It was a great weekend for great beer. :) Several beers made their debut in AL this weekend (I wish Sweetwater's Happy Ending Stout would've shown up!) and a number of high gravity beers made the selection the best yet.

I forgot to take a picture of every sample I tasted, but here are all but 14 of them.

The brewfest sold out before the event started, but the logistics were handled much better this year. Looking forward to next year.

Speaking of anticipation...I'm volunteering at Bonnaroo this year. MG & I went in 2004, so this won't be too new, but there are a large number of great bands there including two nights of Phish. Volunteers work a couple of shifts, get some food, close camping & free entrance! :)

Even if it rains, it promises to be a great time...

Since it's almost Friday, I thought I'd take you on a little journey to some of the places I've lived over the years. I'm using Google Maps' Street View so you get a first hand shot of how it looks today (well, recently, at least). Each place will show the city followed by the year in which I first lived there:

(some places are not shown, b/c they're not on street view, including the past few places I've lived)

Auburn, AL 1976:


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Anniston, AL 1978:


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Auburn, AL 1985:


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Birmingham, AL 1987:


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Anniston, AL 1988:


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Birmingham, AL 1989:


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Auburn, AL 1995:


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Birmingham, AL 1998: (also where a friend had a wreck)


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Birmingham, AL 1999:


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Birmingham, AL 2000:


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Auburn, AL 2001:


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Washington, D.C. 2002:


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I took time during lunch to touch up an old, faded photograph of Mary Grace's immediate family + her aunt and grandmother. It was taken several months before Mary Grace was born:



Here is the original:



You can see that most of the photo has faded except the edges, as they were hidden behind the frame over the years.

I started by making a feathered selection around the faded area. I adjusted the levels, manually corrected the color balance in the shadows/midrange/highlights, adjusted the levels again and then did some minor touch up with the spot healing tool.

The result isn't perfect, but good enough. :)

It's much easier work when the original hasn't been in the sun:

With the voting ritual coming up, here's a very funny, yet sad & true clip. Enjoy!

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(yes, that's Mary Grace at the end of the video!)