TheCall Alabama will go on April 5, but the location has changed from Cramton Bowl to the Montgomery Convention Center.

Pastor Lester Spencer, of St. James United Methodist Church, called Thursday to tell me about this. I had never heard of TheCall, but it's a big deal. Understatement. The first gathering took place in D.C. over Labor Day in 2000. 400,000 people were there. Read about that.

From TheCall's values statement:

TheCall is not an event. TheCall is a movement emphasizing prayer, worship and fasting for Spiritual breakthrough. It is a nameless and faceless movement joining the generations. Therefore, it will not be marketed as a convention of celebrities. The primary participants are young people. The musicians on stage are to be worshippers, not entertainers. The board of directors will not receive financial compensation, speakers and leaders come at their own expense.

People should prayerfully consider fasting on the day that TheCall gathering is in their city, region or nation; no food will be provided. TheCall is a grassroots movement. It is a cross-cultural and cross-denominational gathering. TheCall espouses these definitive values: worship, unity, prayer, fasting, follow-up, transformation, repentance, reconciliation, impartation, equipping, revival and a holy revolution.

They will not announce musical guests or featured speakers for the 12-hour event, which makes media types like newspaper editors a little edgy. But if the aim is to exactly not be a media event, then this is the way to go about things. I think it's interesting. In this age of media everything -- and note TheCall has a website rivaling any in its advanced applications and downloadable banners, etc. -- you have to draw a hard line when putting on an event like this. At least pre-press is a breeze.

So I don't know what kind of coverage this will get, but that's not the point. Everything starts around 8:30 a.m. April 5, at the Capitol. Everyone will march to the Convention Center and things carry on through 10 p.m.

Registration for the event is free, but necessary. Register here.

For local information, contact Fresh Anointing House of Worship by click, or call them at 613-3363.

East Montgomery Montessori School, 6801 Vaughn Road, will have its International Food Festival from 6-8 p.m. Saturday. There will be a silent auction, raffle and en­tertainment. Admission is $10. 272-5097.

Food from Syria, India, Denmark and Israel -- just to name a few countries -- will be featured along with country-specific booths. Guests pay the fee, get a plate, and circulate the room getting a taste of anything they'd like from each booth. At 7 p.m., a belly dancer demonstration is planned. There is also a silent auction running through the evening.

I'll be covering this for the Advertiser, and spoke with office administrator Frances Bell yesterday about this annual event. The school has about 60 students per year, and the majority are from families attached to the War College Maxwell AFB. Every year, the international mix of students lends itself to the food festival, which is the school's most important fund raiser.

I haven't covered much nightlife in east Montgomery. I haven't ever gone to a karaoke bar, either. Wednesday night, I'm going to Gators, and I will watch karaoke. I'll be the one with the notebook and photographer. Don't be shy.

I talked with Gators owner, Vince, and he said they started karaoke last year on a suggestion from a customer. Apparently there are some regulars who set the vocal bar pretty high. Then, there are those who have a few drinks and are pressured by their friends into giving it a go. Enough people participate that karaoke remains on the weekly schedule of events at Gators, which usually is thought of as a live music venue.

Karaoke starts around 9:30.

If you haven't seen "Star Wars according to a three year old" yet, please give it a go.
Cutest video, ever:

Yesterday morning, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Dennis Weber, Wynlakes Golf Club's superintendent, on his golf course. I was asking about golf course maintenance, and what his crew did every morning.

When photographer Amanda Sowards and I arrived at the course around 7:00, crews were hard at work on the course. As they are every morning. Mr. Weber smiled and asked if this time of day was early for us. Well...

Not only did Mr Weber talk with me, he commandeered two golf carts to take us around the back nine. We stopped now and then to get photos and videos of the guys doing routine morning work (raking and mowing, even as the rain came and went), and I really enjoyed riding around the course. Not a bad way to wake up, actually.

Mr Weber was so welcoming and hospitable. He's been working on golf courses nearly 30 years, and at Wynlakes for 17 of those. He's a consummate professional, and here's some trivia: he does not golf.

I was at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts last night for their silent auction of over 500 pieces of art. Saturday night is the live auction. These are biennial events, and, as a major fund raiser for the MMFA, a lot of people put a lot of time into making the auctions happen. I was impressed with the teams of volunteers who were either working last night, or had worked for nearly a year focusing on the auctions. The vim and dedication of those volunteers keep the MMFA, a very important part of this city, going.

Of course, it was also nice to stare at a Matisse sketches (and kind of dream about owning them) and a nice, small Chagall (and know from the starting bid number that if I own one, it will be waaay down the line.)

On the front of this week's East section is a story about east Montgomery's Daniel Johnson, who made this documentary on home education. He is passionate about filmmaking, and about home-schooling his children.

He says the documentary shows that regular families can do this, that it isn't a rarefied practice, and that it's a viable option for anyone. He spoke to teachers, parents and kids about the process.

Dan will screen the movie this Friday at Taylor Road Baptist Church, at 7 p.m. He has home-school experts coming to answer questions from people.

Dan's upstart movie-making company is a dream 22 years in the making. Check out his website at www.eyelightmedia.org

I covered the Rolling Hills annexation vote last night. The process is pretty old-fashioned, but is handled like any other election by the Election Center of our probate office. Trey Granger, director of elections, explained it to me before polls closed, as we watched people coming in to cast their vote in favor of, or against, joining Pike Road.

Granger told me that the ballot boxes were a little different for annexation elections. While regular ballots are printed for this election, the law still says a person could come in with any old piece of paper with "for annexation" or "against annexation" written on it, and file that in the same box. It would be counted along with the rest of the votes.

Also, votes were slowly counted aloud by Granger while poll workers sat around a table, all making tick marks on official tally sheets. When they were finished, all the poll workers agreed on the numbers. It was a real community-effort kind of thing, complete with homemade cookies.

I read this morning in the Advertiser that ten intersections in Montgomery have been chosen for red light traffic cameras. Two in east Montgomery -- Bell and Vaughn, and Taylor and Vaughn -- are among the lot. A trial period will be in effect through April, then May 1, if you run a red light, a camera will take a photo of your license plate and you'll get a $50 ticket in the mail.

The notion is contentious, and there are cities in the U.S. that have put up red light cameras, only to take them down later. Evidence shows (according to rudimentary research I just did, that lead to articles like this one -- note it's three years old) mixed reviews. While the deadliest, high-speed, broadside crashes go down in number, annoying rear-endings go up because people slam on their breaks at early yellow lights. Ostensibly to avoid becoming a photo subject.

It's clear that revenue for the city goes way up with the cameras, which are installed at no cost to the city... So is it a fleecing?

Our city council voted 5-4 on the issue a year ago, according to the article. But I'm a little puzzled at the intersections that were chosen. (I'm sure some study proved the ten as the most something-- dangerous, feasible, whatever.) These two intersections on Vaughn are certainly very busy ones. However, there is not one red light camera that will be installed on Atlanta Highway. And the most-run light I ever see east of the Boulevard is that of EastChase Parkway and Taylor Road. No cameras.

Meanwhile, the relatively small intersection of Norman Bridge and Fairview Ave. will have the cameras installed. That location over East / Vaughn, or where the Troy Highway meets East South Boulevard.

Of course running red lights ranges from arrogant to fatal. And no ten intersection choices would please all of us. It's just going to be interesting to see how this pans out. I'm still watching how the traffic delineators at the top of the Taylor Road exit are panning out. Some scuttlebutt I've heard recently is that in lieu of the come-and-go plastic poles that line the lane, ALDOT might be considering a concrete barrier.