is the name of the Literacy Council’s annual fundraiser (co-sponsored by The Alabama Booksmith). This year it’s being held at (local) in the Vestavia Hills City Center shopping center on July 30th.

This year’s guest is Jill Conner Browne (The Sweet Potato Queen). Everyone who goes gets to visit with her and goes home with signed books. The wines and eats will be pulled from the pages of her books. There will also be an auction of gift packages from around the ‘ham.

The pre-reception starts at 5:30pm and the actual event starts at 7:00pm. It’ll set you back a $150 tax-deductable donation to attend both or a $100 gift to attend just the event.

After 75 years of making mountainous sub-sandwiches in the Sunday funnies, Dagwood is opening his own line of diners.

Developers plan to have 175 Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppes open in the next few years. Could be fun. If anyone knows how to stack a sandwich, it’s Dagwood.

Cullen lost the last remnant of his umbilical cord (what the medical dictionaries, rejecting all things medical sounding, refer to simply as his “stump”) yesterday afternoon. So the latest addition to the pantheon of Bryant bellies is, well, baby smooth.

We weren’t sure if a new belly button was blog-worthy. So we offer up this photo of Cullen exercising his lungs (while practicing his conducting to Bach’s Cello Concerto No.1-Mvt.2).

Homewood has their own free movies series going on this summer called Friday Flicks. Tomorrow night at Homewood Central Park they are showing Batman Begins (yes, this is the new one).

All you need to take is a blanket, a few snacks and bug spray.

The movie starts just after sunset.

and hoist your pipes! Birmingham’s own Skip Elliot (who owns/runs The Briary) is featured in the Spring 2006 issue of Pipes & Tobacco magazine.

We’ve been fans of Skip’s ever since we shopped with him in the old Brookwood Mall. But since moving The Briary to a renovated farm house (photos) in Homewood, the whole world is taking notice.

The article focuses on Skip’s own line of high-end pipes that he hand-carves. This man knows so much about briar, smoking, carving, lucite, tobacco, etc. his pipes must be near perfection.

You can buy P&T magazine from their site or from Skip’s store. Books-a-Million used to carry it, and still may, but I haven’t seen it there in a looooong time.

Way to go Skip!

I have been told that new babies do three things: eat, sleep and fill diapers. But our son, as a model of efficiency, has just about figured out how to sleep while eating. No more of that annoying “eyes open” stuff.

The only downside to his plan… by combining these two, it allows the third activity to take up a full 66% of his day. Which he has taken full advantage of, as your nose and the full Diaper Genie will attest to.

Here’s a picture of him shielding his eyes so as not to be disturbed by such things as light.

And here’s a photo (from the day he turned one week old) of Cullen discussing his outfit with mom, before company arrives.

The hottest spot in town this summer, is in fact, a hotspot!

The newest free wi-fi access point is downtown around Linn Park. Which is the hub for City Stages this year.

This free internet access area was developed by TechBirmingham and SouthernLinc. Pretty cool stuff and I heard it works well. We’ll see how it does once the word spreads. All you need is a laptop with a wireless card, then log-on to the connection “Linn Park”… and you’re suring the net!

For all the specifics check out the press release on the TechBirmingham site.

And for a map/list of all the wi-fi points in the are check out this site.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

While touring with Chi Alpha,

Ed L. screamed “Ouch-ah!”

While we were busy having a baby, a Birmingham magazine was busy featuring Menasha Ridge Press author Russell Helms for his knowledge of all things outdoor in the Birmingham area.

If you’re interested in “getting out there” and seeing some neat stuff around town, pick up the latest issue of Portico (the one with jazz legends on the cover) and follow Helms’ advice. Or you could just pick up Helms’ book on hiking around Birmingham. Wouldn’t you be cool then?

People have been telling me that “having a baby will change your life”. What they meant was “once you have a baby you’ll only have 5 minutes a day to do anything non-child related.”

But, I have managed to get three new galleries posted. You’ll see docs, nurses, friends, family, open eyes, a mop of hair, little fingers and monkey toes. You can check them out here, here and here. And yes, some are a bit blurry. Needless to say dad was a bit excited that day and couldn’t keep the camera still.

Friday, we battled nurses and their “patient discharge procedures” all morning. But by mid-afternoon we arose victorious and I had my little family safe at home. Cullen is still figuring out this whole “eating thing”. I think he misses the ease of the 24/7 umbilical buffet.

But he and mom are doing fine. So I guess we’ll keep him around. In fact, when Cullen was barely 30 seconds old, he marked me as his, from about two feet away. We hadn’t even met and he had already wet on me… and it’s only getting better!

Thanks to everyone for all the cards, emails and visits. Having a child is definitely overwhelming. But knowing so many folks are thinking about us just makes all of this that much more fun!