News - Friday, April 20, 2012

For more than a decade, Insurance Planning and Service Company has been the exclusive insurance provider for the Chattanooga Bar Association. Now under new ownership, IPSCO, as the company is commonly known, is continuing its tradition of service to the members of the group while also expanding the options available to its clients.

Tennessee Bar Association Magazine

McCallie School of Chattanooga claimed the state high school mock trial championship title last month, defeating rival school Chattanooga Southeast Tennessee Home Education Association, in the 32nd annual Tennessee State High School Mock Trial Competition. The team now will represent Tennessee at the National High School Mock Trial Competition in Albuquerque, N.M., May 3-6.

Saturday, April 21

The Hamilton County Tuberculosis Association elected attorney J. Thomas Mann as 1962-63 president, to succeed George W. Evans, at the organization’s 18th annual meeting Thursday at the First Christian Church. A special award was presented to Telfair Brooke, Jr., for his work as chairman of the 961 Christmas Seal Campaign, which provided the HCTA with $33,856.46 through March 31.

The Tennessee Supreme Court recently announced new appointments to the Tennessee Access to Justice Commission, including attorney Marcia Eason of Chattanooga. The commission is a group of volunteers who work to improve access to legal services or representation in Tennessee.

Lynzi Archibald has joined Miller & Martin as an associate of the Litigation Department in its Chattanooga office. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Archibald graduated summa cum laude from the University of Georgia in 2008. She received UGA’s premiere academic scholarship, the Foundation Fellowship, obtained B.A.s in English and Philosophy, and served as the president of UGA’s Undergraduate Mock Trial Program.

April 20-21

Bike to Build

It’s time to check your brakes, chains and safety gear in preparation for the third annual Bike to Build, sponsored by Toyota of Cleveland. It isn’t too late to start training now for the 13, 30 or 60-mile ride, or to rally a team to support the mission of Bike to Build. Early rider check-in will take place at Toyota of Cleveland on Friday from 5-7 p.m. Registration opens April 21 at 7 a.m. Rides will start and finish at Bradley Central High School. Money raised will go toward the building of a Habitat home.

Beverly Johnson, administrator, Department of Neighborhood Services and Community Development, on Monday announced new hours for Environmental Court. Beginning April 26, 2012, Environmental Court, which handles the docket for all housing, overgrowth, litter and abandoned vehicle code violations, will convene at 9 a.m. every Thursday. Previously, court began at 11 a.m.

The law firm of Burr & Forman has launched a Non-Compete & Trade Secrets Law Blog. The blog is devoted to addressing developments in non-compete and trade secret law in the Southeast and to providing practical information for businesses to consider as they deal with unfair competition issues. The blog can be found at www.noncompetetradesecretslaw.com and will be maintained and updated by the firm’s Non-Compete and Trade Secrets service group.

It looks like a paper factory exploded here in the Levison Towers. Restaurant receipts litter the hallways, rental car slips are piled in nooks and corners. Sheila, our bookkeeper, has been working frantically on taxes. The two extra days to file taxes this year did nothing to alleviate the typical last minute rush to finish the paperwork. Having spent much of her time around lawyers, Sheila has become a professional procrastinator. Even though she knows that a “flat tax” would likely put her and her Certified Public ilk out of business, every year Sheila makes non-tax deductible donation to any candidate pushing for the change.

If you work in downtown Chattanooga, chances are you’ve heard about Fresh Friday at Miller Plaza. If you haven’t, then I’m impressed you managed to have this newspaper delivered to the rock under which you’ve been living.

To me, the lure of Fresh Friday is the food trucks and the free music. However, until last week, I’d been to Miller Plaza during the noon hour only once – to try Famous Nater’s. The launch of A Taste of Argentina, a new mobile restaurant that opened April 13, encouraged me to make the trek.

More than 22 organizations and hundreds of creative talents from across the city have spent the past few months preparing for the birth of a 10-day festival that includes more than 170 events showcasing visual art, performance art, technological art, musical art, history and more. Local, regional and national artists and entertainers are participating in the festival, which is the first of its kind for the region.

The Chattanooga Civitan Club has scheduled its 24th annual FUNGOLF tournament for May 3 at Bear Trace in Harrison Bay. The four-person select shot amateur tournament will begin at 1 p.m. Golfers can either pick their team or allow tournament officials to place them on a team. All proceeds will benefit the Civitan Charities, which help handicapped and needy children. Land Rover and Jaguar of Chattanooga are sponsoring a hole-in-one prize.

The Tennessee Historical Commission has added Highland Park Methodist Episcopal Church South to the National Register of Historic Places. Begun in 1907 and completed in 1916, the Highland Park Methodist Episcopal Church South is a good example of neo-classical architecture in Hamilton County.

