Tag Archives: Maria Saporta

For 15 years, the mark of an Atlanta newcomer: a 678 phone number

Date: January 28th, 2013, 8:00 am

Fifteen years ago this month, 678 became Atlanta’s third telephone prefix, and every call became a 10-digit dial. Today, when smartphones let us tap to connect, it’s easy to forget past milestones in how Atlantans connect – and what those turning points meant in the perception of the city’s growth and who we are.

For many native Atlantans inside I-285, there’s 404 and everything else. That’s what they grew up with. The 770, 678 and 470 will always belong to the Johnny-come-latelys and suburbanites.

The 404 prefix is dialed into their identity, a shared jersey number for the veterans on Atlanta’s home team. It is a holdover from a simpler time, before the rest of us got here and made life a whole lot more complicated.
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Posted in Atlanta, Michelle Hiskey, Transformation | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Behind 100 miles and $10K, an endurance to care for men on foot

Date: December 17th, 2012, 4:32 pm

Someone ran 100 miles and showed up last week at the Central Night Shelter downtown with a pocketful of checks totaling $10,000, an eye-popping climax to a story of one man trying to help the many homeless men who had shown him how to better appreciate his own life.

His donation shone light on the endurance of the shelter, which has for 32 years housed and fed about 100 men a night at Central Presbyterian Church and the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Between November and March, this shelter has never missed a night.
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Posted in Atlanta, Inspiration, Life Changes, Michelle Hiskey, Saporta, Self-improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Urban Atlanta youth use muscle, risk to master complexities of the harp

Date: December 10th, 2012, 6:59 pm

Of all the instruments, one of the biggest and heaviest, most expensive and most exotic is the harp. A performer must play each foot and hand separately, using everything but pinkies to create the ethereal notes.

That is the muscle behind the dreamy soundtrack of the Atlanta Urban Youth Harp Ensemble. Most of these young musicians have overcome major disadvantages to master the instrument’s complexity, earn gigs at local weddings and events, qualify for college scholarships and position themselves for professional music careers.
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Jeff Galloway: For health and success, schedule frequent breaks — and there’s an app for that

Date: September 10th, 2012, 9:09 am

Traffic alert: On Thursday at 7 pm, 16,000 people will run and walk 3.1 miles of closed streets in downtown Atlanta.

Jeff Galloway started this annual event — now called the Kaiser Permanente Corporate Run/Walk and Fitness Program — 30 years ago. Its growth paralleled that of Galloway’s path from elite runner to widely-traveled motivational speaker and corporate coach.

After the 1972 Olympics and winning the first Peachtree Road Races, Galloway’s reach and impact widened as he focused on the deceptively simple key to running and achieving any long-range goal.

Pacing.
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Posted in Atlanta, Inspiration, Michelle Hiskey, Self-Help, Self-improvement, Transformation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Broken cell phone, local lifeline and the powerful need to connect

Date: August 20th, 2012, 12:00 pm

The marimba beat from the iPhone woke me as usual, only the direction was very wrong. The sound came from the floor, where the phone had fallen.

My phone is my lifeline, stowing my schedule, contacts, reminders, lists, music, maps, photos, news and diversions in case of boredom. Just how emotional and deep that connection can be became more evident in the brief, illuminating adventure to turn a cracked screen clear again.

The quest led to a small, thriving universe that exists to reconnect us, and how one young man in Atlanta, Shahzad Pirani, re-made himself through repairing phones. Continue reading →

Posted in Atlanta, Career Makeover, Inspiration, Michelle Hiskey, Self-improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

With island help, Atlanta family tastes success with a Sea View and pimento cheese

Date: August 13th, 2012, 3:55 pm

Pawleys Island, SC

Brian and Sassy Henry say they left Atlanta ten years ago because they didn’t like how competitive everyday life had become. Simply getting a parking space was a hassle. They didn’t want to raise their daughters (ages 1 and 3) at such a fast, crowded pace. One day in 2002, they took off.

“We literally left like thieves in the night,” said Sassy Henry, who grew up near Chastain Park and went to Lovett School. “We had nothing but what was in our car, and when we got to the island, we slept on mattresses for three weeks.”

