Why did I do this?

Now that conference is behind me, I'm down to writing some well-deserved thank you notes and doing some evaluations and follow ups. I find myself mulling over the role of the conference chair and why I did it. Lord knows it was a lot of work. That said, it was completely worth it. When you think about it, you get to design an entire conference. You get to decide (OK with a lot of input from the board and the home office) what the conference will be about. You get to talk to major designers and thinkers. When I got home, I realized I got to dine with Glen Sheehan, drink a beer with Ross MacDonald, spend time with Ellen Lupton and fetch yogurt for Brian Collins. I'm just a lil' ol' designer down here in Clemson, SC. Those things don't usually happen in my world.

So what is my point here, you might be asking. My point is that UCDA can really change your life, if you want. Am I the kind of person who would just call people up and ask them to come speak to us? Not until now. I never dreamed I'd do that sort of thing.

So maybe you didn't like what we had to offer this year or you think you can do better. Or maybe you were totally inspired and want to give it a try. Perhaps you're ready to face new challenges too. Get involved. You can start small, by helping out at the national events. Or you can hold a regional event as well. Those can be anything you think might be of interest to designers in your region. It can even be a hands-on workshop. If you want to learn more, get in touch with a board member. We'd love to hear your ideas.

THANKS ALSO

DUH. I totally forgot Savannah College of Art and Design and the city of Savannah, all who were just wonderful hosts to our conference. SCAD, and specifically Quentin Curry and Florence Bryant, were just wonderful to us and I'm so glad we worked together. I hope you felt we brought you something special for opening night.

And speaking of opening night, Jeannie Davis helped us with the eco-tour and the big event. So much more than food goes into an event like that so I hope you felt it was worth it.

As for the conference, I have much to mull over myself. Trying to think beyond the page and more towards the entire experience. I think we have a unique opportunity to grab onto this and create newer, bigger roles if we want them. All very exciting and scary all at the same time.

So I hope you can come to Seattle. Randall Cole will do an amazing job for you. It will be uniquely UCDA, but different all at the same time. He's been thinking long and hard on it already.

What did you think of the conference? I've read the evaluations, so I can take it!

Christine

THANKS

Gonna quickly shout out to some specific people now that it's mostly over. All that's left is some sweeping up and that includes thanking some folks. So ...

First a big shout out to Tadson who does a ton of work behind the scenes. He's the one that understands the room contracts and books all the flights and rooms, works with all the vendors and communicates with the AV guys. He's the logistical guy and the logistics involved, especially when you have 400 people show up, are just HUGE.

And now one to the board, who was there if I had a need to bounce ideas and most importantly, were also huge behind the scenes people. Those fabulous goody bags? Your UCDA board put those together. They took care of speakers, they took each other to the emergency room, they worked the registration table, they ran little errands. We have a fabulous board. And I'd say that if I wasn't on the board too.

OK, down to the ones who you really might not know. RANDALL COLE will put on a whale of a conference for us next year and he was really Tadson's right hand man. He put together the dailies, ran errands, you name it. He got done whatever we'd ask. Heck, he even stood in front of all of you, which might be the thing he hated the most. PENNY FRANK rocks. If you volunteered, you know Penny. She was terrific in getting volunteers and then checking to see they were getting it done. MARLYS WEST put together the publication reviews, a tough task. Her house flooded the week before the conference, so she didn't come quite as prepared as she needed, but it worked out just fine. Great job. The UCDA FOUNDATION is always awesome with the auction. (BTW, thanks for the contributions!) The people that are the heart of UCDA Foundation are the heart and soul of UCDA. They are the core and the reason the rest of us are here.

CHERYL DESELLIER, DALE COCHRAN, WINSTON VAN DER HOOF and others, including board members, put up a beautiful awards show this year for us and you can't understand the amount of energy, blood, sweat and tears involved. If you didn't see much of them at the Saturday night party, well, they were there briefly before heading back to work on the show ... after working most of Saturday and Friday on it. I hope you had an opportunity to see it because it was wonderful.

OK it's sounding like an Oscar speech ... so I'll thank anyone I'm forgetting and you know who you are. Continue to share your photos. We love to see them and maybe we'll put them in print, even.

