlanta’s metro population is now over 5,138,000 as of July 2006. This growth has been great for our real estate market and is one of the major reasons we haven’t had a real estate bubble or significant drop in homes values. The only downside to me has been the increase in our traffic. When I hear someone say to me, Oh you live in Atlanta, I hear the traffic is horrible. How do you deal with it? I usually tell people that the only reason we have traffic is because everybody wants to live here. We have well paying jobs and an excellent quality of life. If you can make appointments between 9:30 am to about 4:30 pm you can move around this city pretty easy. But commute times can be very long for many and it didn’t use to be. Traffic has greatly increased. Commute times are now issues for many living here.

No questions more people will be coming to Atlanta in the future. We need high speed mass transit systems to accommodate our current and future population. As Atlanta grows a lot of people will be forced further away from the city into out laying counties in order to find affordable housing. I feel as time goes by it’s going to be harder to convince someone and companies to move here if they know they have over a 1 hour plus commute to and from work everyday. I feel as county governments see their population increase and as they build their infrastructure for new houses, they also need to have a new job development plan that brings jobs to their own areas and counties so people work and live within a reasonable proximity of each other. I know Cobb County has this sort to strategic plan in place. Not only has Cobb County grown in population but also in job opportunities it had created. This is a very key piece of the puzzle in offering a great place to live with a quality of life others cities will envy.

Atlanta has the best job opportunities south of the Mason Dixon Line if not in the country. I would love to see all surrounding counties work together to accomplish a premier mass transit system.

Thirteen states have local housing markets, which are appreciating and Housing Predictor projects at least 9 more will be aded to the list by summers end.

Georgia
Mississippi
Texas
Utah
Arkansas
Alabama
North Carolina
Tennessee
Louisiana
Idaho
New Mexico
South Caroline

The AJC reported this morning that the metro poulation is now over 5 million people. Take a look at how Atlanta grew. It took 122 years from the founding of Atlanta to reach 1 million people in 1959, The second million came 21 years later in 1980. The third million came 13 years later, the fourth million seven years and the fifth million less than six years. Atlanta is the land of opportunity. Everyday I speak to people thinking of moving here either for jobs, cost of living or they want to be near their grandkids. Yes I’m seeing more and more older people wanting the come to the metro area to retire. Many love the fact that Cobb County gives them a huge property tax break if they purchase a home in that county. What we need now is a better mass transit systems to move all these people from place to place. HOTLANTA I expect we’re see a lot more growth in the immediate future. With this type of growth you will see homes with close proximity to Atlanta appreciate faster than homes with long commutes.

Georgia companies among ‘most admired’
Atlanta Business Chronicle - 3:09 PM EST Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Print this Article Email this Article Reprints RSS Feeds Most Viewed Most Emailed
Fifteen Georgia companies have landed on FORTUNE magazine’s “America’s Most Admired Companies” list for 2007.

The complete list of the companies will appear in FORTUNE’s March 19 edition.

United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) ranked 16th most admired in the United States, the highest of any Georgia company, according to the report.

The list also includes Aflac Inc. (NYSE: AFL), Beazer Homes USA Inc. (NYSE: BZH), BellSouth Corp. (now owned by AT&T Inc.), BlueLinx Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BXC), The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO), Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: CCE), Cox Communications, Delta Air Lines Inc. (Pink Sheets: DALRQ), Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX), Genuine Parts Co. (NYSE: GPC), GoldKist (now owned by Pilgrim’s Pride Corp.), The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD), Southern Co. (NYSE: SO) and SunTrust Banks Inc. (NYSE: STI).

Published annually by FORTUNE, the list serves as a report card on corporate reputations. To create the list, executives, directors, and analysts were asked to rate companies in their own industry on eight criteria — innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment, and quality of products/services. A total of 616 companies in 68 industries were surveyed during the fourth quarter of 2006.

If you haven’t taken the time to drive through the new West Vinings Village you should. This has turned out to be a beautiful development. I’m very excited about style and direction this community will bring to the Vinings area. Residential sales have been great for The Flats at Ashton Woods. The first building of condos is sold out and the second building is 56% sold.

I’m proud to say I’ll be helping the 1st homeowner to close the 23rd of February.

The retail area is going to feature the following.
Sports Bar / Steakhouse
Hair Salon
5 Guy Burger
Je Belles’ – Formal Boutique
Japanese / Sushi Bar
Akberet Welde Spa
Meal Makers
McCary’s Irsh Pub
Vantage Staffing
General Denistry
Pashmere’s Ladies Boutique
Nora’s Art Gallery
Blue Moon Pizza
Carr’s Barber Shop
Thai Restaurant
And more to come

Note what you see now is the first phase of the West Vinings Village development. The second phase could have a grocery store concept! The best is yet to come. West Vinings Village will have a very positive impact on the Vinings area!