Hardy Wallace

A big congratulations goes out to Hardy Wallace, who just won an awesome six-month job!

Hardy will spend six months in Sonoma County, California, as a Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent for the Murphy-Goode Winery.  Not only is the job aswesome, but the pay is great, too: $10,000 a month!

Hardy is no stranger to the “wine correspondent” gig.  He has a very well-known blog called Dirty South Wine.

Last week, I did a story on Hardy and his efforts to win the competition.  Here’s the video:

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One of their latest products, Google Latitude is pretty awesome.  But, I’ve been having a hard time finding a real application for the service, other than creeping myself out a little bit.

Google Latitude works with your cell phone’s GPS.  It has the ability to constantly ping your exact location and display for your friends to see.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Oq-9enE-k

The only people who can view your location, are those people you allow to see it.  This works very similar to somebody’s online status in Google Talk or AOL Instant Messenger.

I have a handful of Latitude buddies and it is kind of cool to see where everybody is, especially if they’re nearby.  But, I haven’t had a meet-up at a coffee shop because I discovered somebody was close by.

I can see the practicality of Google Latitude for parents to easily track their children’s location, or for family members to track each other down in an emergency situation.  But, other than that, I think the product is mostly a novelty in it’s current execution.

I guess I wasn’t too far off base, because it seems even the folks at Google see Latitude as a bit of a novelty right now:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0GA73O_9O4

Obviously Google sees a lot of value in providing location-based search, and I see the value in it, too.  When I search for “sushi restaurant”, odds are I’m most interested in the results that are closest to my current location.

Make your own at Google.com/LatitudeStunt!

Plus, there is a lot of value in hacking your own version of the Google Latitude Stunt.  Check out my version, “Chris is Hot“.

You can also make your own.

Now, here’s what I think would be awesome:

What if we made a game out of this.  We could assemble groups of people to create Latitude messages across large geographic areas.  I think it would be a lot of fun!

Who’s with me?

It turns out, I was right.

I needed to shoot some aerial video for a story I’m working on about a big construction project on I-85 between Union City and Hogansville.  So, I hitched a ride on 11Alive’s SkyCam (N11TV, pronounced “one, one, tango, victor”).

While we were up in the air, I managed to take a couple of pictures with my Blackberry.

Riding shotgun, looking south towards Buckhead and Midtown. On the left, you can see the campus of Oglethorpe University. On the right side of the image, inside the helicopter, you can see the "talent light". We put a blue gel in front if it to make the artificial light match the color of the sunlight.

Inside 11Alive's Skycam I can watch two monitors. On the left, I can watch the over-the-air feed of WXIA-TV. On the right, I can view the helicopters on-board cameras. There are four cameras in all. The main camera is mounted under the nose. There is a camera that looks over the pilot's shoulder out the front. There is a camera pointed at the reporter. And, there is a camera mounted on the helicopter's tail boom, looking forward.

This is the view looking over the pilot's shoulder.

The Concourse at Landmark Center in Sandy Springs. These two buildings are commonly referred to as the "King and Queen".

On approach to the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport from the Northwest. This is the view looking towards the Southeast. That's Runway 16 ahead.

Pulling up to the hangar. That's Fox 5's (WAGA-TV) helicopter already on the ground.

11Alive SkyCam, Helicopter N11TV on the ground at the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport.

It’s not really an admirable mission, like donating more of my time and treasure to deserving organizations and causes.  But, it’s a fun goal that I am excitedly tackling every (almost) Friday.

Since my Catholic faith prohibits me from enjoying meat on Friday’s during Lent, I have decided that this is a great time to find out who has the best fish tacos in Buckhead.

So far, I’ve only been able to check out two places: La Fonda (on Peachtree Street) and Tin Lizzy’s (on Piedmont Road).

So far, the fish tacos at La Fonda are my favorite. I went with the tilapia, but they also offer salmon.  The spicy sauce make these tacos delicious.

Tin Lizzy's Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos

Tin Lizzy’s run a close second.  Shea, Kelly, Nick and I dined there two weekends ago.  Shea and I both opted for the special of the evening, mahi mahi fish tacos.  The tacos come with an assortment of salsas, both vegetable and cream based.  But, I found them to be not quite as spicey and flavorful as those at La Fonda’s.

On a side note, the margarita’s at Tin Lizzy’s are pretty awesome.  But then again, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad margarita!

So far, here’s my ranking of Buckhead’s fish tacos:

1. La Fonda
2. Tin Lizzy’s

Where should I try next?