I thought about my friend Gaines when I saw this the other day:

Granted, it’s a Florida plate, but the guy driving it had a blue/gold hat on, so I assume he’s referring to the Tech.

You can’t make this stuff up.

I’m at my wife’s parent’s house (near Chicago) this week, celebrating the Thanksgiving season.  We took the kids to a little town called Huntley today to get a McBurger.  We saw this sign:

I was going to just post the image and let it speak for itself, but my wife said I should Google it.  They have a web site.  I’d spend some time reading the site, if I were you.  You might find more great quotes like this one:

“Please come early to browse our wide selection of testicle apparel.”

Testicle apparel?  Nice.

What a weird thing to celebrate.  I bet the turkeys will be thankful when this festival is over.

Wikipedia says that “to call someone ‘white trash’ is to accuse that person of being bankrupt of cultural endowment.” I’d say that’s a pretty fair definition. Jeff Foxworthy defines “redneck” as a “glorious absence of sophistication.” I’d also say that’s fair.

I live in an area experiencing some growth. It’s certainly not a part of Atlanta (though we’re taxed like it is), but Atlanta is slowly migrating our way. Places that used to be flea markets are now Super Target stores. Places that used to be home to trees and snakes are now $400,000 homes on a half-acre piece of land. It’s nuts. Because of the recent growth (and because it’s Georgia), there’s a mixture of educated, employed people and redneck white trash.

On my way to work every morning, I pass the house pictured below. It’s on a corner lot where two pretty highly traveled roads cross. It’d be a great site for a Chevron station. Or a Waffle House. Or a vacant lot. (Click the picture for the full effect.)

Notice the “yard sale” sign out front. According to the time stamp on the file, I took this picture on July 18. That yard sale had been going on for more than 2 weeks when I took the picture. It lasted for almost another 2 weeks after that. Yes, they had a yard sale that lasted a month. I am not making that up.

Last night I passed this house just as 2 fire trucks were blocking traffic on Due West Road because the place was on fire. It was too dark last night to get a decent photo. This morning on my way to work, I was so deep into some Billy Cerveny music (country…ironic, huh?) that I forgot to look at the house as I passed it. I’m not sure what shape it’s in, but I do know that it’s still there, boldly preserving the “heritage” of Paulding County, Georgia.

I took this picture in the parking lot of the Dallas, GA Wal-Mart on Saturday.  I’ve wrestled for something to say about it, but I think that, especially in this case, a picture is worth a thousand words.

My sister sent me this.  This church is known in the area for its “interesting” quotes on the church sign.  They’ve had others even better than this in the past.  Maybe she’ll take pictures of other quotes in the future. (hint, hint)

Today after lunch we were commenting on the color of the leaves.  It seems that the changing of the leaves in this area the past few years has been pretty quick and dull.  They go green, brown, gone in a matter of days.  This year we got a lot of rain over the past few weeks, and the color in the leaves is just amazing.

Since we’re so close to Kennesaw Mountain, and since we really didn’t want to go back to work after lunch, we took a detour and drove up to the top of the mountain to get a better view of the leaves.  I took a few pictures with my camera phone, and (as expected) none of them really turned out too well.  The best one was this one, which is a cool panoramic shot.  This view is looking north on Kennesaw from the top of Kennesaw Mountain.  (click the thumbnail for the full size)

In a mall last week, my wife and I saw this:

This vending machine was full of iPod accessories, and it even had iPods you could buy.  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think I’d buy an iPod from a machine.  Would you?

I was on my way home from work recently and saw this. I know there’s no point in proving the obvious, but there’s probably a doubter out there somewhere. (click image for the bigger version)

I spotted this sign hanging on the door of the Georgia State Patrol post where I had to go pick up an accident report.