Reaching the Stars

Well it happened, yesterday we threw caution to the wind and embarked on a mid week eight hour journey to the stars. By that I mean that we lived spontaneously and seized opportunity. For the last seven months I have been listening almost exclusively to an artist that I stumbled upon, Joe Purdy. For those of you who may not be familiar with his music, check out his website, www.joepurdy.com. You can listen to all of his music off of his website.

So anyways over this time my wife and I have become really big fans of his music. He doesn't tour much but the unique opportunity to see him live presented itself in the form of Joe opening for Steve Earle in a small theater in Des Moines, last night.

When we thought about the logistics about seeing him we went back and forth, what can we do with our children and dogs. Finally it seemed that we had decided that it just wasn't very good timing and we would catch him another time.

Then my wife's travelling spirit seized us and next thing you know we were packing up the children, dogs, and grandparents (to take care of the little ones and dogs), to make the two hour drive to Des Moines. We loaded up in the late afternoon and headed East.

We had to rent a car big enough for all of us, still it was barely big enough. None the less we arrived in Des Moines, a community that we lived in for two years, and we had time to even get dinner from one of our old haunts. It was a great start to a great evening.

We gobbled down dinner in our hotel, dogs going crazy, as well as my son exploring every nook and cranny of the room. My wife fed our daughter and off we go, 7:24 we are in the car headed to the show.

Now we had some confusion about when the show started, our guy, Joe Purdy was the opening act. By some accounts it looked like the doors opened at 7:30 p.m. and the show started at 8 p.m. We walked in and bought our tickets at 7:37, to our surprise the lady at the box office said the opener was on.....

Quickly we rushed to our seats and caught him in mid song. No doubt he was already on, have you ever heard of a concert that started on time??????

He sounded just as good, if not better live than on his cd's. His set was short, we saw him perform five and a half songs total, for around thirty two minutes. But man was it great, he was every bit of the entertainer that I had hoped for. It was an awesome opportunity that only got better.

After his set we had hoped that he might make an appearance at his merchandise table. The only problem was he didn't have a merchandise table. So we milled around for a while, hoping to run into him. Just as we decided to walk around and see if he might be somewhere else, he walked up.

There was a handful of people following him, talking to him and introducing themselves. My heart was beating like crazy, I felt like a little child about to meet Mickey Mouse or something. I mean standing before was the guy that had the artistic genius that I sing along to all of the time. Could this really be him, could this be real, and could I really be having this reaction.

I tried to respectfully wait for the people around him to disperse, and finally they did. I introduced myself and shook his hand. It was an awesome opportunity to finally meet someone that seems to know me well, at least based on his songs. My wife and I talked to him for probably the next ten minutes or so, he was humble and sincerely appreciative, just as I had hoped he would be. It was an awesome opportunity to share space and time with someone whose music means so much to us. I can't wait to see him again when the opportunity comes.

After talking with Joe we went and got a coffee at one of our old favorite coffee shops, grabbed the children, dogs, and grandparents and headed home.

Talk about an unconventional and delightful experience. I cannot thank my wife enough for holding us accountable to seizing opportunity and new horizons. It was truly a dream come true.

Footprints and Faceprints, In the Sand

In Tom Martin's The Flightless Birds of Academe, he very poignantly states, "Out of the depths of the modern ghetto of sanitized suburbia these men yearn to be awakened from their idleness of being tethered to television and computer screens". I couldn't think of a more accurate summary of why our recent trip to Florida was a much needed reprieve from our day to day. With that being said we all embarked on our latest adventure.

We went down to Clearwater Beach, Florida, a beautiful location to get some much needed time away. An opportunity to focus on each other and having a relaxing and fun time, no doubt that was what we got.

We arrived in the early afternoon on Wednesday, and found a quaint local restaurant to grab some lunch. I went with the special, I mean come on, what could be more tantalizing than the daily special. It was a fried oyster sandwich, which I must admit was a bit of a stretch for me, as the last time I had an oyster it was of the canned variety in probably 1992. But hey, I was on vacation, why not step out on the ledge. Needless to say it wasn't a completely botched experiment, but I remembered why I don't eat a lot of oysters. My wife in her wisdom went with the Grouper and found it quite satisfying. Everyone in the place was great to us, by that I mean they said a lot of wonderful things about our children, it was indeed a perfect start to our experience.

