As close as we are going to get to RAIN

Last week my daughter spotted a rainbow around 7:30PM on June 23rd. Interestingly, we hadn't received any rain, but that is not unusual for Arizona and other places in the west (Montana included). Regardless, I went outside and got some nice pictures. As beautiful as the rainbow was, I would have preferred to have a good drenching downpour, but alas, it wasn't to be.
I hope we get some decent showers once the monsoon gets going here in the Phoenix metro area. When we lived in Montana, May and June were good months for rain and sometimes even snow (10 inches of snow fell in Emigrant, Montana on June 13, 2001), but once July and August hit we most often ran in to the driest part of the year. Fires were easily ignited by dry lightning and we had the misfortune to be near two fires in our 8 1/2 year stay in Montana.
But nothing is better than a great cooling rainshower, be it in Montana or Arizona. Let's hope both states get their share of moisture this summer.

2008-2009 Top 10 Personal Phoenix Suns moments

Okay! It was one of those years for the Phoenix Suns. I was with them every step of the way--really! To quote Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Here is my attempt at my personal Suns top 10 for season 2008-2009:

10. Steve Nash's vitamin water commercials especially this one.


9. Lou Amundson's little pink packing peanuts in Shaq's car.

8. Attending the All Star Practice on February 14, 2009 and watching Shaq get 3 free throws blind-folded. Plus, Shaq dancing with the Jabbawockeez at the All Star Game introductions.

7. Grant Hill playing all 82 games!!! Awesome!

6. Attending the opening pre-season game of the Suns versus Hawks. Even though the Suns didn't win that game, it was cool to see all the new players along with the old ones.

5. Watching the Suns-Pistons game in person on November 16 and watching Shaq get thrown out of the game! Unjustly, of course!

4. Catching the Suns-Nuggets game on December 20, 2008 where Nash saved the day with a couple clutch 3's.

3. Tom Chambers answered my question on Suns Gametime TV in early April.

2. Shaking Steve Kerr's hand and being surprised that he sat directly behind me at the Suns-Kings game April 3, 2009.

1. Sitting mega-close at above-mentioned Suns-Kings game as when you are that close the game seems faster and more intense than if you are higher up in the stands or watching home on TV.

Sheryl Crow at the AZ State Fair

After 10 years of her eluding me, I finally got a chance to see Sheryl Crow in concert last night at the Arizona State Fair! But first the back-story:

Sheryl had once come to Livingston, Montana on July 4, 2002 for a free concert of which some of the concert was televised on ABC. That was a free concert. But for a person like me living 25 miles south of town and the local newspaper saying they couldn't announce when or where these free tickets would be handed out, basically meant you are out of luck if you don't want to wander the streets of Livingston at 5:30 in the morning of June 22 in hopes of scoring tickets somewhere. Many people went to the concert on July 4 who didn't even know who Sheryl was--which I think is personally a waste of ticket space. But I digress...

This year, my chances of seeing Sheryl almost didn't happen as I never saw a mention on the Sheryl Crow website and by happenstance I heard about it on a local radio station while driving home from work in mid-September! Apparently, reserved seating tickets had been available since early September!! Augh! But all went well and we ordered the tickets and had great seats off to the side of the stage in Sect. 215 at the ol' Veterans Memorial Coliseum!

Sheryl came out wearing jeans and an awesome white jacket with a huge blue skull on the back. Appearing solo on stage with an acoustic guitar, she opened with "God Bless This Mess" the first song from her new album, Detours. She followed with the band for "Shine Over Babylon" and "Love Is Free."

She continued on with lots of old favorites like "A Change will do you Good," "Strong Enough" and "Can't Cry Anymore." During "Can't Cry" she interspersed "I Can See Clearly Now (the rain has gone)." She followed that with Cat Stevens' "First Cut is the Deepest" segueing perfectly into "My Favorite Mistake." "Gasoline" had a sample of the Stones "Gimme Shelter" which was awesome!

She enjoyed talking to the crowd, jamming with her awesome band, and dancing saying that Tuesday nights are her dancing nights.

More poignantly, she talked about the detours her life had faced in the past 2 years and followed with the title track from her new album. It is one of my favorites and it worked perfectly being followed by another favorite "Home."

Sheryl ended the set with "If It Makes You Happy," "Out of our Heads," "Soak up the Sun," and "Everyday is a Winding Road."

For Sheryl's encores she did 2 songs, "All I Wanna Do" and Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground." "Higher Ground" was most excellent (to borrow a phrase from Bill and Ted) as the arrangement was a blend of Mr. Wonder's and the Red Hot Chili Peppers version of the song. An added bonus in this song was Sheryl, a former backup singer herself, spotlighted her two wonderfully talented backup singers to sing verses in the song. Wow!

Sheryl and her great band gave a long time fan exactly what I had waited for all these years and it was most definitely worth the wait! Thanks Guys! But please don't elude me for another 10 years!!!

