Blog Mashup

I've been neglectful of my blog lately. Since our return from Indy I guess I've settled into a routine of sorts and interesting things to blog about to grab me like they do when I'm traveling. But I do have some catching up to do so in the spirit of The Grey Album and other mashups I'm going to throw everything at you in one post.

The 4th
The Fourth was good for us. As we've documented on the baby blog we went over to some friends house for a cookout. I made baked beans from a recipe of Paula Dean's. If you know Paula then you won't be surprised to hear the recipe starts out with frying a half-pound of bacon and afterwards sauteeing onions in the rest of the bacon fat. The beans turned out quite nicely as you can imagine. After dinner me and the other husbands there played Tiger Woods Golf for the Nintendo Wii. MAN was that fun. Makes me want to get one instead of a 360 ...

Watch Out For That Tree!
If you didn't know I have an office/rehearsal space about ten minutes away from our pad. Its on an industrial block with some warehouses and office buildings and such. Today I was pulling out of the parking lot when I noticed a truck with a flat-bed trailer trying to maneuver into some sort of driveway. It was sideways in the street so I had to wait for it to pull in as it was blocking traffic. While I was waiting I noticed a bunch of water pouring out of the bottom of the truck, I thought "whatever it is that trailer is carrying, its leaking bad." The truck's reverse lights come on, it backs up a couple of feet, and WHOOOOSH water shoots up about 40 ft. in the air. The dumbass had driven over a fire hydrant. Water was going everywhere and I was on my ass laughing. I left but soon realized that I'd left my wallet at the office and had to head back. Upon returning to office I noticed that the street was almost flooded (street drainage in LA is for shit because, well, it never rains) and everyone was standing on the sidewalk watching the spectacle. To cap it all off as I finally left a commercial came on the radio saying "Save water this summer Los Angeles! If you shut off the water while shampooing your hair you can conserve up to 50 gallons of water per year!" Oh the irony ...

Bluetooth
You know those little Bluetooth mobile devices people wear in their ears? And they look like total douchebags when they use them because it appears they are talking to themselves? Well, a few weeks ago I got a new cel phone and with it came a package of extras including a Bluetooth headset ... and ... I gotta admit I love it. It is so nice in the car, just touch the headset, tell it who you want to call, and you're off. I promised myself to never wear it outside of my car so as not to look like a total tool. If you have the means you should check it out.

Daycare
Carrie and I have been searching for a daycare place to take Milo once school starts for her and I hit the road again. We've found two great places and are going to have a tough time deciding between the two. Daycare A is in a nice, large house with a dozen or so kids and three daycare workers who run classes and will pick your kid up from preschool or kindergarten once they get old enough. Daycare B is run by a very nice grandmother who only has a few kids but its a very cozy and warm environment; its also cheaper and closer than A and will let us pay by the day (which is good for us since when I'm home I'm home all day long) whereas A locks you in to a contract. Its going to be a tough decision.

McThing
My hero/buddy Christian McBride called me the other night. He's doing a concert at the Bowl next week with Queen Latifah, he asked me if I knew a piano player who could do a couple of rehearsals with him and 'the Queen' before full-band rehearsals start next week. I recommended one of my boys and needless to say my friend called me today thanking me profusely. I tell you, nothing earns you more cool points than being friends with the greatest bass player on the planet. I also got the new Jeff 'Tain' Watts CD in the mail today that Christian plays on. Tain is Branford Marsalis 's drummer and is one of the baddest drummers out there. The disc sounds great after a first listen.

Back in the L.A. Groove
Slowly but surely I'm starting to work around town more and am reacquainting myself with the scene. I have some gigs in town coming up that I'm looking forward to and am playing more actual jazz which is always a good thing. The summer calendar is filling up nicely which is to say not a whole lot of work but enough to keep the chops going.

Well there you have it, I should be more consistent in my blogging from now on. I need to revamp this page a bit. And maybe I'll come up with another format for the Top Five Blog to generate more interest.

Tomorrow is 7-7-7 y'all, hope you're feeling lucky.