I had a great hike up Piestawa Peak this morning, early. As always, the trail was crowded in the early (cool) part of the morning. By 6:00 AM, lots of people are already on their way down.

At the top, where a lovely breeze was blowing, I was impressed with the amount of happy wildlife. Huffing and puffing as I was, and armed only with a not-so-zoom-y iPhone, I didn’t try to take my own shots, but there were enough cool critters to try to at least find other pics on the Web.

There were (at least)

• hummingbirds,
• tarantula hawks, and I’m glad I didn’t know how painful their sting is supposed to be
• little cactus birds, and 
• cute ground squirrelly guys.

The human diversity was almost as wide…

Last night I trucked into Amherst to see Tradition is a Temple, the Modern Masters of New Orleans jazz. It was one in a monthly series of jazz movies hosted by the local NPR jazz DJ.

The movie focused on the current history of NO jazz especially as it traces to the efforts of Danny Barker, who was a big jazz historian after his own career wound down. He got enough kids interested in the old ways that many of the big brass bands you’ve heard of (Dirty Dozen etc) go right back to him.

As a bonus, the filmmaker was there and engaged in a cool Q&A. Turns out he wasn’t really trying to make a movie, but instead an iPhone app called Tutti Music Player. Which you should check out. Needs more free content, however.