WOW!
What a great time life is!
I have started my own business, again! AtlantaLocation.com I have assembled a team of amazing professionals in the Real Estate Industry and in a market that people are telling me is tough, we are buying and selling an amazing amount of property! The markets went through a correction the last year or so and the economy through on the breaks, but, this has allowed home prices to come down to the lowest levels in my lifetime and interest rates too! This is unheard of in any industry! Low prices and cheap financing, you should be in this market! We are seeing home prices beginning to see an upswing in existing home values and interest rates have stabilized at all time lows. If there were ever a great time to buy a home that is a real value it is now. Kelly and I are looking around and considering a few home options for ourselves, you should too!
We had an amazing summer! Cross country trip that led us to Yosemite, camping in the shadow of Half Dome and El Capitan. The water falls were amazing! Visiting my buddy Garret in Durango, CO. and Catching a show at Red Rocks, and a little trip to the Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands on a 43' catamaran were just a few of the highlights! We are home in Atlanta now and looking forward to our next little adventure, maybe Spain? That one is still a bit up in the air.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Little Weekend in Tahoe!
Squaw, Alpine Meadows, Homewood, Sugar Bowl ...... the ski season has been amazing. I unfortunately do not take many pictures on the slopes as my hands are busy white knuckling my ski poles as I cut and turn on the edge of out of control. Here is a little shot of the after ski party with Kelly's brothers, Marc, Brian and Jona!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Best Wine In The World!
I was able to taste the 1962 Romanee-Conti tonight and it changed everything! Subtle and Femine with more fruit than one would possiablly imaging for a 47 year old wine! The one taste had such layers and longevity on the palate! Perfect balance! Perfection! The $10-15 thousand dollar restaurant price tag for the bottle however may mean that it might not make my little collection in the near future, or ever! Just one of those moments in life that you just have to appreciate for what it is, a once in a lifetime experience! Cheers!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Adventure Update From the Highest Mountain in the Lower 48 states!
as posted by andy smith on facebook, "I'm back in San Francisco from Mt. Whitney. Thank God and Scott Adams I'm still alive. We were at about 13,500'-13,800' on Saturday at 5pm and about 2-3 pitches from the top of Mt. Whitney when a rock about the size of a microwave hit me on top of my helmet and my left shoulder. I immediately fell to the ground on the ledge we had been standing on. My head and both arms went totally numb. I did not know what happened but I knew I was hurt bad. I could not stand up and was disoriented. Scott immediately took control of the situation and called for rescue. He was smart and took a cell phone and was able to get a signal. The dispatcher told him that they were unable to send a helicopter due to night-time and high winds (approx. 40-50mph) and a snow storm front was moving in but would send one out in the morning IF the winds died down and the snow storm held off. At that time I was about to give up but Scott would not let me. It was about 0-15 degrees as the sun went down. He secured me in a cerasse with an emergency blanket as he started setting up our repels to get down. He tied me into the rope and made me face the excruciating pain to repel down. Scott managed the rigging, 2 backpacks, climbing gear, the rope and me. I kept insisting that he leave me and go on down to see if there was anyone else at base camp to help. He told me to shut the F@*#k up and that he was not going to leave me. So I complied. We repelled down 4 pitches (about 500') to the Mountaineer's Route Chute. It was an extremely steep gulley full of scree, rubble and boulders. He would repel first then he would belay me down. By this time I had some use of my legs and only one arm. It took us about 2-3 hours to get to the gulley. Once in the gulley neither one of us could feel our feet or hands due to the cold temps. He wanted me to continue on ahead of him so he could keep his sights on me. So I began to attempt to walk but without success. I kept falling down onto the rubble and passing out due to the pain. So I began to crawl and slide to get down while he continued to haul 2 backpacks, gear and rope. It took us another 10 hours in freezing temp and excruciating pain to get back to base camp. I continued to pass-out from time to time. But every time I would wake up and look back up the gulley there he was ensuring I kept moving. We made it back to base camp at approx. 5:30am. The Serria Moutain Rescue helicopter arrived at approx. 8-9am. They flew us to a hospital in Lone Pine. There they dosed me up with lots of IV pain meds and did a CT from head to toe. At that time they knew I was to critical for their hospital and they called for air transport to Loma Linda Hospital's Neuro ICU. Once there they did some more CT scans and MRIs. The results are that I have multiple fractures in my left shoulder blade and some compression fractures in a couple my vertebrae. I was in the step down neuro unit for 4 days. Now they have discharged so I can go back home and follow up with my medical treatment in Chattanooga. I'm very lucky. I own my life to Scott and I know someone up there is looking out for me. If you know Scott Adams please commend him for his persistence’s, bravery, level headedness and strength that brought me and him home to our families. THANK YOU SCOTT. My family and I own you an unpayable debt.(the end)", Andy Smith (facebook post October 8th)
