Paul Ryburn’s Journal

The Gibson Guitar plant was raided by federal agents this morning. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency conducted the raid. This may be related to a raid on the Gibson plant in Nashville a few years ago, when the guitar maker was accused of illegal cutting and shipping wood from Madagascar for use in its guitars. [...]

The results of the Breakaway-Bardog 5K have been posted, and you can view them here. Congratulations to Lance Jones and Kris Huff, the overall male and female winners.

A really cool thing happened Sunday after the race. Jessica Grammer, who spent countless hours organizing the 5k, was excited about the raffle at the alley party that followed. [...]

Bardog Tavern threw itself a third birthday party in Center Lane (known to Downtowners as Scratchy Alley) yesterday. The day started with a 5K, then at noon it was party time. In case people couldn’t find it, they made this helpful sign.

Inside the alley was a dunk tank, booths selling Fat Tire and PBR, [...]

Tomorrow, Sunday, August 21, is Bardog Tavern’s third birthday party. There will be a 5K at 9:30 AM, and then at noon the big party kicks off in Scratchy Alley (Center Lane, the alley next to the tavern). If $2,000 is raised, Bardog regular Jay Hollingsworth will cut [...]

One of my favorite bosses ever was a big soccer fan. We’d be in his office, discussing a SQL Server stored procedure, when he’d hit F5 and say, “hang on.”

“Reloading the football scores,” he’d tell me. “Arsenal is up, 1, nil.” Meaning, he was reloading the soccer scores, and Arsenal was up [...]

One of the bartenders at Brass Door just posted this to Facebook:

“Rise and shine soccer fans. I’ll be up at 6:45 am to be your loyal bartender for arsenal vs. Liverpool.”

Nice to see a pub that opens early for soccer. We haven’t had one Downtown since McGuinness closed [...]

A friend of mine just emailed and asked if I’d get the word out about an employment opportunity Downtown. ALSAC, the fundraising arm of St. Jude, has created a new position called Regional PR Liason. They’re looking for someone who develop strategies to drive PR efforts at the local level. View the listing here. They don’t [...]

So, yesterday was the first day of my 5-day staycation, and about 2 PM I showed up at the Saucer for lunch. After finishing an order of Atomic wings, I walked outside to get a Memphis Flyer to read. I looked across the street, and noticed a guy at the entrance to the Tri-State Bank lot [...]

Above: Photo of Dynaflow playing last night at Earnestine & Hazel’s. I took a break from drinking a Mississippi River-sized amount of beer at the Saucer to walk down Main and catch their first set. As always they were excellent.

First day of vacation. How lovely to wake up at 8:30, [...]