Overall, I really enjoyed the tour and would definitely recommend it for anyone interested in Shoals history. This was the first attempt at this particular tour, and as expected any first go around, there is a lot of tweaking that needs to happen to make it perfect.

A scheduled start time of 6:30p.m. from the library parking lot ended up being too hard to keep. It seemed as though there was a much bigger turn out to the “Walking with Outlaws” tour then was expected. Not only did they run out of the program’s brochures, but I overheard someone say that they also ran out of tickets. The group standing around the library doors was so big, in fact that they had to split us up into two separate groups.

I was in group two, and in order to let the first group make it far enough through the tour so that we wouldn’t run into each other during the walk, the second group didn’t even begin the tour until a little after 7:00p.m. With my two young children with us, we were planning on spending the estimated hour and a half tour and then getting home at a decent bedtime around 8:00p.m. This definitely did not happen. The kids ended up having to stop the tour early and head back to the car with their Nana.

Our tour guide was an older white-haired gentleman who was lugging around a video camera. He had no real idea of where he was supposed to lead us, and relied heavily on a quickly drawn map he kept in his shirt pocket. He wasn’t much of a tour guide, and was more concerned about getting a nice shot from his video camera than letting the actors do what they do best. At just about every stop, he would direct the actors to move from where they planned to give their talk and come “closer into the light”. By the end, when he actually made the Marshall take ‘Mountain’ Tom out of jail for his portion of the scene, I was pretty annoyed.

Because the actors are working just from a character biography and not from a set script, I feel that some of the facts were overlooked and not mentioned during many of the scenes. There was not enough emphasis on the fact that these stops along the tour were the exact (or close to it) spots where these events unfolded back in 1872.

The second to final scene (which I felt should have been the final scene) depicted the mob dragging “Mountain” Tom to be lynched. The first tour group was about 10 minutes ahead of us, and when they watched this scene it actually ended with the Florence Police Department sending three squad cars to see what was going on. Apparently, someone outside of the tour didn’t know what was happening and was a bit frightened by the mob scene and the fake guns that were drawn. They phoned 911 reporting some sort of fight.

In summary, while there are several improvements that could be made to tighten things up, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and learned a lot about these local historical figures.

The Shoals Area is in close proximity to the major cities in the Southeast

NOT including the multitude of local real estate and attorney websites, there seems to be more than just a few informational websites about the Shoals area of North Alabama. Most of these websites attempt to be a one stop ‘portal’ to everything in the Shoals. None of them succeed. Most of them are outdated (some by 9 years) and ALL of them are poorly designed.

I’ve often considered building a site like this, and now I know I wasn’t the only one. It seems anyone that does anything web related locally had created their own take on an all-inclusive Shoals portal. I’ve listed the websites that I have come across (I’m sure there’s more) along with a quick commentary.

If you know of any other Shoals area websites out there, please add them in the comments.

