Last September, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I was happy to find an out-of-the-way station selling gas for $3.05 per gallon. Barely three months later, I paid $1.90 a gallon at my regular station and felt foolishly grateful for the lower price.
Georgia's residential real estate market may not be booming, but it sure isn't declining. The real hot spots are on the coast, in the mountains and inside Atlanta's Perimeter.
So, have you been to the new aquarium? No, not the giant fish tank across from Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park - Midtown's new aquarium, at the Woodruff Arts Center.Table 1280, the elegant restaurant designed by Renzo Piano, is not so much a bar and dining room as a habitat. Viewed from the outside, its huge, incandescent glass rectangles swim with beautifully languid diners.
Transforming ships' cargo into retail merchandise is the task of the transportation networks, distribution centers, warehouse facilities and computer systems that make up the fast-growing logistics industry.
It's been a good year so far for Metro Atlanta's environment. The city and the Beltline Partnership purchased the Bellwood Quarry from Vulcan Materials. Plans call for a 50-acre lake with 351 acres of greenspace - the nation's largest city park.
Riding south from Jesup along U.S. Highway 301 with Harry Yeomans behind the wheel of his Mercedes, one is struck by a landscape of long stretches of huge pine forests, interrupted only occasionally by the crumbling motels that lured Florida-bound tourists to Southeast Georgia during the 1940s and '50s.
Atlanta's jobs will grow by only 1.8 percent next year, fifth best in the state for a city that is typically number one or two. Four metropolitan areas will grow faster: Columbus (3 percent) Brunswick (2.9 percent), Savannah (2.5 percent) and Valdosta (2 percent). What will be holding Atlanta back in 2006? Does it have something to do with recent headlines?
Carroll County is in the catbird seat: close enough to Atlanta to share in its spillover growth, but not too close for comfort.
Cartoonist Mike Lester's irreverent humor drives his business ventures.
Fast facts about Carroll County: population, municipalities, unemployment rate, per capita income, higher education, top employers.
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