Uh, oops.

I disavow these claims that I was going to start a new blog. I'm going to try to return these posts to their previous location (Adventures in International Recruiting) for no other reason than so Mike's links from his blog will work again. Ah, the path to Hell...

Meanwhile, I WILL be starting a new blog, now that I'm out of grad school. Gotta do something to keep myself busy while I find a job.

Ditch the Car

More on my own decision to ditch my car later, but here is a good article I saw in Slate this morning about motorized alternatives...

Slate on motorcycles and scooters

New Name, New Posts

Adventures in Southern Urbanism

I finally thought of a new name for my blog, and no, it is not an oxymoron. Urbanism in the South may not be widespread, but it exists. I live in a wonderful example of it - Midtown, Atlanta. And for the past year, I have lived here without a car. To accomplish that without feeling any real inconvenience or discomfort I think proves that true urbanism does exist here. In fact, I have greatly enjoyed being car-free. I will expand on this theme in the future, along with many others.

Yes, my hiatus from blogging has been long, but I think that it has taken me that long to change gears and settle into my new mode of life enough that I now feel comfortable writing about it. After all, I was travelling for SCAD for nearly a year before I started this blog in the first place under its former name - Adventures in International Recruiting. I will leave those posts here, of course. In so many ways those experiences inform my current views on urbanism and led to my decision to return to school to earn my Masters of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech. That was Stage Two of my post-collegiate life. This is Stage Three. Stage One is for another time.

(I swear I'm going to finish that book one day...)

Damn, I'm slack...

OK, no I have not travelled any recently, but I did recently complete a submission for this year's ULI student urban design competition. The study area that it was based on was a neighborhood called the Cedars just south of downtown Dallas. I was so immersed in it for two solid weeks that I FEEL like I travelled there. So, at some point soon I will post our team's proposal. However, I'm not sure if anyone even reads this thing anymore. Ha.

Changes

OK, there are reasons that I have not posted recently. As of May 11th, I left the job that led me to create this blog. I feel that I can now "reveal" more about myself, though I think most readers are friends and family who know me already. The "J.C." stands for Jason Combs. Southville is Savannah, GA. The university I worked for was the Savannah College of Art and Design (www.scad.edu). I was there one week shy of three years. About a year ago I decided that it was time to take the next step and started making plans. I resolved that if I were to go back to grad school, it needed to happen soon. So, I am happy to say that I have been admitted to Georgia Tech's City and Regional Planning program, beginning August 20th. I have already semi-moved to Atlanta, as I found a summer position here (more on that later).

The subject matter and format of this blog will be changing. The title too. You'll know when I know. There will still be travel narratives, I hope, but they will be fewer and farther between. Instead, readers will be getting more of a taste of my daily life, and the issues that concern me, and that I think should concern everyone. Stay tuned!

Oh yeah, and I WILL eventually finish recounting the Balkan trip...

Columbia, South Carolina

Went there this weekend to help out with a recruiting event. Absolutely nothing to report.

A summary of the trip to the Balkans will follow shortly. I promise!

About Damn Time: Azerbaijan

No matter how old you are, naked mannequins make you giggle...

Jeez, I'm getting later and later on these posts. Anyway, next stop on the trip was Azerbaijan. Baku, the capitol, to be exact. 50 points if you can find it on a map. It is one of those rascally former Soviet republics. My first new country on this trip. Yay!

So we got in late. It was dark already, but after checking in a group of us walked from the hotel to the pedestrian zone of town. Mike and I tired of the committee, so we strayed, but then ended up picking the same place to eat that the committee did. I think I had lamb. It was good. And the local beer. Also good.

The next day we had school visits and whatnot. This one instructor, had she also been carrying a riding crop, would have fulfilled a long held fantasy. Didn't have my camera! The women here like their boots... After the school fair we were held hostage and forced to watch this crap. Yeah, I'm ready to have kids. Ladies, get me to an altar.

Afterwards, more walking about and eating things. And shopping for bootleg DVDs. They even had "300" already, and it had just come out in the states days before. As I found later, not the quality of the bootlegs that I saw in Russia. No interactive menus, scene selection, and often no English. Bummer!

Vote now for Joseph Humadi to take over the role of Lex Luthor in the next Superman film.

We had a big group farewell dinner at a "traditional" restaurant. Codeword for rip-off. Food was good though, and we all drank MUCH. Mike and I finally got one of the other reps, who we'd pegged as a dead ringer for an early Seinfeld guest-star, to say the magic word. See below. Name the episode and win a prize...

After dinner the brave hit a few bars. Ended up at an Irish pub, of course. One of our group ended up going home with a lady he met there. He swears she wasn't a hooker. Whatever. None of us believed it. If you didn't pay her, but bought her a microwave, she's still a pro.


The fair was a madhouse. I'm talking beyond India crazy. It was like a swarm of locusts let loose in the ballroom. Some tables were out of materials in minutes. I used my kung-fu to ward off all MBA and engineering seekers.

The point here was the hammer and sickle, above.

Now for vacation!