1. Shoals Grapevine
   http://www.shoalsgrapevine.com/
   Apparently part of a national network called “The Grapevine Communities” banking on member generated content. I’ve never heard of it, and apparently no one else has either. Just look at the business listings (Total: 0).
2. Shoals Fringe
   http://shoalsfringe.com/
   Was once active about 5 years ago, but is not currently active
3. Welcome to the Shoals
   http://welcometotheshoals.com/
   Just a coming soon page so far, promising a September 2009 launch.
4. Shoals Insider
   http://shoalsinsider.com/
   A news site dedicated to news not covered by mainstream local news media
5. Shoals United
   http://www.shoalsunited.com/main.html
   This has a copyright of 2001 on it from A. Tomlinson/Sims Advertising
6. The Shoals Area
   http://theshoalsarea.com/
   Someone’s just squatting on this domain. Nothing here yet.
7. Shoals Art
   http://www.shoalsart.com/
   Seems to be kept pretty up to date, but very ugly design wise.
8. Destination Shoals
   http://www.destinationshoals.com/
   This site appears to be run by the Shoals Chamber.
9. Shoals Biz
   http://shoalsbiz.com/shoalsarea.html
   The upcoming events listed on this site are from 2005. Enough said.
10. Shoals Weather
    http://www.shoalsweather.com/
    Several links to local weather information.
11. First Fridays in Florence
    http://www.firstfridaysflorence.com/
    Seems to be kept up to date, but another very ugly website.
12. Shoals Culture
    http://www.shoalsculture.com/
    Quite a few local links including art community, businesses, nightlife and attractions.
13. Visit the Shoals
    http://visittheshoals.com/
    Has links to “Tuscambia”, Dothan and Florence pages. Also the Tuscumbia misspelling continues on to another domain (http://www.visittuscambia.com/).
14. Explore the Shoals
    http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=ETS
    This site run by the Times Daily.
15. Shoals Area
    http://www.shoalsarea.com/
    Seems to be nothing but advertisements.
16. Shoals Area.org
    http://www.shoalsarea.org/contact.html
    Not much here. Nothing at all on the homepage, that’s why I’ve linked to the contact page here.
17. Shoals Living
    http://www.shoals-living.com/
    Their blog entry from 2008 says full site is coming soon and will include a restaurant guide, events calendar and more. What do they mean by soon?
18. Shoals Calendar
    http://www.shoalscalendar.com/
    This seems to not be updated, and was started by A. Tomlinson/Sims Advertising. A recent check of the site found it not functioning.
19. Shoals Directory
    http://www.shoalsdirectory.com/
    Seems to be a work in progress maybe, and from the looks of it, it will need a lot of work.
20. About the Shoals
    http://www.about-the-shoals.com/
    Quite a few links, but it looks like it was built in 1997 even though the copyright says 2008-2009.
21. Shoals Online
    http://www.shoalsonline.com/
    Probably the best looking of the bunch, but lacking severely in content.
22. 2Do In the Shoals
    http://2dointheshoals.blogspot.com/
    A newly started blog based on answering the question “What is there to do in the Shoals”. ** Full Disclosure – I’m a contributing writer on this site (though I haven’t written anything yet).
23. Florence Main Street
    http://www.florencemainstreet.org/
    The official downtown Florence organization.
24. Visit Florence, AL
    http://www.visitflorenceal.com/
    Self proclaimed, “Adventures in Southern Culture”. Run by Florence Lauderdale Tourism.
25. Florence Neighbors
    http://www.FlorenceNeighbors.com
    Same old story, bad design, lack of quality information.

There’s also some domains that are being squatted on with nothing happening on them such as: http://www.visitflorence.net/ ** http://theshoalsarea.com/ ** http://www.shoalsalabama.com/ **

FFFFOUND | Picasa-Webalben – ysamjo – web.

Via: FFFFOUND! | Blackbeltjones/Work: » Physical/Digital.

How awesome is Charley Harper? I can’t get enough of seeing his work. I’ve been inspired by him for a long time now since early on in art school when I discovered his bird illustrations. Such great work, that is now being mass produced by Old Navy’s baby girl clothing.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about Todd Oldham taking control of everything Charley Harper. Not sure what the relationship there is, but I am glad that more people get the opportunity to see the work of Charley Harper…even if it is in the form of a baby puzzle.

Video Via: Charley Harper Art Studio

Nice assortment of desktop wallpapers. They’ve broken it into several categories for easier viewing. I’ve gone with the above image for now, but will most likely change it often using several of these.

Via: 50 Mac Desktops for Maximum Visual Goodness « AppStorm.

FFFFOUND! | camera.jpg (image).

Story Highlights

• Prototype floating city, called a seastead, may be ready in 3 years, engineer says
• Not clear if construction is possible or what it would cost, he admits
• The cities would look a bit like oil platforms but wouldn’t be fixed in place
• Floating cities could experiment with new forms of govern

  ment, planners say

via City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away – CNN.com.