News - Friday, May 29, 2015

Baxley Tax Law has relocated from the Republic Centre downtown to the Mountain Creek Professional Center, located at 901 Mountain Creek Rd.

The sole proprietor, Harold H. Baxley, Jr., concentrates exclusively on tax controversy matters. Baxley has been practicing in this niche, as he calls it, for 20 years. 

Realtor Helen Scott Hixon has joined the staff of Weichert, Realtors – Yerbey Realty. Hixon is assisting property buyers and sellers in the metropolitan Chattanooga area. She also leases commercial properties.

John “JJ” Jerman started his business in 2008 in an old, abandoned gas station in Cleveland, Tenn. Today, his company occupies a 137,000 square foot warehouse on Riverside Drive. It seems he chose the right line of work.

Jerman didn’t start out doing what he’s doing today. He used to design buildings and spaces for technology companies. Then, in 2000, the tech bubble burst while he was living and working in Atlanta, and an opportunity presented itself to him.

Setting up a home office is one of the most popular trends in the small business world. Working from home affords a number of benefits, most notably a reduction in work space costs. Secondly, this type of addition creates added value to your home by doubling as guest quarters or space for entertaining.

Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE) will host a free homeownership fair open to the public on Saturday, June 6 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The fair will consist of mini orkshops covering topics such as budgeting, buying a home, and home maintenance. The homeownership fair will be for both prospective and current homeowners.

Fourteen startup teams from across North America and Europe have convened in Chattanooga to launch business applications that could thrive on gigabit networks. As the newest members of GIGTANK, these entrepreneurs will spend the next three months working with corporate partners, industry experts, investors, and established business leaders to ready their companies for the next-generation marketplace.

Night Run Chattanooga

The Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga will host Night Run Chattanooga on Saturday, May 30. The event will begin at 9:45 p.m. with a brief program featuring a representative from the consul general of Israel to the southeastern United States and Mayor Andy Berke. At 10 p.m., the race will begin at the Manker Patten Tennis Club, located at 100 Douglas St. To register, go to www.nightrunchattanooga5k.org or call (423) 493-0270.

The Chattanooga Fire Department (CFD) held its annual Fill the Boot fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) last week.

Holly Carroll, MDA area director, said the funds raised through the event will support life-enhancing programs such as state-of-the-art clinics and research.

Open since August 2011, the Chattanooga Charter School of Excellence has provided families with an alternative to other local elementary schools. Enough families have been choosing Chattanooga Charter that it is now expanding both its curriculum and its accommodations.

The Chattanooga office of Miller & Martin has been ranked in the 2015 edition of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business as a leading firm in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and general commercial litigation.

If you have school-age children, you might greet the arrival of June with some relief – for at least a few months, you don’t have to worry about “encouraging” kids to do their homework, study for tests, give you their permission slips for field trips, and so on. But one day, these obligations will give way to a substantially bigger one – paying for college. If you’ve already begun preparing for that day with a tax-advantaged college-savings vehicle, such as a 529 plan, you’re taking a positive step, because higher education is expensive. But it’s not enough to just set up your 529 plan – you may also need to adjust it over time.

The aroma of freshly ground and grilled meat.

It was the first thing I noticed as I approached Slick’s, the newly built burger joint on East Main Street. I’d nearly driven past the building, a gray aluminum structure that blends into the scenery a bit too well. But there was no missing the incredible aroma. It triggered a salivary response before I was even through the door.

As we turn the page to the second quarter of 2015, a significant increase in new listings is expected in most markets across the U.S. Spring is when we traditionally see some of the most desirable gems polished for eager buyers. Though some Google searches and Twitter posts blatantly will offer pessimism about the state of the housing market, on-the-street evidence does not support bad tidings, especially when looking at local numbers.

I’m going to sound like one of those old men who shoo kids off their lawns, but dagnabbit, “Poltergeist” did not need to be remade!

The original movie is (not was) perfect. It’s one of those lightning in a bottle films that hits all of the right notes. Can you think of a single blemish? Certainly not in the storyline. The idea of unspeakable horrors lying buried beneath the ideal suburban sprawl fit perfectly into the zeitgeist of the eighties.  The dialogue was memorable, too. “They’re heeere” is still a part of our culture’s vernacular, on par with “May the force be with you,” and “Are you talkin’ to me?” The casting was spot on, too. Craig T. Nelson, Jobeth Williams, the beatific Heather O’Rourke, and the rest of the cast weren’t just the Freelings, they were our friends, and we connected with them in a way that’s rare for a movie and its audience. Even the special effects, done before computer animation became prevalent, hold up well today.

The Chattanooga Zoo has announced the arrival of three new ambassador animals: two serval kittens and a prehensile-tailed porcupine.

The six-week old servals are currently being hand raised by zoo staff to be trained as ambassador animals. As ambassador animals, they won’t be on exhibit but will have extensive public interaction through education programs, animal shows, media appearances, and more. The Chattanooga Zoo currently has one female adult serval exhibited in the Gombe Forest exhibit area.

I hope everyone enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend. Ours was downright relaxing: Hubby and I holed up in a cabin at Mt. Magazine State Park. Other than a black bear and the deer we saw, which was quite exciting, we had a very low-key weekend (which was exactly what we intended).

^“Where’s home for you?” a stranger asks a fellow traveler on a plane.

“Wherever she is,” comes the reply, as the man points at his wife.

Through the years, I’ve found myself to be one to not ask for help no matter what. I’ve built decks where you didn’t know if you were coming or going. I once stacked rock for a porch footing that ended in me having to get a shot to get my shoulder working again. The death defying solo act of hanging a ceiling fan at a height where objects below looked like toys while using a ladder that should have been outlawed, causing my wife to go to the back porch and pray out loud until I finished, was probably number one on my list of stupefying feats. But I’m a man, and we just seem to do things like this, causing children to marvel and wives to understand why Eve gave Adam that first piece of fruit - because it was just so easy to do.

In the afternoon of Thursday before Mother’s Day, I drive southeast. I stop at a certain spot in White Hall, Ark., and pick up a mess of fried chicken. Then I drive on to Lake Village, Ark., where I am greeted by twin great nieces Sloan and Amelia, age six. They live on the banks of Lake Chicot with mom Caroline and dad Chuck.

C’mon people, now is the time to take a break, use those vacation days you have been hoarding, and let the stress fall from your shoulders. Sadly, sometimes vacation planning can be so stressful, it can ruin the vacation itself, or at least provide a major deterrent when visiting somewhere or trying something new.

More and more people are writing their memoirs these days. There are certain “rules to writing” that are essential to know if you plan on doing the same. Take this quiz and see how effectively you can write.

1. Good writers know all writing can be improved upon after the first draft. What is the most important aspect of revision? Re-examining your ideas; reviewing capitalization; looking for subject-verb agreement; checking grammar.