And now those that aren't UCDA members and that would be our speakers, who were just fantastic this year. I've said it before so I'll say it again ... one of my greatest pleasures was that not only did we have knowledgable, impressive people with amazing things to say, but they were all so pleasant. Genuinely nice interesting people. So a thanks to all of them for coming to our party. Our exhibitors this year were fabulous, whether they were able to come onsite or just do the goody bag. Support them, please. They believe in the college market.

And finally the hotel. There were bumps and bruises, but overall CATHY BAXTER and her team worked hard for us and I appreciate all they did. They had a great facility in which to host us.

OK! Gotta finish packing and showering but thought I'd get the thanks done while I was still warm and fuzzy.

Bye for now!

Lulu's Chocolate Bar

So Michelle and I convinced folks to go to Lulu's Chocolate Bar (not that there was much arm-twisting on that one). They had some seriously decadent chocolate desserts but boy that martini list! Holy cow. I went with the Raspberry Truffle Martini OMG. Like drinking a liquid chocolate truffle with liquor. Except you have an entire glass of it. And you feel really awesome when you're done.

We then went to the Bistro Savannah and had a lovely meal. Quite unusual. Ran into some UCDAers too! So fun. The guy went around afterwards and asked if we wanted dessert ... when he got to me I was like "uh, we had a drink at Lulu's Chocolate Bar bf we came here" and he was like "oh Lulu's is FABULOUS!" I love that about Savannah. It's like a small town, except it's really cool too. Small towns are cool in their own way, but not like that. All the businesses just love each other, it seems. Oh I'm sure there are people who know that isn't true at all. Just like people would say to me "oh the conference went so smoothly!" and I'm thinking "omg were we at the same conference??" but it makes me feel better as I know that means we must be fixing things as they flare up.

SO ... if you're still in Savannah, you should try to get by there. They open at 5. I had a totally different vision of Lulu's but it's definitely a night kind of place. Me, I've got some board meetings and then I meet up with Dale and Cheryl and we stop by Tybee for lunch then home. See you soon, Keith and Bella!

Conference ends

WHEW! We made it to the finish line. Day 4 was hitch-free, short of the missing jacket never picked up. I was finally able to relax and enjoy it all. The first thing Tadson and I said to each other when we saw each other was "OK. We know all the speakers are here today."

So not only were the speakers all here, but I heard many happy things as well. All of them felt to me like they were discussing our futures, what to expect next. Digital Storytelling got a huge amount of interest, so much that many more came to the afternoon session. Fascinating stuff. Adobe showed off their new toys. Garrick Chow from lynda.com was great and many said great things about Propeller Communications too. A little something for everyone, I hope.

So I'm so totally thrilled, well, that it's over, but even more so that we had such a great crowd. And not the size, necessarily, but the enthusiasm and energy was as good as I remember at a conference. When you plan one of these babies, you can only control so much. You can ask people to speak, but then they have to be the ones to put in the time and energy to give a great talk. You can book a hotel, but if they aren't up to the job, well, you can't fix that all the time either. And you can invite people to the party, but unless they come ready and willing to see the speakers, participate in the activities and willing to mingle and meet and converse (and I know you designer types could lock yourself in a room and say, blog all day), unless they are willing to play, well, you don't have a great conference. So, again, getting sappy here, but it truly is the attendee that makes the conference.

So all I can hope is that you give Randall Cole the same enthusiasm and energy you brought to Savannah. He's a great guy and he's been thinking for a long time already about next year. So tell him what you want to see. Shoot him an email with your thoughts. Again, sappy here, but UCDA really does belong to the members. So help UCDA be what YOU want.

See you in Seattle! And I'll continue to blog as long as I have conference news to blog.

Keep in touch!

Christine

Some links

Hi all, thought I'd post a few Ross links for everyone, esp if you missed him.

He sells some of his posters at www.illogator.com, which is a cool site that sells lots of illustrator work directly from the illustrators. I found his books at Amazon, but boy you have to dig. The two children books are "Another Perfect Day" and "Bad Baby" and I also came across "The Noisy Alphabet" which looks so cool and has lots of hot type in it. And his personal website is www.ross-macdonald.com.

Thanks to the more than 2/3s of you that returned for the session and I know it was worth it. He was a lot of fun and it's so great to see all that old "technology."

OK! Last day. Hopefully today goes super-smoothly. Seems like everyone is having a blast. I'm having a blast when I'm not completely stressing out, and believe me, I'm not stressed out to that point much. Just around 3:20 when we had no speaker!

