President’s Day was a travel day back from Pacifica to McKinney where the refrain quickly became, “When’s it going to stop raining?”. We had over 6 inches of rain from Tuesday through Saturday afternoon and every time we thought there was a break and it was safe to head out, heavy rain came again.
I had a training class in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday and a meeting at a vendor office on Thursday and so spent a lot of time sitting in heavy traffic in the pouring rain – not one of my favourite ways to pass the time.
We joined Patty and Brent for their traditional Friday night pizza and wine dinner. As usual the food and company were outstanding. We decided to Uber home after a few glasses of wine and picked the worst possible time to 
go and retrieve our car on Saturday. The radar showed a break in the rain but guess what – yes, the heavens opened for our drive back home. It’s particularly helpful when Texas truck drivers speed through flooded areas and make it impossible for other drivers to see anything due to the spray.
Saturday was a very lazy day but we did rally in the evening for a drive down to the Granada theater to attend a concert we had bought tickets to a while ago. The show was two tribute bands – Trio Grande covering ZZ Top and Desperado covering The Eagles. Trio Grande started at 9pm with Desperado not beginning until 10:20. We made it until 11pm and then made the drive home. One of the clues on the crossword on Saturday was something like, “glue for a fake beard”. The answer – “Spirit Gum” – not something I’d ever heard of. Consequently I ended up taking 24 minutes plus to finish the puzzle as compared to McD’s admirable 12 minutes – not happy. As you can see in this video, the Trio Grande guys apparently made good use of Spirit Gum. They were quite loud, and the packed crowd quite boisterous, but did a great ZZ Top rendition. Desperado similarly did a good job of covering some quite challenging Eagles material. My favourite was the Joe Walsh song “Rocky Mountain Way”.
I made a pretty interesting music discovery this week on one of the artists I listen to most, Miles Davis. An article on a Scandinavian trumpet player referenced “Filles de Kilmanjaro” as a major influence on his style. What is this album that I’ve never heard of? Turns out it was recorded in 1968 as Miles was making the transition from his second great acoustic quintet to his “electric period”. The first sessions included Wayne Shorter on sax, Herbie Hancock on Rhodes piano, Ron Carter on electric bass and Tony Williams on drums. The later sessions had Chick Corea on piano and Dave Holland on double bass. I’ve been fortunate to see both Chick Corea and Ron Carter in separate shows at the Blue Note in New York and Ron Carter again in an amazing show at Birdland. This album came right before the classic Miles album “In a Silent Way”.
I highly recommend “Mademoiselle Mabry” – a tribute to Miles’ new wife, also featured on the cover art:
We’re settling in now for the closing ceremonies of the Pyeongchang Olympics. Hoping they match the promise of the opening ceremonies with the joint Korean team and the two doves becoming one to “Imagine all the people, living life in peace”.