Today is our "Cotton" wedding anniversary, so I bought Deni a sheep. It was two years ago today that we got married in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. I had just had surgery a few weeks earlier and could hardly turn my head to the side and Deni was a few weeks pregnant with Madi. We were a sight, I'm sure. It was a lot of fun, though. Lots of folks came out to join us and Danny, Matt and I got all silly the night before the wedding and stayed out until 7am. Hard to believe that was two years ago already.

Last year at this time we were getting ready to move home. Wow, what an event that was. We left San Francisco the last week of June. Deni and Madi flew back on the 27th and Matt and I drove back on the 28th. So this would have been my last week of work out there, and we were probably waist-high in boxes by now. I think the movers came and packed everything up on like Monday, so we lived out of the boxes and our suitcases for a week. I have our travel log from the drive home (which, by the way, I was able to use to write off all of the moving expenses on this year's tax return!) and I'm going to post it here for the first time anywhere, for your enjoyment. Check back in a few days for that excitement!

Got a new keyboard. Yes, another one. That Triton I bought a few months back is really nice, but it's an 88-key workstation. It's just way too big to lug around, especially if we're playing places like the 31st Street Pub. Hell, it wouldn't even fit on the stage in some of these places. So, at the advice of Harvey, I bought a Clavia Nord Electro. It's a neat little red dealie and only has 7 sounds on it. But, I only really use 3 sounds ever, so it's perfect. It has a killer Hammond B3, complete with drawbars, a rhodes, a wurlitzer, a clavinet and an acoustic grand. And it only weighs 13 pounds. (as opposed to the triton, which is 80 pounds without the case). I also got a little vintage keys module to MIDI up to it for some cheesy Farfisa and Vox Continental sounds. So, I think I'm finally satisfied with my keyboard rig. Woohoo.

Danny was in town for a few days and we hung out on Saturday night. Seems like I'm drinking way too much now that I'm playing in a band again. But the Irish in me is happy to have the old me back. We didn't know what to do, so we walked around the Southside and hit a few different bars. Not much happening, other than the Wilco show, so we just did the old tour-of-the-southside. We walked past Nick's Fat City and some guy said to us "Hey man, a really great band is playing tonight - 80s metal." Talk about your oxymorons. Using the term "80s Metal" and "Great" in the same sentence! The only way you could do that would be if the sentence was something like "Isn't it great that 80s metal is dead?". But, I wouldn't expect any less from Nick's Fat City these days.

Well, this week is going to be hell… lots of crazy shit going on at work. No need to go into detail, but it's nuts. I'm getting the ol' hairs colored tomorrow, and for the first time I'm not just bleaching it out myself. I'm letting the fancy-schmancy salon do it for me, so it won't look like a science experiment gone terrible wrong. At least, I hope.