It's summer, and for many that means some additional time off. Though I'm still working full time and won't have any vacation until the baby comes (paternity leave, technically), I thought I'd try to be more proactive about updating the blog, so that those with a more relaxed schedule (D included) will have something to read. I'm not going to make any guarantees about posting every day, but I will try to be a little more reliable about not skipping several days at a time. If you're one of our three readers and you feel like I'm slacking, poke me. Send an email or leave a comment bemoaning my disappearance on the last entry.....I'll find something to write about.
Unfortunately, there's not necessarily a lot going on to write about, which will make this task a bit harder. Aside from a quick jaunt to San Francisco, I've been staying mostly local. D's trying to take it pretty easy, so we don't do a lot, though there's plenty of shopping to complete the baby's room and she somehow manages to fit ice cream into the schedule somewhere. I've seen a lot of movies recently, but I don't really want to turn this into a movie review blog....though I've definitely got some strong opinions. We still watch way too much TV, but you also don't want to hear about how much I enjoy Cat Deeley, Top Chef: Masters, Better Off Ted, and many more. So, I'll be going to the mattresses and blogging about things that we've done (somewhat) recently that I never got the chance to discuss. By jumping back in time about three months, I'll be able to keep it fresh while still intermixing current events and baby news.
So let's start back in April, during D's Spring Break, when we took a trip to Alabama and Georgia to visit friends and family. We flew into Birmingham, rented a car, and then drove immediately to Atlanta, where we spent several days. We stayed with our friend K and saw a bunch of the city highlights; we bought an Atlanta CityPass for each of us, which gave us access to the main downtown attractions. The first day, we went to the "World of Coca-Cola," the Georgia Aquarium, and the CNN Center. I've posted the pictures to this Picasa album, but here are a few teaser shots.
Unfortunately, there's not necessarily a lot going on to write about, which will make this task a bit harder. Aside from a quick jaunt to San Francisco, I've been staying mostly local. D's trying to take it pretty easy, so we don't do a lot, though there's plenty of shopping to complete the baby's room and she somehow manages to fit ice cream into the schedule somewhere. I've seen a lot of movies recently, but I don't really want to turn this into a movie review blog....though I've definitely got some strong opinions. We still watch way too much TV, but you also don't want to hear about how much I enjoy Cat Deeley, Top Chef: Masters, Better Off Ted, and many more. So, I'll be going to the mattresses and blogging about things that we've done (somewhat) recently that I never got the chance to discuss. By jumping back in time about three months, I'll be able to keep it fresh while still intermixing current events and baby news.
So let's start back in April, during D's Spring Break, when we took a trip to Alabama and Georgia to visit friends and family. We flew into Birmingham, rented a car, and then drove immediately to Atlanta, where we spent several days. We stayed with our friend K and saw a bunch of the city highlights; we bought an Atlanta CityPass for each of us, which gave us access to the main downtown attractions. The first day, we went to the "World of Coca-Cola," the Georgia Aquarium, and the CNN Center. I've posted the pictures to this Picasa album, but here are a few teaser shots.
The World of Coca-Cola is pretty much the incredibly commercial, self-congratulating lovefest you would expect from a museum about Coke, sponsored and built by Coke, in the city that gave birth to Coke. That said, it was somewhat entertaining, though I wouldn't have wanted to pay full price. The portions I found most fascinating were the sections on advertising. From the various signs in the picture below, to the vending machines from around the world, to the "invention" of the modern-era Santa Claus, to the Victorian-style "Coca-Cola ladies" pictures, to the memorable commercials that play on a loop in a dedicated theater, they are not shy about their marketing. It makes it easy to see why they're one of the most recognizable brands in the world, though I tend to have a knee-jerk desire to boycott their products after seeing how insidious their advertisements are.
At the end of the tour, you enter a tasting room that is filled with soda fountains. There are about ten pillars, with three fountain consoles each. Every console has eight actual nozzles, and each nozzle is a new type of Coke product. It adds up to hundreds of new flavors, as most of them are from other countries and don't exist in US markets. They have every different flavor of fizzy fruit drink you could imagine, and some you couldn't imagine until you tried it. Though I haven't had a real "drink" of anything except water in about eight years, I will take sips of other people's drinks every now and then, to 1) try a new flavor, or 2) reinforce my distaste for alcohol/fizz/sugar/etc. Well, I took sips of a lot of different beverages that day, and I was filled with regret (and a confused jumble of contradicting flavors) about ten minutes later.
At the end of the tour, you enter a tasting room that is filled with soda fountains. There are about ten pillars, with three fountain consoles each. Every console has eight actual nozzles, and each nozzle is a new type of Coke product. It adds up to hundreds of new flavors, as most of them are from other countries and don't exist in US markets. They have every different flavor of fizzy fruit drink you could imagine, and some you couldn't imagine until you tried it. Though I haven't had a real "drink" of anything except water in about eight years, I will take sips of other people's drinks every now and then, to 1) try a new flavor, or 2) reinforce my distaste for alcohol/fizz/sugar/etc. Well, I took sips of a lot of different beverages that day, and I was filled with regret (and a confused jumble of contradicting flavors) about ten minutes later.
Just across the Centennial Olympic Park from the World of Coca-Cola, the Georgia Aquarium has eight million gallons of water and the fish to fill them. It's relatively young as aquariums go, opening in 2005, but they definitely went all-out. It's divided into five large sections that each focus on a different natural habitat: Georgia waterways, rivers, cold waters, tropical waters, and open ocean. Each section is well-built and innovative, but I didn't feel like there were enough separate viewing areas for the huge numbers of people that were there. The haphazard, built-over-time growth of some of the older aquariums (Boston and Baltimore come to mind) would actually be a benefit here, as it would provide more smaller exhibits rather than a few huge ones. That said, I wouldn't change the main attraction at the Georgia Aquarium one bit. The Ocean Voyager is a massive tank with a 100-foot-long underwater tunnel, viewing windows on all sides, and a huge 60-foot main window onto a really well-put-together ocean environment. This tank contains four whale sharks and a manta ray, and is still the only place in the US to see either creature in captivity. We sat in front of the main viewing window for a long time, enjoying the natural feeling of the fish and whales cruising by. The environment is large enough that you can witness some authentic fish behaviors....they congregate by species, they trail after larger animals to pick up the scraps, etc. It feels like the ultimate SCUBA adventure, because you don't have to worry about running out of air.
The last place we visited that day was the CNN Center. The building itself is huge, and houses much more than just CNN, including a hotel, other corporate offices, and a large open food court and seating area. The gift shop has fun shirts and other CNN paraphernalia, as well as the cutout of D's new boyfriend shown in the picture below. D bought a snarky shirt that says "It's called journalism" to wear during newspaper publishing days at school. Then we went on a tour of the studios themselves, and had a great time. The tour is fascinating and highly recommended....you get to see in-use studios for both CNN and Headline News, you can eavesdrop on the control room as they direct the live broadcast, and you can see all the overpaid and sensationalistic producers trying to come up with 24 hours worth of news in the background.
More about the rest of our trip later....this was just one (very full) day.
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