Tag Archives: AL

Stokin’ the Fire continues today

Stokin the fire Sloss Furnances

Bob Farley/f8Photo

Nearly 200 contestants and thousands of BBQ and music fans enjoyed the first night of the 4th Annual Stokin’ the Fire BBQ and Music Festival Friday night a Sloss Furnaces. Mark Kozelek put on the 8 p.m. show at the main stage while hundreds of canjun dancers and fans enjoyed Willis Prudhomne. For those coming for the music, Saturday features  seven  acts on the main stage and five on the Water Rower Stage. For fans of the BBQ, professional judging starts at 11a.m. and amateurs turn theirs in at 2:30 p.m. There activities for the children and various other events including a parade at 1:30 p.m.

There are more pictures from Friday night in our gallery.

Waiters pool tips for co-worker’s medical battle

Go to La Paz Thursday night (that’s tonight) and that tip you leave for good service will go to a good cause. The wait staff is pooling their tips to help out a co-worker, Alfredo Colin. The long-time employee and married father of four is recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor. The surgery was a success but Colin is now facing mounting medical bills without the benefit of insurance. From 4 p.m. to midnight, all tips will be donated to Colin and the funds matched by La Paz. La Paz Restaurante and Cantina is located in Crestline Village at 99 Euclid Ave.

Thanks to Madison over at B’ham Weekly for the heads up.

On the agenda: Progress is coming

Today’s council agenda is 44 pages long and includes good news for those in town that were wondering about the status of development in Railroad Reservation Park. It also contains good news for those wanting to see a shorter meaning as a vast majority of the items currently listed are on consent.

Once you finally get past all 31 pages of item one, the first item that will possibly lead to an interesting public hearing is the one that calls for changes to the city’s curfew law, including the raising of fines charged (item 5). Items 14, 15 & 16 are currently on the consent agenda, meaning that there will most likely be no discussion of the contracts Bhate Geosciences Corporation (assessing the retaining wall for the park) and Building and Earth Sciences (providing various monitoring services for the park).

We’re figuring you’ve still got time to tune in to the meeting if you haven’t already…

That new radio station’s good

Whitney had some fun covering the launch of Live 100.5 FM on Friday, and the station’s been having fun getting established in town. They’ve already got a Facebook group (remember, you’ve got to have a Facebook account to see it – and 185 folks have already found it), a live stream of the station available on the station’s website and (in case you missed it) Matt over at AL.com’s got the first 15 songs ever played so you’re ready for that quiz that will inevitably come up.

A look back: August 19

1937:

Hugo Black was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

2004:

The University of Alabama announced that they had played their last home game at Legion Field.

Courtesy: Bhamwiki.com logo

Random Shots: Get on board!

Vintage Birmingham streetcar in San Francisco

An old friend of The Magic City. acnatta/Flickr.

No, Larry didn’t have the streetcars re-installed overnight for the morning commute… Just figured I’d share this image with you on this Tuesday morning. It’s somewhat appropriate with today’s air quality alert for Jefferson and Shelby Counties and Birmingham’s mayor calling for transit system overhauls that we get a chance to check out what could be (and what is). While I wish I could say that I planned to take this image and attempt to follow Sen. Obama’s trip to San Francisco this past weekend, I did hope to take a look at one of the cities that put a bid in for the 2016 Summer Games while getting some great suggestions for ways to improve the site at WordCamp SF (while doing research for WordCamp Birmingham – taking place in September). The results – we’ll start sharing tomorrow (after I get over a minor case of let lag).

Win tickets to Taste of the Nation

In our e-newsletter last week, we let folks know that we would be giving away two (2) tickets to this year’s Birmingham Share our Strength’s Taste of the Nation event on August 25 at the McWane Science Center. We’ll announce the winner in this Friday’s edition of the express, so you probably want to get over to our contest page and enter.

Taste of the nation image

The annual event to help eliminate childhood hunger nationwide is sponsored by American Express and will feature food from more than 40 area restaurants.

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