3 MILLION Views!

You've got to check out this video by piano player Jon Schmidt doing a mix of "Love Story" by Taylor Swift and "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay. Joining Jon in the video is Steven Sharp Nelson who has played cello on a few of my CDs. I told my wife I'd give a limb to play the cello like he does.

So this video has nearly 3 MILLION VIEWS. Million!

Do you want to know what is just as cool? Jon is including a few songs on the new benefit CD released next month. I ain't kidding you! Want to know how you can get your hot little paws on a copy? Click HERE.

Barfing Buddies

After dinner on Monday I told Mel I wouldn't make it through the night.

I knew there was no chance I would make it until morning without barfing. My stomach was churning and I knew there was no way around it. It was inevitable. Finally at 9:40pm I grabbed for the garbage can and up came the beef stew. (I'm sorry. That was too much information. You didn't need that visual. Sorry.)

Then guess what happened! I was walking to the bathroom to empty my garbage can and my 6 year old Danica darted out of her room and spewed right into the garbage can! I didn't even have time to empty out my own vomit before Dani was adding hers to the wreckage. (Footnote: I got another one for afterward.)

We spent the rest of the night together taking turns throwing up. Suffering brings people closer together. We were barfing buddies. We spent the day on Tuesday hanging out on the couch complaining to each other and watching Nacho Libre, Spirit Of The Marathon, and Elf together.

Not that I would EVER want her to have to suffer like that, but if we had to be sick, at least we could be sick together.

Throwing The First Pitch

Saturday night was a special one for our family. A few days beforehand we got a phone call from the school that Jackson read the most books out of everyone at the school over the summer. Because of this, the family got tickets to the last Roadrunners baseball game of the year, and Jackson got to throw out the first pitch!

We were all so excited. Jackson loves to watch baseball and go to the Roadrunners games so this was quite an honor. There was a downpour a few hours before the game so we weren't sure they would even be able to play.

It turns out that Jackson's first pitch was the only pitch of the game. After this, they delayed the game for an hour hoping the dark clouds would pass. But when it started pouring again, game over.

It was such a cool experience for him to be able to do this. Definitely a proud father moment. Good job Jackson!

Running For Charity

My friend Paul Cardall is sick. This excellent husband, father, and musician is in desperate need of a heart transplant. Paul has been my biggest mentor since becoming a musician and I had to do something to help him and others like him.

I wanted to let you know about a charity team I’ve set up for the St. George Marathon with a fantastic group of people at Intermountain Donor Services. They coordinate all the organ transplants in the state and provide education at schools and fairs about the importance of organ donation. This is definitely a life-changing organization.

I’d like to challenge you to run a “virtual race” with me called the DOME (Dixie Organ Marathon Event). Your race fee (charity donation) could be:

$10 ~ Shadow Runner: I don’t want to run but would like to contribute.
$26.20 or more ~ DOME Virtual Runner

For contributions of $26.20 or more you receive an EXCLUSIVE PIANO CD featuring Paul Cardall, Jon Schmidt, David Tolk, me, Marshall McDonald, and Michael R. Hicks. This will be sweet!

For more info and to donate, visit http://www.yesutah.org/content/dome or email me at cory@coryreese.com .

Happy Running!

Photography Tricks

I spent a good chunk of the day at a photography workshop today. I feel pretty comfortable with landscape photography but wanted to learn more about portrait photography.

Emilie, the photographer, has a way of making color jump off the page. Check out the Photo by Emilie blog to see some of the amazing tricks I learned today. I'm excited to get behind the camera and start using these.

Free Coldplay Music

I want to introduce you to a little slice of free happiness. Coldplay has made their live album "Left Right Left Right Left" available for free download. Seriously! Free!

Old fans and people who haven't heard Coldplay before are going to dig this album. This is one of the best live CDs I've heard. Click on the cover for the link to download the music. Free.

I'm going to claim that Coldplay stole a page right out of my playbook by offering an ENTIRE CD for FREE DOWNLOAD. Copy cats. After you've got Coldplay's music, click on this CD cover for another free album download. Enjoy!

One Crazy Museum

One of the more unique places we went in Washington DC was the Hirschhorn Museum, part of the Smithsonian Museum network.

The Hirshhorn is a modern art museum. Generally I’m not much for “modern art”. I don’t understand why a painting that looks like it was done by a three year old is considered a masterpiece. And I don’t get why a bunch of recycled garbage that has been arranged into a shape should deserve recognition in a national museum. “Modern art” is usually pretty lame.

But the Hirshhorn modern art was sweet. Most of the exhibits were slightly strange which clicked for me because I’m, well, slightly strange.

One of my favorites was this huge guy sitting in the corner. You can see his size in comparison to me. But you can’t sit too close to him or an alarm goes off. And how do I know that an alarm goes off? Because, well, I set the alarm off. Then a security guard on the other side of the room gave me a dirty look and I backed away.

