Month: July 2016

Week in Review – July 31, 2016

I arrived in New York on Monday afternoon to a heavy thunderstorm.  Circled La Guardia for a couple of hours before landing and then took over an hour to drive to the hotel due to the weather.  The travel woes were quickly forgotten as I headed to the Village Vanguard jazz club for an evening with the Village Vanguard jazz orchestra.  This is a 16 piece all star ensemble that plays most Monday nights.  The celebrated their 50 year anniversary in February.

I sat next to a middle school music teacher from Chicago who plays drums in a local big band.  He was a great source of comments on the drumming and the band in general and has several students who have gone on to have professional music careers.  What a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

It was intervanguard orchesting to see the Village Vanguard in a documentary called “Becoming Mike Nichols” that I watched between catch up naps on Saturday – apparently he and Elaine May performed there in their early days as an improv duo.  The documentary was about Nichols work up to and including “The Graduate” which was his first movie at age 36.  It was also Dustin Hoffman’s first movie – Nichols had seen him perform at an off-Broadway production.

IMG_1537Tuesday and Wednesday were long work days at 180 Maiden Lane in the Wall St area.  80 folks locked up in an auditorium with rotating speakers, panels, and group discussions.

Wednesday night was another excellent music adventure.  I took the subway up to the Times Square area and saw Joe Ely performing at B.B. King’s club.  This club is set up like a supper club with good food, drinks, and great seating/views.  I remember seeing Joe Ely for the first time at an outdoor amphitheater in San Antonio over 20 years ago – Ian Moore was the guitarist in his band.  He is a great singer/songwriter, originally from Lubbock, TX.  His stories and songs were very enjoyable – particularly in the solo acoustic setting.  Here’s a movie I made from a few clips I took during the evening.  My favorite song of the evening was “Live Forever” by Billy Joe Shaver.  I didn’t get a video of that one but it did remind me of the Bugs Henderson song, “I wish I could write like Billy Joe”; a tribute to his stellar songwriting skills.

Here’s some Bugs Henderson – I really miss seeing him live since he passed a few years ago.  A trademark Bugs solo starts at 2:48.

Thursday was another work day in New York and then travel back that evening – another weather delayed flight that got me back home pretty late.

Friday night was pizza and wine night with the Wahba’s at their home – trying to distract Patty from her bad news.

On Saturcatfish with ponzu sauceday I made my first Blue Apron meal in a while.  Catfish with ponzu and red pepper sauce, ginger toasted peanuts, garlic infused rice, and sesame seed zucchini.

 

 

 

 

I finishjust mercyed the book “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson this week.  This is a mind blowing account of the racial injustices of the judicial system in the South (particularly Alabama) told through stories of many cases that the author, a Harvard lawyer who has never really earned much of a living, has worked on over the last 20 years.  The progress that Stevenson has driven almost single handedly over the years with many Supreme Court hearings is phenomenal.

 

 

Week in Review – July 3, 2016

I spent most of Monday in the air to Tokyo (13 hours).  The flight was smooth, I watched a couple of movies and slept for about 6 hours.  The first movie was “Eddie the Eagle” – a bit silly but I really enjoyed it.  There’s a scene where his Dad asks not to be interrupted as he watches “It’s a Knockout”.  This was a real trip down memory lane for me as I remember well watching that show and making a family trip to watch it live in Greenock (I think it was Greenock anyway).  I laughed at Eddie’s comment that he was “a bit queasy” going down the 70m jump right before he attempted the 90m.  This also reminded me of a family vacation in Austria where we visited the Innsbruck Olympic ski jump – I remember being shocked at the length and height.  One of my colleagues in Japan is from England and we had a good time reliving the Eddie Olympics over dinner.

Lunch on the flight was duck with a curry sauce which was surprisingly good for an airline meal – I knew I was taking a bit of a risk with duck which can be very dry in the best of places.  My afternoon movie was “London has Fallen” – an action drama about a terrorist attack when world leaders attend the funeral of the Prime Minister in London.  Gerard Butler does his best James Bond act.  A good airline movie but not as entertaining as Eddie the Eagle.

