Sep
16
Canyon Center Speakers Warn of Global Warming Effects

Last week I attended a program on agriculture and climate that should be very alarming to anyone who is not living in denial about global warming.

Dr. James McClintock, an Endowed University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology at UAB, presented his research about wildlife species in Antarctica while agricultural land use was the focus of the presentation by Steven Apfelbaum, the Senior Ecologist, Founder and Chairman of Applied Ecological Services.

Their findings suggest that the status quo is leading to serious peril for our planet. Rising temperatures are going to pose challenges for food production, and we are messing with things we do not understand that may cause the extinction of several animal species, disrupt familiar weather patterns and conditions, cause more intense hurricanes, deprive our society of potentially life-saving natural medicines being found in parts of the world we’ve only begun to explore, and force the world’s population to fight over dwindling resources.
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Sep
01
A Busy Fall Ahead in Fort Payne, Alabama

There’s a lot going on here in my neck of the woods. If you are a reader of my blog, I hope you’ll consider attending one or more of these events I’m going to try to experience myself…

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Jul
19
10 Ways to React to Trolls on the Internet

The Internet: A Pandora’s Box?

The Internet offers a treasure trove of helpful information at our fingertips. Unfortunately, it has also amplified the voices of the worst people on earth. I’m talking about Trolls — and offering a few suggestions on how to handle them.

The term “Troll” refers to someone, often anonymous, who “starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses and normalizing tangential discussion, whether for the troll’s amusement or a specific gain.”

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Jun
16
Glory Days: Growing Up in Fort Payne, Alabama During the Height of Alabama’s Popularity

Alabama Fan Appreciation Weekend It’s a big week here in Fort Payne, Alabama as we once again host Fan Appreciation Weekend 2019!

I want to welcome all of the out-of-town guests to my hometown. We appreciate you visiting to celebrate our hometown boys, their music and the small southern community from which we are rooted.

There are lots of fun activities planned this week, including:

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May
22
My Favorite Photography Books

I love photography books. Nothing against the books that are mostly text, but a book that exists entirely to serve as a picture gallery exploring specific themes is so delightful to me. I am proud to add Photographer John Dersham’s new photo book to my collection.

My Alabama: John Dersham Photographs a State – May 15, 2019 by John Dersham (Author), Bo Jackson (Foreword)

This beautiful hardcover book highlights the beauty of my home state at a time when it sorely needs some good publicity. John told me he spent four years putting the book together, and the effort certainly shows in this spellbinding collection of landscapes in all four seasons, reflecting the diversity of Alabama as it celebrates its 200th Anniversary of statehood.

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Dec
19
2018: The Year in Review
fashion photography and lightning

One of my best images of 2018, with Red McCord.

I loved getting to spend more time than usual with my daughter.

Two-thousand and eighteen is nearly behind us. It was an extraordinary year in terms of our nation experiencing unprecedented things, primarily related to our president.

It was a period of painful adjustment for me personally, yet also a time of new triumphs. I adjusted to moving away from downtown Chattanooga while also taking on new roles in my career and acquiring new skills. I struggled to produce as much photography as I would have preferred and could have done under more favorable conditions; finding available collaborators among my previous models proved difficult and forced me to scout some fresh new faces.

I lost good friends to illness and tragedy. I found myself working to reconcile my own circumstances. It was a year of monster storms and wildfires as climate change reared its ugly head, even as Trump and his cronies acted in defiance of the inevitable catastrophes our planet faces. Justice reared its head as evidence and indictment accumulated as the voters called for accountability. We head into 2019 with breathless anticipation of gavels falling.

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Aug
14
My Secret Weapons for Productivity

Today I’m sharing some of my secret weapons for productivity.

Feedly

This cloud-based news aggregator is the biggest, most important tool in my arsenal. Basically, it compiles news feeds from a variety of websites that I can easily put into topic silos, or “feeds”. It recommends major websites to pull from or you can paste in the URL from the ones you want (most websites have RSS feeds you can grab, but some do not) Feedly to pull from. I discovered Feedly in 2013 after Google ended its Reader application for some dumb reason.Read More

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