School's Out For the Summer
Today is the last day of school for my kids. I was just thinking about how long it had been since I'd written anything here -- over a month. Wow. Well, I guess it's fair to say I'm in a bit of a Summer hiatus.
My original plan for the Summer was to take advantage of the slower schedule and really focus tightly on music. We had (have?) high hopes to get the record finished in June and try to play a lot of gigs. But two critical, path altering things have happened. One is, a really crucial server at work crashed, and the carefully devised disaster recovery plan seems to have been created by FEMA under the Bush administration. Which is to say, it might have been good at some things, but actually recovering from disaster wasn't one of them. As a result, everything I've done for a very long time was lost, and I'll be working for months just to get back to zero. Call it a really stressful form of job security.
The other thing is pretty fun: our oldest son asked for permission to try out for the all star baseball team for his birthday. We haven't let him in the past because we wanted to take a break from little league over the Summer. But this year we let him, and he made the team. And now we have baseball pretty much constantly. If we're not practicing or playing or driving to far-flung ballparks for tournaments, we're washing practice pants or uniforms or sliding shorts. Red Georgia dirt does really interesting things when layered with infield grass stains on thick, white polyester game pants.
But we do still find time for music. I'm playing a couple of gigs this month, and we played a really fun show in May at a big party. We were the last of a long line-up of bands to play, and darkness fell right as we took the stage, and a chill was settling in, and the sound system was great, and it was sort of a magical little set. It felt a little bit like the end of Spring.
So here's to Summer! To baseball and no school and crazy schedules. I may get into a music groove and write here a lot; I may hit another dry patch that lasts for weeks. Meanwhile, if you're in Atlanta, stop by JavaMonkey Thursday night and say hi!
