Author: paulryburn

I got a copy of the program for the celebration at the Shelby County Courthouse, 140 Adams, today marking its 100th anniversary. Here it is:

4:30-5:30 PM:
Music by the Christian Brothers High School Band,
directed by Patrick Bolton, on the south lawn
Tours & historical exhibits inside the building
Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments
Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

5:30-6:00 PM:
Welcome by Jim Eikner of WKNO
Special thanks by the president of the Memphis Bar Association
Keynote address, Walter Durham, TN State Historian
Presentation of proclamations by the mayors
Closing by Jim Eikner

6:00-7:00 PM:
Music by the Christian Brothers High School Band,
directed by Patrick Bolton, on the south lawn
Tours & historical exhibits inside the building
Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments
Free food? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.

If you work for a nonprofit or are part of a civic group, club, or congregational group, there will be a PR class this Saturday that you may want to attend. It will be at the U of M from 10 to noon, and is part of their Continuing Education program.

Participants will learn to create news briefs, calendar items, and public service announcements. You’ll also learn how to pitch story ideas, and how to book guests on TV and radio to get publicity.

Cost is $49. Visit this link to register or call 901-678-6000.

In the news: Suhair Lauck, owner of the Little Tea Shop and one of Downtown’s best ambassadors, received a couple of well-deserved honors this month. First of all, Delta Magazine named the Tea Shop’s corn sticks a Critic’s Choice in their September/October issue. Suhair also received an award from the Minority Enterprise Development Corporation last Friday for the Minority Service Firm of the Year. Congratulations!

One more reason why I hate Ole Miss: Click on this Flyer blog post and scroll down to the 6th pic and look at the ridiculous argyle pants some dude is wearing in the Grove. My God, he looks like a court jester.  (Edited to add: And a white belt too.  Does Herb Tarlek from WKRP in Cincinnati have any kids at Ole Miss?) Ole Miss, by the way, has officially dropped out of both Top 25 polls. Also encouraging is the fact that Arkansas received votes in both polls.

Preparing a presentation on Twitter for a meeting tomorrow… I like anything that involves teaching or presenting. Just a few more hours until I’ll have a 34 oz. beer in my hand.

Yesterday at Sunday Fun Day, I learned about a couple of rather interesting iPhone apps.

The first app is called PUFF!, and it will especially appeal to guys who hang out at the Saucer. Available in the App Store for 99 cents, it features images of cute girls in skirts. Blow on the iPhone’s microphone while one of the girls is onscreen, and her skirt blows up. How high it comes up is in proportion to how hard you blow. This app is sheer genius. If you search for it, make sure to include the exclamation point. There’s a different “puff” app without the exclamation point that has nothing to do with skirts. Oh, by the way, all the girls are Asian. Lauren commented, “Those girls have on some cute undies.” John D commented, “HEY NOW!”

The second app is called Brewler and is used to determine whether you’re getting your money’s worth out of a beer. You choose your beer glass from 8 different styles, and Brewler gives you a ruler to hold up to the glass. For a standard 16 oz. pint glass, for example, it will show you what level is 15 ounces, 14, 13, and so on. So, you can use it to determine if you’re getting all your beer… although, a little foam should be on top. According to a recent quiz the Saucer e-mailed out, a beer should have one finger’s worth of head when poured.

I’m going to the Grizzlies vs. Orlando Magic pre-season game tonight at the FedExForum. Should be a fun evening… after the Grizzlies offered me 10 free tickets, I e-mailed the offer to the usual gang I hang out with at the Saucer, and there was little interest. So then I blogged it, and ended up with a very cool and diverse group that’s going… some people from the core, some people from South Main, one of our favorite bartenders, and one person I don’t even know, but part of the fun of Downtown is meeting new people.

Meeting up at Kooky Canuck beforehand. Our friend Edison suggested it, saying that it’s Canadian Thanksgiving, so it makes sense to celebrate it at a Canadian restaurant. I don’t know if 34 oz. super cold Bud Light is a tradition for Thanksgiving in Canada, but it’s about to become one. Hmmm Thanksgiving… wonder if the big turkey will be there tonight? Long-time readers of this blog know who I’m talking about.

