Well, last night turned out to be interesting. Even driving into Ann Arbor was interesting. The western edge of hurricaine Ivan was about a mile west of our house, and the northern edge was about five miles from our house, near the intersection of the two freeways, US23 and I94. So the huge swirl of clouds in the sky was fascinating to see. Like seeing the edge of a big gray plate curving across the sky. It was like a knife edge, the hurricaine spiral and the blue, cloudless sky to the west and north...

We ate dinner in an Ethiopian restaurant. They bring out a big tray covered with something like a pancake, and the various foods are arranged on the pancake. You break off bits of the pancake and dip it into the foods and eat. The foods are things like ground chick peas, spicy red lentils, shrdded and spiced beef, etc. They bring out hot, scented towels to wash your hands both before and after you eat, so your hands can be clean...we washed the food down with mug after mug of piping hot, spiced tea. It was a cold day yesterday, so the tea was quite wonderful.

The concert was at Hill Auditorium, a magnificent old building with perfect acoustics. From the balcony you can hear the footsteps of people on stage, and their whispers, rattling their music, moving their chairs, etc. The music was great -- the members of the Rockefeller Center Jazz Orchestra must be, without question, some of the most gifted musicians in the world. They played a lot of Duke Ellington...Black on Beige and other longer pieces you don't get to hear very often. The encore was literally mind blowing. Five trumpeters    came out with the drummer , the bass player, and the pianist. The trumpet players took turns playing searing hot solos, tossing the solos around like a ball, all playing impromptu and building off of each other. It was the most awesome thing I have ever heard in my life...