Downtown Macon at Night

Decided to capture a night vision of Downtown Macon while cathing the bus home.  These photos were taken on 2nd Street.

Did not know there's a Bank of America on this side of town.

2nd Street, Bank of American, Macon Georgia

View of The Medical Center from 2nd Street of Downtown Macon Georgia

waiting for the bus.  It was raining through out the day and it was drizzling when I took this shot.

view of 2nd Street

Smiley's Fleat Market in Macon Georgia

It was unusual to see no crowd today at the Flea Market.  Its Sunday 11am.  I'm pretty sure its because of the cloudy, rainy weather.  Its not really cold.  Maybe about 60 degrees.

Rahil checking out some shoes.

You'll find just about anything and everything here at Smiley's Flea Market in Macon Georgia, including something good to eat, Chicken and Ducks.

shoes for $10 and $13  only at Smileys

Just had to take a picture of this odd but adorable stroller.  He's not getting away with this one.  Plus I like the big wheels.

Signage

Unknown Bird

I looked outside my window this morning and was awed by what I first thought it was a turkey.  I hurried up and grabbed my digital camera and zoomed in to take a photo.  and just right before I made it outside to take a closer look it flew away without my camera capturing it in full in flight.  I was able to take a snap of his tail.  It was then i realized that it was not a turkey but maybe some sort of eagle.  Help me identify it.

Macon is NOT a bike friendly city

NO, Macon Georgia is definitely not a bike friendly city.  That's why I'm moving out.  The city is small enough to be a great bicycle community but the city officials aren't even no where near thinking about it.  The transportation system sucks.  Buses don't run on Sundays and on Saturdays schedule differs from weekday schedules and the buses don't run as often as weekdays schedules and on top of that they stop running much earlier than weekdays buses.

HILLS

Macon Georgia has too many hills.  Although downtown area have plenty of sidewalks, it stops there.  They should design the city of Macon to be a bike or scooter friendly city.  Too much hills is one of my greatest hindrance on riding a bicycle in Macon as a mode of transporation.  Too bad because it would have been great.  Bikes are hard to ride on hills.  Especially the kind of bikes I want to ride is a beach cruiser. 

Blair Taylor Arrested

A Warner Robins man has been arrested for armed robbery.
According to Centerville Director of Public Safety Anthony Cooper, the Centerville Police Department and the Houston County Sheriff’s Office arrested 24-year-old Blair Alexander Taylor Friday for the armed robbery of a Subway restaurant on Houston Lake Boulevard.
Taylor is being held at the Houston County Jail and Cooper says there may be additional charges in this ongoing investigation.

Macon gets some money to update facilities

The city of Macon has won a nearly $950,000 federal stimulus grant to upgrade the roof at City Hall, replace the heating and cooling system at the City Auditorium and make other changes meant to save energy.


The grant, from the U.S. Department of Energy, totals $946,600 and doesn’t require any matching money from the city, according to summary documents. The full council is expected to vote tonight to accept the money, and the grant easily cleared the council’s Appropriations Committee on Monday.

City grant documents lay out how the money would be spent, including:

$515,212 to retrofit the City Auditorium’s heating and cooling system. The current system is outdated and operates “inefficiently,” the city said in its grant proposal. The change should save more than 900,000 kilowatt hours of energy a year, about 700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and more than $56,000 a year, the city said.

$265,037 to retrofit the roofs at City Hall and the police department’s detective bureau next door. The roofs will be more energy efficient, saving hundreds of thousands of kilowatts of power, hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide emissions and about $18,700 a year in power costs, according to the city’s grant proposal.

$53,050 to continue funding the city’s small-scale single-stream recycling program. While paper can be recycled curbside throughout the city, only about 1,100 homes are part of a single-stream pilot program to recycle many types of materials. That program had been funded by a state grant, which is running out, so the federal money would keep it going.

$20,962 to replace traffic lights with more energy-efficient ones.
$20,331 to install more energy efficient lights at the City Hall annex downtown.
$22,008 to retrofit three city vehicles so they can be run on propane at lower speeds, reducing their greenhouse emissions.
Contracts to do this work will have to be put out to bid, City Attorney Pope Langstaff said Monday.

Someone fired a shotgun through a house in Macon

Someone fired a shotgun through the window of a south Macon home early Sunday while a family slept inside, according to a Macon police news release.


The incident happened shortly before 3 a.m. on Shea Drive. A 45-year-old woman and two teenagers were awakened by a loud noise, which was followed by the home’s burglar alarm. Police responded to the alarm and found that someone had shot though a kitchen window with birdshot. No one was injured in the incident. Anyone with information about this shooting is encouraged to call Macon police at 751-7500 or Macon Regional CrimeStoppers at (877) 68-CRIME.

Kingstowne West Apartments caught on fire

A fire Monday morning at the Kingstowne West Apartments on Bloomfield Road displaced five families, according to authorities.
The cause of the fire, reported about 10 a.m., is still under investigation. Macon-Bibb County Fire Department officials haven’t been able to talk to the occupant of the apartment where the fire started, District Fire Chief Stephen Stafford said.

One apartment sustained major damage, and four others received smoke and water damage. The American Red Cross met with families on the scene and helped them with immediate needs, including food, clothing and lodging.
Stafford said smoke detectors in the apartments alerted other tenants to the fire.

Braswell accused of Molesting a seven year old

A Bibb County school bus driver has been charged with child molestation after his wife caught him abusing a 7-year-old girl Sunday, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office reported.


Ernest Braswell III, of a Lochwold Drive address, is being held at the Bibb County jail in lieu of a $5,700 bond, according to jail records.

Braswell, 57, left the scene in his vehicle after the incident. Deputies arrested him later Sunday after he returned home, according to the sheriff’s office.


Braswell has been employed off and on with the Bibb County school system since 2000 as both a custodian and a bus driver, system spokesman Chris Floore said.
“We took immediate action as soon as we heard” about the allegation, he said. “We have to look out for the safety of our students first and foremost.”

Floore said Braswell was terminated from his position with the school system Monday.
Most recently, he had been driving a bus route and picking up students who attend Morgan Elementary, Weaver Middle and Westside High.
Floore said all school system employees undergo state and national background checks as part of the hiring process.
“His background check came back without any arrests,” Floore said of Braswell.
While deputies are continuing to investigate the case, they say they haven’t identified any additional victims.
“As far as we know, it’s just that one,” said Sgt. Sean DeFoe, a sheriff’s office spokesman.
A phone message left at the Braswells’ home was not returned Monday.