Jun
17
Fort Payne AL events you don’t want to miss

Events are planned across DeKalb County to commemorate the nation’s birthday.

Fort Payne AL event

Upcoming Fort Payne AL events include the Independence Day celebration.

Fort Payne AL events

The City of Fort Payne’s Independence Day Celebration is always a highlight, but this free event on Thursday, July 1, will be extra special this year with the return of in-person activities at the Sports Complex at 101 45thStreet NE, plus a performance by the Alabama tribute band, Boys in the Band, who did two sold old shows in recent years. The event from 7:30-9 p.m. The fireworks show can be viewed from the venue or from any of the parking lots at surrounding schools and businesses. To learn more, visit City of Fort Payne Official Facebook Page.
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Jun
02
Hwy 117 in Mentone, Alabama reopens at last!

Alabama Hwy 117 between Valley Head and Mentone has reopened at last. It shut down after a landslide following heavy rains in early April.

 

Jun
02
My Newspaper Wins 20 Statewide Awards for Editorial and Advertising

Today I learned that my article about John Dersham for DeKalb Living magazine won 2nd Place in the category of “Best Personality Profile” in the Alabama Press Association Better Newspaper Contest awards.

The article detailed John’s love of and career in photography. While living in Nashville, he worked as a regional general manager for Kodak, responsible for sales to retail stores in seven states with 45 sales representatives bellowing him covering individual accounts. The article got into the impact of declining sales on photographers and camera shops as the medium increasingly transitioned from film to digital files. While visiting friends in DeKalb County, Alabama, he and his wife fell in love with the area and moved here. He became director of the local tourism marketing organization.

In the same competition, in the newspaper category, I also won:
2nd Place – “Best News Feature Story Coverage”: “Local WWII veteran turns 100 years old”
2nd Place – “Best Spot News Story”: “Flood waters damage DeKalb bridges, homes and businesses”
3rd Place – “Best Spot News Photo”: “Peaceful protest held in downtown Fort Payne”
3rd Place – “Best Photo Essay”: “Flood waters damage DeKalb bridges, homes and businesses”

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Apr
27
Remembering the 2011 Tornado Outbreak in Alabama

Today marks 10 years since the infamous 2011 severe weather that stuck the state of Alabama. On that day a decade ago, a series of long-track tornadoes tore through Alabama in three waves across 35 of the state’s 67 counties.

The unprecedented event claimed the lives of 254 Alabamians, injured more than 2,000 and devastated the state. It was one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks recorded in Alabama since 1932, with 348 people dying across several states. Here in DeKalb County it claimed 34 lives.

It is a tribute to our strength and resiliency that we were able to recover from such a horrific tragedy and rebuild our broken communities.

I recall that the weather was threatening all day long in wave after wave of severe thunderstorms and some of the strongest winds I’d ever seen. The trees in our yard were being tossed about like rag dolls.

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Apr
19
An Update on Things

Busiest Time of the Year Ends

I’m finally getting to come up for air a little bit after spending the last three months working on The Times-Journal’s annual Progress edition.

Author Jerry Ellis, from a recent interview for The Times-Journal about his writing workshop this fall.

If you subscribe — which I certainly hope you do if you are a fan of my writing and photography because that’s where the overwhelming majority of it now appears – you will have received these amazing issues throughout the month of March.

Progress is always a massive undertaking that requires months of hard work by a team of creatives and ad sales reps who get out there and sell.

Finishing it means great relief to everyone in the TJ building because we have a tangible result of all of that effort we can proudly hold in our hands, along with some awesome deposits as checks arrive from advertisers. I sincerely hope they felt it was a great value for their money and interesting enough to attract a lot of eyeballs who will now shop with them.

Please, if you enjoy the paper, drop our name in these stores and tell them you learned about them in the Times-Journal.

You don’t know the lasting impact that makes when a business owner ponders where to direct his or her precious ad budget. We aim every day to produce such a quality product that people don’t want to miss any issue, making it a useful platform for our advertisers to reach buyers.

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Mar
22
Vaccinated!

I finally got the COVID-19 vaccine, just shy of a year from the first confirmed case here in Alabama.

The first dose did make me feel a bit mentally foggy. Several hours after the followup shot, feeling a bit more achy. Just guzzled some Theraflu, hopefully I can sleep well tonight and wake up rested.

I hear it takes two weeks for it to reach maximum effectiveness. Can’t wait to go on a date or listen to live music with friends again!

Jan
08
Loving my new mirrorless digital camera

Today is a very momentous day. I invested in a new camera and used it for the first time today. The last time I purchased a camera was 2010, so I’d say I’m overdue for an upgrade. My Nikon D7000 is so used that it is literally falling apart (I had to get the shutter refurbished a few years ago after it broke in the middle of a wedding, and those bad boys see about 300,000 releases before that typically happens!) Not the Nikon becomes my backup camera and I am making the leap to this new brand. For 30 years, I’ve shot almost exclusively Nikon due to owning a good bit of their glass (lenses). It’s a big deal to start over with a totally different manufacturer.