Truth be told, we saved each other that night. There was no hero taking over trying to do great things. I think it was just self preservation, fear and the will to survive. I knew after the boulder hit Andy things were about to get challenging. I had no idea that we would both have to dig so deep just to stay alive. After the boulder hit him we sat on the ledge for a few minutes to see if he was just in shock of was really hurt to the extent that we thought. It was unfortunately worse than we thought. With a great deal of, lets call it "coaching", from Andy; we started out on our decent. Incredibly slow and deliberate, I knew we could not afford any mistakes. We had over 1,000 feet of vertical decent below us and if any thing happened to either on of us no one else could even begin to help. After our first pitch decent is when I was able to contact Air Mountain Rescue. I spoke to them for about ten minutes and was told to call them back in 30 minutes so that they could contact the Rescue Team. I knew the weather was getting colder quickly at this point so I put Andy in an emergency blanket while we waited there on the ledge waiting to hear if help was on the way. I called back and was informed that they would not be able to get to the mountain until daybreak, and that was if the weather cooperated.
For just a moment I accepted their answer for a morning rescue and lay down beside Andy and tried to keep us as warm as possible. At this point is was around 5 degrees and the wind was screaming. We were thirsty, our water was frozen. We were both shivering until the moment when I was most scared. The shivering stopped and I knew from reading that this is a sign of severe hypothermia. My hands and feet were numb. I knew we that couldn’t stay here or we would freeze to death. I told Andy we had to keep going and he agreed completly. On the next pitch we made it to the next ledge 100 feet or so below us and as the rope was coming down, it got stuck. I pulled and tugged but ...... nothing. It was stuck. I started measuring the rope that I had already come down to see if it was going to be enough to lower us down to the next ledge. It seemed like it would make it, it was going to be close but I thought we could get there. I knew that my hands and feet were in no condition to try to climb up and free it, so I cut the rope. I reached as high as I could, up the cliff so as to keep as much length as was possible for our decent. The rest of the pitches on the decent were slow and deliberate, our hands frozen and our minds foggy. I knew we had to not make any mistakes, be safe, get down, get warm! Once we got to the "Chute" of the Mountaineers Route, I wasn’t sure if there were any more ledges so I was preparing our equipment for another possible decent. Andy started crawling, sliding, scooting and fighting his way down this enormous field of granite rubble and boulders. I finished packing the equipment and began to follow him. At a few points I couldn’t see him and began to zig zag down the side of the mountain, trying to make sure I didn’t loose him. Then out of nowhere his headlight would shine again. At this point I didn’t know that he was sliding down the mountain and passing out from the pain. He would then sit up and look for me, looking for him. The wind was so strong you couldn’t hear anything or anyone that wasn’t 3 feet away. Communication was impossible. I could see his head lamp but because of the terrain I couldn’t get to him, so I stayed above him and made sure we were both still moving down the mountain. The moon was full the whole night, but we were in the shadow of the mountain. It was no help to us. 12 hours after the journey down had begun we made it back to base camp. We crawled into our sleeping bags and knew finaly that we would be OK. Broken, Frozen, Dehydrated and Hungry, but alive. We never really slept that night/morning. Andy would move and scream and the wind was so strong it was pushing the side of the tent against my face. It was so cold our breath froze to the inside of the tent and would cause it to look like is was snowing inside the tent. I crawled back out of the tent at first light. I pulled all of our packs and equipment that we were not using to stay warm and shaped them into an S.O.S. of the ground beside the tent. Remembering that the last time we talked to the mountain rescue we were on the side of the mountain 1,300 feet higher! Cell phones were dead at this point, killed by the cold! We could only hope they were on their way. I heard the helicopter and saw it look for us on the mountain. I began to use an emergency signal mirror to atract attention to our location. Eventualy it worked! They turned toward me and I began to wave the large shiny emergency blanket untill I got a few blinks from the lights of the helicopter, they saw us!
