Wow! 2009 has been a pretty great year, overall. I’ve gotten to work on some fun projects, meet some interesting new people, reconnect with others and basically have a lot of fun.
Some of the projects I’ve spent a great deal of time on in the last few years are finally starting to show some real progress: notably the Alabama Scenic Byways Program. The 10 year anniversary of the creation of the program is this spring and we now have 10 scenic byways in our state, including the brand new nationally recognized Coastal Connection, named a National Scenic Byway in October of this year. I’m really proud to have played a small part in seeing that project move forward! (Even got interviewed on the radio about it–not a big fan of hearing my own voice, much to the shock of anyone who has been in a car with me–but it turned out to be less painful than I thought.)
Other projects include the following:
Some fun work on the Lower Cahaba River. We’ve installed signs in several locations pointing out the many attractions in a four county region (Bibb, Dallas, Hale and Perry Counties). A website has been developed to highlight the attractions and to bring the many resources together into one location–www.lowercahaba.com.
I continued to work on the Alabamafrontporches.com website and some brochures to go along with it. The most exciting part of this in 2009 has been the great Ghost Stories work done by Linda Vice and some filmmakers. (I did a brochure to go along with the videos.)
And, of course, the fun trips friend Ben Burford and I went on down into the Black Belt to take photos, eat the food and see the area from the eyes of a tourist.
Sierra Club, the AIA (American Institute of Architects), Alzheimer’s of
Central Alabama and more kept me busy for much of the year (I always enjoy working on
their annual calendar filled with art from Alzheimer’s patients), along
with advertising work for American Mining Insurance Company–and their
monthly in-house newsletter.
I have been doing a little work for Bromberg’s Fine Jewelers and their Florida sister company, Underwood’s, for years,
but have been working more with Bromberg’s this year than ever before. My friends at Your Town Alabama have, as usual, kept me busy, too. I’ve had some great work with a lot of new clients this year, honestly, and I’m thankful for it!
I’ve finally cracked into the world of WordPress and I’m pretty interested. Have not done anything terribly ground-breaking yet, but it sure is a fun platform to start learning about. I’ve been getting to grips with this newfangled thing called twitter, trying to decide exactly what to do with it. I’ve made some great new connections using it, so that’s been pretty great.
On a personal note, we’ve had a great year in many respects–certainly better than the last few. A trip to Paris, France to visit a friend from Birmingham-Southern and see the city was spectacular. I LOVED Paris. Ten days of bliss–beautiful fresh bread, enough pastries to make me not want dessert for a while (over that now, of course) and amazing architecture. We needed a taxi only to and from the airport–everything else was mass transit.
We worked on our house to restore the original look by replacing the 1950’s era aluminum windows with real wood casement windows along with some interior renovations with the help of cousin Kevin “Chunk” Mitchell. The rooms with the new windows look so much nicer now, thanks in part to my friends at Riverbottom Pine for their help in finding the right wood to match our existing trim.
Overall, a really good year. Come on down 2010!