Cold Season

I have a bit of a scratchy throat and the strong feeling that a cold is coming on. It's not a bad time to have it, since my hearing schedule is light and there's no Just Friends gigs for a couple weeks. In the meantime, I've never gotten around to sharing my Youtube channel with you all. There's not too much of my playing on it other than the Just Friends demo and the Moxie videos, which didn't turn out half bad. I was having a good guitar day that night, almost clam-free for a change. The drummer in those vids, Dave Splain, will be sitting in with Just Friends at the Carlisle Moose in March. We rehearsed for the first time with him last night, and he's a good guy and it went well.

Looking at the videos I've favorited, I can't help but think of Dee-Dee Kelly's record collection and the eclectic mix of records that were in it. I credit him with my pretty whacked out omniverous musical tastes, and I thank him for it. The downside is it's pretty difficult to go hear some of this stuff live or hope that stuff like "I'm Pau" would ever get played out live to large audiences in a world of Justin Bieber/Lady Gagag (might be an extra G there). Check out some of this stuff. Now that I'm inviting other folks in, I'll try to add to the favorites from time to time. There's a treasure trove of great music on Youtube and at least for now it's all available for free. I won't be surprised if that changes, but I'm enjoying it for now -- sometimes, like when I have transcripts overdue, maybe a little too much.

Speaking of which, I better hit publish and get back to work.

Oh boy. Snow. Whoopee.

This is where I wish I could go back in time and put aside a dollar from every week I delivered papers and invest it in, oh, I don't know, whatever, and then by the time I was old like now I'd be a "snowbird" and I wouldn't have to dress like this and go blow snow. Oh, well. We have homemade bread and plenty of snacks and milk, and I did get the snowblower belts replaced today, thanks to Hornung's Hardware. Forget any other big box hardware store; Hornung's has saved my chestnuts more than twice, and today was a big one. They came, picked up the machine, replaced the belts and had it back here by 3:00, before the storm. They seriously rock.

Now we'll see if the weather will let me get over to Dave's to record tomorrow. We already postponed starting once, putting off till tomorrow what the snow wouldn't let us do today. I'm getting really antsy to get to work on this project. I don't have any delusions of being a big rock star -- there's only about six of them left at this point -- but it would be nice to have clean, studio quality versions of some of my tunes while we're all still able to care about such stuff. Stay tuned.

I Hit The Megamillions Lottery!

Well, okay, I only hit it for eight bucks, but that's a four dollar net profit. Woo hoo! Who needs $330 million anyway? Nothing but problems, people pestering you to buy Rolexes (Rolices?), all those new relatives to get acquainted with... fuhgeddaboudit. I guess we'll have to go with Plan B, which is to go to work in Easton tomorrow.

As an aside, since I've been using Joreen's old ThinkPad to log in and post I've noticed some spam ads appearing in my text, underlined in green. I apologize for that although I don't know how to get rid of it. The kids have been playing on-line games on this machine for so long it's a wonder there's anything besides spyware on this puppy. Hopefully my Toshiba will be back soon, and hopefully the repair won't cost much more than four bucks. (Yeah, right!) Easy come, easy go.

Oh, Joy, Another Year

We got off to a great start today. My computer's fan started making grinding noises, and I don't have the proprietary wrench to go in and mess with it. I had to pay a "bench fee" to find out how badly I was going to get "hosed." I hate computers. They're of Satan.

Joreen and I spent the day sending out promo materials on the band, and we managed to nail down one event in March, so there's something to live for besides the Farm Show. It's a little silly but I really do look forward to that every year now. It's great fun, good eats, people watching at its finest, and you can find items for sale that you won't see anywhere else.

Last year was The Year of Getting Around To Things, and overall it went well. This year is tentatively the Year of Clearing Out. I am going to take a hard look at my borderline Hoarders-episode-worthy house and do something about it. I'm currently working on one shelf at a time in the basement. It's a work in progress.

Something Good This Way Comes

The New Year has promise. So did the Millionaire Raffle ticket that Joreen put in my stocking, an ingenious marketing ploy touting how high the odds are that you could become a millionaire by purchasing a $20 ticket. What does 1:125,000 mean? Citizens Bank Park holds close to 46,000 people. Put three of them side by side, put 41,666 people in each, and then pick which person has a winning ticket in their pocket. Oh, well, who needs the jackpot? I have the woman who bought me the ticket, so I'm already a winner.

Christmas was good. The music was especially fine. Alex and Bob and Joreen and I so totally pwned the traditional Christmas Prelude that Joreen arranged. I did something out of character and actually practiced the darn thing this year. What a concept. The outdoor decorations were as lame as the music was good, but on the bright* side it will take less than five minutes and no ladder to take them down. Next year I'm going Griswold. You'll need welder's glasses to drive by the place. (*That was unintentional, but I'm leaving it in on purpose.)

New Year's was a little difficult, I can't lie. Once again the band sat home due to a lack of an appropriate venue, and a last-minute miracle did not drop out of the sky. Oh, well, as the Chicago Cubs fan sign used to say on opening day, "Wait till next year." Most of you have seen the videos that Joreen made at Dillsburg, but here's a link for those who have not. We're working on our sound and also contingency plans for our drummer's knee surgery hiatus. We're confident that this year will be better. I've got this fantasy of having an event featuring Element 22, Laredo and Just Friends. That would be worth taking a swing at. Stay tuned for details. Meanwhile, we did have a little fun at midnight, crashing the next door neighbors' celebration. They gave the kids sparklers and let them run around yelling. Very old school, and very appreciated, especially the scaring away bad fortune part. We'll take all the help we can get.

The past year was a lot of things, good and bad, but now it's passed, and it's time to look forward. Challenges ahead, sure, but the song that comes to mind to start the year is from Dylan's son Jakob: Something Good This Way Comes. "Got my window open wide... got a good woman by my side... I know something good this way comes."