We are going home! As the choper medic started to give Andy some pain meds, the reality of how cold we were that night showed itself again. From the point the medic got her drugs out of the chopper and to our tent. The morphine froze in the vial. The amazing part is that we felt like it was warming up, a lot! It had been warmng quite a bit, to a blustery 22 degrees that morning. The rest of the story is just recovery for both of us. Andy's physical recovery, frostbite, broken scapula, multiple spinal compression fracturers and to this day neither of us have feeling in our toes and experience severe numbness in our extremities. This is not a story of a hero but of a guy and his friend, me and my uncle. This is just a story of our long night doing what we had to do.
-Scott
Peace
Truth be told, we saved each other that night. There was no hero taking over trying to do great things. I think it was just self preservation, fear and the will to survive. I knew after the boulder hit Andy things were about to get challenging. I had no idea that we would both have to dig so deep just to stay alive. After the boulder hit him we sat on the ledge for a few minutes to see if he was just in shock of was really hurt to the extent that we thought. It was unfortunately worse than we thought. With a great deal of, lets call it "coaching", from Andy; we started out on our decent. Incredibly slow and deliberate, I knew we could not afford any mistakes. We had over 1,000 feet of vertical decent below us and if any thing happened to either on of us no one else could even begin to help. After our first pitch decent is when I was able to contact Air Mountain Rescue. I spoke to them for about ten minutes and was told to call them back in 30 minutes so that they could contact the Rescue Team. I knew the weather was getting colder quickly at this point so I put Andy in an emergency blanket while we waited there on the ledge waiting to hear if help was on the way. I called back and was informed that they would not be able to get to the mountain until daybreak, and that was if the weather cooperated.
For just a moment I accepted their answer for a morning rescue and lay down beside Andy and tried to keep us as warm as possible. At this point is was around 5 degrees and the wind was screaming. We were thirsty, our water was frozen. We were both shivering until the moment when I was most scared. The shivering stopped and I knew from reading that this is a sign of severe hypothermia. My hands and feet were numb. I knew we that couldn’t stay here or we would freeze to death. I told Andy we had to keep going and he agreed completly. On the next pitch we made it to the next ledge 100 feet or so below us and as the rope was coming down, it got stuck. I pulled and tugged but ...... nothing. It was stuck. I started measuring the rope that I had already come down to see if it was going to be enough to lower us down to the next ledge. It seemed like it would make it, it was going to be close but I thought we could get there. I knew that my hands and feet were in no condition to try to climb up and free it, so I cut the rope. I reached as high as I could, up the cliff so as to keep as much length as was possible for our decent. The rest of the pitches on the decent were slow and deliberate, our hands frozen and our minds foggy. I knew we had to not make any mistakes, be safe, get down, get warm! Once we got to the "Chute" of the Mountaineers Route, I wasn’t sure if there were any more ledges so I was preparing our equipment for another possible decent. Andy started crawling, sliding, scooting and fighting his way down this enormous field of granite rubble and boulders. I finished packing the equipment and began to follow him. At a few points I couldn’t see him and began to zig zag down the side of the mountain, trying to make sure I didn’t loose him. Then out of nowhere his headlight would shine again. At this point I didn’t know that he was sliding down the mountain and passing out from the pain. He would then sit up and look for me, looking for him. The wind was so strong you couldn’t hear anything or anyone that wasn’t 3 feet away. Communication was impossible. I could see his head lamp but because of the terrain I couldn’t get to him, so I stayed above him and made sure we were both still moving down the mountain. The moon was full the whole night, but we were in the shadow of the mountain. It was no help to us. 12 hours after the journey down had begun we made it back to base camp. We crawled into our sleeping bags and knew finaly that we would be OK. Broken, Frozen, Dehydrated and Hungry, but alive. We never really slept that night/morning. Andy would move and scream and the wind was so strong it was pushing the side of the tent against my face. It was so cold our breath froze to the inside of the tent and would cause it to look like is was snowing inside the tent. I crawled back out of the tent at first light. I pulled all of our packs and equipment that we were not using to stay warm and shaped them into an S.O.S. of the ground beside the tent. Remembering that the last time we talked to the mountain rescue we were on the side of the mountain 1,300 feet higher! Cell phones were dead at this point, killed by the cold! We could only hope they were on their way. I heard the helicopter and saw it look for us on the mountain. I began to use an emergency signal mirror to atract attention to our location. Eventualy it worked! They turned toward me and I began to wave the large shiny emergency blanket untill I got a few blinks from the lights of the helicopter, they saw us!