Visit to the White Mountains of Arizona

Recently my family drove up from Mesa, Arizona to Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside, Arizona. It is a good 180-mile-long drive through lots of mountainous and ponderosa-pine filled terrain. Most Valley of the Sun folks do the trek to Payson, Prescott, Sedona or Flagstaff. I have always preferred the Show Low area.

My parents bought land just outside of Show Low in what was then only called Lakeside in 1980. It was wooded and beautiful--just a small parcel in a small neighborhood. In a few years, my dad had coworkers from Pulte Homes frame the house and my dad, over many years, did his own plumbing and electrical work on it. My folks always thought they would sell their home in the Valley and move up there permanently. However, it became only a get-away home, and with my dad's passing in 2001, they never retired to it. My mom felt she didn't want to drive up to the mountains by herself and did not know if she wanted to retire up there, so she sold the home to a friend in 2003.

We drove by that house last weekend. It looked so small and rustic, as we remembered it. We were surprised that the lava rock dirt road had been replaced by a paved one. But it was nice to see the home, just the same. I was tempted to knock on the door and say "Hi, my dad built this house." But I didn't. It is their home now.

It was a wonderful small home: the site of summer retreats, wild thunderstorms, crazy Thanksgivings, and my honeymoon get-away. I will always remember it fondly. And the next time we are up there, we will all drive by and say silently, "Hi!"

A Suns Odyssey

The Phoenix Suns ended their playoff journey early in the first round this year. It was quite a year. Am I surprised? Not really. There were a lot of inconsistencies for the team long before the trade for Shaq. Sometimes the momentum and enthusiasm was not there. Perhaps the team played without a lot of heart or focus--sometimes. That is okay. There is always time to regroup for the next season.

I feel I can say all this since I managed to either watch or listen to every single Suns game this season. Pre-season included. This is the first chance I have ever had to do such a thing. Before this year, I was living in Montana and could only follow the team when they showed up on TNT, ESPN or ABC Sunday basketball.

My first chance to ever see the Suns play in-person was on April 1, 2007 when they played the Dallas Mavericks. Wow! That was an incredible game filled with amazing passes, 3-point shots, etc. Remember the old slogan, "The NBA is FANtastic!" It certainly was for me on that game. I was in awe. It was also tons of fun!

Once my family and I moved back down to Arizona in the Summer of 2007, I looked forward to the next Suns season. We even drove down to Tucson on October 6 for the Suns intrasquad scrimmage. My daughter got her first chance to see the Suns in a more intimate setting than the US Airways Center. McKale Center of the University of Arizona had a mere 7,000 die-hard fans having fun watching the orange team play the white team. That was so much fun!

And how quickly and crazily a season has flown by. I am proud of the Suns regardless of the playoffs or the trade or D'Antoni not playing his bench, etc. They are a great bunch of talented gentlemen who if they are "clicking on all cylinders" can be one of the most incredible teams in basketball. I don't care about the Championships--I just want the team to have fun and play well.

Enjoy your summers, guys and we'll see you next season!

Pride in your neighborhood

Okay, so I like clean streets. This morning, I am walking my daughter to school and it is recycling day in our neighborhood. In the middle of the road are some cardboard bottoms from 2 Gatorade packs. I told my daughter that if it is still there on the way back, I will pick it up and recycle it myself. I proceeded to do so.

I often wonder are we all so busy that we can't pick up trash, aluminum cans, shattered glass in our neighborhoods? I never see myself as too busy to keep things clean. I do wish more people were responsible for taking care of where we live.

One might argue that it was because being an employee of the National Park Service that I have the "pack it in, pack it out" mentality. But I have been like this my whole life. I don't like to see trash, recyclable or otherwise on our streets, sidewalks, etc.

Let's try harder to keep our little corners of the Earth clean, Please!?

Ray Davies: "Life Goes On, It happens everyday so appreciate what you've got before it's taken away"

Well, Mr. Ray Davies of the Kinks said it so precisely, that one can not argue with the fact quoted in the title of this post.

Here is the official end of the Learning Web 2.0 training. I have been asked, from the powers that be, to analyze the experience, to discuss the goods, bads, uglies, etc.

I most enjoyed playing with "blogland." It has been fun to do little episodes on the Learning 2.0 experience and post pictures, YouTube video, links, etc.

The bloglines account was an exceptionally neat way to keep track of blogs, podcasts and the like.

I liked the image generator exercise where I could find the Warholizer. That was lots of fun.

I was most bored with the searching sites for RSS feeds and podcasts. For me, in both instances, it was easier to go to a website on a topic I knew and subscribe to the podcast or RSS feed from there.

My post on the Library 2.0 phenomenon which was my Pollyanna-ish version of how I currently see it in libraries, was commented on from an unknown individual that I glossed over the comment since it brought back nightmares of Library School 14 years ago!!!! I just can't philosophize on that level. I have a husband, kids, cats, and the Phoenix Suns to root for!!!

I think I will continue to keep my blog up for fun. So thanks for the experience!

Here is a link to an Unshelved issue I especially liked:
Unshelved strip for Friday, March 14, 2008