Your Name in Lights

There's just something about seeing your band name on a Ticketmaster ticket, no matter what the occasion. Anyone reading this blog that's interested in a ticket, please let me know.

We finished recording all of the parts for a nine-song CD this past weekend, and I have to say I'm very excited by what I've heard so far.

We'll need to go in and mix everything down at some point, but between taking our time, doing everything part-by-part and having an engineer that really knows how to use the tools at his disposal, I think we'll have a good product to show for this endeavor.

We have three more shows before the BIGGIE, and then hopefully that springboards us to some degree of name recognition in this fair city.

Some updates

I've been very busy with work, and thus haven't spent as much quality time here as I would have liked. But, I feel as though I owe whomever is reading this a few updates. Here goes nothin'...

Another year older...
I turned 29 last Wednesday. Nothing wrong with that on the surface, other than it means that I turn 30 next summer. Not good times. Melissa did plan a very nice birthday for me, including surprising me with a 30-gig iPod video player. I'm probably the last person on the planet to get an mp3 player, and when I was lugging around my CD player at the gym and what-not it was always evident. No longer!

Wife's another year older...
Today. Happy birthday, baby! While I don't know if I can top an iPod, I will do my best!

Birthday weekends are fun!
For our collective birthdays, we ventured down to the New River Gorge in WVA to do some river rafting. I had never been before, and so it was an enjoyable first experience. I hope some of the pictures I took with our underwater camera (still left over from our honeymoon in Jamaica, no less) turn out OK. It was a fun time, not real expensive (thanks to my little bargain hunter), and not a long drive (we stayed in Charleston to cut down on the driving hunks). Seeing the 975-foot arch bridge from the water level is pretty impressive.

Cleveland Indians "baseball"
See: Stick a fork in them; they're done. 3-10 in their last 13, 4th place, 14 games out, just got swept by the Brewers, including two losses in the bottom of the ninth inning. Of their last 9 losses, 5 have come in the eighth inning or later. Injuries, lack of ANY quality bullpen pitching (even Wickman has struggled in his last few outings), and a streaky offense that only seems to score runs in bunches when they're blowing someone out. I'm not going to blame this on the Coco Crisp trade and or on losing Howry, but the latter certainly would have helped in the bullpen. This team looks lost right now, and doesn't show any signs of coming out of it. People compared this year to last year, but this time last year they were going on a 12-1 tear through interleague play that vaulted them back above .500 to stay, and were moving into second place. They're doing the exact opposite right now this year. Unless some magic light switch comes on and they get back above .500 by the All-Star break, they can essentially start making their October tee-times.

Speaking of which...

My Golf Game
See: It sucks. After all the talk in my last entry about how good I thought I could be this summer, I've found it to be a little tougher sledding. I've played two rounds of 9 holes since then, and put together I shot a 102, I think. There's been some good (decent pitching and putting) and some bad (I seem to have lost the ability to hit any shots straight off the tee), but overall I'm right about where I've always been. Meh. I still enjoy playing, though. I just won't be joining the pro tour anytime soon. Oh well.

Band news
I spent five hours in the studio last Thursday recording my parts for nine of our songs. The session went very well, thanks to the help of our guitarist Justin (ears, support) and a very good engineer. The guys will be going in on Saturday and Sunday this weekend to finish up their parts for those tracks, and then we'll need to spend some time mixing soon after. A full-length, nine track album should be done sometime in mid-July, I would guess. Just in time for our big show on July 21st.

Browns Football
As a Cleveland sports fan, I have to have something to look forward to, and right now this is it. Minicamp was this past weekend, and some of the things to report are that Kellen Winslow claims to be at 90% (and claims to have been humbled by not playing last season), and supposedly caught everything and anything thrown to him in camp. He's still shaking some rust off, but a healthy Winslow with his head finally on straight will be a dangerous weapon for this team. The prelminary indication is that no Browns draft picks will be holding out this year, which would be a breath of fresh air. I'm sticking by my thinking that 9 wins isn't out of the question.

Work
Busy. And back to it.

Long Overdue

Not only am I long overdue for a blog update, but I had been long overdue for a golf game. So, thankfully, I got to play with my Dad over the weekend. It was nice to play with him, and also to take him out to play for Father's Day, since I won't get to see him on Father's Day itself.

We got out to play Thunderbird Hills South, which is a nice course (and fairly forgiving, since it's only 8-10 years old and the trees haven't matured yet) that I always seem to shoot well on (keep in mind that "well" for me is anything below triple-digits).

We were tied at the turn, both under 50. I was killing the ball off the tee, but struggling mightily with my pitching/chipping. I got new irons this year, and am still trying to find the swing for them, but have made great strides. On the round, I hit three of the four par-3 greens, and missed the fourth 10 yards left, but pin-high. My dad was killing me around the greens. He saved about four shots with great 50-foot chips close to the hole.

The weather was beautiful, the time well-spent with Dad. On 10 and 11, he stole three strokes from me. Then another one on 13. Down four, I needed to rally, and I had sub-100 in my sights. I needed to finish with 5 bogeys to hit a 96, which would have been fine with me. Bogey, bogey, bogey, par, bogey. 95. I stole two back from Dad, but he cruised in with a 93.

I suppose since it was our observance of Father's Day, I can let that slide. :-)

As for my golf game, I've finally bought into the strategy of trying to bogey every hole instead of par every hole. I finally see what playing the safe shots instead of trying to make up for every mis-hit on the next shot can do. I'm no longer trying to do things I know I simply can't do. Some positives:

• I hit my driver about as well as I ever have. I hit at least five drives over 250 yards, and actually got some in the fairway.


• I was just KILLING my 5-wood off the deck. I hit a few at least 200+, to which my Dad gave me many kudos. It bailed me out more than once when I was not good off the tee, and on the par-5's.


• My wedges improved toward the end of the round. I still don't have the distance control that I want (I'm often short when I get it up in the air, and WAY long when I don't), but I was better at getting them up in the air and throwing them at the green instead of swinging and hoping.


• I putted well. I almost sank a 40-foot birdie putt on a par 3. In truth, I only read one break and thought I hadn't given it enough room. To my surprise, it broke back toward the cup at the end, and stopped about two inches short of a birdie.


• As I said above, I hit my irons well off the tees on the par-3 holes. I need a little more work with hitting them off the deck. It's coming along. A bucket or two at the range, plus trying to play a lot more on my half-day Fridays with work friends will hopefully help.

All of that adds up to my goal of hopefully breaking 90 this year at some point. Lowest I've ever shot is a 94 (incidentally, also at T-bird South), and on my 95 this past weekend I know I left at least 3-4 BAD shots out there. With a little improvement and better game/course management, I should be able to break 90.

At least, that's the goal.

In other news, House of Cards at C.B.R.'s this Saturday with a nice lineup, including Ladyfinger who's in from out of town. Come and check it out.