Another weird display was this leg popping out of the wall. We read that the sculptor was so precise that he actually used his own leg hair when making the “art”.

Art that looks like a goat went swimming in a bath of paint and then was thrown up against a canvas isn’t art. I’m sorry. It’s just not. But if you can make a leg pop out of the wall my friend, that is art.

Video of A New Piano Song In The Works

I haven't written any music for many, many months. Composing and arranging the music for the Believe album was a challenge that seemed to suck my creative juices for a while.

Then something happened last week. I started hearing music in my head (not to be confused with the voice in my head that tells me to eat lots of cheesecake).

This isn't usually the way I write music. It isn't too often that I start hearing a song in my mind that I need to sit at the piano and work out. But it happened last week. I couldn't get this song out of my brain.

When that happens, I sit down at the piano and record the parts of the song that come to me. I just record it with a small camera or tape recorder because if I don't, I'll forget it. And it's never a whole song. It comes in pieces. So I record what I have, then leave it to percolate for a few days or weeks.

So here is your glimpse into my process of writing music - a video of a song on the day it was born. This is square one. The finished product will me tweaked, modified, and built up. But this is the most exciting stage for me.

Missionary For Running

Tonight I realized that I sound like a missionary. A relative was talking about weight and out of my mouth popped "Come running with me in the morning!" I find my mouth blurting things like that every once in a while when someone is in the midst of a problem or dilemma.

There is no pill that can maintain weight, improve sleep, increase energy, decrease depression, and boost self-esteem like running can. Who doesn't need a little help with one of those?

It got me thinking why in the world I would try to convert someone to the religion of running. The fact of the matter is that most of the time the actual act of running isn't too fun for me. It's really hard. Sometimes it's downright miserable.

But then I realized....that's why I've been drawn to running. For the pure challenge. For the sense of accomplishment after knowing I've really pushed myself. For the knowledge that I went a little farther than I thought I could.

I've heard that some people run because they plan out their day or solve the world's problems as their legs carry them along. This isn't the case for me. I'm usually only focused on either
1) Preventing myself from bursting into tears

2) Focusing my mental energy on not puking, or
3) Avoiding curling up in fetal position in the middle of someone's driveway.

But the fact that it isn't easy brings all of the rewards from running.

I want to bring you to the waters of running. I know. I know. Your knees hurt. You're not a runner. I came up with all the reasons why I couldn't do it too. See some of them here. But I swear to you - if I can do it, ANYONE can. So....want to come running with me in the morning?

Birthday Cake Bonanza

In all the craziness of the last few weeks I neglected to make a post about one of my favorite annual traditions: birthday cakes.

Kylee's birthday is July 8th. Danica's is two days later on July 10th. Jackson's is two days later on July 12th. So each year, Mel lets the kids pick what they would like for their birthday cake. And then she makes it! She rules.

We then spend the next two days begging family members to take some of the cake so as to prevent my children from having a sugar rush that would induce dancing on the ceiling (God bless Lionel Richie).

As depicted in the following photograph, Danica chose a Belle cake, Kylee chose a puppy cake (I know - I had a hard time figuring out how this was a puppy also), and Jackson chose a Mario cake.

I'd appreciate if you'd begin taking notes at this point. My birthday is in December. My preferences would be:

• A Bruce Springsteen cake
• A Glenn Beck cake
• An Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite cake
• A Scarlet Johansson cake
• A Big Mac cake
• I'd prefer to avoid a Lionel Richie cake

Lightning Pictures

There was an AMAZING lightning storm last night. We had a perfect front row seat for the show. This was the best photo opportunity for lightning I've ever had. Here are a few I caught:

Tell me this isn't a forest fire begging to happen. I read that around 20 fires were started last night. This may be one of them:

I was outside for about 15 minutes until the lightning got too close for comfort. I wasn't in the mood to have my obituary in the newspaper the next day. When the lightning gets this close, you don't want to be the nimrod standing outside with a tripod.

Inhumane Treatment Of Students

I don’t blame the pit rings on Mr. Murphy. He couldn’t control the excessive sweat that poured off his body during History class. It wasn’t his fault that he taught in the hottest room of the middle school; a middle school that didn’t have air conditioning. It wouldn’t be right of me to mock the fact that he looked like he’d just left a summer camp in the Mojave Desert.

Classes from May into June were simply excruciating at Mt. Jordan Middle School. I have a hunch that if the Division of Child Protective Services had seen how hot the school was in the afternoon they would have cuffed those school officials and carted them off to jail. Or at least I’d like to think so.

When we didn’t think things could get worse, some brilliant individual thought it would be a great time to re-tar the roof of the school. It was likely a sick joke to see how high they could get the temperature of the school. “Do you think we can get the water from the drinking fountain to boil?”

