Remember, Remember the Month of November

Last month we had the pleasure of having the Nunez family in for two weekends.  The first was for the Run for the Water race, where Keller Williams is the main sponsor of a race to help raise money to bring water wells to Burundi.  So my parents, Daniel, and I ran in the 5K. This was my mom's very first race and I have to say, as happy as I am to run with my dad and my hubby, I was jumping for joy as my mom ran across the finish line. She stopped a couple of times to walk but all in all, she ran the longest she ever has and finished 2nd in her age group! Yea Momma! Daniel of course finished first, and my dad finished not too far in front of me. After high-fiving all of my KW friends, we treated my parents to brunch at Moonshine. We had some brunch cocktails to warm us up by the fire on the patio and then enjoyed a delicious spread, although my dad was very sad at the lack of bacon on the display. We promise more pig next time!

The following weekend we had a great time playing The Beatles: Rock Band for Thad Williams's birthday. Our game is getting quite a lot of mileage! Courtney is a really great friend of mine that I met at my first Austin job. She put together quite a great birthday party with some really fun people and we got to catch up with them and play a little (pretend) music, too.

Then in mid November my Mom and my Memaw (my Mom's sister and my Dad's stepmother) came to Austin to attend the Junior League Christmas Bazaar with my friends Anna and Tabriah. We had such a good weekend together. My Memaw is creative and active, she is 80 and just a few years ago began making jewelry, and she never met a project she didn't like. She is light-hearted, she knows how to not take herself too seriously in most any situation, even when it comes to getting older. And she is a believer. She is praying for us as we work to build our marriage, build our family, and live our lives in Christ.

Our visit was wonderful and we finished off the month of family with Thanksgiving. We made our Tour of Texas with a strong start with the Lauves. We played more Rockband, talked politics and ate some great gravy at Daniel's parent's first Thanksgiving in their new home. Then we headed to Jasper where we started our gumbo streak. We also enjoyed a lovely bottle of Pinot Noir that Daniel bought me on our anniversary trip to California wine country. We had Friday and most of Saturday with my parents and my brother.

Then we headed to Angela & Aidan Shori's wedding reception in Fannet, Texas. We knew all along that celebrating their recent nuptials in Fiji would be part of our Thanksgiving plans. We had a great time catching up with some old friends and wishing the Shoris the best in their future adventures, wherever they may be.

Lastly, we went to the Comeauxs on Saturday night and most of Sunday. While Jed and the girls were exhausted from hunting, they were still warm hosts and stayed up to greet us. Amber and I both got up early so we could have our own time to catch up on our lives since we don't get to see each other too often. She always has the best Christian music playing in the background for our talks, and she made yummy breakfast casserole for us before church! We spent the afternoon playing games with Kaylin and Madison and then seeing a reallly good soccer scrimage with Kaylin's playoff-bound team.

We are so thankful for such a wonderful month of friends and family!

A Decade Without Bonfire

Is being against the return of Bonfire as much an act of Aggie heresy as it was ten years ago?

It's entirely possible that socialization is as much of a core competency at Texas A&M as education.  It all starts at Fish Camp, which almost every incoming freshman attends and learns all the Aggie traditions and terminology.  It continues at the solemn remembrances of fallen Aggies at Silver Taps and Muster.  It even includes the numerous extracurricular activities, which are referred to as "The Other Education."  Traditions are so ingrained at A&M that the on-campus bus routes are named after various traditions.  One route is even called "Traditions" (is it a tradition to have traditions?).  The biggest tradition of all, and the event that symbolized better than anything the group identity of the Aggies, was Bonfire.

I didn't ever participate in Bonfire, not that I had a strong opinion about it either way when I was at A&M.  Like everyone, I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever when I was in attendance.  And during the actual cutting and building, well, it wasn't really my thing.  When I was a freshman, I attended cut class, which was the mandatory safety class that everyone who wanted to go out into the woods and cut down trees for Bonfire had to take.  It was ostensibly about safety, but the bulk of the half hour was spent reciting the (unprintable) dorm yells.  I also experienced “wake up” as a freshman.  The cars that went out to the woods for cut left at about six in the morning, so the upperclassmen would go around the hall at around five on Saturday morning and bang on every door as hard as they could, yelling all sorts of things and kicking on the door so hard you thought they were going to kick it in.  As an out of state kid, I didn't come in with a real love of Bonfire, so I didn't really participate in it.

Like everyone, I knew that Bonfire had a reputation for a lot of alcohol on the job and for hostility toward the international students who walked past the Polo Fields on their way home from class.  And yet, for at least a week after Bonfire fell, I was adamant that Bonfire was a crucial part of Texas A&M and absolutely could not be taken away.

I arrived outside the old basketball arena at about 5:00 a.m. on November 18, 1999, and heard the news that Bonfire had fallen.   I was in line to camp out for tickets to the next week's Texas game.  The mood at that point was this odd mix of gloominess and normalcy.  We all knew something was wrong, but we couldn't really go anywhere or follow the story, so poeple were chatting and playing cards.  Later, as I started going to classes and more information started flowing in, it got really, really awful.  The moment that it really hit me was when I went into the library annex to read for a class and a sign on the door said, "Be sure to call your parents and let them know you're OK."

After Bonfire fell, I heard its necessity compared to that of breathing and driving cars.  I didn’t go that far, but I certainly didn’t believe that "they" (whoever they were) had any place telling us what we could do with one of our proudest traditions.  I believed that the twelve who lost their lives were doing something they loved and that the best way to memorialize them was to keep Bonfire going.  Though I hadn't participated in its construction, I thought it was a necessary part of this university that I had come to identify with.

At some point that winter, I changed my tune.  I thought about myself as someone who had been recruited from out of state and had very little previous knowledge of A&M before arriving there.  I thought about how it would be to attract similar candidates in the future if Bonfire stayed around and those candidates knew essentially two things about A&M: 1) they have this thing that killed a bunch of people, and 2) they kept it going despite most of the country calling for it to be ended.  I thought about how silly it was that we had so much of our identity tied up in this stack of logs, and how strange it had been for me to be so supportive of it.

The one moment that really soured me on Bonfire was the next spring, when the investigation into the causes of the collapse was completed.  The findings were announced at the basketball arena, and students were allowed to attend the press conference.  The chairman announced how poorly the operation had been supervised and how little actual engineering knowledge went into the construction.  The findings were focused primarily on the physical reasons for the fall (ground conditions, the integrity of the center pole, etc.) and paid less attention to the social aspects of Bonfire.  During the presentation, a reporter asked why the commission did not address the issue of hazing at the Bonfire site.  The commissioner said that he did not feel it was necessary to discuss something that had nothing to do with the fall of Bonfire.  At that moment, a giant cheer went up from the 3000 or so students in attendance, a cheer like you would hear at a sporting event.  I don't suppose I really know what they were cheering (I guess it was the commissioner's resistance to the media's trying to frame Bonfire as a bunch of drunk kids running around unsupervised), but it really seemed to me like they all missed the point.

And I think they're still missing the point.   It appears that most Aggies, including Governor Perry, are in favor of bringing Bonfire back on campus.  This is despite the fact that it has been deemed uninsurable and another death or serious accident could mean the end of the university.  I've heard several times now that the campus is noticeably different without Bonfire---people are less friendly and the campus doesn't have the unity it once did.  That, in addition to being the most egregious case of Good Old Days Syndrome I've ever heard in my life, is complete and utter garbage.  If the people who support this idea had spent more time in logic class and less time at cut, they might have been introduced to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.  And besides, I just found out that Howdy Ags (http://howdyags.tamu.edu), whose purpose is to reverse the decline of the popular Aggie greeting (no kidding), was formed in 1997, two years before Bonfire fell.

Texas A&M University is better now than it was ten years ago.  That would have been the case had Bonfire never collapsed, too.  Just because that's what one generation of Aggies used to bond with one another doesn't mean that's the only way it can be done.  Neva Hand, the mother of one of the 12 Bonfire victims, said it best: "A&M has to be more than bonfire. It has to be bigger than the tradition itself.  If the students of A&M cannot come up with something better to form camaraderie and strive together to build and work for something really big, then they're not the students that I think A&M students are."

