I’m back! Because I’ve been out of town so much recently I haven’t had much time to post anything. But I’m back for the summer so I’ll try to pick up the publishing pace.

I went to a Diamondbacks game with a friend of mine last week and checked out the Sonoma Coffee Cafe downtown (corner of Van Buren and 1st Street). Now I am not a coffee drinker or even a fan of coffee cafes but I had a few great reasons to like the place. First - with a decent selection of microbrews on tap it’s just as much a bar as it is a coffee shop . And right before a ballgame it’s a much more chill place than most other bars around the ballpark.

But most importantly, there is secret free parking in a garage right next door. Unfortunately you’ll have to find that on your own (but it isn’t that difficult). We did however, pay for a pedicab down to Chase field. But even that was less expensive than parking near the park.

The beer prices were comparable to anywhere else downtown if you’re not counting domestic bottles served from a trough. And although I’m no connoisseur my friend Jason believed the coffee selection and prices to be about the same as Starbucks.

I spoke with the owner briefly and they have other coffee franchises under construction in Scottsdale and California.

I developed an idea about what’s behind much of the crazy ass driving that goes on around the Valley. Every day I drink one large cup of coffee, brewed either by Einstein Bros or the MU at ASU. My selection comes not from the orange handled pot and liberal quantities of half and half are applied. This daily routine did not prepare me for Starbucks, where I met a friend for a cuppa this past Sunday. When I ordered, I could only get a mix of house blend and their anniversary “bold”. I told him to make the mix and leave room for milk. Well, let me tell you, I spent the rest of the day like a dragster on the line, revved to go. My insides quaked and shook and my attention span lasted between slim and none. My mother called in the late afternoon and I nearly took her head off for reasons I still don’t understand. Impatience ruled during that conversation. Still humming at 10:30 pm, I finally went to sleep around midnight; however, I woke up at 2:15 am, never to return to the land of nod.

Ugly describes those 24 hours. Considering that coffee is swilled by the gallon, along with so-called energy drinks like Red Bull and Monster (caffeine cloaked in vitamins), no wonder people are horrible drivers. Put my phone call impatience behind the wheel and you have cause for some of the uncivilized, unintelligent driving that occurs on our local roads.

As for me and Starbucks? Next time, orange handles, please and lots of room for milk.

I woke up lazy Saturday, my potential trip to Payson slashed by budget cuts at my fiscal year close, and I spent the 6am hour outside and inside, briefly, at the kitchen sink, cleaning out my hookah from Jerusalem. I decided to be healthy and skip breakfast, instead opting for sweet mocha-flavored Arab tabacco and herbal essence siphoned through a glass vase of ice water and a long hose up into my lungs — and held tight — exhaled into the cool valley air overlooking a perfect Mesa morning.

My hatefullness of the heat has gently decomposed into an apathy and I no longer dislike Arizona but instead find myself quite happy, even though in the back of my mind I briefly take trips to the east coast, and decide that I’ll explore there next as the west coast has grown old to me, for now. I put The Wallflowers on the outdoor speakers, and watch the sun finish its rise above the Superstitions, and the haze comes through the pathwork clouds gently, although it is only a few steps away from the gray glare that might require sunglasses.

An hour later I am speeding down the US 60, on my way to south central Phoenix for four or five hours of overtime to make the money that is needed to buy bread and eggs, but with a short stop planned at my lover’s place of employment to say hello and add iced coffee to my veins. A mile before my exit, a piece of silver — something — is kicked out from the car in front of me and I cannot avoid, lest making friends with a concrete wall or an eighteen-wheeler. A split second later my car jerks to one side and my already broken mirror scrapes the beige wall of the freeway, and I almost overcorrect with a sharp jerk to the left as my fender briefly comes under the cargo to my side, before a happy medium is found. Pieces of my tire rattle then shoot out from underneath my car and I see them in the rearview.