We are going home! As the choper medic started to give Andy some pain meds, the reality of how cold we were that night showed itself again. From the point the medic got her drugs out of the chopper and to our tent. The morphine froze in the vial. The amazing part is that we felt like it was warming up, a lot! It had been warmng quite a bit, to a blustery 22 degrees that morning. The rest of the story is just recovery for both of us. Andy's physical recovery, frostbite, broken scapula, multiple spinal compression fracturers and to this day neither of us have feeling in our toes and experience severe numbness in our extremities. This is not a story of a hero but of a guy and his friend, me and my uncle. This is just a story of our long night doing what we had to do.
-Scott
Peace
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
I Love This City!
I think I have found the place for me! San Francisco has everything, great people, amazing food, minutes from the beach and a view of the mountains! If you can’t enjoy life here, you may just be out of luck. The expenses that come along with living where everyone wants to be is a bit traumatizing at first, with the outrages rents and high priced restaurants but when you find your balance here you don’t even notice the prices. Besides there are a lot of expenses that you don’t have living here; car, insurance, gas, there is no air conditioning or heat for that matter, the weather is just that perfect every single day. I must say that I do not at all miss the 100% humidity of the south with its heavy thick air. Here the air is crisp and fresh, clean every day. This is very motivating and make me want to get out and see, and do! I still want to go to Alcatraz, touristy but so so cool! I have sailed around Alcatraz a number of times but have yet to stop in. I want to go to Angel Island too, another large island in the bay that is a state park with no residents just visitors. I have recently been seeking out small wineries to begin my own brokerage firm brokering wine. It has gone surprisingly well! I have picked up a few brands and am about to hit the road to sell my goods. I represent only small boutique wineries with 3000 total case production or less. All of the wines I am brokering are all farmed with sustainable farming practices and organically or biodynamicaly grown. Biodynamicly grown is comparable with organic growing with a little Voodoo thrown in, Harvesting with the new moon cycle and other nonsense like that. It does make for some pretty good wine, I must say. Anyway, I thought I would just give you a little update! Life is good !
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Finishing the Farallons Race!
The picture is amazing and looks like a beautiful day, right? The racing was long and cold. A 75 degree day in San Francisco evedently means you are going to be cold as shit while sailing through the fog once you are about a mile off shore. The Farallons are 26 miles out :-l the islands are amazing, raw & rugged. For a moment I felt like I was in National Geographic.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Getting ready for the race tomorrow :-)
We brought the SC50 over from the Richmond Yacht Club to the St.Francis Yact Club :-) Sailing across the San Francisco Bay next to Alcatraz and insight of the Golden Gate Bridge was AMAZING! I'm still in awe being here. Kelly drove the boat alomost half of the trip! How could you not love her! Waking up early to race tomorrow, I'll let you know how we do! Look up our half way point 26 miles offshore, the Farallon Islands. This should be a great race. I'm one of 12 crew on the boat.
Friday, April 10, 2009
My first week!
Resume', Resume', Resume' , the job hunt is on! I had some promising leads this week and it looks like the job hunt in San Francisco is not going to last too long. THANKFULLY! I got a crew job on a 50 foot ocean racer! Its a brand new campaign that will be racing in San Francisco Bay as well as a few big ocean races! Running the fordeck on this monster is going to be a blast! Stay tuned for pictures, this should be amazing! I'm off to enjoy this amazing weather! Disc Golf? Ultimate? Park Lounging? Bike Ride? Surfing? Paragliding? What to do??? So many options! I love this place!