Forget academics, which by any objective measure are improving across the board. Students are as engaged as ever in extracurricular activities that don't involve giant burning piles of wood.  A few years ago I got to visit with some of the student leaders from the Memorial Student Center who had made a trip to Austin, and their love of Aggieland was unaffected by the lack of a 60-foot-tall symbolic fire before Thanksgiving.  My sisters had an experience at A&M that was not that different from mine.  Football games are still football games, and basketball games are, well, now they actually resemble basketball games.  (By the way, where are we on that Jerald Brown statue?)

The institutional memory of Texas A&M is such that many current students are arguing for the necessity of an on-campus Bonfire, even though they were in elementary school when it last burned.  Several successsive A&M administrations have been criticized for saying Bonfire can't return, but I think they're making the right choice.  Bonfire should never come back---the brand has been forever tarnished, it's not financially viable, and it runs counter to the direction the university needs to go.  Bringing it back would mean choosing between a safe version built with little student input or a student-led giant liability waiting to happen, and neither option is worthwhile.

The return of Bonfire is likely to remain a contentious topic, with both sides trying to honor the memory of our twelve fellow Aggies who gave their lives.  Say a prayer for those kids and their families.  So much has happened in my own life in the past ten years that it's hard to believe---I feel so sorry that their lives were cut so short.

Spending a Fall Weekend in Boulder

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I'm still smiling from a weekend with the girlfriends that I fondly refer to as the XHHH group.  Kelly, Liza, Virginia, Liz, Missy and I recently decided to spend a weekend in Boulder. Kelly had it all planned out for us---flights, transportation, restaurants, even sending out weather information the day before we left.

Thursday night four of us arrived in Boulder and went to dinner at Pasta J's. It was so delicious that we ended up going again on our last night so it was the perfect start to our trip. Each morning Kelly had coffee brewing for us. We drank it huddled by the gas log fireplace or on the porch. We would finally get out when we got hungry, usually before we were even dressed & showered, which made us fit right in in Boulder.

We spent the afternoons shopping on Pearl Street, perusing the Farmer's Market, driving through the mountains or sitting around drinking cocktails at the place we lovingly called the cabin. There was lots of talking about our feelings, talking about each other's feelings, and then there was talking about what other people think about the feelings that we think they are thinking. At least that's what Kelly picked up in her oh-so-astute observations!! We had several living room dance parties---I insisted we roll up the living room rug for proper dancing.  There was even a sexy bumblebee that made an appearance.

It started to snow on the last day and even though it was not cold enough to stick on the ground it was the perfect ending to a relaxing and fun weekend.

I had such a great time---thanks to all of my girlfriends for adding so much to my life!

Austin City Limits 2009

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You know, treated sewage is not that bad. I don't even mind the word "sewage." It's just "wage," which is good, with a "se" in front of it. Se-wage. When you consider the other choices, sewage is actually pretty refreshing.

And so it was for the 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival. For three days, Zilker Park became the ideal place to determine which bands you like, which bands you love, and which bands you would trudge through ankle-deep poo to experience.

Brandi and I arrived at the park at about 6:00 on Friday, thanks to our friends Courtney and Thad, who were nice enough to let us park near their house and then dropped us off by the park. Upon entering the park, we immediately noticed that the money they've spent on a new lawn had really paid off.  It was a perfect shade of green and felt great to walk through, a huge contrast from the brittle, brown grass of years past.

The first act we saw was John Legend, the conspicuously-named son of George and Rita Legend. He started out among the audience doing a very good cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" before gradually making his way up to the stage. He also covered Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time" and the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" in addition to doing his own songs. After grabbing a burger for dinner, we went to see Kings of Leon. The Beastie Boys unfortunately had to cancel, so we were left with the Kings of Leon and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Neither one of them is a favorite for either of us, but I was definitely more excited to see Kings of Leon, so we started there. They were okay, but I'm still placing them in the category of Bands That I'm Really Supposed to Like But I Just Don't. So we watched them for a little over half an hour before checking out the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs should really consider changing their name to the Huh Huh Huhs. I don't get it. I won't say too much about the music and the enormous response it gets out of a lot of people because I don't want to be like one of those old people who goes to an art museum and says, "My kid could draw that." But it was really cool seeing the singer perform a song with a blanket over her head. (Possibly another Michael Jackson tribute---not too sure either way.)

On Saturday we arrived at the park in mid-afternoon, just about half an hour after a light rain was starting to fall.  We caught the end of Flogging Molly, an Irish punk-folk band that was extremely entertaining.  They were a great example about what makes ACL so amazing: you see a band name that you recognize and think might be interesting, and then you wander over the stage only to get blown away.  Well done.

The grounds were still pretty good, though they were getting wet, and some mud was starting to pop up in heavily-trafficked places.  For instance, the food court, where we went next, was pretty nasty, but the most popular vendors still had lines 40 yards long.  After eating, Brandi went to Mos Def, where she ran into a group of friends, and I went to see Levon Helm Band.  Mr. Helm was on doctor-ordered vocal rest, so I didn't get to hear any of the Band classics that I was hoping to hear.  But it was a very good folk band with a lot of moving parts.

The next band, The Decemberists, was the biggest one for me.  I waited to meet up with Brandi in between the Beatles: Rock Band tent and a tent showing the A&M/Arkansas game.  Being at a music festival and within view of Aggie football and The Beatles: Rock Band is about as ideal a situation as you can get, but it wasn't to be for very long as Brandi found me and we headed to watch The Decemberists.  In terms of viewing the concert, this one was pretty tough.  The rain was still coming down, and there were a lot of umbrellas blocking our view of both the video screen and the stage.  The frustrating part for me was seeing people who were wearing hooded jackets and were still determined to keep their umbrellas up, blocking the views of the group of people behind them.  The Decemberists ended up playing their entire Hazards of Love album, which was very theatrical and interesting.  This was my first time seeing them, so I missed out on seeing a lot of songs that I would have liked them to play, but seeing their latest album performed in toto gave me a much greater appreciation of an album that, up to this point, wasn't my favorite.

The final act of the night was Dave Matthews Band.  We trudged through a lot of mud to find a reasonable seat, and the crowd for this one was pretty ridiculous.  This was my first time seeing Dave Matthews perform---I was definitely a pretty big fan in the 90's, but the set list was definitely skewed toward more recent songs.  That was cool, but I could have done okay with one or two (or ten) fewer 10-minute jam sessions to close each song.

On Sunday we arrived in time to see the B-52s, and the new-look Zilker park.  The mud was a decent amount worse than it was the night before, plus it was much more visible.  And the smell.  We found out that the dirt that was an inch or two deep all across the park was Dillo Dirt, a City of Austin creation made of composted yard clippings and treated sewage.  Which raises an interesting dilemma for the green set that make up the ACL attendance: you push for a carbon-neutral world, but how do you feel when the consequences of that world get dumped on your music festival?  A lot of people were repulsed by the mud, but as soon as I found out where it came from, I actually thought it was pretty cool.

Anyway, the B-52s had a decidedly party feel, as if their lone purpose was to get people to dance around and have fun.  They consist of three vocalists plus a backing band who exude campiness, almost to the point of it being an affectation.  The crowd, for their part, appears to enjoy their brand of happiness and good times packaged in a thinly veiled musical veneer.  In fact, one tune in particular, the one bearing the moniker "Love Shack," appeared to be the exemplar of the band/fan cabal of sunshine.  The band used their mantra of "Love Shack," often appended with a superfluous but nonetheless welcomed "Baby!" to remind the audience of a simpler time, the 1980s, a time when, in fact, the same B-52s band were even then trying to remind their audience of another, though possibly less simple time, the 1960s; the audience gladly stepped into this double time machine for the five minutes plus that it took to get from an oversized Chrysler to a tin roof that, from the sounds of it, seems to be in some state of disrepair.  The party people, as it were, their desire for nostalgia quenched, then dispersed, though methinks many of them would have been delighted to hear the tale of a misapprehended lobster, with which the band regaled a much smaller subset of the human population.*

Next, we grabbed some popcorn and tried to see Brett Dennen.  Unfortunately, Mr. Dennen decided to play his set in a rather muddy section of the park.  I don't want to say he played to the La Brea Tar Pits, but there were a couple wooly mammoths that crawled up to request "Ain't No Reason."  So we watched from a distance.  And then we left the park to have lunch at Chuy's, which was a great idea.  We really enjoyed the good food and clean bathrooms.  Then we headed back to the park to catch Ben Harper.  Ben Harper is an ACL regular who this time around showed up with the Relentless 7, and he was very good.  He definitely knows how to talk up the city we call home.  After Ben Harper, we turned 45 degrees to the right to enjoy Girl Talk.

Despite the video screen entreatments to the contrary, Girl Talk is a DJ.  He does mashups of some very popular songs from the last 40 years, and Brandi was very excited to see him.  She enjoyed dancing all over the place, despite moving gingerly all day to avoid getting muddy feet.  I asked a question that I felt needed to be asked: If these are all pre-mixed songs that are playing on tape, did he even need to show up?  My question was sort of answered when random messages started getting typed on the video screen.  So that made me think that maybe he was actually doing something live.  Then I thought, the only really good way to prove that you are typing it right now is to type up all of today's NFL scores.  Then I thought, I really wish he would type up all of today's NFL scores.

Pearl Jam was the big act of the weekend, and we were very tired at the end of the day, but we wanted to be able to say that we've been to a Pearl Jam concert.  Which we now can.  If you call staying for one song and being half a mile away from the stage being at a Pearl Jam concert.

The 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival taught us many things, not the least of which was that the B-52s have still got it...if by "it" you mean a very flamboyant leading man who speaks kind of like a three year old telling a story to a nearly-deaf grandparent.  Also, be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.  Especially if what you ask for is a lush, green lawn and beautiful weather, followed by a two-day slog through a caca/compost combo.

*We've thought that it would be best to put a disclaimer on this paragraph.  Since the B-52s are pretty universally known, I decided to dispense with the trite descriptions and describe them as a truly foreign observer (like someone from a different era or possibly an alien from Mars) would.

I Heard It Through the Great Wine

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/CaliforniaSeptember2009For our second anniversary, we talked briefly about going out to Mandola winery or maybe for a day trip, and somehow that turned into Napa Valley.  Good thing it did, too.

We found some good tickets from Southwest that took us into Sacramento on Friday the 25th and back from San Jose on Tuesday the 29th.  On Friday, our flight to Phoenix was uneventful, but the flight to Sacramento was delayed by almost two hours.  We slept late on Saturday morning before starting the hour-long drive to Napa.  We didn't have any plans for the day, which we started to realize could be an issue as we surveyed the number of wineries that require some kind of appointment.  Thankfully, Del Dotto winery, which received some really good reviews, had some space for us.

Del Dotto has the second oldest wine cave in Napa (built by Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century)---it's several hundred feet long, with a couple turns, lit with candles, and is lined with barrels of wine.  After talking about the barrels they use and letting us sniff an oak barrel, our guide took us through the cave, letting us sample wine straight from the barrels along the way.  The wines were between $60 and $125 a bottle, and they were about the best wines I've ever had.  The first one was a sangiovese that tasted incredibly smooth and was really good (sorry, that's all you're getting from me, still not really a wine critic).  We sampled about eight wines in all---probably the most interesting was a pair of wines that were the same wine (same grapes, same vineyard) from two different barrels.  One was French Oak and one was American Oak, and we all preferred the French Oak.

Our second winery was Luna, which was a vineyard-lined country highway mile from Del Dotto.  We had a tasting of their wines and took photos near the vineyard before heading up the road to Reynolds Family, a great little winery on beautiful grounds.  We had a tasting there but were really keen on getting a tour, since Del Dotto was a great experience but didn't get much into the winemaking process.  An intern was nice enough to take us around, showing us some grapes fermenting, letting us taste some grapes off the vine, and giving us some wine out of a barrel.

Our last stop was at St. Supery, which Brandi immediately recognized.  They were having a party for their wine club members that included an 80's cover band.  The wine club is something that I was previously unaware of.  Very few of the wineries you visit distribute their wines through lots of retail and food service outlets.  They count on selling to the people who come in for tastings, and then they have a wine club that regularly purchases their product.  St. Supery is a bit of an exception, as they can be found in the grocery store, but it's still pretty apparent that they do a lot of business through their club.

For dinner we headed to Sonoma and ate at El Dorado, a restaurant on the city square with a beautiful courtyard.  The food was very good, especially the ice cream sandwiches we had for dessert.  Then we took a nighttime drive into San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge---that thing is massive!  (And it's six bucks to cross, so best to take it all in in one shot.)  Highway 1 quickly turns into Lombard Avenue, so we decided to go down the crookedest block in the world.  The only problem was that in getting to the crooked hill we took ourselves further away from the hotel, and getting back took our poor rental PT Cruiser (the same type of rental car we had in Banff and on our wedding day, by the way) up a lot of tough hills that it really wasn't prepared for.

We stayed at Parc 55, right on Union Square.  The hotel was very nice, we remarked to each other, as we got off the elevator, walked to our room, opened the door, and AAAAAAH!  A high-pitched man squeal, along with said man frightenedly saying, "Someone's in here!" is how we learned that our room was occupied.  We got a new room, thankfully.

On Sunday morning we went for a long run that included Chinatown, the piers, and the hills near Coit Tower.  Then we went to church, which was (surprise!) a Latin Mass (our first).  I enjoyed reliving my misspent year in high school learning impossible conjugations and arcane legal phrases, and Brandi enjoyed having no idea what was going on.  Oh yeah, and we got to bring up the gifts, so that was pretty cool.

[Brandi here...]  For lunch we decided to try Yank Sing, a Chinese restaurant that my doctor recommended. Dr. Schmidt is from the Bay area and he really knows Deem Sum! It was quite an experience; the waitstaff comes by with all menu items displayed on carts such as dumplings of all kinds, meat-stuffed buns, peking duck, various vegetable stir fry, and traditional desserts. We tasted as much as we could but I couldn't quite make it to dessert because I was so full. Daniel thought it was one of the best Chinese meals he'd ever had.

We then decided to go to Fisherman's Wharf and walked through the Ferry Building and then we took a street car the rest of the way there. My favorite thing at the Wharf was watching the sea lions. There were several hundred of them lounging and playing very close to the pier! After walking around Fisherman's Wharf we ended our evening in San Francisco with a nice dinner at the Waterfront Cafe.

We then drove a little under an hour to Half Moon Bay to the Old Thyme Inn, the Bed and Breakfast we were staying at until Tuesday. We got up Monday morning and ran down to the bay. While it was a foggy morning, it was still beautiful and calming. We made it back in time to get ready for the delicious breakfast of Dutch apple pancakes and chicken apple sausage. The pancake was more like eating a sumptuous cake than breakfast. There was also rosemary corn cake (made with fresh rosemary from their garden), fresh fruit and strong delicious coffee. We also had stimulating conversation with the other guests staying at the inn and I was very intrigued by the many different types of visitors.

Once we had our fill, we decided to head south to explore more wineries and enjoy the scenery. The drive was beautiful and calming, except for the first half hour because while I was busy looking at the map I got motion sickness, ugh. The first vineyard we came to was Savannah Chanelle. It was up the side of a mountain and had breathtaking views and a beautiful old house to enjoy our tasting. We kept driving south and visited the Cinnabar tasting room in Saratoga and then to Los Gatos to visit Testarossa---a winery that used to be an old monastery. The used to make church wine there! It was a beautiful old building. We then decided to head to Santa Cruz for a late lunch and possibly make it one last tasting room, Bonny Doon, but we caught them as they were to trying close up so we headed back up Highway 1 to Half Moon Bay. That evening we walked together downtown to our last meal in California at a quaint  Italian restaurant that was downtown. It was perfectly warm and relaxing. We toasted to our lovely wine tour of Northern California!

The Beatles: Rock Band Festivities

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I wouldn't say that buying The Beatles: Rock Band is like buying friends.  Because we already have friends.  I swear.  But it is pretty eerie how all of our friends want to come over at once all of a sudden.

And why shouldn't they?  The video game, in addition to featuring the best music ever made, is incredibly fun to play, especially with a group of people.