Wish I was Downtown for lunch… Majestic Grille tweeted their lunch specials… blackened tilapia sandwich today. Meanwhile, I’m out by the airport with a Burger King and a Domino’s and a bunch of strip clubs.

Got another post in drafts… education opportunity for nonprofit people, and honors for a well-known Downtowner. Check back.

While at the Saucer today, people on Segways – the $5,000 “personal transporters” – rode by and handed out flyers.  Apparently Segway tours are coming to Memphis soon.  Click below for larger sized (i.e. readable) images.

The South Main Association will hold their monthly meeting this Tuesday night at South of Beale, one of the newest restaurants on South Main.  Real estate developer Henry Turley, one of the main people responsible for the revival of Downtown Memphis over the past 25 years, will be the featured speaker.  There will also surely be updates about RiverArtsFest, which is only two weeks away.

Social at 6, program starts around 6:30.  SOB will have complimentary hors d’oeuvres for SMA members.  Free food?  Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up.  You’ll also be able to check out their new fall menu and their fall drink specials, including the pumpkin pie martini pictured below.

Yummm…. I may have to show up late for trivia this week and get me one of those martinis.

Last week I wrote that Lansky Bros. in the Peabody invited me to come in and pick out a Robert Graham sportshirt, as their gift for winning the Memphis Flyer poll.  They knew I love Robert Graham shirts, and there was a trunk show with the new fall line Saturday before last.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  I wanted ALL of them… finally I settled on the one pictured below, which I wore to the rooftop party last night.

Click the image to see a higher-resolution pic of the shirt, with stitching and a different pattern on the upturned cuffs.  Robert Graham shirts are some of the finest you will find in the Memphis area.  The one I got is called the “Gretsch.”  Click here to view Lansky’s complete line of Robert Graham shirts. Or, just go to the Peabody, where the store will be open this afternoon… it’s actually better to see them in person, because there’s no way pics of them online can do these shirts justice.

Thank you so much to Lansky for the shirt.  I’ve received many compliments on it.  I have a feeling I’ll be adding to my Robert Graham collection in the future.

One of the most fun things we do Downtown is nail one of our friends with a surprise birthday party.  This weekend we totally got our friend Shawn.  We had a get-together at the Flying Saucer Friday night, which Shawn thought was his birthday party.  Here are a few pics of that.

Shawn smiles as bartender Katie announces a toast for his birthday

Lauren and Chad, with Stephanie unsuccessfully trying to lean far enough back to get out of the pic.  What’s up with the ’80s one-shoulder top Steph?

Lights out!  No, this isn’t a bad pic.  The Saucer went totally dark for about 7 or 8 minutes.  I found out the next day that some kids were arrested for messing with a fuse box at the Peabody.  They must have hit the Saucer too.

Now let’s move on to Saturday, the REAL party.  Shawn had some friends in town, and the Nuh-Uh Girl invited them over to her place in Number 10 Main (the same building I live in) for some drinks.  “Why don’t we go up to the rooftop?” she suggested.  “The view of Downtown is beautiful.”  So she rode up to the rooftop, and Shawn and his friends (who delayed him a minute or two) followed up on the next elevator.  Little did he know that this was waiting for him:

SURPRISE!  We totally got him.  He never suspected a thing.

Prior to Shawn’s arrival, Mikey and Otto took care of the most important piece of business related to the party – tapping the PBR keg.

Clay, Moody, Lee, the Nuh-Uh Girl, and Mikey

Joe, the mastermind behind the surprise party

This picture reminds me of an Our Gang episode from 1935 where Buckwheat was in the dark and all you could see were the whites of his eyes and his teeth.  Meanwhile, Chad marvels at the wings, which came from Kooky Canuck.

So Chad went and got wings of his own, and OF COURSE the Nuh-Uh Girl picked a wing off his plate and ate it.

Lauren appointed herself protector of the Jello shots.

Full photo album will have to wait until Facebook’s buggy photo upload Java applet stops crashing my browser.  Wow, pretty much anyone can write code that’s bad enough to crash IE, but crashing Firefox?  That’s an accomplishment.

Food was great, friends were great, beer was outstanding.  The only thing that didn’t cooperate was the weather.  On October 10, it should easily still be warm enough to have rooftop parties.  Not so last night.  The temp hovered around 50 all night and the wind chill on the roof made it feel colder than that.

