News - Friday, July 27, 2012

Incorporated in 1989, the Chattanooga Bar Foundation is the charitable and educational arm of the Chattanooga Bar Association. Through the Foundation, the Bar supports various charities and participates in community service, outreach programs and educational projects. Each year, the Foundation selects new Fellows, members which provide the funding for these efforts.

Members of the Chattanooga Fire Department’s Urban Search and Rescue team practiced their high-angle rescue skills last week at UTC’s McKenzie Arena. Exercises included simulating what might happen to someone, such as a window washer, who gets stranded outside a high-rise building and needs help getting down. Here, rescuers lower senior firefighter Mark Brown from a catwalk to the victim, who’s dangling 50 feet above the surface of the gym. After Brown attaches rescue ropes to the victim and releases him from his gear, other rescuers lower Brown and the victim to safety. (Photo provided)

Saturday, July 28

Chattanooga’s DuPont plant is recognized as the safest industrial plant in the world.

Mrs. Minnie Allison Welch, widow of John Marshall Welch, and local, state and national leader in the Womens Christian Temperance Union, died Friday in a local hospital. She served as state president of the WCTU for 28 years and was honorary state president at the time of her death.

July 27

Fresh on Fridays

Fresh On Fridays offers fresh made fare from local restaurants, food trucks, artisans and farmers. Participants include Southern Burger Company, Famous Nater’s World Famous, Link 41 Sausage, Pure Soda Works, Monkey Town Donut Company, Ello Ello, Legends Cookies, Taste of Argentina, Taco Sherpa, Herr Flowers and Flat Top Mountain Produce. Location: Miller Plaza, located downtown across the street from The Volunteer Building. Time: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Beginning this fall, Chattanooga will serve as a host to Making Sense of the American Civil War, a scholar-led reading and discussion program. The program is organized as a five-part series of conversations that aim to get below the surface of familiar stories about the Civil War battles to explore the complex challenges brought on by the war.

You just have to love boiler plate contract provisions. Especially when clients use them to piece together their own documents. For example, yesterday I met with a client who wanted to sue a former employee for competing in violation of three separate agreements. All three – an employment agreement, a bonus schedule agreement, and a covenant not to compete – had a provision governing post employment noncompetition obligations. Each one also had the same boiler plate paragraph which said that “In the event of conflict with any other document or agreement, the provisions of this agreements Shall control.” Each document’s noncompete provision was, of course, materially different. Hmmmmm.

State of Tennessee v. Gary Allen Carlton.

Case Number: M2011-01152-CCA-R3-CD

Authoring Judge: Judge Jeffrey S. Bivins

Originating Judge: Judge J. Randall Wyatt, Jr.

Date Filed: Monday, July 16, 2012

Gary Allen Carlton (“the Defendant”) was convicted after a bench trial of one count of impersonating a licenced professional and one count of violating the Home Improvement Contractors Licensing Act. After a hearing, the trial court sentenced the Defendant to an effective term of two years, with 120 days to be served and the remainder on probation. The Defendant has appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and his sentence. Upon our thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Ty: I like you, Betty.

Danny: It’s Danny, sir.

Ty: Danny. Danny, I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen; all you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking...let things happen...and be...the ball. – Caddyshack, 1980

Peggy obviously had no idea who she, er, he, was dealing with while jacking around with hidden charges on Bobby Bowden’s credit card account. After all, he has won more games now than any coach in big time college football (FBS programs) history.

Let’s review our lessons so far:

No. 1: Do your best.

No. 2: Start now.

No. 3: Choose friends wisely.

No. 4: Keep an open mind.

These are all good guidelines in the way that you approach college and the rest of your life. If you follow these lessons and those to come, you should be all right. Unfortunately, you will make mistakes. You are going to drop the ball, fail to do the obvious, choose the wrong friend and make decisions for the wrong reasons. You will not fail because you are a bad person, you will fail because you are human. It is just part of the deal. The thing that makes people great is that when they get knocked down, they keep getting up.

Each month, I’m amazed at the new inventions that are introduced by news releases that come across my desk on a daily basis. Many are great ideas concerning the latest, new products that deal with things that could affect us all, and some are just an old idea improved upon. Of course, with yours truly being employed in the field of agriculture, the majority of the product pitches I receive are items that are used around the farmstead to help make farming tasks either more profitable or less labor intensive. Anything that saves chore time is always a positive in my book.

Of late, in my spare time, I’ve been “litzing” old crossword puzzles. It’s been quite the educational experience!

See, I got this email from David Steinberg captioned “Help building database of pre-Shortzian NYT crosswords.” And in this email, David wrote,

This weekend, our lovely daughter, April, and her family came to visit. This is always such a fun time. Her children run non-stop and keep us hopping but also laughing! The oldest, Paige, is six, and then Gwynn has a birthday this coming weekend; she will be two. The third is a sweet little baby boy, Landon, who is six months old. So, when I say they keep us hopping – you understand!

Test your knowledge on the Earth’s oceans.

1. The most abundant element in the universe makes up almost two-thirds of the atoms in the ocean. What is it? Oxygen; hydrogen; methane; nitrogen.

2. In early marine history, what group of people made the longest voyages? the Vikings; the Phoenicians; the Polynesians; the Greeks.

Realtor Grace Frank isn’t interested in hearing the odds, only in beating them. For example, when she took her plan to build Southside Village to the banks, they told her she was nuts. She showed them they were wrong.

“It took us a year to negotiate the land deals, and then we started building last May. We’ve sold nearly an entire street, and we did it when no one thought it was possible,” she says.

The June RE/MAX National Housing Report shows the housing recovery is real. On a year-to-year basis, home sales have now risen for 12 straight months and prices have inched higher for the past five months. Of the 53 metro areas included in the survey, 31 report increases in both sales and prices. It appears the recovery is broad based, occurring in all geographic regions. Increased consumer confidence, historically low mortgage rates and attractive pricing are some of the factors drawing buyers and sellers back into the real estate market. Available homes for sale dropped 5.0 percent from May and 27.4 percent from June 2011. This declining inventory has created a seller’s market in many areas, with multiple bids and offers occurring frequently. An Average Days on Market of 84 in June is the lowest since August 2010. (Photo by David Laprad)

Saturday, July 27, 1912

John Cleghorn of Summerville, Ga., motored to Chattanooga this week for a visit with his sister, Mrs. John H. Pitner on Oak Street.

Misses Irene Wilson and Ruth Brown returned from Atlanta where they visited their sister, Mrs. G.E. Lynch.

I was vacationing in Colorado the night “The Dark Knight Rises” premiered. Although I have trouble staying awake during midnight showings, I’d attended the debut of director Christopher Nolan’s previous film, “Inception,” in 2010, and found it to be invigorating. For me, no movie-going experience can match the thrill of watching a story unfold with a room full of avid fans, so I decided my Colorado adventure would include an early evening nap and the midnight premiere of “TDKR.”

“Superbugs in chickens could be an underlying cause of antibiotic-resistant bladder infections in eight million women,” according to a new ABC News report.

Most of us have suffered through a bladder infection at least once, more certainly so if you are a female. One of my daughters has endured more than her share, which started at the tender young age of six months, and has persisted throughout her adult life. I’m sure there are millions of women who share this painful condition right along with her.

Community leaders came together last week for a ribbon cutting to celebrate the opening of the West Chickamauga Creek Canoe Launch at Lee and Gordon’s Mills. The canoe launch will serve as the head of a day-long route through the Chickamauga Battlefield to Fort Oglethorpe and on to East Ridge at Camp Jordon. This recreation outlet will enhance tourism in the area for Civil War historians and outdoor enthusiasts.