Monday a whirlwind

Wow, Monday is officially come to an end as it's exatly 12:00 pm as I type this.

So we started with the Resource Center. I'd love to say I had tons to do with making the resource extra-special this year but alas, it wasn't me. Chalk that one up to our fearsome executive director Tadson Bussey, I do believe! Anyway, terrific turnout on the part of the exhibitors and the hotel outdid themselves with breakfast. (And yeah, they had yogurt, thanks for that one too Tadson!) We had a nice stream of people the entire three hours and there was a great deal of mingling going on. I think I even saw one of my coworkers, who normally would prefer to avoid any sort of awkward small talk, conversing with a complete stranger! So this conference has been a friendly, happy one. I can only credit that to our great icebreaker reception as well as the layout of the hotel. Whatever the key was, it's been a wonderfully friendly conference.

Breakouts were up next. I went to see Scott Boylston and boy he is incredible. The session he led about packaging and sustainable design was so inspiring ... and I don't really design packaging! But it did make me think about how I could approach things differently. To add to the fun, Scott is an amazingly nice guy too.

A quick trip back to the historic district for some honey at the brand new Savannah Bee Company as well as to Nourish for some soap was well worth it. I recommend dropping by and again, don't tell my husband, but I think he will enjoy the honey that is especially good for sweetening tea. Some of our attendees got to go on the historic tour. I heard it was excellent, even if it was walking around for 2.5 hours! Well worth it, most agreed.

The only downer on our day was realizing at 3:20 that there was a problem with our 3:30 speaker. Fortunately, our UCDA members rolled with the punches and went back out to the city. Most returned in time for round 2 of breakouts, grabbed a quick dinner, then returned at 8 to hear Ross MacDonald. Ross is a funny, funny man who first shared some great cartoons, then moved to his letterpress work. The letterpress work is beautiful and he talked in length about how he works on the press. Fascinating stuff, actually and just gorgeous to see. He then talked about how he's moved towards working in movie props. The amount of work that goes into these is absolutely incredible. The research is so tedious, it's amazing. So to the ones that returned, I can only say you got a terrific show, I hope. I know I enjoyed it.

We then took Ross out for a drink and ran into that crazy Gamecock crowd. What a rowdy bunch those guys proved to be! Larry leads a great team and they clearly are fond of each other. Looking at this picture, it's kind of amazing that Larry is still standing up, to be honest.

See all you folks in the morning!
cp

So much fun, I've fallen down on the job!!!

Monday afternoon, and I have to say this conference has been a whirlwind. Since I'm a first-timer, I'm meeting lots of great people - and everyone has a story to tell me about things they've been doing here in Savannah. Yesterday morning, I met a lady who was going to check out the First African Baptist Church a few blocks away from the hotel. I haven't had a chance to ask her how it went, but I know she was looking forward to hearing some gospel music and experiencing a culture different from her own. 

Last night, I enjoyed Scottish food for the first time at Molly McPherson's on Congress Street - Scottish Eggs (hard-boiled eggs with a sausage crust), Shepherd's Pie, Meat Pie, Highlands Salad, Potato Scones with raspberry sauce and a decadent chocolate/raspberry dessert. Now, I know everybody is thinking, Rebecca... that's a lot of food for one girl! Good thing I was with some people who shared my interest in trying lots of different things. We also sampled a delicious Pear cider that was tart, crisp and downright delicious. I highly recommend stopping by there for dinner.

Tonight, we're eying the haunted pub tour for our evening entertainment - along with dinner at the Old Pink House. I'll be sure to let everyone know how that goes!

The Olde Pink House

A lovely dinner tonight at the Olde Pink House. It's a Savannah institution and the food is delicious but completely rich and decadent. The house is called that because they made it out of brick and then plastered it white, but the brick color bled through. And so now the house is ... pink. First it was a home, then it was a bank, then a refuge to Union soldiers (hey they didn't burn Savannah) and finally pretty much falling apart, it was restored in 1992. There's allegedly a ghost in the Planter's Tavern women's bathroom. Last time I was in Savannah, I went to see if the ghost would feel me up but alas, I guess I wasn't much of an allure to him. Nothing. I was a little affronted!

Anyway, a lovely evening with a group of people who have done so much for UCDA throughout the years. They are fun and interesting people and I'm glad to consider them friends. They come not only for the programming, but because these people have become some of their very dearest friends. UCDA can not only be a place of inspiration and rejuvenation and education, but a place of support and friendship. So I hope, you lurking blog readers, if you attended the conference, you found those kindred spirits amongst the attendees. UCDA does many things well, but those close bonds are one of the most amazing things we can share.

