Sweet Home Alabama

"Sweet Home Alabama" is a song by the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. It first appeared in 1974 on their second album, Second Helping. "Sweet Home Alabama" was written as an answer to the songs "Southern Man" and "Alabama" by Neil Young, which were critical of the South. Entries in this category will be things of interest about or in this lovely state that I call home.

Alabama is a state located in the Southern United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. The twenty-second state admitted to the Union, Alabama seceded from the union in 1861 to become part of the Confederate States of America. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, Alabama was readmitted to the union in 1868.

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Who’s going to A-Day?

With the job-hunting-related hurricane flurrying around me, I’ve almost forgotten about this upcoming weekend: A-Day game!!!!

Jess and I have made this a yearly tradition and plan on meeting up with some friends and loved ones this Saturday in T’town. Also, I was just reading an announcement on The Birmingham News site that there will be a 7-on-7 game prior to kickoff featuring former Crimson Tide players and coaches. Sweet!

A little FYI: Gates typically open around 11, and the article says the flag football game is set for noon. (Get there EARLY!!) The A-Day game itself kicks off around 2. If you need parking information, traffic routes, maps, etc. I encourage you to visit the Alabama Game Day website.

Oh, and bring sunscreen … if you’re even half as white as me, you’ll need it!

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

My own blizzard

Boy, such a flurry of events have been whirling around me and my kin lately!

An American Visit

Friday I chaperoned Jessie’s class field trip to American Village in Montevallo. Even with the bad weather coming through (tornadoes and rain galore, yuck!), we still had a very good time. And I tell ya, I really wish I had visited American Village when I was Jessie’s age … I think I would have looked at history a whole LOT differently!

I’ve suggested to Jim that we head down there one weekend for one of their events or sometime in the summer when the weather is a little more accommodating!

Despite the bad weather and dampened spirits (my Lord, I’ve never seen so many pouty faces in one place! LOL!), I did manage to snap off a few shots:

The Home Front

We had our first interested party view the house last week. Friday night, to be exact. Our realtor called this weekend to let us know that they liked the layout and wanted to come back and see it again. So this weekend we busted some tail and cleaned and painted the entire bottom level. Jessie hasn’t packed a whole lot because she’s with her mother more these days, so we’ll get around to finishing her room last.

I’m trying not to get TOO excited, but I can’t help but want to get my hopes up!

We still haven’t gotten an answer yet on whether or not we got the loan on the new house. More paperwork was needed and faxed off last week. I’m hoping we hear something this week.

OMG … snow? In the South?!

Yes, it snowed here. We received between 3 and 4 inches here. Some parts of Birmingham received up to 7 inches!!!

Jessie was at her mother’s, so I’m sure she had a good ole time in it. I did manage to get a few shots of the pretty white stuff before the other neighborhood kids ran amok and transformed it all to dirty snowballs and lumpy stick-wielding snowmen. :lol:

Pass the Halls!

Either it’s the irritants in the cleaners, the paint fumes, or being out in the rain all day Friday (or a combination of all three), but I have been sick all weekend and feel generally like death warmed over today. I traipsed in to work to discover that my machine was hosed, so I couldn’t have done much of anything productive even if I wanted to.

Everyone kept telling me I should’ve stayed home because I sounded terrible — I think I’ll take their advice and stay in tomorrow. *ugh*

And last but not least …

One of my themes has recently been featured in a WordPress tutorial over on YouTube:

A big thanks to Kristie for letting me know about it, and to ktinboulder for selecting my theme!

The Con is on!

Remember last year when we attended OmegaCon? We had a blast, and considering it was the con’s first year, I’d have called it a major success. But I became worried that it had been too successful and had moved on to another town — the website had gone down, the MySpace page had gone quiet and hadn’t been updated in a coon’s age, etc. It seemed to have dropped off the face of the planet … until I re-discovered it today!

I had been sitting in a meeting and had the good fortune to be sitting near a terminal with internet access. (Google to the rescue!) I ran across a reference on a local Star Wars forum to an event called “ImagiCon.” Another quick Google and I had found the website: ImagiCon.org. From the sound of it, it’s the same con, but renamed, with a spiffy website, and by the look of it a lot more to see this year.

YAY!

Ok, so who else is going?

OK, it’s official …

… we’re for sale!

And the new house has been “marked”:

Let the madness begin.

