Archives for 2007

On Sunday Nov 4, 2007 traffic gets backed up for over 5 miles on I-20 east bound, is forced to exit the interstate at Heflin, AL Exit 199 and travel Hwy 78 all the way into Georgia back to the Route 100 connector to I-20 and I cannot find one single reference to it online. I had left Birmingham, AL before 3PM after picking up a rental car* from the airport. Traffic started backing up around mile marker 194 east bound around 4PM. It took an hour to go 4 miles. Finally got to exit 199 where traffic was being diverted off the interstate at 5:30PM. So now I’m forced off the interstate with hundreds of other cars and trucks. All I can do is go with the flow, there were no other police cars directing traffic once they forced everyone off the interstate.

At 7:15PM (now Eastern time) I figured I had better call my hotel in Atlanta and let them know I was going to be late. My best guess was it would be after 9PM – I checked in at 9:15PM. I need to remember to ask the two ladies in my class, also from Birmingham, if they go stuck in that mess too.

*The rental car – just when I thought I was getting a treat – a Ford Mustang convertible – it turned into a lemon. It is either seriously out of alignment or something is very wrong somewhere around the front passenger tire/brake area. It started off with an awful vibration that was very noticeable in the steering wheel. I was thinking this was going to be an awful ride to Atlanta – little did I know how true that would be. But it got worse, while doing 5 miles an hour for 5 miles I could hear a thump, thump, thump (more like a clunk, clunk, clunk). If I didn’t know better it sounded like something inside a hubcap – except the car didn’t have hubcaps. It seemed to also be brake related. The vibration has calmed down some, but the clunk, clunk, clunk remains. At least there is a roadside assistance number on the keyring.

I had started my All Things Vols website back in 2001 when I was trying to find a source for TN Vols items. It sort of took up space on the server and never went anywhere. I was spending time building, redoing and updating the Birmingham Big Orange Club website. Then came the boom of all the of TN Vols websites and I just didn’t have the time to try and compete with all of them. I have resurrected the site and given it a makeover. Now it’s a blog and photo gallery combination. Just what I need, another blog. I’m still trying to get Jeff back to working on his Volsfootball.com site. Now would be a good time to use it to voice his opinions about the turmoil in Knoxville – especially if they lose today.

This is almost a soapbox post. Megan called me in tears again. Again it had to do with how her father made her feel. He’s given the “okay” to the idea of Megan looking for a house to buy instead on renting an apartment. The key stipulation is that the payment has to be less than her rent. That puts her trying to find something for $100,000 or less. She really needs to sit down with her father and get a clear picture of what his “expectations” are. She mentioned to him that she found something for $60,000 but it had a lot wrong with it. Now she feels like her father only wants to buy a dump for her to live in while her sister lives in a house on a golf course that Megan says he pays for.

I’m not going to get into the pissing contest about who does what, I’ve been told the same thing by others. That’s not the point, the point is how he makes her feel. She feels like she is the least favored one, the black sheep, unwanted, ect. She continues to wonder what she has done wrong to be treated the way she feels.

The whole problem is that she and her father can NOT communicate, period. She is very appreciative that he bought her car and is putting her through school. The whole idea of buying a house was to try and help save her father money, maybe give him a tax break and even use it as a rental property down the road.

Megan needs to understand that buying a house is very stressful. She should be open minded to looking at a fixer-upper as long as it’s structurally sound. That’s where a good home inspector will come in handy.

But again she and her father need to communicate!

I’ve been associated with the Birmingham Big Orange Club for about 7 years now. Some of the first meetings I went to were held at a local cafeteria style restaurant were you go through the food line, get your dinner and find your way back to the facility’s “meeting room”. After the meeting were they showed a video replay of game highlights as the guest speaker we opted to skip a few meetings. I was at that same meeting I mentioned I had been working on the club’s website. The person who had been taking care of it moved out of state. It was difficult to mange where it had been “hosted” so I moved it over to my server and got it the domain name bigimingham.bigorangeclub.com. At the time I bought bigorangeclub.com I thought there were more Big Orange Club’s out there and was looking to be able to offer them hosting too. I later came to find out that the University of Tennessee shut down all the other BOC’s because of the booster situations they were causing. Somehow this one in Birmingham was hanging on by a thread.

I had managed to get my email address on the club’s mailing list, so I was getting notices of upcoming meetings. We attended a few more meetings. In the Spring of 2003 the meeting were being held in a the back end of a dark, dank bar and grill. I think they kept it dark so you could see the food you were eating. Maybe they thought you wouldn’t notice the pool they used for jello wrestling or maybe the fact that only 12 people were in attendance.

It was at the last meeting of the season that new officers were being elected. A financial advisor, Dale Carnegie instructor and real outgoing type of guy volunteered for the vice-president’s job. The vice-president job to is secure quality guest speakers for each meeting. The vice-president is also the president-elect. So after one term the vice-president moves into the president’s position. The current secretary/treasurer was ready to step down. I’m not really sure how long he had held the position, he had been the secretary for as long as I had been a member. Since I had already been doing the website for a while, I volunteered, was nominated and elected into the position.

The president-elect not only worked to get us great speakers, he got a us a better meeting location. We held the 2003 Fall Kickoff at Johnny Ray’s BBQ at the Colonnade and had a great turnout. In the fall of 2004 the president-elect became the present. A new VP was elected and said I would stay on as secretary/treasurer/webmaster.

I kept the website updated and had been using a mass mailing application to send out the newsletter. I was well aware of the CAN-SPAM act and our mailing list had grown to over 500 people since the president got involved with it. We added email addresses of local alumni members. Somehow I became the secretary/treasurer of the local UT Alumni chapter. I even got to attend the summer training session of chapter officers.

We kept the meetings going strong with great guest speakers and good turnouts. Pat Summit, Phil Fulmer, Trooper Taylor, even the University president Mike Hamilton and the SEC Commissioner Mike Slive.

By the Spring of 2006 I was getting tired of handling the 3-in-1 position. I came to find out I could not sign checks or handle the bank statements because I was not an alumni. I would get to every meeting that I could get to early to help set up and get name tags ready. I would still be the one to collect the money at the door for dinner at each meeting. Jeff would in turn deposit the money in the bank for me. He was working right across the street from a branch of the bank. On a couple of occasions I had asked Jeff to cover for me at meetings – he was pretty much on his own when he did.

Although I say “I” to all of this Jeff would always try to be there at the same time I got there unless it was one of the meetings where we started setting up at 3PM. He was pretty much the only person helping me collect money, pass out name tags and door prize tickets. We were always the last to eat and sometimes with no place to sit.

The president who was key in turning the club around decided it was time to step down. He held the position for 2 years 2004 & 2005. When he stepped down, I felt it was a good time for me to also. Even after all the work I had done, I still couldn’t shake the “outsider” feeling. Most of the long time club members are also alumni. Things had been turned around, the club still had it’s core group of members that could always be counted on. And now Jeff & I could enjoy the meetings as members if we wanted to. I would still handle the website and get the newsletter out.