On Friday, September 11, we had about a dozen people over to play the game.  I was a little concerned about getting people to play (especially sing), but Kevin, Stacey, Chris, and Kim, four of the first to arrive, picked up instruments and microphones right away.  We went through a lot of the early songs together, and then after the first group left, we had a second band that included Jenny's friend Michael on lead guitar, Keith on drums, and Kelly and Jenny singing back-up. The new group finished out the night with a mix of later songs like Here Comes the Sun and Come Together.  All in all, it was a great evening with some great friends.

Then, a week later, my family came into town for a Beatles: Rock Band weekend.   I had been building this game up for quite a while, but I had no idea how they would actually receive it.  My parents got in on Friday night and my dad and I spent some time listening to a couple of the remastered CDs he had picked up, Rubber Soul and The White Album.  He thought Rubber Soul sounded great but wasn't sold on The White Album (he has always said that it was not a great album fidelity-wise, especially compared to Abbey Road).  I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's used to listening to the LPs and not the pretty poor original CDs.

On Saturday morning the seven of us (Brandi, my parents, Alicia, Cristina, Cristina's boyfriend Daniel, and I) went to have a South Austin breakfast at Polvo's, my favorite place for breakfast.  Then we got home and got comfortable with the Story Mode of the game.  We switched around on instruments a little bit, but people pretty much got comfortable with a particular instrument pretty quickly.  My dad liked the bass, Daniel played a lot of guitar, Alicia sat at the drums, and Cristina mostly sang with a little drums.  My mom had declared her intentions to play drums, but she quickly found it to be difficult.

We made it through all of the early live venues as well as most of the Abbey Road studios songs before we stopped for dinner.  I grilled chipotle pork tenderloin on the grill along with corn on the cob and asparagus, and Brandi made a peach salsa, macaroni and cheese, and a great apple caramel cake.  After dinner we tackled a few remaining songs before finishing with the Rooftop Concert.  It ended up being about an eight hour Beatles Rock Band marathon that was a whole, whole lot of fun.

After the family left, I took a little break from The Beatles: Rock Band, to volunteer at church for an evening (with Brandi) and to celebrate a wonderful 2nd anniversary dinner with Brandi at Truluck's.  Before getting out the Hofner bass this evening to play a few songs, I had endured a three-day respite from The Most Important Video Game Ever.  That was my second longest Beatles Rock Band drought ever.  The longest?  June 13, 1978 through September 8, 2009.  Boy, that was a rough one.

My Favorite Beatles Song: A Timeline

Neither of the regular readers of our blog should be surprised to find out which Liverpudlian rock and roll combo is the subject of this post.

1987-1991: Penny Lane
I first became really aware of the Beatles just before the age of 10, primarily through listening to Beatles LPs with my dad and a Beatles segment that played every morning on the local oldies station on my way to school.  I have a distinct memory of showing my aunt all the Paul is Dead clues sometime in the late 80's, I think right before a Thanksgiving dinner.  "Penny Lane" is the one that sticks out in my memory from this time---one of the instantly catchiest songs you'll ever hear.

1992: Nowhere Man/In My Life
My dad's earliest Beatles album is Revolver, so I was thrilled to find out about the existence of an album called Rubber Soul, which contained my then-favorite song, "Nowhere Man," in addition to several other classics.  It was the second Beatles CD I purchased (after Magical Mystery Tour), and I was pleasantly surprised to find "In My Life" on the disc as well, which became a favorite for a short time.

1993: Rain
The early to mid 1990s was the first time I really started buying albums that were newly released.  Previously, I stuck to The Beatles, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and other classic rock acts, as well as picking up some early They Might Be Giants records, but this was a great time to be getting new music.  (Still, I'm somewhat embarrassed that the Cure's Wish album was (I think) my first new CD to purchase.)  The new alternative, or modern, or whatever, artists that were popping up were way more interesting to me than the Guns N' Roseses that came before.  I kind of think that "Rain" would have fit well in this 90's revival, with its sonic experimentation and trippy feel.  Goes to show how timeless the Beatles music is.

1994: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Speaking of timeless, the lyric "well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane" could easily have followed after "in the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey" (if only it rhymed).  For some reason, in this song, more so than "I am the Walrus," Lennon really impressed me with his ability to string together crazy but incredible lyrics and bridge multiple musical styles.

1995: From Me to You
1996: She Loves You
Several things were happening in '95 and '96.  First off, I carpooled to school with my neighbor Kirk, who had Live at the BBC in his regular rotation (along with Let It Be and Weezer's debut album).  The BBC album had a little 30 second snippet called "From Us to You," which turned me on to "From Me to You."  Also, I wrote my junior year term paper on the Beatles, so I became very acquainted with the quality of their early stuff.  Finally, the Beatles Anthology came out for television and CD, so that also had a broadening effect on the Beatles stuff I was listening to.

1997-1998: The Long and Winding Road
I bought the Anthology 3 CDs when they came out in October of 1996 and played them almost constantly in my dorm room.  This song stood out because I was pretty indifferent about the Let It Be version but couldn't believe how good the Althology version was.

1999-2001: Hey Bulldog
This one was always in the mix, but I definitely played it into the ground after the Yellow Submarine songtrack was released.

2002: Paperback Writer
At some point I determined that "Paperback Writer" was the quintessential Beatles song.  Not even sure what that means.  I guess coming from the middle of their career and having great harmonies and guitar parts figured prominently in that determination.  I suppose I should have picked "Day Tripper" as the prototypical Beatles track because it's from around the same time period and is written about half by John and about half by Paul.  But I still like "Paperback Writer" better.

2003-2004: Here Comes the Sun
I don't think this has ever been outside my top five Beatles songs.  If "Paperback Writer" is the quintessential Beatles song, then "Here Comes the Sun" is the Platonic ideal for a pop/rock song.

2005: The Long and Winding Road
I went back and looked up a Top 75 Beatles Songs list I did in 2005 and was somewhat surprised to find this song back at the top.  I think it has something to do with picking up Let It Be...Naked around this time.

2006-2008: Two of Us
This one has a lot to do with the lovely lady standing above this text and in front of the Roman ruins. "Two of Us" is another song that was always a favorite but got some added attention when I met Brandi.  It became one of our songs, and in addition to playing it and singing it together on numerous car trips, we put it on our wedding CD that I played in my car pretty contstantly for a while.

2009: Hey Bulldog
This song has sort of become my default favorite Beatles song, on account of it being so great.  My anticipation of The Beatles: Rock Band probably has something to do with this one being on my mind of late, as it is, in my opinion, the perfect Beatles song to transfer into the Rock Band format.

From 1991, when I spent hours recording songs off my dad's records to make a mix tape for family car trips, to 1997, when I bought an Abbey Road poster to put up in my dorm room, to 2001, when I made sure the turntable I purchased was capable of playing the White Album backwards, to 2006, when my girlfriend of a few weeks knew enough about my Beatles fanaticism to buy me a bootlegged Let It Be DVD, Beatles memories have definitely been woven throughout my life.  To date, only two of the above twelve songs have been confirmed as being on The Beatles: Rock Band track list.  Oh, how nice it would be to see a "Hey Bulldog" or a "Rain" creep in there!

The Beatles: Rock Band: Thinking about the final twenty songs

As of yesterday,  the list of known tracks on the disc for The Beatles: Rock Band has ballooned to 25, after having been stuck at 10 since June 1.  This means there are only 20 tracks remaining, a very exciting sign of how close the game is to being released but a little sobering for anyone with a laundry list of songs they would like to appear in the game.  While yesterday's announcement brought the extremely welcome news of songs like "Eight Days a Week," "Paperback Writer," "And Your Bird Can Sing," and "I've Got a Feeling," it also created less room for gems like "This Boy," "Hey Bulldog," and "Happiness is a Warm Gun."  To give myself a better idea of what the final 20 might look like, I created a few different scenarios, subject to a few simplifying assumptions.  I created a best case (in my opinion), likely, and worst case scenario, and the good news is that all three options, combined with the songs we already know, look really good.  Even the worst case (which I populated with some well-known songs to keep it somewhat realistic) is looking pretty good.   

Here are my assumptions:

• Each of the five venues will have a total of five songs.  That means that of the final 20, two will be in the Cavern Club, two at Ed Sullivan, three at Shea Stadium, one at Budokan, and two on the rooftop of Apple headquarters. 


