This event would have made great fodder for a doctoral thesis in American sociology, but we’ll save that commentary for another time. Here are a few images from last night’s premiere of the new X-Men movie.
Hugh Jackman
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Ryan Reynolds
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Liev Schreiber
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Lynn Collins
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Taylor Kitsch
Twice each year, the NASCAR nation invades Avondale, Arizona, making it, overnight, the third or fourth largest city in the state. It is a sight to behold. Fleets of 18 wheelers bring in cars, crew, equipment, tires, and the many other assets required to put on the show. Everything about the enterprise is big: huge engines, capacity crowds, ear-splitting noise, outsized egos, piles of money.
I love going to these races. Power, danger, speed. And the closer you get to the track, the more of a rush it is. This past weekend I found a spot on the straightaway from which to shoot that put me about a foot and a half from the cars screaming past. When a large group went by, it was all I could do to keep from being blown over. The sound, even with earplugs in, was deafening. It was one of those laugh out loud, what a rush experiences. Here are a few of the images from the weekend:
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My friend Stephen is a native of New Orleans, although he hasn’t lived there since he finished his first graduate degree. Recently, however, he was asked to write the screen adaptation of Walker Percy’s novel The Moviegoer, which is set in New Orleans, so he decided to rent a house in the Garden District while he finishes the screenplay. Having never been to New Orleans I, of course, invited myself for a visit, from which I have just returned. I fell in love with the city. It has been knocked down pretty hard in the years since Katrina and still has a long way to go before it is fully recovered, but it is nonetheless still a beautiful, exotic city. Here are a couple of images from the trip.
Lake Pontchartrain late in the afternoon.
An egret nesting in Audubon Park.
The Oak Alley Plantation in Lutcher, Louisiana
The Hale Boggs Bridge over the Mississippi River near Luling, Louisiana
I don’t know which came first – the cemetery or the Dow Chemical St. Charles plant. Hahnville, Louisiana.
Stephen, hard at work.
Over the course of the past couple of years, downtown Chandler, Arizona has undergone a renaissance of sorts. New restaurants, art galleries, a monthly art walk, and events like the annual Chandler Jazz Festival, which took place over this weekend. For a once rinky-dink little town, Chandler is starting to feel almost…… cool.
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I have been blessed to have great children in my life. Five fabulous nieces and nephews and a stepson who is both brilliant and kind. The oldest of that generation is my niece Colby, who will be graduating from high school in a couple of months. She has worked incredibly hard over the years, both in school and in her extracurricular activities, and was recently rewarded for her efforts by being admitted to every college and university to which she applied. Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, Duke and Georgia Tech. What’s a girl to do? She was recently in Arizona for a decompression visit after the craziness of application season and we had a chance to grab a few photos during a quick trip up to the Grand Canyon. Here she is:
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