News - Friday, July 18, 2014

Volkswagen Group of America Monday announced plans to expand its sole U.S. manufacturing facility in Chattanooga, Tenn. Volkswagen will add an additional manufacturing line and create the National Research & Development and Planning Center of Volkswagen Group of America. Volkswagen‘s total global investment for the expansion will be $900 million, with $600 million invested in Tennessee and 2,000 new jobs being created in Hamilton County.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation Sunday morning conducted quarterly testing on the Market Street Bridge in downtown Chattanooga. The bascule bridge spans the Tennessee River between downtown Chattanooga and the Northshore District. At the time of its completion in 1917, the 300-foot main span was the longest rolling-lift bascule span in the world. The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Four times per year, TDOT closes the bridge to test its hinge mechanism, as mandated by the US Coast Guard. (Photo by David Laprad. Some information from TDOT.)

Chattanooga’s pets (and their humans) are loving their CHAI, says Chattanooga Holistic Animal Institute founder Dr. Colleen Smith.

CHAI, which opened on the Southside’s Main Street in 2012, last weekend celebrated its two-year birthday (or 21-year birthday in dog years) with an open house featuring facility tours, refreshments, games, prizes, area vendors, and rescue groups offering information about ways to adopt or foster animals.

No history of colorful, and sometimes controversial, local lawyers who have made great contributions to the legal profession would be complete without mention of Chattanooga lawyer David LaFayette Snodgrass, who rose to the position of Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1894 and led the Court during a politically turbulent, but progressive, period following Reconstruction.

If you think back to your math classes in high school or college, you may remember that many of the problems involved the use of variables. Changing these variables around in any fashion would change the outcome of the problem. Similar situations occur in life all the time. To illustrate: If you look at the need to manage your retirement income so that you can’t outlive it as a “problem” to be solved, you will need to adjust some variables to arrive at the solution you seek. That’s why it’s so important you be aware of the key variables involved in your retirement income planning.

Three hundred and thirty high school students from across the nation paid money out of their own pockets to improve the living conditions of people in Chattanooga as part of World Changers’ annual effort to alleviate substandard housing.

Eighteen church groups from Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and Illinois are in Chattanooga this week working on assignments ranging from painting houses, to installing wheelchair ramps, to putting siding on homes.

Summer is my favorite season of the year. It would seem this is counter-intuitive as I prefer to hide my body in as many layers as possible. Nonetheless, I pine all year for these few months of heat, and not just because I can get away with not wearing makeup by arguing I “sweated it off.”

It may be nothing more than a sign of my advancing age, but I have spent a lot of time over the last three months thinking that I needed a new chair at home. I have thought about going shopping for such a chair many times but have never once done more than look at advertisements in the Sunday paper. I don’t know if I have been too busy, too lazy, or unsure of what kind of chair I wanted.

This summer at the movies has been good to fans of science fiction. We’ve had the empty spectacle of “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” We’ve had the intelligence and humor of “Edge of Tomorrow.” And now we have the thoughtful character work of “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.”

Chickamauga Battlefield Bicycle Tour

Saturday, July 19

Outdoor Chattanooga and the National Park Service will co-host a free, interpretive bicycle tour of Chickamauga Battlefield on Saturday, July 19, beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the Battlefield Visitors Center. Adults and kids ages 8 and older are welcome on the leisurely ride, which will feature several stops at places of significance to the Civil War Battle for Chickamauga. Bring your own bicycle or borrow a bicycle (riders 5’ tall and over). To reserve a bicycle, call the Battlefield at (706) 866-9241. Helmets are required by law for all riders under the age of 16.

Kitchen at Union Square has joined with Hart Gallery to showcase artwork from the local art gallery, which offers homeless and other non-traditional artists opportunities to create and sell their work. The collection, which includes many abstract pieces starting at $60, with a $700 piece recently sold, is currently on display throughout the dining areas at Kitchen at Union Square and available for purchase during business hours.