• With "Get Back," "Dig a Pony," and "I've Got a Feeling" already announced, it sure looks like they're setting up a historically accurate rooftop concert.  This means that the final two songs for that venue will be "Don't Let Me Down" and "One After 909."


• Songs should feature vocals, guitar, bass, and drums.


• There should be a mix of lead singers and albums, though the lone remaining spot at Budokan made it tough to include Rubber Soul tracks.


• For the worst case scenario, the idea was not to pick my least favorite songs but songs that, by and large, pushed out something I would have wanted more.  Creating a list consisting of "Revolution 9," "Her Majesty," "Wild Honey Pie," "A Taste of Honey," and "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" would have been pretty meaningless. 

Best case:

Please Please Me (Cavern Club)
From Me To You (Cavern Club)

She Loves You (Ed Sullivan)
This Boy (Ed Sullivan)

A Hard Day's Night (Shea Stadium)
Help! (Shea Stadium)
I'm Down (Shea Stadium)

If I Needed Someone (Budokan)

We Can Work It Out (Dreamscape)
Drive My Car (Dreamscape)
Nowhere Man (Dreamscape)
Rain (Dreamscape)
Strawberry Fields Forever (Dreamscape)
Happiness is a Warm Gun (Dreamscape)
Helter Skelter (Dreamscape)
Savoy Truffle (Dreamscape)
Hey Bulldog (Dreamscape)
Come Together (Dreamscape)

One After 909 (Rooftop)
Don't Let Me Down (Rooftop)

Likely:

Please Please Me (Cavern Club)
From Me to You (Cavern Club)

All My Loving (Ed Sullivan)
She Loves You (Ed Sullivan)

A Hard Day's Night (Shea Stadium)
Help! (Shea Stadium)
I'm Down (Shea Stadium)

Nowhere Man (Budokan)

Rain (Dreamscape)
Got to Get You Into My Life (Dreamscape)
Sgt. Pepper's (Reprise)/A Day in the Life (Dreamscape)
Hello Goodbye (Dreamscape)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Dreamscape)
Helter Skelter (Dreamscape)
Hey Bulldog (Dreamscape)
Come Together (Dreamscape)
Let It Be (Dreamscape)

One After 909 (Rooftop)
Don't Let Me Down (Rooftop)

Worst case (really a misnomer; I like so many of these songs):

Love Me Do (Cavern Club)
Money (That's What I Want) (Cavern Club)

All My Loving (Ed Sullivan)
Act Naturally (Ed Sullivan)

Ticket to Ride (Shea Stadium)
Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby (Shea Stadium)
She's a Woman (Shea Stadium)

She Said She Said (Budokan)

Doctor Robert (Dreamscape)
I Want to Tell You (Dreamscape)
When I'm Sixty-Four (Dreamscape)
Blue Jay Way (Dreamscape)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps [I just think this one has to be in the game] (Dreamscape)
Why Don't We Do It In the Road? (Dreamscape)
Yer Blues (Dreamscape)
Helter Skelter [See "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"] (Dreamscape)
Come Together [See "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"] (Dreamscape)
The Ballad of John and Yoko (Dreamscape)

One After 909 (Rooftop)
Don't Let Me Down (Rooftop)

Enter Sandmen

 

 

Here are a few pictures to show off the start of our latest home project, our kitchen renovations. First, we had new countertops installed. The pictures make it difficult to see the true colors but it is a really nice swirl of deep brown, cream and bits of black. We also got a new faucet and deeper sink! We knew we wanted to do something with the cabinets but as soon as the countertop installation was completed, they started to look more orange and outdated.  We decided to sand and stain the cabinets darker (rosewood) to better compliment our new countertops. When we were halfway through I decided to take a few pictures to show the contrast between the old and new cabinet color.

 

It was the weekend of Father’s Day when we decided to start the kitchen and we put my dad to work! Mom couldn’t make it this time, so my dad came up to help us get started on this big project. My brother, Dad, Daniel and I started sanding at 3pm on Saturday and decided to take a break over hamburgers and beer late that evening. Steven, Jerome and Laura came over to visit that night and we were exhausted. It was so hot and we all wondered aloud why we didn’t tackle this project in the winter. Do not try this at home (especially in June/July) unless you are prepared to have your kitchen a mess for a few weeks, like to sweat, and enjoy eating sawdust!! I’ll admit it is more work than we thought.

 

 

 

With all of our weekend travel I am not sure how long it will take us to finish the top half. Once the staining is completed we will be learning how to install a tiled backsplash. Any tips you have, Internet, on making our next and last project as painless as possible we would appreciate. We just have to learn to be patient with the mess as we are living with our kitchen contents on the dining room table for now. I would say end of July would be our goal. Stay turned to see completed pictures of our kitchen, and once we are finished with that, we’ll be moving on to the master bath for our last big project on this house before we invite our realtor over!  

 

Six Flags, Four Hooves, and the Arlington Nine

For my birthday we met my family in Dallas for a weekend of theme parks, ballgames, and horse racing.  We got a great deal on the Arlington Hilton and made it up there on Thursday night, where Brandi and I promptly went swimming.  It lasted all of about ten minutes as the water was very cold and the hot tub, which we quickly switched to, displayed a penchant for throwing water all over the place.

Our first stop on Friday morning was Fuel City, which Texas Monthly has given the distinction of the best taco in Texas (the picadillo).  We all had breakfast tacos at the giant gas station that looks up at Interstates 3o and 35 while sitting in our cars since strangely enough there wasn't any seating, and a couple of us had the picadillo, which was nice and spicy.   Four of us, my dad, Alicia, Brandi, and I, then went to Six Flags.

Six Flags is suffering from a serious case of theme confusion.  Originally, Six Flags was organized according to the six flags over Texas---there was a section for France, Spain, Mexico, the Old South, Texas, and the United States.  Now we have all six of the original sections plus Gotham City, which I think doesn't exist in the same sense as those other places.  Also, there's an affiliation with Looney Tunes, so there's always a chance you'll see Wonder Woman walking past Porky Pig.

We started out with the Runaway Mine Train, which is kind of the classic roller coaster for me.  Then we did a lame river ride where you have to capture a paint-chipped old timey animatronic Yosemite Sam, the Titan, with its giant drops and intense speeds, and the Texas Giant, which is like a cross between ridinig a giant wooden roller coaster and running the gauntlet.  We left that one feeling bruised and battered; I kind of thought it was fun, but I was pretty much alone.  After lunch, Brandi and I rode the Batman ride, which leaves your feet dangling as you go upside down, and I tried the three-point shooting contest.  You get four shots from each of three different spots, which, with a money ball on each rack, gives you a possible total of 15 points.  I got six only after sinking my final three shots and won a UT basketball.

We met my dad's sister and much of her family at the Rangers game that evening.  My aunt and uncle, Martha and Ralph, showed up with my cousin Monica and her husband, my cousin David and his wife, my cousin Maria and her husband, my cousin Jon and his girlfriend, my cousin Anne, about 8 or so little kids, and about a billion hot dogs. They even have four more kids that weren't able to be at the game. It was great to be with them as they were one of the reasons we decided to do a trip to Dallas.

The game was a 6-0 shutout with a Beach Boys-themed fireworks display after.  And the wind was crazy!  There was more trash blowing around on the field than I've ever seen.

Saturday for my birthday lunch we went to Sonny Bryan's, a great, tiny, old smokehouse in Dallas that is in my top 5 of all time BBQ joints.  We had their great brisket sandwiches and onion rings in their little desks and then made our way to the race track.  I made everybody place at least $10 in bets, and the person who netted the greatest amount on their first $10 in bets would receive a prize pack, concocted earlier that morning during Brandi's and my morning jog and conveniently put together at the 7-11 half a mile from our hotel.  Cristina, who was going with her heart and picking the best horse names, hit on an 11 to 1 underdog for the win, so she won easily at $23.40 on a $2 bet.  My parents and Alicia got back between $3 and $7, and Brandi and I lost all of ours.  Let's just say that a $2 trifecta box is a colossally stupid idea.

