A great day for Mobile

Some really great news from the Press-Register today:

The U.S. Air Force today named Northrop Grumman Corp. and EADS North America to build its next-generation fleet of aerial refueling tankers, spurning a bid from rival Boeing Co. with a decision that could bring an aircraft assembly plant to Mobile.

"This is really a historic and great day for Mobile and our entire region," Mobile Mayor Sam Jones said at a Friday news conference. "This is a community-changing industry and we will see our community change for the better."

The Air Force made its choice after a fierce competition between the two teams for one of the single largest defense contracts in U.S. history. Estimated at up to $40 billion, the deal includes 179 planes to be delivered over the next 10-15 years. Boeing was considered a heavy favorite due mainly to its political clout and its legacy of building aircraft for the U.S. military.

For more, read on ...

Take this fight to the KFC, boys...

I came across this rather amusing story from the Associated Press and I thought I'd share. It put a smile on my face and took me back to the good ole days at the KFC in the Beach Shopping Center parking lot. Good times.

Hands up! I've got a spork!
Published 2/28/08

ANCHORAGE — (AP) The Anchorage police have arrested a man in an armed robbery. Now they are trying to determine if the weapon was a spork, a hybrid of a spoon and fork found at fast-food restaurants. The police say a man tried to grab another man’s watch on Monday night. The victim says the assailant swung a pocketknife at him, but four parallel scratches on his side make the police suspect that the wound was administered with a spork. Peter Albert, 52, was arrested near the scene and charged with robbery. The police say Mr. Albert was carrying a pocketknife and a backpack containing sporks.

Random Ramblings

Just a quick catch-up blog. Won't take much time.



A weekend in Louisiana
Amy and I went to New Orleans Friday and saw the North Mississippi Allstars at Tipitina's, the legendary Uptown nightclub at the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Napoleon. Sean came down from Vicksburg, Austin was in from Houston, and Manda now lives in New Orleans and was happy to come meet us out for a great time. Sadly, we never did meet up with my buddy and next-door neighbor Justin, who was in town for a medical conference and didn't realize just how far down Tchoupitoulas Street that Tip's was. We met up at Cooter Brown's, ate some burgers and Po Boys (mine was an alligator sausage po boy ... yum!) and drank a few pitchers of Smithwicks to get us ready for the show. As we were sitting in our booth, a friend who we've met at a bunch of shows and who records them to share with other fans came up and joined us. Then, another guy who has seen us at a bunch of shows stopped over to say hello. You'd think we go to a lot of shows or something. Anyway, I took my camera in and got some really nice shots. The light in that place is awesome. Click the image above for more photos from the show.

We crashed at the Marriott on Canal Street for free, thanks to Austin, who had an extra room, and got up to meet Manda for a breakfast at the Oak Street Cafe. The breakfast spot is quickly becoming a favorite of ours; they always have live piano music and the food is out of this world. We split after that — Amy and Manda got pedicures, Sean and I went beer shopping at Whole Foods — and the four of us eventually met up again at Cooter Brown's, where everything had started the night before. It seemed fitting that it ended there, too. Sean took off for the homestead and his waiting dog, Cali. Amy and I departed for Denham Springs, where we'd spend the rest of the weekend with Amy's parents. The visit was fantastic, and as always, too short, but it was nice to see them.



A few new beers that I like
As I mentioned, Sean and I did a little beer shopping at the Whole Foods Market on Magazine Street while Amy and Manda were having girls' time. We found a great 6-pack of Sam Adams, which featured the two 2007 LongShot Home Brew Contest winners — a grape pale ale and a WeissenBock, both of which were very tastey. Unfortunately, these beers can't be sold in Alabama because of our strict Alcohol Content laws, so I have to pick them up on trips like this one. The grape ale was probably my favorite of the two. It's description was like drinking a pale ale after eating a seedless green grape, and the description proved accurate. Click here for more info on the beers.



