Marakanetz,
No matter what the state of public transportation in NY I'll always wish I could have gone there for a visit. It must be a very exciting place to be. At least for a visit. Buy some of those tickets and enjoy.
Well, Paul arrived yesterday afternoon. The poor guy has a lot of stuff on his plate right now and looked very tired when I picked him up at the airport. We grabbed a bite of lunch on the way to my house and fired up the system when we arrived. A local friend of mine for nearly 40 years stopped by and we talked music, records, cleaning vinyl and equipment for a few hours while listening to some tunes. He too is a lawyer, actually a judge, and he and Paul talked a little shop too. Lugnut, the welder, mechanic, and general handyman hanging with a couple of legal eagles is funny to contemplate. Hopefully a bunch of other friends will join us as we invade Steve's music room some evening this week.
Yesterday I was drafted into the SA rugby team. I received my new jersey courtesy of Springbok10 (aka Denis) with the offical player name and number on the back of "Lugnut 1". Now all I need is an honorary doctorate from Harvard, Yale or Princeton! Thanks Denis.
Earlier this week Jeff (jdodmead) forwarded a Jay McShann album. Great music. I love being introduced to music that's new to me. The Big Apple Bash has a lot of heavy hitters sitting in on the sessions. Of particular note is Herbie Mann playing not only his flute but clarinet and tenor sax. I'd never heard Mann playing any instrument other than the flute. Now whenever I see one of his albums I'll think of Jeff and Jay McShann.
I hope to get today organized quickly so that I can take Paul out to show off some of Idaho's geography. We'll be heading out to look at the Snake River plain south of Nampa and get a good look at the Owyhee Mountain range. Maybe we'll get lucky and run into a real cowboy or something. Yep, real ones still make a living here doing what cowboys do; riding the range, roppin' those little doggies and saving the reputations of pretty maidens. I'll never forget the first one I met when I moved here in the 80's. When I shook his hand it was like grabbing onto a rock. His deeply lined and leathery face looked to belong to a man in his late fifties cursed with "get old quick" genes but I discovered he was only in his mid thrities. Six gun on his hip no less, in town. I'm not kidding you one bit either. The guy came to town twice a year whether he needed to or not I guess. Supplies and "dudes" were flown into the ranch he cared for on a regular basis as the last three or four miles driving there was an eight hour trip. We be talkin' remote; snowed in all winter with no expectation of getting out for any emergency whatsoever. It's a hard thing to comtemplate for the uninitiated.
Gotta run and get this day movin' along. Yeehaa.
