Yipeee, this afternoon, the mover is going to deliver my stuff, finally! :-) It has been almost a month since they picked it up in California. I was starting to get tired to eat in paper plates, drink in plastic cups, sleep on an inflatable matress, not having anything to sit, no chair, no sofa, etc...

The exploration of Atlanta continues... I focused on downtown this time and added a bunch of pictures to the Atlanta photo album.
I have to say downtown Atlanta is growing on me. The mix of styles makes it interesting and it has more character than what I expected...

Fortunately, downtown does not uniquely consists of large avenues sided with well manucured skyscrapers, like the ones around Peachtree Street, the Atlanta main street. You can also find there government buildings, like the Georgia capitole or the city hall, early 20th century constructions likethe Candler Building.
There seems to be a part of downtown that has not been renovated yet, it is the least you can say...
"Popculture" is there too, especially with everything around the Coca Cola theme. Atlanta is the Coca Cola City, you have to be blind not to notice it! Check out the ornaments, !!! Well well:-)...

Anyways, all the pictures are here...

What did I hear??? My Grandma reads my bog???
People my generation at most usually managed to initiate their parents to computer and except for playing solitaire and emailing once in a while, they will not use it that much. Web surfing, what's that??

Well, I have a grandma, over 80 years old, which not only emails me the pictures she takes with her digital camera regularly but also started to read my blog recently! Amazing my Cybergrandma isn't she?

Here is Bank of America Plaza, the tallest skyscraper of the Atlanta Skyline, 312m/1023ft.
Pretty tall, but still 130m/520ft less thant Chicago's Sears tower....
When I say Skyline, I should rather say skylineS. It seems Atlanta has 3 distincts ones, downtown, midtown and Buckhead (that could very well have been named uptown).
I spent the last two week-ends exploring Atlanta. First Pictures:
Atlanta
Atlanta Historic Center

Change of style for the website, from blue to green... The previous style, mainly blue, was more adapted to California.
The headers have been made using pictures of North Georgia forests, in Vogel state Park.

Great news for Saddam Hussein! In case he comes in vacation in Atlanta, he will be allowed inside the Hard Rock Café...
OK, I admit, there is a risk he may not be allowed in, after all, there is still a doubt on the question, does he or does he not have drugs?

It feels lilke I am back to the stone age... I will have a real internet connection only on July 10th, when it will please comcast (hopefully) to come and connect cable TV and internet...
In the meantime, I am running AOL 9.0 "optimized" with 1099 hours free that was in my mailbox. God, AOL really sucks, I have not been able to connect at more than 26400bps yet, I wonder how it was before they optimized it? :-).
On top of that, the 128Mb memory extension I added to my laptop 2 years ago stopped working yesterday. I am now running a laptop with an Intel Celeron 600MHz and only 64Mb of RAM, AOL by itself seems to be using all of the resources and everything is veeeery slow (using lots of virtual memory). Not to mention that about 2 months ago, the Q, A, Z, 1, ', ", BkSpace and Forward keys stopped working on this guy which make the use of an external keyboard a must, unless you want to test your self control skills! Try not using the backspace, it is tough...

I think an upgrade is long overdue...

Last day, a half day actually. Nothing special in Mississippi and Alabama, this is forest all the way, on one of those nice freeways:

I finally arrive at destination!!!! Ouf...
I quickly unload my car and go for a walk, after 3 days driving, this is much needed! So I go for a short hike on the shores of the Chattahouchee river, which is the river that passes north of Atlanta and just about 2 miles from my (new) place.

It reminds me of the Potomac river in Maryland.
Man, I really missed this kind of stuff.....

Texas and Oklahoma, still the great plaines... The only things that break the horizon line are electrical poles and barns...

I am lucky with the weather. This is the Tornad halley after all but the weather is almost perfect...

Finally, 5 to 6 hours later, a little East of Oklahoma City, the forest starts! It is not too dense and trees are kind of small at first but it gets like a true forest quickly.

I Arkansas, the first showers of the roadtrip. It is also the first time I am driving my SUV more that 10 minutes when it is raining, I bought it in California...

End of Oklahoma and Arkansas. I arrive to Memphis, Tenessee and the Mississippi river. I decide not to stop to Memphis, partly because of the rain and it honestly does not look very nice either. Besides I am everything but an Elvis fan;-)...

I leave I-40, I just have to drive towards Atlanta across the state of Mississippi and Alabama.
Stopping for the night in the middle of nowhere, I mean Mississippi.