Hey Alabama? What are you doing this upcoming weekend? How about taking your family and friends to a free movie at Rave Patton Creek in Hoover?

I’m teaming up with Columbia Pictures to give you free passes to see the newest animated comedy before its released! PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS is a comedy adventure you and your family are sure to love. It’s free and super easy to get the passes, just click on the links below;

  There are two easy ways to access your FREE passes:

Click on this link: http://www.gofobo.com/rsvp/promotion/4729b5fb447ebdde6dcefdd51ee3149e

OR

                                                                                                                                                                       Visit www.gofobo.com/RSVP and manually enter the Code: GFB4P

Registration with Gofobo.com is required to download your passes. Each registered user may download up to two admit-one passes. You must have a pass to attend the screening. Registering with Gofobo.com will give you access to future advance screenings!

PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS

Studio: Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation Inc., Aardman Animations Limited

Genre: Animated Family Comedy

Release Date: In Theaters April 27, 2012

Rating Details: This film has been rated PG by the MPAA for SOME MILD RUDE HUMOR AND SOME LANGUAGE.

Synopsis:

In The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain – a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas. With a rag-tag crew at his side, and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award. It’s a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Along the way they battle a diabolical queen (Imelda Staunton) and team up with a haplessly smitten young scientist (David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!

NOT what you want to see on a Friday night. See the red arrows? They are pointing right at where I live. EEEK.

I must give Fox6 major kudos because they were first on the air with news about the threat and stuck with us throughout the whole event, which turned out to be a major tornado. It struck a few miles south of my house, then carried on to Tallapoosa county where it did even more damage and took the lives of two people.

If you’ve been to my blog before, you might know about my history with weather. If you don’t, click here.

The storm that struck just to my south Friday night was reportedly over 1000 feet wide, the size of ten football fields. I believe it, because it looked like a war zone. Over the weekend, the community and others pulled together and did what they could to help. Toomer’s For Tuscaloosa coordinated volunteer efforts yesterday, and people brought donations, helped serve food to volunteers and victims, and basically sprang into action to help their neighbors in need. I also have to give big thanks to our local Whataburger who donated food to the effort.

No one likes to see a tornado, but I can’t think of a soul who doesn’t like to see their community come together to help another in need.

Thank you Alabama and everyone else, and here’s hoping for a safer and less active spring tornado season.

The State of Alabama was again ravaged by tornadoes today, just 8 months after the devastation of April 27th.

Like so many Alabama residents, I was a bundle of nerves this morning, awakened by tornado sirens four times and the weather radio constantly chirping. I was up in the early morning darkness, watching the long-range coverage provided by our amazing meteorologists and trained storm spotters. I had all of my preparations done, watched the power flicker off and on and thought I was ready. Reports were coming in from all over the northern Birmingham area, and then at daybreak, my county was hit. It’s always surreal to hear the weatherman saying “If you live between exit 205 and exit 200 in Verbena, take cover NOW!” I happen to live directly between these two exits and still remember the storms of 2004 that almost killed me. Luckily we didn’t take a hit now, but a community just to our west did. Maplesville was hit hard and they need help, as so so many other communities including Clay, Trussville and Center Point, just to name a few.

 Myself and some other Alabama bloggers have been working with a great company that wanted to do something to help the state after last year’s devastating storms, and with the new developments today, we are more than ready to start. They have chosen the Christian Service Mission, an organization that has been crucial in Alabama’s recovery process. They’ve set up  this great page to pledge their donations to the CS Mission.

They have pledged to donate $25 to the Christian Service Mission for every blog post that is written about how last April’s tornadoes (or today’s) affected you or someone you know, even if you aren’t even from Alabama. All you have to do is write the post, then comment on their page and let them know about your post. Their goal is to donate $1,000 by March 1!

Please help me help the State of Alabama, and maybe this will eventually lead to something bigger that will eventually help so many others nationwide. Tell other Bloggers and please share this on Facebook and other social media sites. If you do write a post, please post your link in the comments below.

Thanks so much and please keep the families affected by all of the storms in your thoughts.