The Year in Review: August 2006

Twelve bloggers are sitting in a Panera…

The highlight of August (at least for us) was the chance to meet many of the bloggers that live and write about the Magic City over in Vestavia. I decided that listening and typing something later would be better for me, so I ended up with two posts, this one just saying we were doing it and this one actually talking about some of the conversation.

Lesson learned

We learned that age is not nearly as important as experience after listening to Jay Saxon talk about his experiences in Lebanon. This one is one that I hold close and read often myself just to remind me of what I used to believe.

We already knew how crazy Taylor Hicks’ fans could be; we just got an insane example of it here in town when he returned this summer.

We learned that a lot of people want to know more about Ensley, which is good in terms of the job front, as we decided to occasionally post about one of the BEACON target districts, starting with this one.

We learned what happens if you put the call out for a cause. It was our first “event” for the blog if you will; a Happy Hour with collections taking place for Katrina survivors. Here’s the link to the wrap-up; we’re not sure when we’ll do another one, but we’re hoping it’s soon (and for just as important a cause)

That there are still things that effect Birmingham, Alabama that need to be dealt with in the open instead of behind closed doors, most notably race relations of all types. This is another post that I refer to often, knowing that much has changed but that much more is needed.

That the Birmingham Sound is alive and well! Especially after an incredible show in August. Here are some images from the performance. Now if we could only get the second album out sooner and get a second show! Here’s the original post for the show.

Also:
The name of the new giraffe at the Birmingham Zoo
Alabama loves their American Idols; I’m serious, they really do!

Journeys started

The end appears near still for the old Birmingham News building in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Despite a reprieve from destruction demoliton that we started writing about here, the city’s six month cooling off period has seen little effort from the community to save the building that sits across from the new building (a very nice piece of architecture itself BTW). At this point, one would hope that at the very least a parking deck may be constructed on the site one day that resembles even half of the beauty contained in the old building. Only time will tell. BTW, the building’s only guaranteed to be there until the beginning of March, so if you want pics, now’s the time to start taking them.

A group from Catalyst also took the first of many journeys through the proposed site for Red Mountain Park. This park is one of three that community leaders are hoping will push our green space per capita numbers up so we would be #1 for mid-sized cities in the U.S. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with all of them, but I’ll be particularly interested in seeing how things are going at Ruffner Mountain this year (point of disclosure: I’m the Vice President of Ruffner’s board this year).

One more thing (for now) the reopening of the Silvertron Cafe

More later.

For those that won’t be back until after the first of the year, Happy New Year!

Enjoy the weekend.

Cheers.

The Year in Review: August 2006

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