Mr. Murphy’s room was in the corner of the building that caught every ounce of afternoon sunshine. We felt like chicken nuggets frying in an oven. We’d have to peel the clothes off our rumps when we stood up from the desk.

And poor Mr. Murphy. The students had to be there for one period. He had to be there all day. He had to write on the chalkboard…..fully exposing the enormous sweat rings radiating from his armpits.

It wasn’t his fault. Fortunately for him, the kids in the class were all debilitated with heat stroke and didn’t have an ounce of energy left to make fun of him. Middle school kids can be mean. Unless they’ve sat in a sauna for an hour while hearing about the Revolutionary War.

In a way, I think Mr. Murphy was cheated. I can only imagine how much he must have dreaded going to work each morning. I can only imagine the hurt he must have felt when he got home from work and his wife wouldn’t even talk to him until he took a shower. I can only imagine what portion of his monthly paycheck was spent on deodorant.

Two Minutes Of Whining

If you wouldn't mind, allow me to indulge in two minutes of whining:

I've had more computer problems over the last three days than a cheap motel room has lice. When a big ol' computer problem pops up, you might as well walk yourself right over to the bathroom and flush the next three hours down the toilet. Grrrrrrr.

Other topics to whine about:

**Apparently wanting my dog to pee outside is asking too much.

**My mouth still hurts after having a root canal on Thursday. Don't ask how much I paid for the pleasure of being drilled on.

**Our microwave broke. You don't realize how important a microwave is until you don't have one. I had to melt butter in the oven to make an instant cheesecake.

**For the life of me I can't understand why our insane politicians refuse to use more than seven brain cells.

Bryce Canyon Half Marathon 2009

Bryce Canyon Half Marathon: 13.1 Miles in 1 Hour 56 Minutes!

We stayed in a little cabin with the Cowden's which consisted of a bunk bed and twin bed. And a little table fan. It was, um, cozy. We woke up at 4:15am to get ready to catch the shuttle to the beginning of the race at Ruby's Inn. Obviously thrill and excitement were brightly radiating from my face. Yea, I can make my face show the opposite of how I'm really feeling.

This race was very well organized and supported. There were lots of drink stations and a hefty supply of Port-O-Potties at the start. There was nobody who had to make this move at the starting line:

I ran the first 7 miles with Mel Cowden. There were some huge down hills which helped us go faster but our legs paid for it later. Around mile 7 there was a moderate up hill so I pushed hard up it and gained a little time.

I was tired by mile 8. The magical moment happened at precisely mile 8.8. The magical moment when I start to question my sanity. I realized that no sane human being in their right mind would ever do this to their body. This should be illegal. There were a few points where I wanted to quit. I wanted to just walk to the finish line. I wanted to give up. I wanted to curl up in fetal position and suck my thumb.

Then I saw a sign that somebody had hung up on a road post for their family member. It said something like "Keep Going Brittney! No Pain, No Gain." For some reason that gave me a boost. It made me feel good to think about all the many family members who are such a strong support. So I kept going.

I was able to keep a decent pace for the last mile and was so relieved to finally see the finish line. I was able to achieve my goal of finishing under 2 hours with a time of 1 hour 56 minutes, and beat my last half-marathon time of 2 hours 3 minutes. I was happy. My parents left their motel to be at the finish by 6am before the road was closed. That really meant a lot to me and Mel. The minute breakdown for each of my 13 miles was:

Mile 1: 10:17 minutes
Mile 2: 9:36
Mile 3: 8:00
Mile 4: 8:16
Mile 5: 8:31
Mile 6: 8:22
Mile 7: 9:18
Mile 8: 8:07
Mile 9: 9:40
Mile 10: 9:12
Mile 11: 8:43
Mile 12: 8:58
Mile 13: 8:30

This was Mel's first race ever and she hasn't been training very long. She hadn't reached the finish by the time we expected and I started to get nervous. I knew something wasn't right. I ran back up the route to find her. When she saw me she started crying. She said she was crying because she was happy someone came to "rescue" her, and because her knee had started hurting really bad in the first mile and she struggled through the rest of the race. I felt so sad for her. She is doing a little better now and said that still said it was a good experience that she'd do again because of the sense of accomplishment she felt. I am so proud of her.

There was a big gaggle of friends who ran the race also. It was kind of like being at a big block party. We missed the Dansie's and Darrel Humphries, but here is the rest of the gang at the finish line:

Enjoy The Candy

Mel took a nap with the girls yesterday afternoon. When they woke up, Jackson told her he hadn’t taken a nap. Instead, he organized a campaign to increase awareness of the book The Black Stallion.

He recently finished the book and thought that other kids who were between eight and fifteen years old would love it as much as he did.

So he made up signs advocating for readership of The Black Stallion, taped some candy to each of the signs, then went and hung them up on mail boxes around the neighborhood. We thought that was pretty cute and funny. Here is one such sign: