Now with the regional lodging dollars we?re not bound by that structure. We can do more creative and experimental things like the winter advertising we did for the first time.

In reviewing our tax structure, our lodging tax had not been addressed in a number of years. The recommendation was made by the Industrial Board to the city council that the tax be brought up to the levels of Montgomery and Mobile. Acting on their recommendation, we are going to adjust the lodging tax to 8 percent. It will be effective after a notice is placed in the paper and the owners of lodging establishment are notified.

We will not have an open wallet for this. We will have to keep food and lodging expenses to a minimum.

Everyone lives in two worlds,” Maggie said, speaking in an absentminded sort of way while she studied her letters. “There’s the real world, with all its annoying facts and rules. In the real world, there are things that are true and things that aren’t. Mostly the real world s-s-s-suh-sucks. But everyone also lives in the world inside their own head. An inscape, a world of thought. In a world made of thought—in an inscape—every idea is a fact. Emotions are as real as gravity. Dreams are as powerful as history. Creative people, like writers, and Henry Rollins, spend a lot of their time hanging out in their thoughtworld. S-s-strong creatives, though, can use a knife to cut the stitches between the two worlds, can bring them together. Your bike. My tiles. Those are our knives.

The new players have a cost structure that is on the average of about 2,500 dollars less a vehicle. That's a killer number when you're trying to get competitive. It's a lot easier to add costs than to take out costs.

He turns not back who is bound to a star