This picture is of me outside the house on the mall in Washington, DC last month.

Dear Mr. Ferdinand,
I want to bring to your attention the fact that many residents of Fulton County, I assume those living in condos, are paying very low solid waste bills. Mine was 48 cents. I’m not even sure how to correctly write a check for 48 cents. My neighbor’s was 38 cents, and my father-in-law’s was a whopping $3.86. I am concerned about this because it probably cost you, which ultimately means us (the taxpayers), more money administering the bills and assembling the paperwork for collection of the bills than you receive in payment. Not to mention that everyone I referenced above has their waste collected by a private vendor.

Their must be a more efficient system that you can utilize to collect the funds you need each year for solid waste removal, hopefully a system where you collect more money than the post office and pay far less in paper consumption and salaries for someone to log such ridiculous bills.

Sincerely yours,

Jodi Bell-Quinn

So I am sure that many of you have heard about my collaboration with the city of Atlanta Police Department to fight crime in the Poncey Highland neighborhood, more specifically, my parking garage. And to those of you whom I have promised that I won’t interrogate and chase suspected criminals without confirmed backup, I still intend to uphold that promise, even though I think I make a pretty good crime fighter (and we all admit that someone needs to protect Quinn).

To make a long story short, the guy on the ground tried to steal stuff from cars in my garage. I approached and interrogated, he ran, we chased, we caught him with the help of the police, and he got extradited to Washington for more severe charges. However, I must give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Law and Order SVU’s Olivia Benson, who taught me everything I know about apprehending an intruder (aka “perp”).

Speaking of, you will love this video, which was provided by Alana. It’s been an eye-opener for me in teaching me the importance of driving the speed limit, and I hope it deeply affects you too. hee hee hee.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5366552067462745475&q=speed

Today I completed Jane’s renovation (except for the carpet. That will be installed in a few weeks, but come on! Other than that, it’s finished.). I had fun on this project, and I learned a lot about project management. It made me realize that for future project management jobs like this, I need to be available more often to oversee the progress and talk to the subs. I liked working on this project so much that I am renegotiating my terms with Poliform so that I can have more time during contractor hours to do more projects like this.

You can visit my gallery to see all of the images of Jane’s condo.

That’s right. Jameson and Paris made the paper today. Jameson is the one on the right. Ofcourse, Paris almost knocked the others over to fight her way to the front of the camera (like father, like daughter).

So if anyone was wondering what Jameson and Paris do on a daily basis, this is it. They enjoy the sunny days out by the pool with their closest friends. Their martini glasses and umbrella got cut from the picture.

The entire trip was just as glamorous, well maybe not, but close. Being smoozed by hot Italian men, going to the best parties and best locations, and being paid for it. What a business trip?! Ofcourse, even when we weren’t being smoozed, Roy and Doug are fun to hang out with, and they know their way around Milan. Don’t forget food either. With Roy’s over-indulgent appetite, we had the best Italian food one could imagine, about four to five times per day.

This image was taken at the…oh wait, you guessed it. Quinn and I had a somewhat hard time getting out of Rome, and therefore, we didn’t have too long to enjoy it, because of all the planning required to get out of it. Italy’s Railway decided to go on strike the day we wanted to leave, so we had to rent a car and drive from Rome back to Milan, sacrificing 1.5 days in Rome, but it was worth it. We saw the mandatories on a first trip to Rome (including the announcement of the new Pope Benedict) and then hauled it out of there. We drove up the coast most of the way back to Milan, what amazing scenery. Picture mountains on your right and ocean on your left, while you are winding around little roads and through tunnels. We also saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa for about 20 minutes, all the time needed in a town completely supported by tourism. It reminded me of Panama City Beach with a tower instead of a beach. Glad to check that off my list of things to see so I don’t have to make a special trip later in life.

Once we finally made it to Paris, it was paradise again. Quinn’s out-of-town job finally paid off by getting us a free room at the Marriott on Champs d’Elysses. It was fabulous! I could have stayed in the hotel the entire time if I weren’t back home, err….I mean in Paris. We did nothing touristy in Paris. We attended a cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu and fantasy-shopped for an apartment. A couple of crepe nutellas later, it was time to fly back home. If only we could have agreed on a neighborhood for that apartment….