Cell phones in church

I wonder if we should implement this idea at our church?

Lego Alabama Theatre

100_2901, originally uploaded by Wesley Higgins.

Check out this Lego construction of the Alabama Theatre! How cool is that?! It's going to be on display tonight at the Galleria Lego store.

Here's a bunch more photos of the project from Wesley Higgins, the guy who constructed it.

What is going on here?!

Another snowy morning in Alabama, originally uploaded by MCuthbert.

Neighborhood pig mystery uncovered

Misty called me at work yesterday morning and frantically exclaimed, "I saw it! I saw the pig!"

For the past couple days we've been hearing about a huge pig roaming around near our neighborhood. A substitute teacher from Emily's school even captured a picture of it as it passed by her home, and posted it on Facebook. So when Misty saw it trotting along Morgan Road as she drove Emily to school, she was thrilled to be part of the excitement. You'd have thought she'd spotted Bigfoot.

On my way home that afternoon, I passed Hope Animal Clinic and saw posted on their marquee: Did you lose a pig? Obviously they'd captured it and put it in one of their kennels to keep it safe. Since the girls were all keyed up about the pig, I took them by the clinic to see it.

The tales of its size were not exaggerated. This thing was huge. Either bravely or foolishly, I got into the room with the pig to take some pictures. His hair was stiff and bristly like a broom, and he was really heavy. He kept trying to bite my legs -- thank goodness I was wearing jeans. The girls thought he was gross (and I'm inclined to agree with them).

While we were there, a local mail carrier stopped by and recognized the pig. She said she'd go let the owners know, guessing that they likely weren't even aware that it was loose.

The whole thing was pretty funny. I turned the incident into a story on al.com.

Birthday party planning committee

Kendall told us: "I want to invite everyone to my birthday. Except strangers. And mean people. And boys."

I hope she'll make an exception at least for me.

The greatest weather forecaster of all time

For Groundhog Day yesterday, I decided to have a little fun and write a silly article contrasting the Birmingham Zoo's groundhog with a local meterologist. I titled it: 7 reasons Birmingham Bill is a better weather forecaster than James Spann.

Sometimes I can't believe the stuff I get away with at work.

The story did really well though, and I was very pleased to find that Spann had a good sense of humor about it. The ABC 33/40 anchors even joked about it on the evening news.