New York-bound
I don't know if anyone back home reads this at all, but Amy and I are going to be up in New York in a week. We'll be in the City on Thursday, Peekskill on Friday, Nyack on Saturday, back to Peekskill Sunday, Albany Monday, Peekskill Tuesday until our flight outta Newburgh. That's tentative, but a good place to start. Anyway, we hope to see some fine folks while we're there. Drop me a note for my number if you don't have it and want to get in touch.

Beautiful Day

Beautiful Day, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

We didn't have the greatest weather this weekend, but that just gave us an excuse to listen to our new records, paint some canvas and take some pictures. I used one of the bigger canvases we got as a "soft box" of sorts and set my camera up on the tripod. I shot a whole bunch just to get this shot, but I was really happy with how it turned out. The light hits the record just right.

Creating accountability

I realized recently that I don't take credit a lot of times when the work I produce at my job is below average. I'm more than happy to post the good pages to my online portfolio, but I rarely even acknowledge the ones into which I don't really feel I put my best effort.

I think because of that, I'm more prone to just put a page together when the muse hasn't visited me on any given day. Mediocrity at work is not my goal. Therefore, I'm planning to start posting all of my weekly pages on this blog along with, on occasion, any sort of description of the page, what I think I did right and what I think didn't work all that well. This way, even if no one reads this or even looks at my pages, I can at least pretend that I'm making myself accountable to someone, even if that someone is just me.

So, the first installment comes from Sunday. It's a bit of a stray from my original intent for this blog — I'm actually quite proud of this design — but I think it's a good start just the same. The main story was about a new art gallery at South Alabama, the first one that's been dedicated solely as a gallery of their own. They call it their "dedicated space," and the photography wasn't all that great, so I decided to interpret what I thought "dedicated space" might be. Each element's space was thought out in great detail, and I think the final product turned out nice. Any thoughts?

Japanese Magnolia in our Front Yard

Japanese Magnolia in our Front Yard, originally uploaded by amydot151.

Amy took some fantastic photos Saturday of the Japanese Magnolia trees on our street. They're blooming like crazy right now, and Amy was really able to capture their beauty with the camera, so if you're interested in seeing them, check out her photo set on Flickr.

Catching up — Photos from New Year's Eve

Dr. John, originally uploaded by bamaphan79.

For the second New Year's Eve in a row, and just the second we've had together, Amy and I scored some awesome VIP tickets to a great concert. While last year was spent in the front row at the Orpheum Theater in Memphis at the Bluff City Ball, this year found us in a VIP opera box at Mobile's historic Saenger Theater with two of Amy's bosses and their wives. We had an incredible view, all the dancing room we could ask for, and some fantastically funky New Orleans tunes from the doctor himself, Doctor John. Jamie McLean from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band was playing when we arrived, but I forgot my memory card in the car, so we didn't have any shots of him. John Cleary was up next on the grand piano, and he played some rockin' boogie woogie tunes to warm us up. But it was Doctor John that everyone was there to see, and it was Doctor John who rocked us out of 2007 and into what's shaping up to be an incredible '08. Above is a link to photos from the night. Let me know what you think!

I finally got a Facebook

It's sad, but Apple has the uncanny ability to throw a commercial on the TV and make me suddenly want something I didn't so much care about before I saw the silly ad. For instance, their most recent commercial, the one about Facebook, made me actually want to go check out Facebook and sign up for one. Thankfully, it's free. I'm hooked already. As my friend Shane put it, it's like MySpace for grownups. I'm not enlightened by any means — if anything, I'm way behind the curve — but between the blog here, my pictures on Flickr, music on Pandora, shared items from Google Reader, and now all of it tied together in one handy spot, I'm gonna be hooked on updates, I'm afraid.

Anyway, all that to suggest that if you haven't checked out some of these sites, you should — you might enjoy them. There are links over on the right to each of the services I use, so go explore! The more I explore, the cooler I discover all this stuff really is. And now I'll stop babbling about the InterWebs. More posts to come!

Some more about Guinan's

You may want to clear your afternoon before you click on this link that my Dad sent along earlier this week. There's a lot about Guinan's Pub to be discovered there. I barely scratched the surface before I had to stop reading, afraid that I might not get any work done at all today.