Alas, I'm full of chocolate and wine and getting a tad bit sappy. Anyway, I encourage all of you to not only attend as much UCDA programming as you can get to, but to also deeply participate. Such a wonderful way to meet people and make UCDA important in your life too. Find a board member and see how you can get more involved.

Tomorrow is the resource center, and we're expecting a good one this year. Hope you have lots of extra room in that suitcase! If not, there's a Kinko's on Broughton Street and they ship! We have some great programming lined up for you tomorrow and you have a lovely break in the middle to shop and eat. Me, I'm going down to the Savannah Bee Company and getting some honey. Don't tell my husband tho, it's a surprise.

A Sale at Filene's Basement?...

. . . no, but close . . . designers rushing to pick up samples of each other's work. Conference goers started lining up outside the doors of "Scarbrough 3" at 3:40 this afternoon. When the doors finally opened at 4:15 the sea of sample-hungry designers quickly filled every corner of the room. Hopefully all found the inspiration they came looking for.

Inspired Design on Display

Cheryl DeSellier, the 2008 Competition Chair, spent a couple of very long days setting up this year's Design Show. With 227 award winning pieces to accommodate, table after table were added to the show. When the annual design show opened today it featured a remarkable amount of "Inspired Design" from UCDA members produced over the course of the past year.

Day 2

Day 2 is almost done as well. Publication Reviews are going on downstairs as I write to all of you. Our breakout sessions provided a variety of topics. The swap shop looked like it would be nuts, but it went really well. A huge crowd gathered outside and yet when they went in, it was very quiet as everyone went around and picked up publications. I went in 15 minutes later and it was nearly picked clean. Silent vultures, you designers! A large crowd stayed in the lobby, talking and planning their evening meal. Oktoberfest is still down on River Street. My fellow board member Michelle snuck out at lunch to make a raku pot for the silent auction, which looks to be going pretty well. Today, I had lunch at Ambrosia with some former board members. Excellent curry pumpkin soup, delicious.

Sunday morning

Sunday morning has gone off with barely a hitch. Brian came in and entertained and inspired and excited everyone. We all know we need to tell our stories better and think bigger and beyond what the client wants. He was terrific and I appreciate him coming in. He's off somewhere in Savannah now, enjoying the city and the beautiful weather we have this weekend, leaving behind only two buckets of Hershey's kisses from the store his group designed in Times Square. So cool, check out what they did online.

We then had our business meeting and awards show. Some very impressive stuff and the show and presentation both look beautiful. Another kudos to the Clemson staff and Cheryl Desellier along with Dave Dryden and Dale Cochran. Award winners are shown above.

Off to lunch at Ambrosia ... pumpkin curry soup (yum) and a spinach salad then back up here for the required chocolate to get through the day and I'm off to the next session.

What to expect today

OK! Back at it today. Up early to meet Brian Collins for a sound check. He got in super-late last night, so it will be tight. Still, Brian is a professional and we've got great sound guys, so I don't expect any trouble. After that, we have our awards show. Clemson this year chaired both the conference (me) and the competition (my coworker Cheryl.) Cheryl's been a little panicked about the job she would do, but from what I've seen, we'll have a great display show (expect amazing things with foam core) as well as a nice job in Keynote. Keynote was a new program for her, but I've seen a bit of what she's done and of course, it is a quality job.

Then a chance for all of you to grab a quick bite. Zunzi's Express is close by and wonderful, Gallery Espresso isn't bad. Firefly Cafe, as all you dear readers know, is my top pick, but it's too far a walk to get to in the hour and fifteen minutes you've got to make it there. You can probably find anything that will work on Broughton Street and if you want to play it safe, you've got Starbucks and Panera across the street from themselves right on Bull and Broughton.

The afternoon brings us great breakouts from NJIT, Billy Howard, Kim Elam and Hank Richardson. Publication Roundtables tonight as well as the always popular swap shop, then we're off to dinner on your own. You'll have a tough time choosing; so many excellent choices in this town! We tried Ru'an on Broughton and the SCAD guys tell me it's the best Thai in town. Michelle tells me "I'm in love with the lemongrass chicken."