At the recent Arkansas Press Association convention we were greeted by flies. KM was there too; she is the member services expert for the APA.

A few years back it wasn’t flies, it was water, first a thunderstorm at the golf tournament in Alma (we never got to tee off) then a broken sprinkler system, which affected, in a bad wet way, the bottom five floors and the lobby. I was lucky, having secured a room on the sixth floor, and watched as my drenched fellow journalists sloshed around below.

This column was originally published in The Hamilton County Herald on Oct. 11, 2013.

It is probably no surprise to anyone that cream cheese is one of America’s most widely used cheeses. The soft, creamy, texture provides the perfect media for depth and smoothness to desserts and dips, and it makes wonderful light and flaky pastry crusts. Cream cheese is also a main ingredient in many appetizing main dishes, such as the Chicken Enchiladas recipe printed below.

A year ago, people driving by 1512 Duncan Avenue in Highland Park probably assumed they were looking at a tear-down. The 100-plus year old house at the top a small swell of land at the corner of the Duncan and South Holly Street looked like a good shove would topple it over. Much of the siding was missing and it was standing askew on stilts, a previous owner having abandoned an effort to fortify the foundation.

On occasion, Realtors send mass emails to their peers promoting a new listing. Or perhaps the Realtor sends an email to fellow agents to draw attention to a price reduction or an upcoming open house. Oftentimes, this practice is done at the request of a seller who’s anxious to get more exposure for their listed home. Yet the reverse may be happening – such emails very well may be a turn-off rather than a turn-on. In addition, if the email doesn’t adhere to certain requirements, it’s highly likely the sender is in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act.

While sitting with a group of friends eating Mexican food recently, we got into a discussion of family names and birthdays. One had just recently found out he’d been celebrating his birthday on the wrong date after finding his birth certificate, proving he was older than he claimed. Everyone thought that was funny until they heard my story of not being who I really am.

This column was originally published in The Hamilton County Herald on Oct. 11, 2013.

I was bored with what was on TV the other day, so I tuned into the Home Shopping Network. The man on the tube was selling coins of all kinds at cheap prices. My husband is a numismatic, so I knew most of what he was selling was not what he was making it seem. However, he did give me the idea to do this trivia puzzle on coins. Test your knowledge on our currency!

Fill in the blanks in the quote using the following words:

pause  yourself  side 

reflect  time  whenever  majority

“_____ you find _____ on the _____ of the _____, it is _____ to _____ and _____.”

Recent research has led to the use of Botox injections to prevent migraine pain.  The Botox injection, formed from the deadly bacteria botulinum toxin A, has been highly popular for the treatment of wrinkles for many years.  In 2010, the FDA approved Botox as a preventive for migraine symptoms.

"Got a pair of nickels for a dime?”

“Sure. Here you go: five, ten, fifteen cents.”

On Saturday of the U.S. Open, Frankie Frisco’s “Second Thoughts” column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette began, “Every golf tournament claims that pairings and tee times are mostly picked at random ….” Going forward, the item reported, as had other news outlets the day before, that a certain pro golfer was unhappy that, for the Open, he and two other golfers had been put in the same threesome for round one.

Saturday, July 18

This has been a season of pranks by lightning. A mirror in the home of Mrs. Frank Brown was shattered while she was standing by it and flying glass cut her face and arms. The home of Mrs. S.B. Lowe was struck, and her mother, who was sleeping in an iron bed, escaped but the bed clothes were burned. The home of J.W. Schlesinger on Mississippi Avenue was hit, detaching the kitchen from the house. A box of matches was ignited and blown over the lower part of the house.

Saturday, July 18

Beef and Liberty, Inc., has taken over management and operation of Lakeshore Restaurant and the motel and vacation cottages under a contract with Lake Chickamauga Resort, Inc., owner of the lake facilities, it was announced Friday.