I remember when I was in the second and third grade. We were living in Sioux City, Iowa, in a big house that seemed to an eight-year old boy to go on forever. I remember the first time I saw it, too. We were there looking around the outside of the property with a real estate agent; to me, the grounds appeared vast. I eventually wandered away from the grownups and my younger brothers and stood at the side of the house looking into what I remember were dense, black woods. I stared deep, imagining all kinds of forest creatures that were watching me from the darkness, waiting for their chance to rip my throat open and drink my blood. Looking back, maybe mom should have kept me away from those vampire movies.

I was in an Alma, Ark., pro shop a few years back waiting for a tornado to pass through (it had touched down about 15 miles away). While packed inside the shop, I figured I’d buy a hat sporting the local club’s name. I picked out what I thought was a good looking hat, albeit one of a dark orange color (some people might even refer to it as burnt orange.)

What are you responsible for? Do you know? If someone asked you to list off your responsibilities, could you name them all? Do you have too many responsibilities? Are there people that have responsibilities toward you?  If there are, do they know the full extent of those responsibilities and what you expect from them? It is hard to meet your responsibilities if you are not clear on what they are.

Last week we took a peek at the police blotter work of Sgt. Jennifer Shockley of the Unalaska, AK, police. Sgt. Shockley has been featured on NPR, on KTUU TV, in Anchorage and on KUCB radio in Unalaska. Shockley is clearly a wry and witty word wizard, if not, as the TV piece suggested, a frustrated writer.

Saturday, April 20

The Southern Conference on Child Labor will meet in Chattanooga next week. Many women of note will attend the meeting at Hotel Patten. Miss Jean Gordon of New Orleans will preside.

Mrs. Richard Hardy and Mrs. J.H. Probasco have returned from a business trip to South Pittsburg and Richard City. They made the trip on horseback.

Melanie Moore enters a Soddy Daisy residence and turns on the light just inside the front door. The oven and the dishwasher are next, and then she sweeps through the rest of the house, opening doors, turning on plumbing fans and hitting every switch she can find. When her counterclockwise march is done, she goes back to her truck, straps on a tool belt and grabs a clipboard and a pen.

HomeServe USA employees teamed up with members of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga Area on April 5 to support the chapter’s build for a local resident. To help support the build day, 12 employees from HomeServe, a provider of emergency home repair service plans, stepped away from their computers, rolled up their sleeves and volunteered their time.  The keys to the home will soon be given to Winifred, a lifelong Chattanooga resident. She is a single woman living on disability, and she will now have a place to call her own.  HomeServe employees and other corporate, individual and community partners, constructed a shed to accompany the home Habitat is building. (Photo provided)

A few weeks ago, I let out a long, tired sigh as I watched “Wrath of the Titans.”  It was full of spectacle, but I have grown bored of movies that appear to have been generated in a computer, with artists inserting only bits and pieces of human beings into the action.

My feet hurt. A lot. My toes and calves are always cramping once I go to bed at night. I have been to a podiatrist and to an orthopedic doctor specializing in feet, but I was unable to get any relief.

The podiatrist wanted to do surgery to straighten some of the bones in the top of my foot that are not quite straight. No thanks. Not that he did not know what he was doing or anything like that, it’s just I have learned over the years that when you have elective surgery done, most times, it creates another problem. So, I walked out on that idea!

This year marks the 42nd observation of Earth Day in this country, with numerous special events scheduled on April 22. It began in the spring of 1970, when I was completing my senior year of college. Individuals who first proposed and supported the original idea were the unusual group that those of my generation called “hippies.” They wanted immediate laws to protect what they called “Mother Earth,” and got involved in protecting the environment.

Most agents begin their real estate career with the hope of gaining financial independence. They are attracted by the possibility of earning large sums of money. Even when agents make more than a six-figure income, the vast majority have not dramatically improved their financial balance sheet. After looking at hundreds of agents’ Profit and Loss statements and personal spending habits, I’ve determined that real estate agents are poorly prepared for financial independence. Why should real estate agents be any different from the American population in general?

Our planet’s northernmost latitudes are colder than cold. Above the Arctic Circle lies an immense place of extreme conditions and pure, breathtaking vistas that few people will ever experience firsthand. But beginning April 20, audiences at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater will have an opportunity to take a virtual trip to the top of the world when “To The Arctic 3D” opens on the giant screen.

Good morning America. / How are you?  Don’t you know me? /  I’m your native son.  I’m the train they call / the City of New Orleans.  I’ll be gone five hundred miles / when the day is done. How much do you know about trains? Give your brain a boost!

“Where are you bound my pretty maid? It’s now in the morning early?” The answer that she gave to me, “Kind sir, to sell my barley.”

Barley was a much-discussed subject last night at our small group Bible study; however, we didn’t sing the song lyrics above. The barley we studied was about the five loaves of barley bread to feed the 5,000 plus people. However, we did have some tasty eats on hand. I brought broccoli apple salad, which I purchased ready-made at the grocery, so a recipe for that is what I am going to share.