To restore their balance, they took on a big restoration project 350 miles east: an icon of South Carolina’s Low Country, the rustic Sea View Inn.

Now in its 75th year, and the only inn on Pawleys Island, the Sea View is where generations of families have vacationed, eating family-style meals in the dining room, unplugging how the rat race and pace conditions us over time. The the inn, the couple and their line of gourmet pimento cheese (Palmetto Cheese) have followed a similar recipe for success: Blend the new and old to make the new better. Continue reading →

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Word power stokes Jenny Munn’s success and our search engines

Date: July 30th, 2012, 12:10 pm

When Jenny Munn worked at the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, she traveled to Latin America to persuade people and companies to visit Atlanta. Her message relied on her fluency in Spanish.

Today she’s 31 and no longer needs a passport for the global reach of her language skills. Her expert fluency these days is in search engine optimization (SEO) – the way we find what we are looking for on the Internet, and how businesses use our word patterns to connect with us.

“SEO does have its own language, with basics that you need to understand to become more fluent in it,” said Munn, a native Atlantan who went to Lassiter High School and University of Georgia. “Once you get the ‘code,’ you can break down the barriers.”
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Posted in Atlanta, Life Changes, Michelle Hiskey, Reinvention, Saporta, Transformation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Restoration after rats requires Melton’s strong will

Date: July 16th, 2012, 4:30 pm

Aaron and Staci Melton, sitting at a bar table amid a decent weekday dinner crowd, still live with the damage – financial and emotional — from a rat infestation that closed their doors in late 2011.

Every day, they think about their lawsuit against their neighbor, Pet Supermarket, which is in the discovery phase in DeKalb County Superior Judge Daniel M. Coursey Jr. If a resolution comes at all, it will take a while. At stake for the Meltons is $250,000 – their lost revenue and debt for repairs.

Take away the litigation, and the Meltons still represent the psychological struggle for so many of us in middle-class Atlanta and America. Despite hard work and diligence amid economic distress, our standard of living and hope in the future have gone from security to struggle. We come face-to-face daily with this reality: forces beyond our control can quickly shut us down.
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For deliverance on Appalachian Trail, hikers rely on folks like Ron Brown

Date: July 9th, 2012, 11:00 am

On July 20, Atlanta’s Fox Theatre will celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Deliverance,” the startling and brutal film about city dwellers venturing into Georgia’s devilish Appalachian country.

A walk in the north Georgia woods today has its hazards, too – but luckily our recent group of hikers got help from a trail angel named Ron Brown.

Unlike the predatory locals in the movie, Brown is part of an super-friendly mountain hospitality corps who serve visitors to Springer Mountain — the southern terminus of the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail — and beyond.

Thousands of outsiders show up every year to experience the “AT,” the world’s longest hiking-only footpath, which next month celebrates its 75th anniversary.

It was a hellish 100 degrees plus when we cinched up our backpacks for a long-planned overnight trip around Springer…
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For Atlanta Vietnam vets, serving hot dogs at USO a strong link to today’s troops

Date: July 2nd, 2012, 4:27 pm

Several times a day, military troops walk single file through Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, Atlanta’s crossroads with the world. As they parade through the heart of the airport – the airy atrium – travelers applaud and cheer. Here, the national spirit so often confined to July 4 is demonstrated every day.

On the mezzanine twice a month, the troops stop in for hot dogs and chili fixed by a group of Vietnam veterans from Atlanta. Along with America’s quintessential fast food, the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association (AVVBA) serves up something they wish they had enjoyed: public support.

The crossroads for both generations is the Jean R. Amos USO, which every day in Atlanta welcomes in a morning plane full of 240 troops returning home on what is know as “Operation R&R.” Later, volunteers bid farewell to 240 more somber troops returning to their overseas posts.

In a country full of yellow ribbon car magnets and other displays, the USO doesn’t stand alone. But these Atlanta Vietnam veterans recall how USO volunteers have always stood for them, and that’s why they now stand together — with frankfurters however you please. Continue reading →

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