Miami Beach Wedding - Parrott and Artigas

Last weekend, Rachel and I flew to Miami Beach for Brandon Parrott's wedding. Brandon was a Whittle Scholar a couple of years older than me at UT. Besides being my Whittle mentor, Brandon was and is a very close friend of mine.
Brandon, pictured here with Jeff Burris (another very good friend of mine) may very well be the most intelligent person I have ever met. He graduated from UT with a 3.99 and dual majors in Biomedical Engineering and Biochemistry. I would like to point out that not only are these dual majors, they are also in different colleges, meaning he had different elective requirements for both. According to his roommates at the wedding, the lone "B" resulted in the point of a compass being driven several inches into their apartment floor. Following his miserable academic record at UT, Brandon took a full ride to Baylor Med School in their MD/PhD program. He is completing his opthamology residency in Miami, where he met his wife, and begins his fellowship next year. As he now has his MD and PhD, we like to refer to him as "Doctor-doctor".

We arrived in Miami Friday afternoon, and after lunch in South Beach, we relaxed at the hotel before traveling to Perricone's Marketplace for the Rehearsal Dinner. The restaurant was beautiful, and the food was very good. I got to see several friends, who I had not seen in 12 years (pictured from left to right are Robin Asay Burris, Jeff Burris, Garth Graham, Jeff Huffman (Brandon's med school roommate; great guy), Nikki Wattlington (wife of our photographer, Jeff, who was Brandon's college roommate), Lee Klieman (perhaps the funniest man I know), yours truly and Rachel. We laughed a lot and reminisced and took the opportunity to roast the groom-to-be in a public forum.

After dinner, we went out to a cafe in South Beach and took in the atmosphere. I must tell you that South Beach was not at all what I expected. I thought it would be clubs and Miami Vice. It was not that at all. It reminded me of Madrid, Spain. The area we were in was filled with charming cafes and street performers. The architecture is mostly from the 1930's and 1940's, so it made me feel what Havana must have been like before Castro.

The wedding was in the mid-afternoon on Saturday at a beautiful church in Miami Beach. Somehow, I did not get any good pictures of the bride (my pictures from the reception were all too dark), but Leanne Artigas was beautiful. She is the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and take my word for it, you do not want to get in a dance off with her father; the man has MOVES. She is very sweet, and it was great to meet the girl who finally captured Brandon's heart. Apparently, she is Brandon's intellectual equal, if he has one, as she is an internist.





The reception was at the Rusty Pelican, which is on the water and faces downtown Miami. The view was spectacular, as were the hoer d'ouvres. Lee provided the entertainment by dipping his champaign glass in the chocolate fountain and by showing off his "crazy" moves on the dance floor. After this particular weekend in Miami Beach, Rachel and I will definitely try to go back.

Reflections - Congress

I am truly glad that our elected officials are not wasting their time on meaningless issues, such as how to avoid a potential economic recession, provide more affordable (not free) healthcard, shore up social security, improve national security or develop contingencies for dealing with a nuclear Iran. No, they should deal with more pressing issues of national importance, such as witch-hunting professional and former professional baseball steroid users. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is ripping the core fabric of American society like these menaces who were using Human Growth Hormone and steroids a few years ago to hit a few more homeruns.

This is what happens when a Republic form of government fails because the electorate does not demand better.