We found a nice Mexican restaurant called Avila's for dinner---we thought we were going to a place I had discovered online, but I forgot the name and brought us to a restaurant contained in a smallish house, but still good.  We went back to the hotel and played some crazy word-making card game of Alicia's to finish off the night.

On Sunday after church we had lunch at i Fratelli, where my cousin David is the manager, and headed on our separate ways, Brandi and I to Austin and my parents and sisters to Houston. My birthday was a fun, family-filled weekend that included not only Six Flags but included a tribute to the Beatles with gifts of the Cirque du Soliel performance of Love and funds towards my anxiously-awaited purchase of The Beatles: Rock Band.

Exploring Cajun Culture

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/Lafayette

 

So I’ve been meaning to write a post about our trip on the last weekend of April, but the last several weeks have been busily filled with old friends and renovations. I celebrated Cinco De Mayo at Z Tejas with Andrea, Anna, and Laura—we worked together at Keller Williams became close in a short time. I also went to Cover 3 for a XHHH (which refers to a happy hour with my girls I remain friends with even after all of us have since left Holt, Rinehart and Winston—hence the X). We even have more to share about our fun Memorial Day weekend in our next post. And lastly, we are knee deep in home renovations this spring. Our early May project was for Daniel to hang dry wall to finish out the garage and hang shelves and hooks for all of gardening and yard tools. The most recent is staining the bathroom cabinet to complete the half bath renovation we started earlier in the spring.

So the last Thursday in April I called my parents on the way home from the Hilton after the end of the close of Masterminds (one of my events I manage for KW) to see if they were on board with going to Louisiana for the weekend. When Daniel and I went to Jasper during Easter weekend we talked about crawfish season. Since we decided to split up our Easter weekend with both families it meant I wasn’t going to get to go to the crawfish boil at Memaw’s so we mentioned how it would be great to get back to Louisiana again. Both of my parents have family in Louisiana, and Dwight Breaux, my Mom’s cousin, owns a restaurant known for delicious crawfish, Cajun dishes and barbeque on Sundays. Somehow we ended up with a tentative plan four weeks ago, and the planner in me had been anxiously awaiting the confirmation that the trip was a go. I had talked to my mom  several times and by Thursday night my parents were finally ready to commit—Whew! I only had one day to unpack from staying downtown for a week, wash clothes, book the hotel and research some museums in the Lafayette area. Much to my parents enjoyment I was a little wound up! Since my Mom and Dad can kind of roll with ideas and remain fairly spontaneous they think my planner tendencies are curious and funny!

Friday night when Daniel got home from work I had us packed and ready to leave for Jasper. We spent the night in Jasper and then drove to Vidor to pick up my mother’s sister and my Dad’s stepmother; our entire family lovingly refers to her as Memaw. We had great car rides all around with good stories about farming from my Memaw and my parents chiming in on how different life was 40 years ago. And soon, we arrived in Lafayette. We had seen a couple of Acadian Museums online and decided to go to St. Martinville. It is the 6th oldest city in Louisiana and is where many deported families first arrived from Acadia. Acadia is in Nova Scotia and is where many of the French decided to sail to so that they could start a better life for their families. The museum had a great narrative of people of color in Louisiana (slaves and Creoles) as well as the history and culture of the Acadians---I never knew that the term “Cajun” is taken from “Acadian”!  On Saturday afternoon we went to Iris and JC’s house to visit, as that is where my mom’s uncle Dallas lives now. We had a good time and he is looking remarkably good for his 101 years of age!

Then we went to our hotel.  Daniel picked out the hotel, and he made it painfully obvious why he should always leave the travel arrangements to me.  The Lafayette Crown Plaza was undergoing some renovations, and they’re obviously still getting their stuff together.  The woman at the counter tried to claim my dad’s credit card didn’t work, and when we got to our rooms they had not been cleaned and looked like a rock band had stayed the night there---they were absolutely trashed!  The second set of rooms had no televisions, but the third set of rooms were just right!

Dwight’s restaurant is one of Lafayette’s hot spots for crawfish, and he treated us to a great meal.  I really loved the charbroiled oysters, which were served topped with cheese and in cooked on the grill in their shells.  The crawfish were great---Dwight’s even has holes in the middle of the tables with buckets underneath to easily discard your carcasses.  We caught up on family stories and met with the whole family, including Maverick and Mary, and Suzie and Dwight’s daughters Brandi and Chelsea.  After dinner Dwight showed us around his kitchen.  He has some great innovations for transporting, sorting, and cooking his crawfish and other foods.  He even has one woman whose only job is to shell all the smaller crawfish for etouffee and other dishes.

On Sunday, we went to early Mass and then headed out to the Acadian village.  They had numerous houses that showed how people of the late 18th and early 19th century lived, as well as some of their belongings.  We think that my great grandmother’s spinning wheel is among the donated items that are featured in the village, but unfortunately we couldn’t figure out which one it was.

We had lunch at Dwight’s---his Sunday barbeque is a buffet line that you can either take out or eat in the restaurant.  I had some really good etouffee, and I also had some of Daniel’s ribs and sausage, which he thought were really tasty. He’s kind of BBQ connoisseur.

Our trip to Lafayette was a great mix of food, family, and history.  We hope to have more trips like it very soon!

The Minnesota Maxes

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/MinnesotaApril2009#

Texans should be forgiven for harboring a little resentment toward the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  After all, when Adam and Jenny Max left Austin for Minneapolis in the summer of 2005, it broke up the one-hit wonder known as Ausbats.  I had a homeschool conference in St. Paul last weekend, so it gave Brandi and me an opportunity to go pay them a visit.

Brandi and I got to their house late Saturday afternoon and got immediately acquainted with their two children Owen and Audrey.  Now, saying these kids are cute is kind of like saying that Ben Sheets is a dubious guy to take in the 15th round of your fantasy baseball draft.  (Quick aside...Adam and I had our fantasy draft Thursday night for Adam's "B" league, and it was poorly attended.  There were two humans and eight automatons, but with the errors Adam and I made using the draft software, it might actually have been better to be on autodraft.)   Owen is really into throwing things, so he and I got along swimmingly, even if he was a bit bashful to begin with.  And Audrey crawls all over the place!  It's hard to believe that the last time I was in Minnesota, Jenny was about five months pregnant with Owen and I had, just the week before, had a really bad second date with a girl I'd met earlier in the year.

On Saturday evening we had some pizza and played Taboo down in the basement.   We also played some Wii Sports.  Brandi and I brought our Miis all the way from Austin, which ended up being a lot of fun.  I set a new record in Home Run Derby and stormed out of the dugout like George Brett when Adam declared my home run swing to be illegal.  And the Lauves got plastered by the Maxes in the first four-person game of video tennis any of us had played.

On Sunday we started off at Edina Grill, which has some of the best French toast I've ever had.  Then we went sledding--remarkably, a few inches of snow fell overnight, and even though it started melting before noon, it gave us a nice window to take a couple sleds down the hill.  Brandi had never been sledding before, so I really enjoyed seeing her take it all in.  Later, Adam and I had a rousing game of Wii Game Party while the ladies went shopping.

Then we all met up at General Mills headquarters.  We got to see all the different mascots, the Betty Crocker Mixer show that Jenny is working on, and the experimental cereals that are about to hit store shelves.  I won't ruin the surprise, but suffice it to say that gummy bears and peanut butter make an excellent combination!

Every chance we got to play with the kids was a blast.  Owen's a rambunctious kid who enjoyed intentionally tripping while running around the house, and Audrey is very talented at putting everything in the house inside her mouth.  Adam, Jenny, and Brandi think she may be teething.  Owen and I remain on the sidelines of the teething debate, awaiting more evidence.

For dinner Jenny and Brandi made chicken breasts with a tomatillo sauce, along with rice and vegetables.  It was so great getting to catch up with a couple people who were such a huge part of the two years I spent in business school.  Our lives have all changed in huge ways, but it was great to know that we still have so much in common.

On Monday morning we said goodbye to the Maxes, got checked in for our flight, and headed off to the Mall of America.  We rode the SpongeBob Rock Bottom Plunge, and Brandi visited lots of...get this...clothing stores!  If you took the roller coasters out of the Mall of America, what you'd have is basically a collection of stores under one roof connected by escalators and featuring a food court.