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Our Sunday stroll .......
GeoTagged, [N37.80884, E122.46561]
Took us to the bay today. I hope to be able to jump on a boat here in the next few weeks, the sailing looks amazing! I can't belive I'm here. I have a few job prospects n interviews this week, I hope it works out soon. I want to have the funds to start doing the things I love more often. Sailing. Paragliding, backpacking and maybe the random drive to wine country for the day.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Turning the page
GeoTagged, [N35.06757, E85.29714]
I have made the comitment! I have over the last few weeks rid myself of all of my possetions. No car, no furnature, no anything! Unfortunatly all the proceeds look like they are going to be consumed by attorneys fees. I did keep my iPhone and my backpack. The idea of owning your own bussiness is the American dream, right? Unfortunatly my attempt was a victim of bad timing. Between incredably high operating expences, road closures, a bad rent deal in an imerging area of town, $4 a gallon gas followed by the colapse of the economy ..... well, it seems I just couldn't make things work. The consumer behaviour was at best, very unpredictable and eventualy atrophy to a point I could not recover. I can't say that I regret trying, but the experience looks like it is going to be a very expensive life lesson. I must say that I did learn a lot and mabye one day I'll try to put another idea together, only on a much smaller scale. The restaurant bussiness is still a passion but it is also a lifestyle comitment that is consuming. I'm not afraid of the work, but the stresses that go along with it are enormous when things are not going well. The past few years have taken a toll on me and for the moment I glad I'm done. I think I will enjoy just being an employee for a while, a long while! Simplifying my life and focusing on what really matters has made me a happier person very quickly. Spending time with my faimly, my amazingly beautiful girlfriend and finding myself again doing the things I love has already brought me back to a calm I haven't had for a long while. Kelly is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. She has made me realize the person I once was and have always wanted to be. I find myself having a renewed apreciation for the most valuable thing a person has to offer, time. I must say that the last few weeks have been nice for the fact that I have only spent time with those closest to me, Kelly, my mom, Andy n Susan, Kellys faimly and my brother. Mike and I seem to be moving in the right direction with regard to mending our bruised relationship(i couldn't live and work with me either). Anyway, my plane leaves tomorrow and I'm very excited. I have a few job prospects lined up but nothing concrete yet and that makes me a little nervous but I will be in my favorite city in the world with the one that means the world to me. Even when starting over looks terifying, the oprotunity is one that may never happen again and I'm going to be happier for it. No regrets from my time in Chattanooga or starting my own bussiness, just a little bruise on my pride. Remember, do not be afraid to follow your dreams :-)
Monday, March 23, 2009
Steeple Chase
The Next Chapter
The past few years have been quite amazing. I was given the opprotunity to open and own my own bussiness. This was an amazing experience and one that I am glad is over for me. Travis Brady, Troy Sutton & myself opened Food Works on May 30th in 2006. The amount of work it takes to operate this 11,000 square foot monster is amazing! With as many as 140 employees we were able to feed 1000 people a day. The second year in bussiness was much more chalanging, the city of Chattanooga closed the road for 7 months and gave us only a three day notice to prepare. As you can imagine this was quite a chalanging adjustment as your average consumer is rather turned off by driving through a construction site just to go out to eat. I'm sure I'll continue to rant about my very expensive business venture that left me broke but for now I'll will continue on with the next chapter. This is my first blog post and it is happening the Monday after I introduced my beautiful girlfriend to my mother. Mom agrees, I'm way outa my league! We had a great time in Aiken, SouthCarolina @ Steeple Chase! This photo is with my iPhone and no photo shop! Cool huh?! I'm selling the few belongings I have left this weekend and moving to the west coast, for me, for her & that is where I've always wanted to be. I've got a few interviews lined up in the wine brokering bussiness but no job yet and that makes me a little nervous. Everything will work out, I'm sure. Imagine trying to post here a few times a week to document this life journey, so keep up, keep in touch & I look forward to seeing you soon!
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