One of Georgia's Most Famous Residents Survives Flood

No, I'm not talking about Jimmy Carter, or "The Mouth of The South". Ted Turner, or not even baseball star Chipper Jones.  They were not in danger.

The State of Georgia held its collective breath earlier this week to find out the condition of General Beauregard Lee.  Lee is not a Civil War hero or a former POW.  Beauregard Lee is possibly the most famous groundhog in the world.  Strong rain and rampant flooding hit Lilburn, Georgia, the home of General Lee.  Word has now come out that General Lee and all the other animals housed at The Yellow River Game Ranch in Lilburn made it through the rain and floods fine.

There is some clean up and reorganizing to do at the ranch but General Lee will be ready to work his one day a year on February 2, like he does every year.  The  Yellow Game Ranch is expected to be open soon so go and see General Lee and all his friends.  And here's hoping General Lee will see an early spring come next February 2. 

Check out the ranch at: http://www.yellowrivergameranch.com/

Six Flags to Open Most of Park: No Flood Discounts

Six Flags over Georgia has decided to open this weekend, the last in September for business.  Most of the park will be open, I'm told, since there is no remaining standing water and clean up has gone better than expected.

Six Flags may have dropped the ball by offering no discounts to flood victims, or the general public as of yet.  They are offering military discounts this weekend to members of the armed forces and their guests.

With the pictures that circulated throughout the week of a flooded Six Flags, and all the jokes about "a new water park", the right thing to do would've been to offer buy one get one free tickets.  Not only would this have generated great publicity and sympathy for the area hit hard by floods, it would've been a great lead in to the October Halloween activities.

Six Flags should do the right thing.

Follett and CafeScribe offer a new way to learn

For over 135 years, Follett Corp. has provided quality textbook and learning materials to students of all ages across the world.  Staying on the cutting edge, Follett now introduces CafeScribe, an innovative etextbook program that allows users to not only read the book, but gives them the ability to make notes in the software and share them with social networking tools.

 

CafeScribe can be run on either the PC or MAC platform, on netbooks and desktops, giving flexibility to students and peace of mind that CafeScribe will run on their system.  Your CafeScribe etextbooks can be purchased at Follett owned bookstores or on CafeScribe.com.  Everything about your etextbook download will be identical to the print textbook, including page numbers and graphs.  CafeScribe is also slowly rolling out ebooks that will include works of fiction, classics,and lab manuals that may be required reading for courses; and down the road, books for leisure reading will also be offered.

 

Many major colleges and universities are offering and promoting Follett's innovative program.  CafeScribe is getting traction at such institutions as Brigham Young, Cal-Berkeley, George Washington, Georgetown, and The University of Georgia.  Disciplines in the science and business fields are proving to be popular in the use of CafeScribe.

 

MyScribe is the proprietary software that is your reader.  Users are allowed to read their books on three different computers, and a text-to-speech option is available for all etextbooks.

 

For added convenience, books can be used with a portable USB device by downloading MyScribe Portable.  Students can print up to 30% of their books on a printer, this may cause some concern, but you can print the 30% you need, and take it with you where you may or may not have computer access.

 

Follett Corp. appears to be following the lead of such companies like Amazon and Sony who are major players in the ebook revolution.  CafeScribe may do what the Kindle is doing for Amazon, but it is taking it a step further by seeing through social networking, a tool already popular with students,  encourages students to enjoy sharing and learning from others.  The affordability and ease of use along with the internet being the perfect place for this, the innovative approach of Follett needs to be complimented and taken advantage of.

The Universe of Ebooks in one Picture

This is from Eric Engleman's bog at Techflash.

Interesting to see the everchanging universe of ebooks.  in a few months this picture will get a bit more out of control.

This courtesy of Techflash.com.

Flooded Six Flags Cautiously Optimistic

Keeping an eye on the receding water, Six Flags over Georgia still is trying to open its gates for this coming weekend.  Several rides appear to be lying in water, and the massive clean up has really just begun.

I still can't see how they can get it in shape to open to the public.  Officials are better off taking their time and taking no chances by rushing to open this Friday or Saturday.

October is an important month for Six Flags as Fright Fest begins leading up to Halloween.  Fright Fest always draws good crowds, and that should be the goal right now for the decision makers.  Interstate 20, which is the main highway leading to the park just reopened today after being closed for the better part of two days.

The picture shows rides still in water.  And these aren't the water rides.