Zachary

The band

The other band

Cooking stuff (temporarily inactive...)

 
Had a rough game tonight. (volleyball that is.) Not only did I suck, but midway through the third game I took a speeding spike right in the nose. I had about a half a second to react, which was mostly thinking "uh oh, I can't get out of the way in time". No, actually I did manage to start my fall backwards to ease the impact. I was already low to the ground so it wasn't far to go. But my nose did take the brunt of it. I opened my eyes and everyone was circled around me, including the butt head that hit the ball. Actually, he's a very nice guy. My eyes were watering a bit, but I was more shocked than my nose actually hurt. A minute later I was up and playing again. They made me fill out an accident report. Overkill if you ask me, but they have to cover themselves in case I start seeing stars. On the accident report, there's a sketch drawing of a person's body and you're supposed to indicate where the injury occurred. The ref was kind enough to put a big "X" on the nose for me. "Cause of injury?" "Ball to nose."

On my way home I needed to get dinner. Feeling a bit sorry for myself, I settled on chocolate doughnuts and milk, which I ate in a hot bath while reading a new magazine. Ahhh I feel much better now.
posted by hbt at 11:45 PM

 
J.T. and I went to a bar last night to check out a band. We'll be playing there ourselves on Nov 1. Anyway, the band is called As Yet Untitled and they play really great funk, all originals. The bass player in particular was doing some amazing, FAST stuff. It's the kind of music that some people like to dance to and bounce off each other, which made for additional entertainment for us. It's difficult for a guy to hit on a girl when she's bouncing a foot in the air...but by golly he tried, and to our surprise, made good progress by the end of the night. Another young fellow thought he'd be cool and did the centipede (remember this terrible dancing from the '80s?) Just like TV slapstick, while he was stretched out on the floor, bouncy-girl backed up and fell right over him. He was so embarrassed he left the building. Whooo boy, that was good stuff.
posted by hbt at 12:12 PM

 
We found it! Well, we found him. Who? Another guitarist! It's not 100% official yet, but he's agreed to try it out for a few weeks and see how it goes. The band is really taking off again, thank goodness. Everyone seems to be investing in new equipment, I'm playing keyboard in two songs already, we have a couple gigs lined up - it's all forward progress. Best of all I'm enjoying it more than ever.
posted by hbt at 1:25 AM

 
[Wednesday of our vacation]
It’s been so long now, I wonder if I can remember what we did our last day of vacation. Let’s see. We were happily reunited with J.T.’s mom who had stayed in the same hotel we did our first night. By the time we showed up, we were ready for lunch. (Did we do lunch first?) We ate at a yummy Chinese restaurant – a nice change from hospital food I’m sure.

Our only tourist activity of the day was checking out a Phoenix Indian museum. It was started by some philanthropist buying up lots of crafts from local Native American artists. The couple acquired so much work they spawned a separate house, which has evolved into the museum of today. They had some really impressive art work, especially the clay bowls and pots. Amazing, amazing stuff. They also had some work that was not so impressive, but that was not the majority. Lots of history and stories wrapped around the pieces and the museum tour guide had good knowledge to share. She did fine until we got to the section on boarding schools. They have small wing/room display dedicated to the boarding schools many Indian children were forced to go to. Native Americas were pushed around, moved around, killed and just plain overtaken by the new settlers. In time, the children were forced to attend boarding school for assimilation into the society. While many European immigrant parents wanted this for their children, most Native American parents did not – they were not given the choice. Some died, some thrived. Most ended up totally confused, unable to relate to the people in their village, and unable to relate to other Americans. The museum tour guide was of the opinion it wasn’t bad or good, but just was, and that the intentions were good.

I struggled with this. It boils down to the old saying, “the means justify the ends” which in most cases is B.S.

After our museum tour, it was off to the airport for a leisure boarding. J.T. was stopped again at the security gate for something in his pocket, but I don’t remember what anymore. I do remember giving him a hard time…
posted by hbt at 11:08 AM

 
[Tuesday of our vacation]
Met everyone at Cracker Barrel for an early breakfast. It was pretty good. Better than Denny’s. :) Then it was off to the Grand Canyon. My parents told me I was there when I was 1 year old – funny, I don’t remember… Our first stop was at the train station. We were taking a train to the Canyon park. This train used to run in the early 1900’s and was revived/restored in the 80’s (I think?). The train station had a little gun fight show, and a Starbucks. Who could ask for more?? The show was cute. Then we were “all aboard!” -- for a two and a half hour train ride. Sadly the train was missing some creature comforts, like nice seats and air conditioning. But we had some entertainment. Walking minstrels… or rather… walking fiddle player, who, according to his oversized belt buckle, was some sort of fiddle champion. I don’t doubt it. He was quite good.

Towards the end of the ride, we were handed a park guide and given some instructions on where to go. There are free shuttles that run a tour all around about a 10 mile stretch of the south rim. After some studying we picked our route.

First stop – food. It was noon and breakfast was a long time ago. Ate cafeteria style then caught the shuttle bus to some lookout point.

The Grand Canyon is….big. Immense. Even standing on its edge you can’t really comprehend its size. Averaging ten miles across and one mile down. Unless you’re in it, or over it, you have no idea. It was awe inspiring all the same. We walked along the canyon for almost two miles, then caught the shuttle back. But, not before a quick visit to one of many souvenir stores. I bought a turquoise necklace, and J.T. bought a cactus – in a “to go” box.

The main downside to the train was you were on their schedule. And by golly if you were not on the train at 3:30, they were leaving without you. We were given many, many warnings on the way there. And sure enough, the train was pulling out at 3:28 by our watch. Sheesh. So if you’ve done the math, you’ll know we spent about 3 hours at the canyon, and that we spent more time on the train than in the park. Not enough time to do it justice, but enough time to make you want to come back, which we may do some day They have plane rides, helicopter rides, camp sites, and yes, donkey rides. Another souvenir was a donkey ride documentary DVD, which we enjoyed way more than we thought we would.

On the trip back, we had much less patience for the train. We’d seen the scenery before and it wasn’t that grand the first time around. But we were tired and managed to get in a couple Zzzs. The entertainer back was a guitar playin singer, who generously accepted tips. They all generously accepted tips. They even went so far as to rob the train about 20 minutes out so they could take even more tips under the pretense of entertainment. The only entertainment it afforded was watching the kids have fun. Bobby was all too eager to put his hands up and get robbed, even before they entered our train car. All in all, a good time, and well worth a glimpse at one the greatest natural wonders of the world.

Got cleaned up a bit then went to dinner at Salsa Brava – an excellent Mexican restaurant. Then back to the hotel for a bit of swimming and sitting in the spa, then a round of dominos (coincidentally, we played Mexican train) and off to bed.
posted by hbt at 12:49 AM