Senior Year in High School … BACK in the Day!

I was tagged on Facebook for this and decided to post here. Feel free to play along in the comments below!

Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be!! At the end, choose 10 people (or more) to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

IN YOUR SENIOR YEAR DID YOU…

1. Did you date someone from your school? Nope.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school? Nope.

3. Did you car pool to school? Nope.

4. What kind of car did you have? A Chrysler 5th Avenue (aka “the tank”)

5. What kind of car do you have now? A Hyundai Santa Fe

6. Its Friday night…where are you now? At home or out with my girlfriends.

7. It is Friday night…where were you then? Most likely at the football game.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school? Cashier at Dairy Queen.

9. What kind of job do you do now? Web designer for UAB.

10. Were you a party animal? Not really.

11. Were you considered a flirt? Nope.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Not during my senior year, no. I was more into sports by then.

13. Were you a nerd? LOL, yeah pretty much.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled? Nope.

15. Can you sing the fight song? Yep, LOL!

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)? Mrs. Dawkins, Mrs. Dunn, Mrs. Wallace, Mr. Bradford, and Mr. Parker

17. Where did you sit during lunch? In the lunchroom with my friends.

18. What was your school’s full name? Corner High School

19. When did you graduate? 1993

20. What was your school mascot? Yellow Jacket

21. If you could go back and do it again,what would you do? Study more!

22. Did you have fun at Prom? Not really, my Junior Prom was a lot more fun.

23. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom with? That’s a big ‘no’ there.

24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion? Certainly!

25. Do you still talk to people from school? A couple, yeah.

26. School Colors? Black and gold.

27. What celebrities came from your high school? None that I know of …

Wow, I am going to hate moving!

Jim and I met with the realtor and builder’s rep yesterday. We signed a contract on the new house (which is of course contingent on us selling ours first) and put down the “good faith” earnest payment. So now we’ve got to go double-time on getting our current house ready to sell. We’ve basically got a week and a half to get most of our stuff moved out, all necessary fixtures replaced, the house painted, the carpeting replaced, and anything else that we think will help it sell faster.

I don’t have pix of the new house up. I took some yesterday using Jim’s cell, but they didn’t really come out (serves me right for not checking his cam settings first!). We’ll be going by there later this week, so I’ll take the “good camera” and get some proper shots taken and posted.

OMG, we’ve got so much to do!

Unfortunately my stress levels have been slightly elevated lately. I’ve had to double-up on my migraine pain meds, as I’ve had a headache pretty much every day lately. I’ve been a little snippy when I haven’t meant to have been.

God bless my family for putting up with me.

I’m dreading the actual move itself, but will be SO happy when all of this is over and done with!

Humpday Hilarities

Courtesy of my Cotillion sister, Beth C:

Posted to Craig’s List Personals:

To the Guy Who Mugged Me Downtown (Downtown, Birmingham )

Date: 2009-01-06, 3:43AM EST

I was the white guy with the brown Burberry leather jacket that you demanded I hand over shortly after you pulled the knife on me and my girlfriend. You also asked for my girlfriend’s purse and earrings. I hope you somehow come across this message. I’d like to apologize.

I didn’t expect you to crap your pants when I drew my pistol after you took my jacket. Truth is, I was wearing the jacket for a reason that evening, because it wasn’t that cold outside. You see, my girlfriend had just bought me that COLT 1911 .45 ACP pistol for Christmas, and we had just picked up a shoulder holster for it that evening. Beautiful pistol, eh? It’s a very intimidating weapon when pointed at your head, isn’t it?

I know it probably wasn’t a great deal of fun walking back to wherever you’d come from with that brown sludge flopping about in your jockey shorts. I’m sure it was even worse since you also ended up leaving your shoes, cell phone, and wallet with me. I couldn’t have you calling up any of your buddies to come help you try to mug us again. I took the liberty of calling your mother, or “Momma” as you had her listed in your cell, and explaining to her your situation. I also bought myself some gas on your card. I gave your shoes to one of the homeless guys over by Vinnie Van Go Go’s, along with all of the cash in your wallet, then I threw the wallet itself in a dumpster.

I also called a bunch of phone sex numbers from your cell. They’ll be on your bill in case you’d like to know which ones. SoBell recently shut down the line, and I’ve only had the phone for a little over a day now, so I don’t know what’s going on with that. I hope they haven’t permanently cut off your service. I was about to make some threatening phone calls to the DA’s office with it. Oh well.