Saturday comes to a close

Hi all you blog lurkers out there! Hope all that are here in Savannah had a great time. I know I had a great time meeting many of you. So many new faces out there this year, which is wonderful. Thank you for coming and seeing what we are all about.

So ... since I last wrote, here's a recap. Ellen made it in and we all went to the beautiful Trustee Theater to get things set up. The SCAD people were amazing and wonderful to work with. The AV guy got everything up and running nicely for Ellen, as well as our presentation that followed. Once that was squared away, got to hang out in the lovely space of Red Gallery, where we mingled with the SCAD group. Kudos to Florence Bryant here, who has been amazing and helpful and getting the Trustee Theater ready for us as well as the Red Gallery reception set up. The food was sublime and the space was really unique. Back over to the Trustee Theater for Ellen's talk, which was terrific. She was funny and dry, and yet completely relevant, talking about how educating the world about design, making it an open world instead of a closed world, will only elevate our roles, not replace them. Not only was her talk very well received, she is such a warm, friendly person. The sort of person I'd love to hang out and have a beer with, in fact. It's always nice to find that a person so well-respected is a genuine, approachable, likable human being as well.

Larry Pearce received the UCDA Award this year. Even though Larry works for Clemson's biggest rival (University of South Carolina), we love Larry. Another truly lovely, likable, humble kind of soul. So it was such a treat to watch him realize that Dave was talking about him as he read the announcement. To add to the fun, two long-time UCDA friends had visited Larry and managed to scan in many photos of him while he went to work, so we had lots of funny and sweet and probably very embarrassing photos of him to show. His staff made an Office parody about him that was really cute. I doubt there was better recipient for the award this year.

And then the carnival! Beer! Pretzels! Cotton candy! You name it, even corn dogs and caramel apples and music and frog bog, along with a caricature artist and a card guy, well it was a party. Seemed like folks enjoyed hanging out in the square for the evening and we had absolutely beautiful weather for the event. We passed out our networking game, in which folks had to find 12 different people to fit 12 different Savannah-themed descriptions. I'm about halfway there, but others have finished. I think finding someone who has read Treasure Island might be the toughest thing. If anyone needs someone who has sold Girl Scout cookies, I'm the gal. I've sold them as a girl scout and now the mother of a girl scout.

And now I write to you about our first day, dear blog readers. Thanks so much to all of you that I met tonight that told me I wasn't just writing for my own amusement! I'll continue to write. And if you are here and want to add your own fun to the blog, I'd love to have more perspectives to it all. Write me and I'll invite you to contribute.

President's Reception

Getting ready for the President's Reception and the party as well as the amazing Ellen Lupton, so excited. But I thought I'd take a minute to write. I didn't get a chance to go on the eco-tour nor the computer workshop (got things to do, imagine that!) but I heard great reports on both events. Apparently dolphins danced along the boats as there had been shrimp boats nearby and the woman narrating was a real character and very knowledgeable. The computer workshops were described as great, even overwhelming with the amount of knowledge thrown at them. Michelle Baty told me, "I realized I'm doing things in a strange way."

People are bringing silent auction items and there are some fun things to bid on, so bring the checkbook! And the publications review is also going well. The inspired design wall is off to a fun start, so I can't wait to see that build.

So I'll get ready to head out and I'll see everyone at Red Gallery and then the party tonight.

Registration has begun!

Registration kicked off with a bang. We put 65 people on a bus for an eco-tour, and another 30 on a trolley for the computer workshops. Saw many new faces and some old friends.

When you come to the hotel, come up the escalator and find the registration table. We'll get you started. You can bring your silent auction item as well, you can contribute to the inspired design wall, and you can pick up a personalized calendar from Kennickell Printing. It's a pretty crazy little item they're giving out. I'll see some of you at the volunteer meeting and the rest I'll see at the Trustee Theater.

I've included a picture of the shopSCAD next door to Poetter Hall, where we took our computer workshop participants.

Big day tomorrow!

Tonight, it's Oktoberfest on the town, which means River Street is nuts. Kind of fun, kind of nuts. Lots of drinking cheap beer, serious flashbacks to college! You can see they even shot fireTomorrow we start the conference! You'll come up the escalator and see the inspired design wall. We hope everyone contributes and makes it fun. We also have postcards for everyone to send home as well as the board vote. And, there's also the flickr site to go to as well.