Beatles Rock Band Wish List

Could September 9 seem any farther away?  A hundred sixty-five days is a long time to wait for a lot of things, but it seems especially long to have to wait for the release of the Beatles Rock Band video game.  Personally, I'm waiting to make the Beatles game my first Rock Band purchase so I can have the Beatles peripherals, so the agony is compounded by seeing bunches of tantalizing downloadable content being released for the existing Rock Band games.  The game is rumored to contain 45 Beatles tracks, so I figure that's enough to build a wish list from.  Here we go, from most wanted to least wanted:

1)  Hey Bulldog:  I’m pleased to see this one show up on more than a couple wish lists.  It’s not the most well-known Beatles song, but it was pretty much made for the Rock Band format.  Fun to sing, great guitar parts, perfect.
2)  Please Please Me:  This is maybe the only pre-Rubber Soul track that’s an absolute must for me.  This song should come with lockable content: if you master it, you get to stop hearing about how fascinated the boys were with the double meaning of the word “please.”
3)  Revolution:  I’m looking for the live version where they add in the “shoo be doo wop” from Revolution 1.
4)  Paperback Writer:  The desperate pleadings of a wannabe artist.  Sounds pretty appropriate for the format.
5)  Happiness is a Warm Gun:  I, too, am well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane.
6)  Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End:  Everybody gets a solo.
7)  Back in the U.S.S.R.:  If you’re playing with anyone under the age of 20 or so, they might ask you what a “U.S.S.R.” is.  And they probably won’t get the whole Beach Boys thing.
8)  Helter Skelter:  There’s definitely a difference between listening to music and playing music.  Nobody has this as his favorite Beatles song, but plenty of people have this as their most wanted Rock Band track.
9)  Don’t Let Me Down:  My roof’s a little steep, but I’ll give it a shot.
10)  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band:  The only problem with this one is it’s so short.
11)  Help!:  Several of these songs are screaming for backup vocals.  I hope that’s somehow an option.
12)  And Your Bird Can Sing:  This is Brandi’s #1 choice.
13)  Rain:  Playing the last verse backwards is the toughest part.
14)  I Want You (She’s So Heavy):  At over seven and a half minutes, it might require an intermission.
15)  Nowhere Man:  This list is getting very Lennon-centric.
16)  She Loves You:  Other than Revolution, there might not be another song I’d be more surprised to see omitted from the list.
17)  I’ve Got A Feeling:  This is another one that’s not one of my favorites to listen to, but I would love to play it.
18)  A Hard Day’s Night:  From what I’ve read about the Beatles Rock Band game, it sounds like there’s going to be a chronological progression from the early years to Abbey Road.  It makes sense—when you break up the early songs, the guitar/drums/vocal parts don’t seem as complicated.  This one does have a tricky guitar solo, though.
19)  Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam/She Came in Through the Bathroom Window:  Hopefully they count this as one track.
20)  Here Comes the Sun:  Even though this is one of my absolute favorite Beatles songs, I may be less enthusiastic about playing this one because I’ve tried it on guitar and failed miserably.
21)  From Me to You: Please be forgiving on the falsetto.
22)  I Feel Fine:  This one has been rumored to be on the real list.  I hope it’s true.
23)  I Am the Walrus:  Enough guitar?
24)  Octopus’s Garden:  This one has two vocal modes: easy and easier.
25)  Savoy Truffle:  Unlockable content: images of crazy sounding British sweets.
26)  Come Together:  This may be the first game that makes you want to play the bass.
27)  Taxman:  Should be a pretty safe bet that this one’s in.
28)  Drive My Car:  This one, too, seems to be a natural fit.  Come to think of it, pretty much all the opening tracks to the various albums would work pretty well.
29)  I’m Down:  Play the drums with your elbows.  There’s rumored to be a Shea Stadium part, so this song would seem to have a place there.
30)  It Won’t Be Long:  A very underrated song.
31)  We Can Work It Out:  Doing a Beatles version of Rock Band brings up so many questions, like, Will the vocal allow (require) you to sing both the Paul part and the John part?
32)  One After 909:  The Let It Be album is going to fare pretty well in this format.
33)  Oh! Darling:  Another piano-centric track I hope they can somehow make work.
34)  It’s All Too Much:  Possible I’m alone on this one.
35)  Sexy Sadie:  One of several that could be an American Idol track.  Forget the instruments, I just wanna sing it.
36)  I Want to Hold Your Hand:  Unlockable content: the digital Ed Sullivan.  Really big shoe.
37)  Strawberry Fields Forever:  Might want to use one of the Anthology versions.
38)  Eight Days a Week:  First song to fade in at the beginning.
39)  If I Needed Someone:  Probably the earliest example of great Harrison songwriting.
40)  Norwegian Wood:  Fans who are asking for a sitar to come included are probably setting themselves for disappointment, but I think they’ve got the right idea.
41)  Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey:  Rock Band might really cause me to re-evaluate side 3 of the White Album.
42)  Birthday:  As hard as it is to rock out to “Happy Birthday to You” (save for Helter Skelter, this is about as edgy as Paul gets), I think this one would be fun.
43)  Old Brown Shoe:  Haven’t heard this one mentioned—I wouldn’t mind seeing it.
44)  Tell Me Why:  Here’s a problem with going chronologically: some of the early Lennon songs wreak the most havoc on the vocal cords.  Anybody without a healthy appetite for yell singing shouldn’t be in the room when I’m attempting this one.
45)  While My Guitar Gently Weeps:  I’m not as crazy about this one as most people, but you can count on it making the cut.

Looking forward to Spring

February is a kind of a tough month for me. I am usually ready for winter to be over by the time it rolls around. I start to really miss the sun and the long days of summer. It is also the month for Family Reunion, which if you know me than you have heard of it--it is the largest Keller Williams event of the year. I spent eight days in Orlando for the convention, and while it was a lot of work and exhausting, it was the best Family Reunion (out of the five) I've been to!

February was a little more difficult this year because my mother's Mom passed away on February 10. We were blessed to have Mama for 96 years, but as a friend put it so succinctly, no matter how long you get to have your family on this earth it still hurts when they leave. Still my heart is full from all of the family and friends that showed their love that week with flowers, special cards, prayers, visits, and donations to the cancer society in her name.

Obituary link:

 http://www.broussardsmortuary.com/services.asp?page=odetail&id=5335

On the day she died, I sat down and wrote this letter as a tribute to her and as my way of saying goodbye. I also thought what better way to honor her than to share my memories with all of you. Thank you for reading!

What did you dream of as you were going home? 

Were you thinking of cotton fields and horse drawn carriages? Or of the days when you made cush-cush with corn bread, or pumped your own water? Were your last thoughts in English or French? Maybe you were remembering the grandfather I never had the chance to know.

 

Or maybe you thought about when your family first owned a car, or when you moved from Louisiana to Texas. Maybe it was thoughts of electricity and running water. Or maybe about the last phone you saw that was much smaller than just the receiver of the one you first owned. That reminds me of the roll of paper by the old phone in your kitchen that all of your grandkids unrolled when we came over to write on and prove that we were here.

 

Did you dream of all the places you went in your long life? You were always active, from your family in Louisiana to your trips to Hawaii and Florida. Through most of your days you were never afraid to go anywhere by yourself or talk to anyone that you met. You were one of those grandmothers who talked to anyone who listened about her experiences or family.

 

Did you think of your children? You had four daughters, Audrey, Melva, Ena and Connie, and their children and children’s children, that you left your legacy of hard work and determination with each of them. It was never in your nature to give up (some call that stubborn, others call it survival). You, along with my grandfather, came up with ways to barter and create a living for your family through farms, cotton fields and building houses. Yours was a tough life, and I never heard you complain. That just wasn’t what you did with the life God gave you.

 

Did you dream of the beautiful flowers in your garden? I think of the day lilies and the crepe myrtles that are in so many of our Easter pictures from my childhood. You tended your yard well into your late years which in turn kept you healthy and thriving like the flowers and vegetables in a row. Allof your children and grandchildren would catch a glimpse of your work when fetching the key to the house (under the ice chest in the green house around back) that remained a silent reminder that the door was always open. I can still hear the screen door slam shut as we entered the old house on Duff Drive. Did you hear it?