Quickly we made our way back to the hotel as we had some perfect beach conditions to attend to. Now don't get the wrong idea, remember we have an almost two year old and a twelve week old. For us perfect conditions means cloudy and overcast, with a temp in the low eighties. Much less concern for heat and sun exposure! It was perfect, but strangely enough it didn't play out quite like I thought it would. See we've been preparing our son for this trip for the last couple weeks with trips to the local pool. I thought in my mind that we wouldn't be able to get him out of the warm gulf waters, that wasn't the case at all. Instead he wanted to do anything and everything he could with the sand, in between wild bouts of running around like a category five hurricane. None the less it was a perfect opportunity for him to be free in nature.

We also got the great opportunity to get our daughter introduced to the beach and warm gulf waters, she seemed to enjoy it, but it should be noted she enjoys everything. That is except for the occasional over-heating from being with me for too long.

Which reminds me of how this all worked out better than we had hoped, most of the time we spend together is in the midst of near chaos: meal time, bath time, anytime, you name it, we are going at a fair rate of speed. This provided a great opportunity to spend time simply focused on each other. Nothing is more rewarding or important.

We spent the next three mornings in similar fashion, thankfully the weather cooperated with us everyday and gave us perfect family beach conditions.

In the afternoon we explored the area, going down to St. Petersburg and into Tampa.

During our visit to St. Petersburg we visited their Holocaust museum, which I have to admit was a profound experience for me that I didn't anticipate. I thought that having seen the standard Holocaust movies that I might be prepared to face the grim reality of this awful time in history. That indeed was not the case, as I stood in front of one of the original rail cars that had been used to transport to places like Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka. I could feel the history and wretched experiences flowing out of this car and into me, I was sick to my stomach. That anyone ever faced such atrocities shamed me deeply. It was a powerful experience in the sense that much like many things in my life: I realized the extent to which I thought I understood, versus my true understanding, exposing me to my own ignorance. Truly humbling and something that I would recommend for everyone.

Beyond our trip into St. Petersburg, we also hit Ybor City, in Tampa. This is an old part of Tampa and offered all the charm and elegance one might hope for in such an area. We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed walking the streets.

It was upon leaving Ybor City that we encountered that wonderful feeling of being a visitor in a new location, getting lost. Not to worry though, a half an hour later we finally found our way headed back to Clearwater Beach. It is important to note that Clearwater Beach is widely known for it's spectacular sunsets, which of course based on our planning we would be arriving back from Ybor City precisely thrity minutes prior to sunset, well you can see based on our thirty minute delay we missed sunset on the pier. While that was disappointing we did enjoy the view from the car headed in that direction.

Lamenting the fact that we missed the sunset we did still hit the pier and found a great community of people out enjoying this spectacular night. Our son played on the outdoor playground and we all had a blast, we sealed the night off with my favorite, ice cream!!!

All in all the trip provided the wonderful material of which all memories are made, opportunity to be together and experience each other in harmony, while pursuing adventure or creating it wherever we are.

Goodbye and Thank You to Arturo Gatti

Yesterday I saw with horror the ESPN ticker say that Arturo Gatti had been killed. The details of which were awful and have no bearing on the legacy this man has left.

I remember very clearly in May of 2002 watching Arturo fight Micky Ward, this was the first of their three meetings, and for a boxing fan watching these three fights were heaven.

My wife, brother in-law, and I watched as these gladiators fought their hearts out. Immediately we all loved them both.

Arturo was the kind of fighter that no matter how much damage he took, he kept coming, kept moving forward, stalking and carrying with him a punchers chance with every shot he threw. Thanks to him I found my passion for the sweet science and he was the best ambassador the sport could have.

He will always be a champion in my eyes....

Thank you Arturo for all of the memories, rest in peace.