My spare is flat and the tow truck on the way, and I call my friend in Los Angeles to kill time, and he is quiet. He tells me that the night before last, his friend, Dave, fought to make his torso free from the burden of life by laying his head on the railroad tracks heading out from the ship docks in Long Beach. My friend went to drive to the spot but only got as far as the bridge of the 710 going over the channel, and I tell him I know the place. The bridge I am now standing under at Gilbert Road doesn’t seem as threatening anymore, and my problems not as bad, but that is the typical response.

I don’t want to understand his pain in the City, but I don’t tell him that five years past now I still can’t stop and walk past the apartment complex at Gilbert & Brown and not think about those who didn’t have the choice to live, who had to die by another’s hands because it was dictated. You killed once but robbed more and they eventually caught you in Los Angeles, at the same crackhouse hotel where I had a knife held to my own throat once, pressed against a wall, but you befriended here in Mesa and took from others what you could not earn for yourself, and stabbed and bled the one whom you took it from. And it seems to be a yearly tradition, again, five years now, that every autumn or winter I run into your dad at Wal-Mart and he pretends it’s all okay. Todd, I can’t bring myself to tell him that it’s all okay, because you and I both know it never was.

While getting my coffee at the MU this morning, the clerk asked if it could have been me she saw, waiting for a bus? I told her I do take the bus to work and if it was on Guadalupe, it was probably me. She said that was the place and then immediately apologized for not stopping to offer a ride. I’m touched at her thoughtfulness yet equally saddened that she feels the need to rescue bus riders with a car. Why is public transportation viewed so negatively?

I could drive to work - I have a lovely Infiniti parked in my garage, complete with leather seats and Bose surround sound. It’s a comfortable, elegant ride. However, I choose to take the bus. What madness, eh? Not so, and let me tell you why. With gasoline hovering at $3 a gallon, need I say more? Insane traffic - driving anywhere in the greater Phoenix area has got to be the best training ever for NASCAR wannabes. How fast can we go from stoplight to stoplight? How little space is needed to wedge a car in front of another at 60 mph? Gotta be first, gotta be in front, gotta be the fastest, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go - sheesh! The bus is no less inconvenient than the time spent stacked on the freeway, jockeying for position, trying to get ahead. Freeway? What’s free about the Broadway curve or the 60 at rush hour? On the bus I can read, knit, play Nintendo, even nap. Listening to music or talking on the cell is far less hazardous riding the bus than while driving a car.

Mostly, though, the bus is about people. Watching people, learning from people, communicating with people. Most people-to-people communication in a car is anger-based and a lot of flex with the middle digits. On the bus, opportunities abound to learn about others, sharing the good and the bad and everything in between. Do I want a ride? Absolutely — on the bus.

While walking to the MU for coffee and a breakfast burrito this morning, I saw post-storm sights that I wanted to share. For the big picture, click on the small photos.

One of the trees in planters that surround the Cady Fountain was toppled by the wind - this tree has been in place my whole 10 years at ASU and withstood many storms. I guess it was just its time.

Another tree outside Dixie Gammage lost a big chunk. I think this is an olive tree, so wish it would have suffered a complete toppling fate instead of the tree by the fountain. Maybe this one will have lost enough of itself to justify its total removal. I’m terribly allergic to olive trees.

Storm detritus collected on the sidewalk. The bougainvillea bracts blow everywhere and after a storm it looks like a wedding aisle once the flower girl has completed her task. I love them and wish facman wasn’t so quick with the brooms and blowers.

For cleanup, ASU uses gas blowers and these small street sweepers - this guy was racing around, blasting away at the post-storm debris. He was twirling and swirling, almost like he was a counterstorm storm. This is an action photo that took me three tries to get - he was moving!

I love that my driver’s license expires in something like 25 years. I love that I do not have to put a license plate on the front of my car. It makes it look like it has buck teeth when I do that. I love the design of our plates and that I own them. And truth be told, the process to get those plates at the local MVD did not completely suck…

The license above is from Raymond AKA “ashlarziven” and is proudly displayed on the Arizona Browncoats website, or rather linked from there. Who has “coffee”? I want that plate.