 

More importantly, did you hear Jesus calling you home to be with him and all the loved ones that went before you? Like Ruby Arceneaux, hers was the first funeral I ever attended, did she call you in? Your friends over the years that you outlived in your good health, your sisters and brothers, your daughters' husbands, Winston and Melvin, and Michael and his sweet daughter, Haley. And of course Mr. Melancon is there too. Was my Mother’s  Daddy waiting patiently to have you join him in a new and everlasting peace?

 

We won’t know what you dreamed of as you were going home until we join you, and we are so grateful that your journey with us has come to a close so that you can be with our Lord today, tomorrow, and for eternity. We love you MaMa.   

 

Full House

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/DownstairsBathroom

This past weekend we finished the first of several projects on the house. We started the renovation of the half bath before my parents arrived this weekend, and their visit was timely as we ran into a snag with the installing of the new light fixture. My dad, who I always think knows everything about houses though he begs to differ, really pulled us through the rough spot! Daniel did a super job of patching the hole left by the 80’s boxed-in fluorescent light, which was our first tape and float project. Can you tell I’m really proud? Together we did a great job of priming, texturing, and painting the small room. I must say I never expected to hug one of my toilets sober, but how else do you paint behind them? Not to point fingers, but it certainly isn’t going to be the one of us who is over six foot tall.


We had a fun weekend otherwise with Mom, Dad and Brent (who is still living at the house), but I’m afraid I have no pictures to share, so a picture of a margarita will have to do.  We consumed lots of Mexican martinis and margaritas, which is my Dad’s favorite. We played several games on the Wii, which included a rather one-sided round of me playing the new American Idol game that Daniel bought me. (My family claims that they don’t know where my performance bug came from, although I remember going to family reunions when I was little and my Dad’s mother’s side of the family would play instruments and sing songs all afternoon.) I am not the one of us who has sung karaoke most recently, so Daniel did sing at least one song Friday night. Everyone else joined in on bowling, boxing, and Scattergories.

We did our usual run together on Saturday, and for some reason my Dad had to coax Daniel and me into finishing three miles. Daniel and Dad shared the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and all of the guys enjoyed a Sunday afternoon of football together while Mom and I snuck out for some shopping and talking. The parents left Monday, and we enjoyed the end of our three-day weekend by finishing the half-bathroom! Next on the house updates list is the upstairs guest bath and the kitchen…

Family Time

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/SanAntonioJanuary2009

On January 3rd this year Daniel and I drove to San Antonio for the day to meet with his mom’s uncle, Evaristo. He lives in Mexico City and just bought a house in San Antonio, so we may get to see him more often. We ate lunch with Daniel’s parents, Evaristo, his daughter’s family, and Evaristo’s sister---Daniel’s grandmother, Sara. At one point during the meal Saralicia, Evaristo’s daughter, made the comment that her dad was one of her favorite people! That definitely hit home with me. They were so kind and warm (lots of hugs and kisses), and I think we were invited to visit them more than once. I hope one day soon we will go to Mexico for a visit. I had a wonderful time getting to know them and enjoyed meeting Daniel’s extended family. Click on the picture above to see more from our visit!

Christmas 2008

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/Christmas2008

This year we left for our Christmas travels on Monday night, December 20th and arrived at Teresa and Roger's house to stay the night with them to break up our trip and get to share a little love with the Salinas family. Although the visit was brief, it is always good to see my cuz and her family!

Our first Christmas of 2008 began with another exciting round of Reindeer Rally.  After last year's scavenger hunt through Katy Mills Mall, we knew we were going to have different teams, and we weren't sure what the format was going to be.  It ended up being another scavenger hunt, this time through the main outdoor shopping section of Sugar Land.  This time around, Brandi was with Diana and I [Daniel] was with my mom.  I was looking forward to getting to be on a team with my mom because she had had a very stressful few days with school ending up, Christmas shopping and wrapping, and with ongoing new house issues.  Also, her last place finish in 2007 meant that she was primed for a huge bounce back.

And what a bounce back it was.  We were out of the gates quickly along with many other teams, and having fewer tasks to complete meant that speed in getting from place to place could mean the difference between first and second.  My mom and I were consistently getting to the stores after Alicia and Cecilia, so for one of the final tasks, going to the cigar store and having your picture taken pretending to smoke a cigar, I decided to cut a little corner.  With Alicia and Cecilia inside the store, I stopped outside the front door, stuck a pen in my mouth and took a picture, retaking a slim lead that we did not relinquish.  Multiple teams complained that I had to leave my mom too far behind (the rules explicitly say that teams need to stay together) to accomplish this, and they may be right.  I did tell my mom that we needed to stay together when she kept telling me to run ahead, but there were times when I did get a little bit past her.  The judges awarded us first, but I guess history will be the ultimate judge.  After Reindeer Rally, we went back to my grandmother's house to open presents to and from the Neelys.

This is Brandi and I won't go into all the things that Daniel did to "help" his mom win because it will make me sound like a sore loser. :-) Anyway, we had a lot of fun just like last time and it really is a great way to spend time with family members you may not always get enough one on one time with. Again we owe all of the creativity and planning to Diana--she did a great job!

Some of my favorite parts of Christmas Eve were our run in the rain that morning, the little child singing at Children's Mass who sang "Happy Bir-day Jesus, I'm so glad it's Cwris-mas" that was almost too cute to bear, visiting Daniel's Grandad and being hit on by Rachel, a woman in her late 70's that is also a patient at the Silverado Home, seeing the beautiful new house Linden and Lisa will living in soon and having dinner with the Lauves as a family.

You might be wondering about Rachel but most importantly she is harmless. I learned my lesson that I must wear pants to visit his grandad, unless I want my "smooth and silky" legs to be felt up again.

Christmas morning we got up and found our presents from Santa!! Daniel got a Wii, which I think he was pretty excited about (he's playing Wii golf as I write this) and I got a scrapbook supplies carousel organizer which I've been wanting for awhile plus lots of stuffers in our stocking. We had a great time visiting with and dressing like the girls in Christmas PJs Lisa bought us all, singing to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You", playing Reindeer Rally, and talking about "White Christmas" the movie and the White Christmases the Lauves have had. We also were treated to Daniel doing his annual telling of Twas the Cheesy Animatronic Baby Elephant at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

We left the Lauves house mid morning and headed to my Memaw's for lunch. There were lots of people and it turned out to be a great time to visit with all my extended family. I usually see them all about 4 or 5 times a year. This year we made calendars on Shutterfly for our families as Christmas presents. I think Daniel's side of the family turned out the best--with over 70 important dates on my families it left a lot of room for error. Everyone liked it and I can't wait to do another one for my Memaw next year!

For the remainder of our Christmas we opened presents my parents and brother that night, Daniel got sick with a fever, Dad and I got some good runs in, we enjoyed Mom's good cooking, and we had fun playing games and watching movies. We got some great gifts too, like a Chi iron for me and laptop cooler for Daniel.

To round out our Christmas travels, we ended with a visit to the Comeaux's in Port Neches on Sunday night. We opened presents with Kaylin and Madison, and Amber and Jed cooked for us. Amber's parents, Rodney and Shirley, came over and visited with us too. Their family has always been a part of my Christmas season, and I appreciated Daniel putting up with my travel tour of southeast Texas.

After all of our Christmases, I have to say though one of my very favorite gifts I found in my stocking at Daniel's grandmother's house. You may read the sonnet he wrote me that describes each month in our first 12 months together as husband and wife:

From last September's joyful promise said
A fortnight's bookends: Islands, Broadway plays
The turkey's end to pigskin triumph led
A Reindeer Rally hunt through Katy's maze

A hoop, a cap, a Nunez yule five strong
We raced and raced to close the seventh book
The monuments and blossoms flew along
A guest foretold the hit our pantry took

A mic, guitar and drums kept us awake
The sweetest cake I've had, though peaches lacked
Great lake's and gulf's shores gave us family breaks
The hilly Human Race we both attacked

To ancient boot, the hub of Western life
I long to see more places with my wife.

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season in 2008 and are praying that all of you in internet land have a blessed year in 2009! We look forward to our paths crossing soon in the year to come.