If you are a craft beer fan, I encourage you to visit Fort Payne, Alabama on October 12 as we have what will hopefully become an annual event, the Mountain Town Hop Fest.
From 2-6 pm, you’ll find a variety of Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia craft beers, along with food and great music. The organizers expect more than 30 breweries to participate. The only drinking vessel that volunteers will pour into is the 4oz commemorative glass. The glass come with your ticket purchase.
I just watched the movie “Joker” and it’s clear this is one that will be in my head for a few days as I try to figure it out. I don’t know whether this is one of the best or one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
If you haven’t seen it yet, be warned. Spoilers ahead.
Early on, we see that the main character is an extremely unreliable narrator, fading from his miserable existence into delusional fantasies in which he is treated with kindness and admiration for his dreams.
“Every time when I look in the mirror,
All these lines on my face getting clearer.
The past is gone.
It went by, like dusk to dawn.”
– Aerosmith
I don’t want to grow old. I refuse to “go gentle into that good night” and will “rage against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas put it.
I define “oldness” as a crescendo of blandness, diminished enthusiasm for life, less arousal/passion, and heightened fatigue. So set in our ways that we can no longer open our minds to accept we don’t know it all.
I’d like to invite you to my hometown of Fort Payne, Alabama for the annual Boom Days Heritage Celebration.
Sept. 20-21: Boom Days Heritage Festival in downtown Fort Payne.
Read More
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.
Read More
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…
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:
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.
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.
