News - Friday, October 14, 2011

The October series of Con­tinuing Legal Education (CLE) seminars is resuming October 21. Judy Cornett, association professor at UT College of Law, will speak about “The Ethics of Atticus Finch.” Those who attend the seminar will be motivated to think more deeply about Finch as a heroic lawyer, confront Malcom Gladwell’s criticism about Finch and reach their own conclusions about whether Finch is a hero or what type of hero he is, Cornett says.

The tourism business in Chattanooga is a conundrum. Despite the depressed economy, the launch of a competing aquarium in Atlanta, Ga., and the lack of new tourism product in the city in recent years, the number of people visiting Chattanooga is rising. One major indicator, hotel tax revenues, rose 18 percent during the last fiscal year, even though the rate itself hasn’t changed since 2005. This was almost double the national average.

Saturday, October 14

At Lovell Field, approx­imately 22 commercial flights and an estimated 100 private flights using the airport were grounded for the 12-hour period from Saturday noon until midnight during the nationwide “Shy Shield” air alert exercise.

Almost all lawyers write for a living – at least in part. Some lawyers write contracts and deeds, others write product disclaimers, some draft lawsuits, and some write legal briefs. Almost all of us write letters. That might not seem like a big thing, but not many people write letters these days. There is a talent to writing a good letter.

I have heard and read about psychology experiments where test subjects are put into a stressful situation and then observed to see how they react. For example, hungry people may be put in a room full of food and asked to solve problems while being forbidden to eat the food.

I love this time of the year. October has always been special for me and one reason could be because of the fact it is the month of my birth. Birthdays are pretty big events in our family and coming from a dairy family we “milk” them for everything they are worth.

As I have been consumed by the fast-paced nature of my schedule these past few weeks, the passings of three of my friends in country and gospel music brought on some sweet memories of the times we shared and the music they created. Two of the artists were in their 90s and had been out of the performance limelight for about a decade.

(I’m at the beach this week and thought I’d recycle this old saltwater column. – Jay)

We walked into the open-air dining room that sits above the beach at the split on Highway 98. Kathy quickly spotted Mike, the blonde lifeguard who had run the umbrella and beach chair concession on this stretch of sand for as long as we had been coming here. He sat shirtless and shoeless at one of the tables, helping a waitress wrap silverware in napkins for the dinner crowd.

Jackson, Wyo. - This charming town of 9,577 residents is the principal municipality of the area known as Jackson Hole. It’s also the seat of Teton County. Astride the Snake River – or rather Flat Creek, a tributary thereof – it’s home to the National Elk Refuge. And it’s a convenient headquarters for the second leg of our vacation.

The Hamilton County Fair marks the true beginning of fall. In its 22nd year, this fair gives locals an abundance of sights, smells, and tastes to savor for two whole days on Dallas Island in Chester Frost Park. Each year, on this 280-acre lakefront Hamilton County  fa­­cil­ity, more than 50,000 people are attracted to all the fair offers.

I’m going to a friend’s wedding this Saturday in Hot Springs, Ark. She’s also part of my book club and I’ve known her for over three years. This is my first Arkansas wedding and I’m excited! I don’t know if there will be anything that makes it different from a Colorado or Irish wedding, but I’m looking forward to finding out.

Pumpkin time is here. Almost every grocery market and garden center have them loaded and stacked in some form. There are also farmers with parked trucks full of them, and churches and schools selling them. What is your P.I.Q.? (Pumpkin Intelligence Quotient)

The phone rang. You were interrupted, but you barely noticed. That’s because you were looking online for information on a project due that afternoon. You were also eating lunch when you answered the phone at the same time you replied to a colleague’s email at the same time you sent a text to your spouse.

They say that timing is everything and I went from thinking mine wasn’t so good to moving on with little angst. I speak of my purchase of the iPhone 4 I bought a few weeks back, just days before the unveiling of a new phone by Apple, the 4S.

On the last day of September, the children of the Primrose Schools in Chattanooga participated in the annual Children Around the World Parade. This parade began at all Primrose locations, including the two in Hixson and East Brainerd, shortly after 9/11 to celebrate the differences in all cultures, said Chattanooga Primrose franchise owner Dan Case.

Long before Matt Sears established Haskel Sears Design in 2005, he was working to open up his own woodworking shop where he could do things his way. Sears’ way uses reclaimed and domestic wood products to create “contemporary heirloom” pieces for commercial and residential clients.

If your grandfather founded the oldest and one of the most successful real estate companies in Chattanooga over 85 years ago, Herman Walldorf & Company, Inc., wouldn’t you automatically follow in his footsteps? Well, not necessarily, at least not at first, according to Nathan Walldorf.

The Chattanooga Home­builder’s Association was decorated with festive fall colors and the smell of homemade chili hung in the air for the October meeting of the Women’s Council of Realtors. The highly anticipated chili luncheon was the centerpiece of the meeting’s edibles, with three pots of different  homemade chili and plenty of toppings.

The name of the article today is not about the rock band. I am thinking more along the lines of the British term and decorating to have an awesome looking pumpkin door display. As my husband and I were out and about the city last week, I couldn’t help but notice the huge amount of Autumn decorations in the stores and in my neighborhood.

As technology becomes more and more pervasive, and as computers do increasingly remarkable things, it’s easy to forget about the spark of human ingenuity behind every innovation. The iPhone is an amazing piece of engineering, but its slick touch screen and wafer thin circuitry took shape in the mind of the late Steve Jobs long before the first one rolled off an assembly line.