Category Archives: Friends and Family

The Kemah Triathlon (with my new camera)

April 30, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

I just got a new camera! So I need some practice with it. I took it out for a test run at the Kemah Triathlon Sunday morning. My long-time buddy Scott was doing the race as a “tune-up” to further ensure that he’ll totally kick my ass next weekend when we both do the Half-Ironman on St. Croix (more on that later, I’m sure). In the picture (above) where Scott is getting out of the water, you can see waaaay in the distance at the upper right is a boat on the horizon. Scott did the Olympic distance tri, so that boat was where his swim started (about a mile out in the Bay). The folks lined up to enter the water are about to start the shorter “sprint” distance tri.

Nikon announced the D800 in February and it only took me a few hours to get my name onto the waiting list — but I still had to wait three months to get my new camera. The resolution on this camera dwarfs virtually every camera on the market: 36 megapixels. But that’s not the half of it. The downside is that uber-high resolution doesn’t help much (and may hurt!) unless your lenses, your focus accuracy, and even camera-holding stability also step it up a notch. Thus my need for practice. I put the big Nikon 70-200 2.8 zoom on the D800; the wide angle shots are on my “old” D7000 with a 10-24mm. Through no fault of the camera, my favorite shots from the day turned out to be mostly those wide shots. Maybe the most amusing part of the D800 is that, as a 36 megapixel camera, each snap of the shutter (whether great or terrible) occupies about 32 MB of file space. For perspective: the laptop I took to law school had a then-impressive 20MB hard drive.

Fortunately, we were careful to instruct Scott’s sons — Jack and Sam — not to act silly and mess up their Dad’s post-finish-line picture.

MS150 2012: Houston to Austin with Team G&B (and MRE)

April 23, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

This was my ninth year riding the “MS150,” an annual charity bike ride benefitting multiple sclerosis research. It’s usually 180 miles (in two days) though a route change this year shortened my ride to just about 165 miles. I’ve ridden each of my nine rides alongside longtime-friend Scott Humphries. For the last eight MS150s, we’ve led a small “Team G&B” (Gibbs & Bruns) group. For the past few years, we’ve become honorary members of the MRE Consulting team, too. Our jerseys even had a half-serious MRE sponsorship logo. MRE was founded by my two friends Shane Merz and Mike Short.

Thanks to Team G&B riders Jon Worbington, Mike Absmeier, John Neese, Stacy and Scott Humphries, Andrea Young, and Bob Stokes (pictured) for making this another fun and successful trip. Congrats to first-timers Jon and Andrea. HUGE thanks to Maidie Ryan, our support driver, and the Shane and Michele Merz and Mike Short of MRE for riding with us and for letting us join their fun.

Jack Humphries & the River Cats

April 17, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

A few nights back, Jackson Humphries’ team (the River Cats) had an evening ballgame. Jack is the son of my friends, Stacy and Scott Humphries, I had 30 minutes or so to get some pictures before dark. Lots of heroics by the River Cats. A couple of pictures below are of John Stokes, son a Bob and Macy Stokes. Coincidentally, John’s team (with Bob as a coach) was on the receiving end of the River Cats’ big victory.

Bigtime Ragtime with Olivia Reasoner

April 17, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

Back from Cuba and seeing something much closer to home and heart. If you’re looking for Olivia’s more-recent performance, as Dorothy in Oz, click here.

I can remember being in a play or two in grade school and high school, but they were NOTHING like this. Olivia Reasoner, my goddaughter (daughter of my Houston friends, Barrett and Susan Reasoner) is “starring” (at least in my, Barrett and Susan’s eyes) in a production of the musical “Ragtime” at the Miller Outdoor Theatre in Houston. Though all the actors (except a couple in roles like “Grandfather”) are 20 years old or less, this is not a high school play; it’s Bigtime.

That’s Olivia with the pink bow in her hair (and pink trim on her white dress). She’s mastered the art of looking good and maintaining a beaming smile while belting out Broadway show tunes. That’s also her “protesting” in a brown dress (below). She was great!

The crowd looked like at least 2,000 people. The staging, costumes, lighting and orchestra were all Broadway quality. Most of the lead roles were high schoolers, with younger kids like Olivia filling out a lot of the chorus. The actual attempted 2009 Broadway revival of Ragtime was an unpopular flop (the script is as long as it is preachy), but the Houston kids pulled it off with style — and were actually good enough to make you forget they were “kids” at all. Congrats to all the Reasoner clan. Bravo! Olivia!

(PS: The theatre has an emphatic “No cameras” policy. So these pictures officially do not exist. It’s difficult to be inconspicuous in an aisle seat, sporting a foot-long lens.)

Hooray for Hollywood!?!

March 10, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

On my flight to LA recently, I was reading a book which, coincidentally, mentioned some research about living in California. It’s a great book, by the way: Thinking Fast & Slow. I swear it will make you wiser, happier, and richer. The author is a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics. I know he’s wise, and I’ll bet he’s also happy and rich.

According to the “California” research, most Americans believe they would be happier if they lived in California. But the same research found that there is no perceptible difference (on average) between the happiness of Californians and that of other Americans – California’s climatic advantages get lots of attention, but they are not important determinants of actual happiness for most people. The lessons? (a) People often forecast poorly the extent to which something will actually make them happy (or unhappy); and (b) “Nothing in life is as important (in terms of making you happy or unhappy) as you think it will be when you are specifically thinking about it.” The lesson also applies to new cars, lost loves, having kids, amputations, and the outcomes of presidential elections or sports championships.

***

My friends Roger and Kathy Willard may be an exception to that California study. They were not at all convinced they’d be happier in Tinseltown when “work” took them there four years ago, but they seem to be thriving. Roger and Kathy were both friends of mine at Arthur Andersen when I worked there (in OKC) in the 1980s, both were in my wedding in 1992, and then the two of them got married and moved to Houston and lived 2 blocks from me for about 8 years. They are two of the most hard-working, smart, sensible people I know. If I had a big business to manage and you told me I had to pick a married couple to run it, they’re my hands-down pick.

Roger was my “boss”, mentor and hero when I was a new CPA in Oklahoma (in a prior life/millenium); he became a partner at Andersen before its post-Enron demise. Nowadays he travels the earth doing acquisitions for a global engineering firm, then enjoys that sunny SoCal weather by golfing on the weekends year-round. Kathy’s job is the reason they moved to L.A. She’s the CFO of LiveNation (they own Ticketmaster and the House of Blues, for example, and run concert tours for people like Madonna, the Eagles and U2). One dubious claim to fame is that when Charlie Sheen drank “tiger blood” and waved a machete at the paparazzi, he was standing on Kathy’s private office balcony. A much-more-impressive claim to fame is that Billboard Magazine lists her at #3 in its Women In Music list of the most powerful women in the industry. Another magazine listed her as one of three global “CFOs to Watch” in 2012. That’s pretty damn impressive!

Roger and Kathy were nice enough to host me in their home for a few days while I was in LA. (I threatened to become their own private Kato Kaelin). Roger took me to Venice Beach one evening – that’s where I took a lot of these pictures (including the not-so-glamorous “sleeping bag” picture). That’s Roger in the white top and sunglasses (and with Catwoman. That’s NOT him in the red shorts). That’s Kathy in front of the Beverly Hills sign. Did I forget to mention that she’s also a hottie? I followed her to work one morning and made her pose for me in front of that sign, which is about two blocks from her office (the Hollywood sign on the hillside would have been more fitting, but it wasn’t on her path to work.).