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(Editor's note: One of the strangest requests I have
ever received was from this company. After being in this journal for nearly
5 years, they have asked to have their name removed from our site. Go
figure?)
September 3, 1998
There are two things that I really look forward to this time of the year.
The first is a little thing here in Tuscaloosa that we call "CityFest"-
it's a 2 day music festival that in recent years has become more international
with the addition of "Weindorf", which is a German village that
sells good German bard and all of the beer and wine you care to drink.
They also import a good "Oompah" band from Germany and you can
do all of the "Chicky Dancing" that your heart desires. It's
sponsored by our local German company, Mercedes-Benz. It's lots
of fun and the bands are usually pretty good too. This year, Patty Loveless,
Kansas, The Guess Who and the Spinners were the headliners.
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The other thing that I look forward to is the Bar-B-Q cooking competition
that's become a big part of CityFest. My employer, (Name deleted by company request) Construction
always has a big to-do over this competition and our team is usually
"Peaked" for the CityFest event. In fact, (Name deleted by company request)'s team
is so good that they have competed in "Memphis In May",
which is a world class cooking competition (basically, the "World
Series" for Bar-B-Q buffs...). |
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Yeah,
yeah...I know it's a photo of a dead pig, but he's got a beer can
in his mouth, so he died happy, right? |
I'm currently working on our web pages for (Name deleted by company request) and one of the
fun areas is going to be about the cooking team. We call them the
"(Name deleted by company request)" and if you ask some of the employees that
work for (Name deleted by company request), they are almost legendary here around the office. |
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Equipment
Manager Mike Copeland prepares a "Boston Butt" for the
guests. Mike is the pseudo-historian about the (Name deleted by company request) and is
one of my best sources for getting the scoop on the latest goings-on
with the cooking team. |
The (Name deleted by company request) started out as a group of guys from our
home office who would travel to our jobsites (we work throughout the
Southeastern United States and sometimes overseas...) and cook for
those who couldn't get home for the holidays. I was surprised at just
how migratory the construction industry is and after getting into
this business have really come to appreciate the work that these skilled
craftsmen do. It's not an easy way to make a living and anyone who
can work the long hours with the travel and job insecurity has
my utmost respect. The management here at (Name deleted by company request) also realizes this
and often, when the cooking team hits the road, they end up cooking
for not only our people, but anyone else who happens to be working
for other companies at the same jobsite. |
| Every once in a while (Name deleted by company request) also puts on a feed for the home
office employees. the last time was when they unveiled the new cooker.
I was so taken with the high-tech look of this beast of a grill,
that I redesigned the entire Bar-B-Q section of the web site. I
call the cooker "The Bar-B-Q world's equivalent of the 'Batmobile'"
and this entire section of the site takes on the "dark superhero"
theme. On the web site, I'm planning a virtual tour of the
cooking machine using QuickTime VR technology. When the site goes
public, I'll post it here.
So, when the grill came out of mothballs, I fired up my new digital
camera and headed toward downtown Tuscaloosa to get a few images
for the (Name deleted by company request) web site. These are a few of the images that I cam
back with... |
(Name
deleted by company request), founder and CEO of the company, helps
a guest get their plate ready. One of the things that I like about
working for the (Name deleted by company request)'s is the homestyle,
relaxed atmosphere that we have at our office. |
| I have
no idea who's child this is, but thought that she was a cutie- and
with a (Name deleted by company request) hat on, it made the photo even better. I didn't get
a chance to talk to the parents, but would imagine that this could
be a "My first Bar-B-Q" kind of shot. |
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My
little boy, Grayson found the floating lemons and just couldn't resist
checking them out. Seconds after this photo was taken, Mamma caught
him and the little exploration trip was over... |
| My friend,
Laurie Carr shows just how good the Bar-B-Q really is. Laurie is one
of the first people that I met here in Tuscaloosa and is active in
the local Theatre (I have written a journal
about the Theatre and Laurie is one of the actresses in the images
that I shot.). |
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The
"theme" this year was "Gilligan's Island". A week
or two before CityFest, I was called into the personnel directors
office and asked what my ideas were for CityFest. I was told about
the theme and suggested that (Name deleted by company request) retain the services of Dawn Wells,
who was the real Mary Ann on the show. I contacted Dawn's publicist
and was told that she would be available during the weekend of CityFest
and would make an appearance for $4,500. Well, needless to say, the
bosses didn't buy it. I still think that it would have been killer
to have Dawn Wells serve a Coconut Cream Pie to the judges...You just
can't ignore that kind of clout. I think too that the publicity gained
from that kind of a stunt isn't something that you could buy either
(well, er...maybe you can for $4,500...). So, in steps Lisa Winters,
a clerk in our Accounts Payable department. I think she's actually
a pretty good substitute. And Lisa, as always, was a good sport about
it. |
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(Name
deleted by company request) has a long standing tradition of competing
at CityFest. (Name deleted by company request), who was President
of (Name deleted by company request) Construction died about a year
and a half ago of Cancer and was a founding member of the (Name deleted by company request).
Since (Name deleted by company request) has such a steep tradition
of competing at CityFest, they created a special slab (er, concrete
that is...) for the (Name deleted by company request) Bar-B-Q rig
and behind it is a nice deck with chairs. I don't know who this
guy is, but he was enjoying the bench in a way that I've never seen
before. He was actually sleeping and my shooting woke him up.
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Sidebar Here's the home page
for the (Name deleted by company request) section of the web site. Yeah, it's a little hokey,
but it's going to be fun too. The idea is to have a little something on
the web site for EVERYONE. So, even if a 14 year old runs across the site,
he can still look at the 3-D animation or maybe pick up a tip or two about
cooking good Bar-B-Q or hey, maybe even spark his interest in engineering
or a construction craft. You never know.
I'm also submitting one of
the other images on this site. It's the first in a series that I'm going
to do called "Babes in Bar-B-Q" series. Eventually, we'll have
a chicken, cow and some other favorites...
On a final note, I'd like to
thank the folks at Microsoft for featuring the YITL site on Monday, September
7th. It's nice to see companies take a real interest in what's happening
with the web and it's even nicer when something that you've done is recognized.
The web site design work that I have done for the (Name deleted by company request) site is with
their Front Page 98' software. If you want easy web work, I highly recommend
it- it's awesome software.
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