Willie "Big Eyes" Smith

I went with a couple other law students, some siblings, and some significant others (mine included) to a jazz club in Phoenix called Rhythm Room to watch a performance last night. My contracts professor, along with his wife, three other top attorneys in the Phoenix area, and six random musicians, are all part of a 10-person rhythm and blues band called the Repeat Offenders. They do cover songs, mostly. But they were very good. My professor plays the drums. I think he was happy to see that a couple of his students came.

After their show, however, we were treated to a little old-school jazz magic. Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, who has toured with the likes of Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Rolling Stones, among many others, was the headliner. He has been nominated for several Grammys. We got to hear him play for a $4 cover at the door. Nice little surprise.

We bought one of his albums on the way out. I'm listening to it as I write this. It's sort of inspiring, I guess. It's called "Born in Arkansas," and his son told me it is his best compilation. I had him sign it to Melissa, but I think we struggled a little with a language barrier. I don't speak jive, and he doesn't get yankee. So it's signed, "To Merissa; from Willie Smith," and he drew a cartoon caricature of a circle with two huge eyes.

Sadly, his eyes aren't really all that big. But he plays a mean harmonica.

Cheated

I had a near-death experience the other night. Melissa's apartment is on the third floor of the building, overlooking a courtyard with some concrete dividers between the mulch 'gardens' and the grass, and more concrete walkways spiderwebbing throughout. She had just gotten new screens in her dining room windows (three windows wrapping around a corner). We had them open, opting for fresh air instead of running electricity, since the weather has been perfect since she got here. I was walking by her, squeezing between the dining room table and the window when I got bumped (accidentally) into the window. My entire upper body went through, knocking the screen out in the process. Mel managed to grab hold of me just enough so that I could regain my balance in time to watch the screen plummet to the ground and smack the concrete garden divider.

But I got cheated. My life didn't flash before my eyes. I didn't see any lights. I didn't get a flood of happy memories. I just sort of blacked out for a minute. I hear all these wonderful stories of visions before death. I didn't get a single one. It almost makes me want to go out and intentionally defy death again so that I can see what it's all about. Maybe when I go skydiving or something.

Until then, take my advice. Avoid near-death experiences until I can report a little more fully on what they are like. Don't try this at home.

I'm back...and hitting the ground running

I have had too much going on lately. Unfortunately, the first thing that suffered from the line-item veto was my blog. I have to have my priorities, right? I've realized that keeping up with my blog kind of runs concurrently with my moods. When I'm enjoying things and not too stressed, I write more frequently.

Today's entry is to announce a personal accomplishment of sorts. We started running again. I've been thinking about starting for awhile now. It took Melissa coming out here and thinking about it with me to get us both to actually do it.

Problem number one: how long of a run is realistic in our present conditions? Problem number two: how do I figure out a good running path and make sure it is a reasonable length?

Well, number one we chalked up to a guess and check solution. Number two was a little more complex. Fortunately, I remembered my brother mentioning a web site where you can map your runs. After racking my brain trying to remember the site, I began to search through his blog (which lacks a search function, apparently). I found the first entry that had a fitness meta-tag and clicked that. Right before my eyes, I see a link to MapMyRun.com. Somewhat creepily, when the site opened, it was already centered over my house in google maps. I guess that's a cookie's work?

So, I mapped out a run of about 1.88 miles. Seemed reasonable. We woke up at 7am, debated going back to sleep, but then got up and got a move on. We made it about 1.3 before walking, but I won't say who quit first.

I'll try to be back here in the blogosphere more often. Just having trouble finding the time these days. Someone should have told me law school was so time consuming. I'm just trying to get everything done early today so I can watch the Redskins walk all over the Steelers (and hopefully have their defense outscore the Steelers' defense by 30 points in fantasy).

Umpire Strikes Back

Now, I'm no NCAA official (though I played one on TV for awhile), but I think this is against the rules.

The Hard Life of Rich Dogs

Looks like the French don't know the right way to embed videos in a blog, so this takes you to the site, rather than just playing the video in my blog. It's short, and worth the trip.

Bills at Cardinals

I apologize for the poor chronology of my posts. This one is a week overdue, and it follows my Taliesin West trip from yesterday.

Anyhow, thanks to a friend at the law school, I got my hands on four tickets to the Cardinals game last weekend. We took the Haiks, who have been extremely good to us (especially me since I came out here), as a half birthday present for Diane/half nice gesture to give something back.

Melissa put together a pretty delicious medley of tailgating food - a chili bean dip, some tuna salad, and guacamole. The Haiks brought chicken and some cheeses and salsa. Everyone brought lots of beer and water. We got there about an hour and a half before the game, and lucked out by parking next to a guy with a satellite radio broadcasting the Redskins v Eagles game (poor timing to speak highly of the Redskins, I know).


We headed inside right around kickoff and found our seats, which were pretty great. Very low, only about 20 rows up from the field, in the corner of the end zone.



We got a good view of the upset. And of several people getting arrested for fighting in front of us. Cardinals knocked the Bills out of the ranks of the unbeaten with a pretty solid win.


Good times had by all.

Taliesin West

Frank Lloyd Wright's Desert Masterpiece in Scottsdale was amazing. Mom and I went on Saturday and paid (top dollar) for the 90 minute tour through the famous home. Wright purchased 100 acres on a barren Arizona hillside and, along with the 23 students of his newly founded Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, began to build Taliesin West (Welsh word for shining brow). Taliesin was built in Wisconsin, where his mother lived.

I don't even know how to describe the architecture. If you're not familiar with Wright's style, it is called organic architecture. It is meant to be built in to its environment with a kind of natural harmony, so that it blends in and uses its surroundings, rather than standing out like an eye-sore. His most famous project, Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, is now a priority on my travel list.

The pictures I took don't do this place justice. But I'll include a few anyhow. I can only hope you appreciate it from my photos as much as we did.





This was an archer in his sculpture garden (cast by one of his students who still lives there I believe) that for some reason really caught my eye.





Enjoy. I'm going to start researching organic architecture and make it a side hobby of mine I think. The book I looked through in the gift shop about it was mesmerizing.