Tornadoes - Not Just in Kansas Anymore

Atlanta was hit by a tornado last night. Not the suburbs. Not the outskirts of the city. But the actual city. Downtown. Which tornadoes are not supposed to do.

They kept saying it was going to be a bad storm, but hello? we live in the city - I really didn't think it would be much worse than some strong winds, a couple of downed trees, and some power outages.

Luckily all our friends are fine and our neighborhood was pretty much completely untouched, but downtown, about 3 miles from us, got hit hard - the Dome, CNN Center, the OMNI Hotel, Philips Arena - as well as a lot of the neighborhoods between us and there. Pretty scary.

Here are some pictures from the local news station:




Cotton Mill Lofts, where some of our friends live.


Another view of Cotton Mill Lofts


Windows blown out at the Equitable Building.


The outside of Philips Arena - pretty ripped up


A building downtown


And pictures I took driving around this morning:


House in Grant Park


Another house in Grant Park


Windows gone at a business on Memorial


Blown out windows and knocked over sign at another business on Memorial


Another view of that building


Driving down Memorial


Tree down at Oakland Cemetary, Grant Park


Workers cleaning up trees in Grant Park

OMG Serenbe is so cute!

Lori and I spent the weekend at Serenbe, which is about 35 mins. south of Atlanta. It's a bit hard to explain the concept of Serenbe, but I'll give it a try. It's a community of (wealthy) people - artists, doctors, executives - who wanted a simpler, more considered life. They built the community with sustainability and friendships in mind. And there were no sacrifices made in terms of good food or good living. There are 3 restaurants, The Farmhouse (at the Inn), The Hil, and the Blue-Eyed Daisy. All of the restaurants feature organic food as well as food grown at Serenbe Farms under the tagline "farm to table." So it's all really fresh and good.

We were supposed to stay at The Inn, which is so adorable, but there was a problem with the reservation, so they wound up putting us in a house - A HOUSE! - in the community. It was huge and gorgeous. Take a tour with me if you will:



Other than sleeping in comfort, we (in no particular order): ate a lot, drank a little, went on a hayride that included the tractor sliding down a hill in a muddy section (unplanned), fed the animals (including 2 new-born black sheep!), jumped on a trampoline, pissed off some very large cows, walked a labyrinth (sort of), shopped at the reminiscent and yummy Harris & Clark gourmet grocery, and toured a bunch of the seriously amazing $800,000 - $1,000,000 houses.

Here are pictures:


Me and Lori outside - you guessed it! - Guest Services at The Inn


(Distant) view of the cows and horses at The Inn


Grounds at The Inn


The garden at The Inn


The Labyrinth at The Inn


Bumble House (second one in)


Kitchen of Bumble House


Back of the house


Lori in front of the Blue-Eyed Daisy


View of the little shopping area, aka "The Hamlet," in the community from the roof-top deck of the Modern House


The donkeys (minus one who somehow was in the same pasture as the horses)


Feeding the goats


Sam, the pot-bellied pig


The week-old baby black sheep


Serenbe Farms


Things I love at Serenbe:


How smart is this? Public trash/recycle bins


Adorable sign for this rental property


Entire-tree-turned-into-a-gate at the Stables



Pillow that was at the Bumble house

Print Making Class

Today we got to go visit SCAD Atlanta to take a print making class. This was good for 2 reasons: 1 - We didn't have to be at work from 9am - 1:30 pm; and 2 - It was really fun!


Everyone working hard on the monoprints.



Darren working on his and Jay's Dexter piece.



My happy sushi fish next to mine and Owen's whale guy.



A bunch of the finished prints. (Notice how scary our whale turned out.)


And for the type geeks: