Well, yesterday came and went.
Nothing much to go on about. Judi made it to her fist day of P/T and her therapist, C. Skip Vossler, to say the least rocks. Credit where credit is due, Judi has been working hard to get back to nermal. Yes, I wrote nermal on purpose. So far this week we had our Macromedia User group meeting ( www.seomug.org ) and plans are afoot for our next conference. For a little group, we are pretty cool on an international level. Long story. Anyway, Tuesday brought what almost every Tuesday does, SCA. Our local group, the Shire of Dernehealde has for once been meeting consistently over the summer. Parks are nice and all that, but all mosquitoes must die. This city needs somewhere for orgs to meet that does not cost an arm and a leg. Before you say community center, let me respond with $150 per hour for room rental. Yea, that is right.
Well, looks like I have my rant for today, the Athens Community Center.
We had a community center; it was a converted airplane hanger. It was not the greatest, but it was affordable somewhat. Then someone gets the idea to build this new community center. Wow, great, cool. The city funds it with taxes, a little less enthusiasm, but still, okay I can see it. It runs over budget, normal for projects here. So we have this cool looking brand spanking new community center with meeting rooms, b-ball courts, fancy gym. All in all, not a bad set up. Now comes the kicker you have to /join/ the center and pay a /membership fee/. Wait a minute! Did I not already help pay for this place and all its stuff with taxes? Well, yes, but there are operating expenses. Okay, I can see that, but they get funding from the city that covers most of that, close to 90%. Their memberships are for an Adult, $150.00 due annually. No kidding. In a county where most of the population makes less than 20k a year, they want that kind of money. Yea, real nice guys, an in town country club. That was real slick. Most of the time the place is vacant, except for a very few people(read our local $$$$ people). This place is a money sinkhole now. Wamt to see it for yourself? Click here.
The University here has great facilities, but does not allow community usage. They say its just for the students. Again, elitists abound. So here you can see what life in Athens is kind of like. One group of elites trying to out do the other while all of us other people who just want good lives get crushed in the middle. We have our carpetbagger politicians, our transient politicians (come in, get started in city politics, then move to county, then state, perhaps onward), our share of fanatics and loonies (Hi Art Gish, rot in Kansas you bastard, cause that is worse than hell!), freaks, zealots, released inmates from the insane asylum, and others. A colorful place to say the least.
Well, that is about it, except for the shout out to Tom (Yea, him from the blog entry from the other day) Welcome to the blogworld! You can see his blog here.
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