I read a good article in the New York Times on the plane about the actor Paul Giamatti (one of my favourites).  His Dad was the Major League Baseball commissioner when he was growing up – which I did not know.  Apparently Paul didn’t care for baseball growing up and still doesn’t really have much interest.

Tokyo arrival time was 2pm on Tuesday afternoon.  Customs was quick and easy and I managed to get a nice afternoon swim in the hotel pool.  I stayed at the Andaz which occupied the top 5 floors of the Toranomon Hills tower (a pretty swanky building in a nice part of Tokyo). The views from the pool/health club and the restaurant were great.  The building that looks like the Eiffel tower is an old cell phone antenna tower.

tokyo room view tokyo eiffell tower

Wednesday was a very busy day of back to back meetings and I sampled a LOT of excellent Japanese food.  First was a massive bento lunch box with delicious selections of sushi and sashimi.

Sushi

Dinner was a ridiculously good feast at a French style restaurant.  We sat at a bar that was essentially a large hibachi grill and ordered the chef’s choice menu.   This consisted of an amazing array of beautifully prepared and presented dishes.  My favourites included the langoustine, foie gras stuffed burger, and the pistachio mousse desert.  The mousse reminded me of the dessert at Lilette in New Orleans that Anne reshaped after taking a bite when I went to the restroom – also a pistachio mousse.  The care that the Japanese chef put into the sauces and presentation was very impressive – all the more so as we were sitting watching everything he did.

serving sauce pots punkin pist mousse lango foie gras burger first course beef app

On Thursday night a group of us had a traditional Japanese dinner – the kind where you take off your shoes and sit on the floor in your own partitioned room.  Again lots of courses but nothing to compare to the excellent Wednesday night feast.

Thursday was also our friend Pride’s (175 lb Great Dane) birthday.  Here he is being tortured in his 3 year old (legal drinking age for a dog) hat and tie.

Pride

I woke early on Friday, had a short workout and a nice feast from the hugely varied breakfast buffet before heading to the airport for the 11 hour flight back to Dallas.  I thought about attending the Porsche meeting that I saw at the hotel.  There was a tempting option as I got to the gate for the Dallas flight – right next door was a flight to Paris.  The flight was a smooth 11 hours, arrived early and customs and the drive home were quick and painless.

porsche meetingchoices

Diana did a great job of making sure I didn’t nap too long on Friday afternoon and keeping me up until normal bedtime.  This meant I didn’t really have too much jet lag over the weekend.  On Friday night we watched the Olympic trials with a huge highlight being the Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte 200m medley race.  It lived up to all the hype with a fantastic race and Phelps just edging Lochte.

phelps butterfuly

There wasn’t much time for music this week.  Some great saxophone jazz at the Andaz bar on Thursday night was about it.  I did find that there’s a Blue Note jazz club in Tokyo that had some big names – will have to check it out if i ever make it back.

Alicia did have another “gig” on Saturday morning at the downtown McKinney farmers’ market.    She did an excellent combination of flute pieces and guitar/singing and did very well with tips this time.

We watched the movie “Broadcast News” from 1987 on Saturday night.  I’d forgotten how good it was.  Holly Hunter, Aaron Brooks, and William Hurt are all excellent and look so young.

I finished “Shame” by Salman Rushdie this week.  It was a very strange novel set in a country that is “not quite Pakistan”.  I had read good reviews of the book but thought it was really just a bunch of nonsense with an interesting setting.  I think the New York Times got it right with their review stating that –  “It is probably easier to play croquet (as in ”Alice in Wonderland”) with flamingos as mallets and hedgehogs as balls than to give a coherent plot summary of ”Shame.”

Sunday was a relaxing day – a workout followed by coffee and crosswords and some time out by the pool (getting some sun so that I won’t burn in Cozumel).