Dougal, Mitch, and Donna
As mentioned previously, I gave a presentation last weekend at WordCamp Birmingham 2008 on “The Future of WordPress”. My section on “The Past of WordPress” ran a little longer than I had planned, but a lot of people told me that they liked that overview, so I guess it was alright. [...]
If you have been thinking about attending WordCamp Birmingham 2008, but haven’t committed yet, now is the time. There are only a couple of hours left to sign up. Registration is only $25, and that includes lunch and a tee shirt — talk about a bargain! Register now!
If you haven’t already heard, WordCamp Birmingham is coming up on September 27 & 28, 2008. And for those of you not in the States, that’s Birmingham, Alabama, not England. [...]
Many of you are probably currently familiar with hearing about the tornado that hit Enterprise, Alabama yesterday. What you might not realize is that my wife and I both graduated from the high school that was leveled in that storm system. Seeing the devastation in our old home town has been very surreal for both of us.
Our niece, who is a senior this year, was at the high school when the tornado hit, and suffered some cuts and scratches. Her car was also damaged, but unlike many others we’ve seen on the news, her parents think it should still be drivable. [...]
Do you wish that you could help a victim of Katrina or Rita? Do you have items that you think they need, but you aren’t sure where to send them? If you knew what somebody needed, would you like to be able to get it directly to them?
The Been There Clearing House is “an informal clearinghouse in which individuals offering in-kind donations and individuals in need can connect.” You can read the stories of those affected by the recent storms, donate or request goods, or adopt a family.
These stories are starting to get less media coverage now (except for some of the finger-pointing), but there are still many, many people who need help. [...]
I talked to my mom this morning, and she said that all of our Mississippi relatives are accounted for. One family lost their house and is staying with other relatives, and one of my great aunts fell and broke her hip, and is in the hospital. Other than that, everyone is fine.
I have a lot of family in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. Fortunately, my closest relatives — my mother, father, step-father, grandmother, plus some aunts, uncles, and first cousins — were not in the most heavily affected areas. Granny was visiting one of my aunts in New York. Her flight home was canceled twice, so she returned on Wednesday instead of Monday, but at least she has a home to return to. My mom rode things out at her house in Fairhope, with not much worse than power outages and downed tree limbs. [...]
I’m a redneck.
Not because I was born in Alabama and spent most of my life there. And not because I now live in Georgia. And definitely not in the sense of chawin’ tobaccy and watching NASCAR.
I’m a redneck because I spent most of hottest portion of Sunday out in the hot sun. I finally got around to starting a project of refinishing some old dressers for our kids — a project that Susan has been asking me to get done for quite some time now. We first had to clear a bunch of boxes out of our garage in order to get to said dressers. But the garage is packed to the gills with stuff, so the actual work had to take place in our driveway.
As a result, I now have a quite prominent farmer’s tan (hey, wow, no Wikipedia entry yet!). [...]
Bagpipers on Parade
Susan and I went to the Stone Mountain Highland Games last Saturday. We had been told that it was “huge”, but we thought that it wasn’t that much bigger than the Alabama Highland Games, which we’ve attended the past few years. [...]
This is one of the funniest (and truest) things I’ve seen in a while: Tips for Travelling in the South (via monokinetic).
13) Don’t ridicule our Southern manners. We say sir and ma’am. We hold doors open for others. We offer our seats to old folks because such things are expected of civilized people. . [...]
