Last week I left you with my Oscar picks. How did you do with your guesses? Here are my results – 71% success rate and one of my better years. I was pleased to see “Free Solo” – an excellent documentary on the first free climb of El Capitan in Yosemite win. I enjoyed the movie during my month off as one of my Monday Movie Matinee excursions. Green Book winning Best Picture, while not my pick, was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed this movie a lot and wasn’t able to make it any more than 20 minutes into Roma. I should have gone with my preference rather than trying to predict the way the Academy would vote.
Best Picture: Roma
Best Actor: Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody
Best Actress: Glenn Close in The Wife
Best Supporting Actor: Mahershalla Ali in Green Book
Best Supporting Actress: Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk
Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron for Roma
Best Song: The Shallow from A Star is Born
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga stole the show with their musical performance:
Diana spent most of the week in Boston for a client visit. It was very cold there and we know that McD really, really doesn’t like the cold wintry weather. Fortunately she had some colleagues with her to scrape off the rental car and get it all warmed up before she joined.
Back in Austin, the guest bedroom mattress, desk chair, and bar stools were all delivered on Monday. I wrestled the boxes up to the apartment and assembled the chair and stools – they look good in position. The good news is that the trash room for recycled boxes is right outside our door.
Waking up early on Tuesday, I tried the gym downstairs. I wasn’t sure how many gung ho exercisers would be there in the morning. I had the place to myself until shortly after 6 am, when several folks started to show up. I’m guessing they set their alarms for 6 am and then head straight to the gym.
My boss had a dinner recommendation from his Uber driver and so my friend Issac and I joined him at Lin Dim Sum. The food was very creative and tasty. They are known for soup dumplings but I didn’t think I’d be able to consume those without making a mess – particularly with chopsticks. We sat at the bar and I watched a couple of girls very skillfully manage an order. We shared a number of dishes and they were all very good. I’m looking forward to seeing what Diana thinks of this West 6th Street restaurant.
Vinod, our friend from AIG, gave me a ride back to DFW airport on Thursday 
afternoon. We timed the drive to arrive just as Diana was returning from Boston and we were able to drive Penelope home from the airport together. I laughed as Vinod and I passed the Vonlane bus half way into our drive – I had been considering the big comfortable bus chair as compared to the sporty seat in Vinod’s BMW. We took the Fort Worth branch of Interstate 35 and I was able to check out the building at Gearhart where I first worked in Texas (back in 1987). It was fun to see what has become of all the lunch places that we used to frequent there. The Rig, a burger and steak restaurant, seemed to be a Mexican place. Nothing else had changed too much and the Gearhart building was occupied by another oil related business.
Diana cooked a very tasty dinner of zucchini noodles with beef and pesto sauce on Friday night and we enjoyed a lazy night at home by the fireplace.
Will spent his Saturday off-roading in his souped up Durango close to Hollister, CA. I love his face when you zoom in – do you think he’s having fun?
We met Steve and Grace, the couple who got engaged recently, for dinner at 
Sugar Bacon in downtown McKinney. We thought it was just going to be the four of us to listen to one of Steve’s friends providing the music, but there two other couples (Brian, Evelyn, Jeremy, and Diane) who also joined. Brian provided some unexpected entertainment when he asked to take over as the musician so that he could serenade Evelyn. I had ribs and have several left over for dinner tonight. They were very well cooked and tasty.
After dinner, we migrated down to the jazz martini lounge upstairs from Eclair bistro and enjoyed the Joey Love band until around 11:30pm – a bit too late for us old folks. Our friends Robert and Ronita joined to listen to the music. It was dark and loud and so I didn’t get a good video of Joey Love as he played a nicely varied set of blues and classic rock music. Here he is doing the Allman’s Midnight Rider at another venue:
I’ve almost finished reading “Educated” by Tara Westover. This book is very well reviewed, is one of Barack Obama’s favourite books, and made Bill Gates’ holiday reading list. I had high expectations and was disappointed with the first 100 pages or so as they seemed dry and with too many 
inconsequential details. After that, I became very invested in Tara’s journey to gain an education. When the Holocaust was mentioned in a BYU college history class, she raised her hand because she didn’t know what it was. She hadn’t been in a classroom until the age of seventeen. Her religious fanactic father was dubious of public education, believing it was the way the government brainwashes its citizens. Her mother was not at all diligent with homeschooling and Tara had to ultimately teach herself to gain the necessary score on the ACT to attend BYU. She eventually earns a PhD from Cambridge. The strength of Westover and the sacrifices she makes are phenomenal. This book really underscores the value and power of an education, something so many of us take for granted. I highly recommend this book and ask you to be patient in the first section as the middle and conclusion are worth it.
I stumbled on to a 2018 album from Steve Forbert that I missed last year. I love the sound of his voice – quite unique:
Brandi Carlile impressed me on the Joni Mitchell 75th birthday concert when she carried Kris Kristofferson. We watched her Austin City Limits performance this morning while reading and I was even more impressed by her songwriting and musicianship:
Chaka Khan was another pleasant surprise at the Joni 75 concert. She has a new album out this week. I don’t love it but this song has some interesting things going on:
And here’s one from the Sons of Anarchy soundtrack by Curtis Stigers. I had no idea it was him singing the theme song until this week.