Number 14 - Not really the MVD but stuff I get from them.

Counting down the top 30 things I love about Phoenix as we head towards our one year anniversary of MetroBlogging. I was asked today (by Ruth from UT - the one in Austin not the state) where the anniversary party was going to be. Any thoughts?

Lloyd is doing a great job of documenting his 30 favorite things about Phoenix. Today, I want to add a favorite of mine - rain! Going out of my building to get coffee at the MU, I discovered puddles on the ground. Ran back into the office, got my camera and took photos of the evidence. Above is a quilt of rain/puddle pictures - I just love the bicycle rain coat. If only we had scratch-n-sniff monitors - you could experience that wonderful, unmistakable aroma that accompanies Arizona rain. Maybe next time I can get a picture while it’s falling from the sky.

Whatever my mood, usually cheap pizza and beer, I can satisfy it on Mill Avenue. Cheap pizza and beer? Check. Artsy movies and Guinness? Check. Pastries and coffee? Check. Yeah, there is a lot more to do there, but my needs are simple. Oh, and next Speak Like a Pirate Day the Serenity Now/Equality Now event comes to the Valley Art.

Number 17 - A warm Saturday night on Mill Avenue

Counting down the top 30 things I love about living in the valley.

Hello to my new friends and new readers. My name is William J. Nash-McAdam, more commonly just referred to as “Nash” in the blogging world. Please forgive my tardiness; I was assigned as a new Phoenix Metblogger several days ago, but time on a mountaintop in Payson and the charm of a pop-up trailer and outdoor utilities kept me from the laptop, much less the wireless feed I am now enjoying from a contempoary coffee shop, run by a man from Jordan, on the corner of Gilbert and Baseline. While awakening to the smell of one of two nearby forest fires is an adventure that I am now grateful for, I must admit that I find my life and my love in the city. Of course, there are aspects about the mountains that become all the more attractive when descending into the Valley on a hot summer day, but it is not entirely for me. I am originally from Orange County, California, but even that is not usually city enough for me — when visiting home I like to get lost in Los Angeles and escape to the subways, Jewish delicatessens, and inner-city parks. Every city has its culture and its allure, and I have been to the major ports of call on the west coast and the Middle East, but always return home, to my family, friends, job, and an existance that is grounded into the canyons of realistic expectations.

Here, in Phoenix, I like to go to First and Third Fridays and stay out late with the after-gatherings of wine and cheese, trying to find my way home on the bus with the local colors and smells … the smells. I used to live in the middle of Tempe, on Mill Avenue, among the college students, hippies, and artists. During those nine-months of my life I came to know and love Tempe on an intimate level, and try to visit there often still when time and work permit, usually trying to stop for the only good hummus and schwarma in town at the Phoenicia Cafe next to the mosque at ASU. Now I live with my boyfriend and a cat in an apartment in suburban Mesa, but still find that what many consider to be the conveniences of strip mall living are not worth the sacrifices of a pedestrian-friendly metropolis, but life is still quality and the movement of life dictate it as good. I still travel to the city almost daily though, and work as a finance counselor at The University of Phoenix, often staying after hours to go to class online, earning my degree. And occassionally, during lunch hours, my friends and coworkers will climb in a Jeep — a real Jeep — and explore what Phoenix has to offer. Still sometimes, I will leave them all behind and eat my lunch on the top of the parking structure at Sky Harbor, watching the planes take off to remind me of the places that are other then here. But now for now.

If we are around downtown Phoenix during lunch hour and we are looking for some place to eat which is quick, cheap, with good quality food and nice ambience, we are not merely day dreaming! There are two not-so-secret-yet-not-so-well-known lunch-hour watering holes of downtown Phoenix professionals, which definitely live upto our day dreams.
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