Atlanta

I spent the last week at the ACTE conference in Atlanta. ACTE stands for Association for Career and Technical Education. This organization seems to be a catch-all for a lot of different disciplines, including robotics, biotechnology, business, woodworking, and life skills with a heavy dose of agricultural science thrown in. The Army drove a huge trailer into the Convention Center. Curiosity got the better of me, so I climbed inside and found it filled with training simulators. I managed to "crash" my helicopter 3 times before conceding defeat, accepting my free backpack giveaway, and returning to my own booth. I don't think I have to worry about the Army trying to sign me up.

It was really nice weather in Atlanta, so I got to do a lot of walking around. Atlanta has a bad habit of giving streets similar names. Our hotel was on Peachtree Center Ave which is not the famous Peachtree St that most people have heard of, but did run parallel to it (confusing, especially when you first hit town). On top of that, the streets tend to curve and split, forming skinny little pockets of land. But some architect managed to design a tall, skinny, triangular-shaped building to fit at the split of Peachtree and Forsyth. The north wall of this building was literally only as wide as the front door.

I walked down to Underground Atlanta, which turned out to be a major disappointment. Most of the history has been bled right out of it, and all that's left is a major food court with t-shirt and souvenir shops.  Food courts must be popular in Atlanta, because there were a lot of them around the downtown area.

I stopped at Woodruff Park, which was not only beautiful with all the blooming flowers, but had a lot of interesting people as well. The gazebo behind this statue is called, "Speakers' Corner." You can get a permit from the city to reserve a time to air your views on just about any topic. Truthfully, I think most people were just hanging out enjoying the 60 degree weather.

Our hotel (the Mariott Marquis) was several blocks away from the Convention Center. They had shuttle buses running back and forth, but with downtown Atlanta traffic, it was usually quicker to just walk. I found a shortcut through Olympic Park (the summer Olympics were in Atlanta in 1996). Lots of beautiful sculptures and fountains remain, and even though most of the trees have lost their leaves, Atlanta is warm enough to keep the flowers blooming.

When you're working a convention, the hours are often long, but one night I went out to dinner with some of the other exhibitors. We went to a restaurant called Sweet Georgia's Juke Joint. We had to pay a $5 cover charge for the entertainment, which turned out to be a fairly decent blues band. The food was wonderful and very southern. I had catfish, coleslaw, and cheese grits. YUM!

Our hotel was a block away from the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It's a beautiful old church (as many of the old ones are). Unfortunately it was locked up tight, but I went down one morning for mass before heading off to the convention.

One of the really nice things about Atlanta is their light rail system. The trip from the airport to downtown took only 20 minutes, and the station was only about a block from our hotel. I was fascinated with our station, because it was pretty far underground and looked like it had been cut out of pure granite rock.