Georgia Aquarium Yesterday I took a long deserved day off and visited the Georgia Aquarium. I had been to the Aquarium in Chattanooga which is awesome, but the Georgia Aquarium is the largest in the world. I played it up with Camden, telling him about sharks and alligators and all the fish. Let me start by saying that I dont 'do' Atlanta anymore because I just hate people and Atlanta is full of brain dead mouth breathers. The Georgia Aquarium is a real pain in the ass because you have to buy tickets and reserve the time you want to go. Well since Camden naps around 12-2ish and absolutely HAS to have a nap or else get spankings every five minutes, we picked 9-10am arrival. We pulled into the aquarium parking garage at 9:30 and found out that it was a long walk OUTSIDE to the aquarium. Maybe it's just me, but since you are building it all from scratch, why not have a tunnel or something close instead of having to walk around the whole freakin building!?! My first observation: The place was already semi packed and we had to go through rat mazes with two lines, ordinary people and groups(school). So I got in the regular people line and noticed something strange. Our line didnt have one black person in it. When you live close to the black mecca you tend to notice these things. Of course that was made up for in the student line because I think every Atlanta elementary was there. The lines are for the metal detectors and bag searches. I think the elementary school lines had a better chance of finding weapons by how many times I heard 'nigga this and nigga that' than our old dumb white paying line. But of course that isnt the way we work anymore so we got bag searched and stroller searched just incase my 7week old was strapping. A few beeps and scans later, we're deposited into this room with two big aquariums on each side with tons of probably tuna. It really is a nice view, but one of the few unfortunatly. Next you walk into a huge arena sized space that has tables and chairs with railings and steps all over the place. It's then that you get the idea of this Aquarium. There is no flow or direction to where you go, consider it a free for all. So we checked out the cold water exhibit first and wasnt really impressed it seemed like there wasnt enough glass to view the fish. This would be my whole gripe for the Georgia Aquarium. If you want to actually learn fish and you know, see them, then go to the Chattanooga Aquarium. If you want a big nice building that you can eat a $5 hamburger in and occasionally see a fish or two then go to the Georgia Aquarium. Why must everything in Atlanta be designed ass backwards? My same gripe for the Atlanta Zoo. I'm sure it'll be nice when noone goes anymore, but why have such little viewing spaces (port holes) when it's so damn crowded? Not only that, but you cant sit and eat or relax and just watch fish. The Chattanooga Aquarium puts the fish first and then puts the food outside with only one gift shop. Georgia Aquarium has at least two gift shops and probably more. Even their 'food court' is misdesigned with everyone having to go through 6-7 cashiers after you get a whole try of food. Way to go folks, imagine 70 or so people standing in line waiting to pay while you hold a tray of food AND try to keep your three year old in line. I'm pretty much finished with Atlanta and all their backwards designing. Oh and FWIW Here are the aquariums I've visited in my lifetime: Tennessee Aquarium Georgia Aquarium Monterey Bay Aquarium Shinagawa Aquarium
From the Rottweiler: What I couldnt put my finger on until I read this: "But enough of that. My MAIN beef is that there is no way in Hell that anybody is going to convince me that a record profit, again, profit of 36 billion comes about simply out of dumb luck and because the market demands it. The unfettered market demands, as any student of economics will tell you, that businesses make as little profit as they can make while still remaining viable because if they make more, somebody else will step in to fill the void.
So whenever you have sudden record profits like this one, you know that something’s fishy. Since market forces demand that anybody making a killing will be pushed out by somebody willing to do business for a smaller profit, something else is at play here.
Feel free to speculate in the rest of this thread, all of you.
What I DO know is that we’re paying more at the pump than we have to, again referring only to market forces and most emphatically NOT to arbitrary concepts like “fair.” Also, I’m equally emphatically NOT calling for regulation because the LAST thing we need is another bloated government agency telling us all what gas “should” cost.
I just know, using simple logic, that if you can make a record killer profit during times where you ought to be struggling like crazy to keep newcomers from crowding you out, something isn’t working the way it should.