So, about your pants. I know that I was a little rough on you when you did this whole attempted mugging thing, so I’d like to make it up to you. I’m sure you’ve already washed your jockey shorts and your pants, so I’d like to help you out. I’d like to reimburse you for the detergent you used on the pants. What brand did you use, and was it liquid or powder? I’d also like to apologize for not killing you and instead making you walk back home humiliated. I’m hoping that you’ll reconsider your choice of path in life. Next time you might not be so lucky. If you read this message, email me and we’ll do lunch and laundry. Peace!

– Alex

And this one is courtesy of Scott Allan:

Alabama Judge gives 7 year old right to decide custody.

Birmingham , Al, December 31, 2008

A seven year old boy was at the center of a county courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy had a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulation requiring that family unity be maintained to the highest degree possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried and said that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him.

After two recesses to check legal references and confer with the child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Auburn University Football Team, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.

Roll Tide!!!

So far, so good

The meeting yesterday with the loan officer (with our current mortgage holder) went pretty well. We still won’t know for a week, maybe two, if we get the line of credit or not. Jim and I are meeting tomorrow with our realtor and the builder’s preferred mortgage company. The advertisement we were given claims they will pay the closing cost if we go with them, so we’ll see.

In the meantime, we are making lists of things to be done to our house. Pretty much the whole house needs touch-ups here and there with paint, we’ve planned to replace a few fixtures, and we’ll most likely be tearing out the current carpeting. I figure if all goes well, we’ll be listing our house on the market in two weeks.

I’m both excited and nervous as Hell.

We may have found our home

Jim and I had been looking on and off at houses over the past year, but nothing really serious — until recently. The last couple of weeks we’ve been looking into several subdivisions in our neighborhood and though some of them have been really nice, we hadn’t found anything that we both looked at and said, “Wow!”

Thinking that it may be time to consult a professional, we turned to the lovely Miranda’s mother, Lou Ann (who happens to be a Remax agent). She answered all the questions we’ve had, explained some of the real estate terms with which we weren’t familiar, and drove us around to look at several houses. We visited a new subdivision that my mother had suggested to us a while back. It turns out that in the first new home available for us to see, we found our “Wow!”

We hadn’t planned on getting a brand new home, but honestly after seeing this, I didn’t want to look at anything else — the older homes in this and the other subdivisions paled in comparison in my eyes.

It has: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, garden tub and separate shower, walk in closets, 2-car garage, unfinished space in attic (could be finished into another room), located on a cul-de-sac (I was surprised, we’ll have to pay extra for this!). We ooh’d and aah’d all the way through the house.

At one point, Jim asked me what I thought. I told him, “You had me at ‘garden tub’.”

These are the photos from the realtor website:

These are photos Jim took:

You can’t see a whole lot from them, but I’m hoping to go back this week and get some more photos taken. We haven’t talked to our mortgage company yet, so we are not even sure we can afford it at this point … but I so want this house! I’m crossing all fingers, toes, eyes, and anything else that can be crossed!

Wish us luck!

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice and Merry Yule, y’all!

 

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

– Luke 2:8-20 NIV

Christmas comes early for some …

I received an email today from Soldiers’ Angels notifying me that the infantry where two of my soldiers are has a “mailstop.” This means only one thing …

THEY ARE COMING HOME!!!!

I know their families have got to be so excited!

God bless you, Casey and Steven. Wherever you are and wherever you’re headed, I wish you a safe trip.

Thank You!

Whenever I’m out and about and see a soldier or veteran, I always go up to them and thank them for their service and hand them a small Soldiers’ Angels card. Something Jessie said a while back sticks in the back of my mind every time I meet one … she said, “‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem like enough.”

I know what she means. For such a small phrase and gesture, I hope I’m able to make a big impact on that person, or the people around them. And I hope I come across as truly grateful.

To all troops, veterans, and their families: you have my thanks, gratitude, and support. May God bless you, and those who love and support you!

We’re outta here!

Welp, I’m finishing up wrapping tonight and we’ll pack up the car early tomorrow to head out of town for a bit.

My overnight bag’s packed tighter than a Ju Ju Be, LOL!

Hopefully I’ll have some goodies to share when I get back.

I hope everyone has a safe and very Merry Christmas!

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