About 10:30 I made an unexpected early exit.  I went to my apartment to warm up for a few minutes.  I sat down in front of the laptop to check e-mail.  “Hey, there’s PokerStars!” I thought.  So I entered a 6-person turbo Sit’n’Go tournament, figuring those things only last about 30 minutes and then I’d head back up.  I came in second, good enough to win some money, so I entered a second one.  I won that one, and decided to enter a third.  Third one didn’t go so well… by that point, it was after midnight, and I decided to just lie down on the couch for a while.  Next thing I knew, it was 2:30 AM.

In other news this morning:  Air Traffic Mike has a great blog post this morning about Ole Miss’s exit from the Top 25.

I’m up early enough to do Sunday brunch this morning, and even though I’m really not hungry yet, I guess I’ll be sociable and join the gang at the Majestic.  I have a huge backlog of posts in Drafts… thinking about taking the laptop and posting from the Saucer this afternoon.  Plus, I can play PokerStars.  Sounds like a plan.

South of Beale finally has their new fall menu online.  Some good stuff on there.  Mmmm that five spice seared duck sounds like a winner for sure… duck fried rice and a sunnyside egg on the side.  The steak, the grilled salmon, and the vegetable lasagna are also on my to-eat list for the near future.  I’m sure my health guru AL will probably fall out of her chair in shock when she sees that I want to try the veggie lasagna.

It’s College Football Saturday.  Let’s have a look at games of note:

Auburn at Arkansas, 11 AM on ESPN.  Go Hogs!  Auburn is ranked 17th but a lot of people I’ve talked to think the Razorbacks can take them down.

Georgia at Tennessee, 11:21 AM on ESPN360.  Glad to see ESPN understands that the important SEC game at that hour is the Arkansas one.  Go Dawgs!

Regular blog reader Moody e-mailed me this week and ask why I never talk about Alabama in my football notes.  This one’s for Moody:  ROLL TIDE!  GO BAMA!  They play at Ole Miss today at 2:30 on CBS, and hopefully ‘Bama will knock the Rebels out of the Top 25 once and for all.

6:15:  This one’s for my friend Chad:  GO BUFFS!  Colorado at #2 Texas on ESPN.

#1 Florida at #4 LSU, 7 PM on CBS.  Hmmm I don’t have any plans for tonight.  Guess I’ll be at the Saucer watching the game then.  The thing I like about this game is, I don’t have a favorite team.  So I can just sit back and cheer for good football, which I’m very likely to get.  Go SEC!

And if you prefer bad football, here’s a game for you… UTEP at Memphis.  7 PM, no TV coverage.  Go Tigers, but let’s face it, we’re probably going to lose again.  UTEP knocked off a Top 25 team, Houston, last week.  Basketball season hurry up and get here.

Playing a 27-person $3 buy-in tournament on PokerStars… about to move the laptop to a seat in front of the TV, so I can watch the Hogs while I play.

More info on the 100th anniversary celebration at the Shelby County Courthouse on Tuesday, October 13.  It’s an open house sponsored by the Memphis Bar Association with free food (wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up), free beverages, free speeches, and tours of both the exterior and parts of the interior.  Tours will include Grand Lobby, Supreme Court Courtroom, Law Library and Antique Courtroom. You’ll get to see the six statues outside the Courthouse, each made from a single block of Tennessee marble, the largest of their kind in the nation.  You’ll also get to see a 174 year old bust of Andrew Jackson, which was on display in Court Square in 1859.  It will be one of the rare occasions when you are allowed to take pictures inside the courthouse.  Event starts at 4:30 PM.

The info above, by the way, came from an e-mail from historian Jimmy Ogle that someone forwarded to me.  He’s the one that does the fantastic Tuesday lunchtime history tours.  Tuesday’s tour will be a stroll down Adams Avenue, including a stop at the Mageveney House, Memphis’ oldest residence.  Meet up with him at 11:45 AM Tuesday if you want to go.  Tour is free to the public.

In case you missed these:

Bardog was chosen as a “Best Bet” for breakfast sliders.

The CA also did a “Meet the Chef” with Antony Field, chef at Flight.