Getting ready

We're getting ready for registration right now. Registration materials are set, goody bags have been created. We're working on signage and the competition show right now. If you're here in Savannah already, go enjoy the town! The weather couldn't be more beautiful. In fact, not sure I'd wear shorts now if I had them.

We're not ready to register anyone until tomorrow at 8 am. If you're in one of the preconference events at 9 am, just check in before 8:45 am (shouldn't take too long, it's just picking up your material) to get your nametag and ticket to the event.

Met with the charming people in the graphic design department. We're set for the computer workshops. The spaces are very nice. Enjoy the artwork in hallway; there's student work and it's inspiring, for certain.

See everyone tomorrow! Can't wait!

Goody bags!

Just finished assembling the goody bags. They are amazing this year. That said, there is a limited supply, so if you really want one, come early. If you want to travel home lightly, come a little later!

Remember, you get them at the Resource Center. They don't have any at the registration desk nor can they get them for you. You gotta come by the UCDA booth, show them a ticket or no bag!

Getting Close!

Hi all!

This is my first blog entry for the UCDA Conference. I'm an editor who works closely with Christine at Clemson, and this is my first UCDA Conference ever - so hopefully I can provide a unique perspective for this blog.

I'm warming up for a few days before the conference at Hunting Island. I know, rough life, huh? Hunting Island is an hour and a half north of Savannah, near Beaufort, S.C. I'll be going out on the boat this afternoon, so hopefully I'll have some great coastal pictures to share later on to give everyone a taste of the beautiful area Savannah calls home. If you're not already excited about your upcoming visit, you're in for a great surprise!

Until next time,

Becca

Conference opens tomorrow!

Sitting here writing all of you a quick note before heading downstairs for a few more board items. Then your dedicated board starts to work. Lots to do to get ready for all of you. I'll write more once I see the Trustee Theater and the computer work spaces. My speakers are all excited to present and so far, so good! Can't wait to see everyone!!

Here's four of your dedicated board members -- Dave Dryden, Connie Peterson, Michelle Baty and Micheline Heckler -- all enjoying a little pizza after a long day of meetings. Another affordable and tasty meal within walking distance of the hotel, this one at Vinnie Van Go Go's. You can get the biggest slice of pizza on a tasty thin crust and add the ingredients as you like. Michelle went with broccoli, spinach and feta. I remember Dave and Micheline and Dave adding pesto. I had sundried tomatos, feta and mushrooms. Yummy!

See everyone tomorrow! Today we furiously get ready.

Savannah Hyatt

Hi all, a quick note as we break from board meeting. Tadson and I (Christine) met with the hotel people this morning and they are wonderful. So, if they treat you with as much courtesy as they've treated us, we will have a great conference. Food looks great, rooms look wonderful and we're set for a great time. If you're driving, just be aware it is valet parking only.

During the break, I ran up to Zunzi's Express (York Street, near Drayton, you'll get a map when you check in) and YUM. And cheap too! I had the veggie wrap, so it was the extra bonus of being healthy too. But they also have some really decadent looking mac and cheese too.

See you guys soon, real soon!

New photos

Just walked around the area and uploaded some new pix for everyone. They are at the flickr site.

We're here

My fellow board member and director Dave Dryden and I made amazing time down to Savannah and we are here! Yeah! And guess what ... it is H-O-T, so make sure to pack a few pairs of shorts. Right now it's about 87 outside, yikes. We're off to walk up to the Firefly Cafe for some crab and corn chowder yummy yum. Board meeting tonight and tomorrow, then we all prepare to greet all of you fine folks on Saturday. Can't wait!

Christine

On my way!

Well, we're set to cruise to Savannah today. Lots of board meetings and then prepping for our big crowd to show up on Saturday. I'll continue to blog from Savannah, of course, and am looking forward to being onsite and having more to report. So I'll leave you with the story of the 17hundred90 house. It's considered perhaps the most haunted house in America's most haunted city. You can go there for dinner or a nightcap in the basement. It's easy to find; just look for the intersection of PRESIDENT and LINCOLN streets.

I wish I had a recommendation on ghost tours. I've been on two; they are fun. There are almost 30 companies doing tours to a wide range of quality. You can even go on one that will cart you around the historic district in a hearse. I'll probably skip the ghost tour this year; hard to be scared when you're running into other ghost tours. Still, if you've never been, it's a good opportunity to hear some of the old stories of Savannah.

See everyone on Saturday!