Making it even more special, this is my first full-frame and first mirrorless digital camera. Unless you are a professional photographer, they might not mean much, but essentially, I am using the full range of a camera’s sensitivity and pixels, which will result in far higher quality images. Mirrorless is lighter to carry around and quieter to operate.

The new camera, the Sony Alpha 7 II, was revolutionary when it was first released in 2014 as the world’s first back-illuminated 35 mm full-frame CMOS image sensor with 42.4 megapixels. For comparison sake, my Nikon has 16 megapixels!

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Dec
26
Star Wars movies ranked favorite to least favorite…
  1. The Empire Strikes Back
  2. The Mandalorian
  3. Rogue One
  4. Revenge of the Sith
  5. A New Hope
  6. Attack of the Clones
  7. Return of the Jedi
  8. The Rise of Skywalker
  9. The Force Awakens
  10. Solo
  11. The Clone Wars/Rebels
  12. The Last Jedi
  13. The Phantom Menace

Shall I expand? How about you?

Dec
24
Christmas in Dixie

I just wanted to take a moment to say Merry Christmas to all of my friends, family, subscribers and supporters.

Downtown Fort Payne is looking incredible right now, so I encourage you to drive through and look at the Christmas decorations.

And from Fort Payne Alabama Merry Christmas tonight

Fort Payne takes on an amazing vibe every Christmas. We attract a lot of attention because of that song by Alabama called “Christmas in Dixie.”

The lyrics go…

“Christmas in Dixie, it’s snowin’ in the pines
Merry Christmas from Dixie, to everyone tonight
And from Fort Payne, Alabama
God bless why’all…We love ya…Happy New Year…Good night… Merry Christmas tonight!”
– Jeff Cook / Mark Herndon / Randy Owen / Teddy Gentry

Christmas in Dixie

Now’s the time to listen to holiday songs, watch Christmas movies (“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a requirement for me), play board games and relax.

I hope you all have a great day and make good choices to avoid spreading this COVID-19 virus around any more than it already is.

Due to the continuing public health emergency, our family opted out of doing the traditional dinner. It’s tough saying No to momma in times like these, but she understands that it is for her protection.

On a personal note, I felt a bit under the weather yesterday with a fever and headache. Just to be safe, I went to Encore Medical here in Fort Payne, just to make sure I did not catch the coronavirus.

I tested negative. I’ve become a regular there after having to test after people in my orbit got it. This was the first time I went due to me feeling crappy myself. I was diagnosed with an old-fashion garden variety sinus infection and given antibiotics.

Already feeling better. It was a bit of a scare, I won’t lie. I am so ready for this pandemic to ease up. I saw far too many people at the recent Fort Payne Christmas Parade out in public neither wearing masks or social distancing. We must do better!

Dude, I have gotten WAY off my Merry Christmas message, haven’t I? Forgive me. It’s been a traumatic year, but only 7 more days remaining.

I can’t say that 2020 has been ALL bad. I did get this amazing promotion at the newspaper, which I am doing my best to be successful at.

Christmas in Dixie

Speaking of the newspaper, indulge me for a second with a shameless plug… 

I typically procrastinate when it comes to buying a Christmas present for my mother. I mean, what does someone retired really want or need? A restaurant gift card is usually my 11th hour panic choice, but it occurred to me today that a Subscription to the Newspaper is a fantastic gift. It’s fast and easy to subscribe online, plus you can go to a rack at your nearest convenience store, buy a copy of the newest edition, and include a hand-written note saying a loved one will get upcoming papers delivered! It’s a gift that keeps on giving, plus you can say you want to get closer by having plenty of local news and sports to talk about by subscribing to the TJ yourself, either the print edition or online! Just a suggestion in case you’re scrambling to think of gift ideas for someone who is a challenge to shop for right now…
Please help me share this message. Whatever you decide (better hurry), please support our local businesses!
Dec
14
The Echoes of HIV/AIDS in COVID Days

There are so many reverberations of the AIDS epidemic during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Sure, the coronavirus is more easily contagious and spread through the air, unlike the sexually-transmitted HIV, but both empower opportunistic infections and other things ring so familiar between then and now…

Dark Days of Fear and Death

bad date stories

Ladies Man? Hardly.

There was a time when getting infected with Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) was essentially a death sentence.

And not just death, but an unspeakably horrible demise, provoking intense fear and prejudice.

The AIDS epidemic emerged in the American landscape when I was a freshman off at college at Auburn University during a time when most young men revel in the pursuit of women.

What should have been a sexual heyday was instead an era of tremendous fear and social isolation for most Americans. My prospects for wild escapades went from few to none.

Much fear surrounded it because there was no cure and a limited amount of information to base prevention upon.

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Copyright Steven Stiefel 2018. All Rights Reserved