Well it's about time Jeremy Bentham

Hello there. Where to start, maybe I'll work my way backwards. Today I bought a snazzy new wireless apple mouse. I can now move my cursor from the other side of my kitchen. Maybe even further I just haven't had time to check yet. I also purchased something else super cool today. Personal financial software. Yep - check it out. If that doesn't strike you how about this. Yeah used that on our cars this morning. And if that isn't interesting enough I have yet to mention my wife and I are expecting our first child! Bam!! Didn't see that one coming now did you? Oh, and I thought I could save that news til the end of this blog. We're super excited and we get to find out if it's a boy or a girl in just a few more weeks! So we've been pretty busy getting things ready here and having late night debates on names. Now that's gotta be one of the hardest things to figure out. Maybe I should take a poll. We'll see...

So last night was the season finale of lost. I've talked to Pete and Dan both about it already and they absolutely loved it. I on the other hand thought it was just so so. Maybe my head wasn't in the right place - it's been a busy week, but I just didn't feel the usual excitement afterwards. I'm hoping this will pass though. I think I'm bummed that they had to shoot 2 alternate endings. I won't spoil it for you, but after I saw that today It was like learning the secret to a great magic trick. I just went 'oh.' I think they did a great job of wrapping up such a unique season, but I think they'll have to get super crazy with the plot next year to keep everyone's attention.

Last weekend we celebrated Memorial day up near Traverse City, Michigan. It was great to get away and have a good old fashioned family vacation. My parents, my sister, and Dominique and I got in the car late Thursday night, put some Tom Petty in the cd player and drove up 23. Bought some dried cherries and skipped some petoskey stones on Lake Michigan.

I guess it was the weekend before that when we were in England. What a travel nightmare that was! 5 hour delays there and back and cold hot sandwiches. But the show was AMAZING. We definitely plan on heading back sometime when we can all hang out. We're also booked to go to Finland this fall - which is right next to Sweden home of the all new volvo xc70 btw. Anyways, England was great, but by the time we got there we were running a bit behind that I didn't get to take any pictures AT ALL. I had to change strings, program the set into the old laptop, figure out the gear 'sitch. Oh and somewhere in there we ate some baked potatoes for dinner.

Until next time... I gotta go check the range on this mouse.

finally!

Well, we've finally made it. I don't have one, though I should because I've forgotten how to play Leap Of Faith. Made my day to see this on Amazon. I think it's on back-order though ;)

I Promise I'm Not...

Slacking. I know I haven't posted anything terribly great lately. Dominique and I did take a week long vacation in Florida last week though. Daytona Beach, and Orlando... Disney. That did involve a bit of slacking. But today I'm up to all sorts of fun stuff. Cleaning my shower, spraying for bugs, cutting grass, scrubbing my kitchen floor, fixing my pedal board wiring, fixing a clogged drain, you know the good stuff. Tomorrow we do leave for the weekend, so I'll be sure to blog some tasty timbits later. yum

getting ready for the UK

It's a dirty world

Tuesday two great things happened 1.) my wife and I bought a dyson. 2.) phantom planet finally released a new record. Both purchases happened to be sale-priced, adding all the more to my excitement. All said and done this made writing a check to the IRS a bit more forgettable as I spent all night and the following day vacuuming and listening to one of my favorite bands. These actions left me with a very, and I mean absurdly clean home. We mainly have wood floors and I'm not kidding that vacuum picked up more 'stuff' than I'd like to admit. 3 emptied canisters later 5 out of 7 rooms had its own solid go-thru. I called my mom and told her all about it; she ran out and bought one wednesday. I think I found my plan b for when the band is over. All of this led me to remember a funny story... onto the real meaning behind the subject title.

So for some reason this morning when I woke up and the sun was shining through my dustless blinds and onto my gleaming floor I was reminded of a funny thing that happened on the third day tour. I, as usual, can't remember what city we were in but Dominique and I took a walk from the venue one day out into the town. Someone from the show warned us not to go too far as it was a bad part of town supposedly. It was the middle of the day though and there was hardly any traffic anywhere. Five minutes out this truck pulled up to a stop light and a witty dude-man (the term we use to describe any not so fluent guy we run across on the road) rolls down the back window of a truck with a rebel flag on the back of it and starts to bark at us. Literally bark - and growl. It was so unusual that I had to say something back. Obviously dude-man was trying to be demeaning, so I turned around and yelled back at him 'are you alright?' as if I was confused why he would be barking like a dog-man. I don't know - maybe he had gotten bit by a dog and needed a rabies shot and his only way of letting me know was by sticking his head out the window and growling. Anyways, he acted a bit startled that all 135 pounds of me acted like I wasn't scared, but then he gained his composure and dropped a few f-bombs. At this point I was just staring at him and then his fellow dude-men in the truck opened their doors as if to warn me they'd be coming out and barking as well. The light turned green and they sped off.

For some reason after remembering all this, I read through James this morning. Mainly touching on chapter 1. When it says 'slow to anger' it really hit me when I think about that little incident. I was pretty quick to let dude-man know I wasn't going to just let him bark at me although his actions didn't really warrant my response at all. Anyways, I thought about how great it would be if every time something started to bug me I just took a deep breath and blew it off instead. I don't know, It's a thought.

So tonight - as my wife and I took a bike ride guess what happened? Yeah, some dude-man started to yell out his window at us. Seriously - not kidding. What the heck right? All this, with a little help from the dyson, led me to one conclusion.... it's a dirty world out there isn't it? Oh well, I won't let it bother me too much.

Oh to meet Cip Patterson

Hello there. It's Saturday night and we're getting more than 3 hours of sleep tonight! We're in Tulsa... again. Played at the Mabee center... again. But every time is a blast, seriously and tonight was no exception. To top it off Pete bought me an authentic glass bottle coke from Mexico. It's the best coca cola out there. Last night we were in California - again as well. Wish we could only stay longer than 15 hours one of these times. We played the Fox theater in Visalia. Amazing theater. Won't be long before some other really great bands hit that stage too, ie. Foreigner. Anyways, I'm super tired and don't have anything too heady to type out at the moment. But since you chose to check this out I'll leave you with a tiny morsel to chew on. Enjoy. .:aptera.com:.

you know it's been too long if...

you forget your username and password. But then again, I'm a terribly forgetful person. There's really no good excuse for this though. It's usually the little things. I can come up with an idea and in the time it takes to find a way to write it down it's usually floated out of my brain somehow.

anyways - some lucky guy out there with five thousand dollars just sitting around won this tonight...

73 tele

I'm not too jealous though. I opted to buy the new jon foreman ep today which cost me way less and brings instant satisfaction anyways.

this week while on the road we'll be shooting a video for 'whatever you're doing.' It should be a good time. I'm planning on fake-playing guitar and I'm pretty sure the other guys will be doing likewise. I'll try to post some pics this week...

did anyone catch Counting Crows on Letterman last night?