George W. Bush just signed a bill that gives up to a $100,000 tax break to people who buy a large SUV. So that means, if they buy a Hummer or an Escalade for $45,000 or more, then they get back $100,000 from the government. Someone, please, tell me how this makes sense? My grandchildren will look back in hatred on Bush when the world's crude oil supply is competely depleted by the time they are teenagers.

Anyway...thanks to everyone who came out to our show at Sugar Brown's. We filled that place up, and I sold quite a few cds. It was awesome to get to chat with the Chizinski/Shuck/Avila/Unruh crew. Hopefully, all the other shows I have booked for June will go that well.

Over and out.

I could watch every episode of Reno 911 at least 5 times and still laugh out loud, which is probably a good thing, because Comedy Central re-runs it so much that I've probably seen every episode almost that many times. New season June 9th. Watchout!

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Much craziness took place last night while we were celebrating Amy's birthday. We had a big enough crew to take up a whole section at Tokyo Steakhouse. Our chef was incredibly forgetful of who ordered what, but he cooked me up some killer hibachi steak. We then proceeded to the wine bar, where Jayme, Sonia, and James met up with us. Kala and Dinah seemed to especially enjoy the wine (evidenced by the number of glasses they drank). We finally got to the dance club later, where certain individuals decided to take tequila shots (I, however, do not take shots). We all shook our bootys in true white people fashion, but I think I probably got my groove on a lot more when they played "Hey Ya" since I really like that song (and since by that point had consumed a fair amount of beer).

The dance party ended somewhat abruptly when an unnamed person (who we will refer to as Dirty Sally) in our party started to feel sick from one too many tequila shots. So we all climbed back into my car. As I was driving, Dirty Sally, who was sitting the back seat said, "I think I'm going to be sick, pull over." Luckily, I was able to deftly slide into a parking lot right off the street very quickly, and Dirty Sally was able to get my car door open just in time. It all turned out to be quite amusing since the interior of my car was spared and since Dirty Sally felt much better shortly after expelling the evil toxins from her stomach, and even laughed with us.

Amy and I had to head back up to the club because, in all the confusion, she forgot to close out her tab (which ended up only being $5). We then got kids' meals at Whataburger, made fun of the rent-a-cops there, then went home and passed out.

Hmm..I used this new program called BlogBot to post this here. Did it work?

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This weekend Amy and I headed to Ft. Worth to see some of my college friends I haven't seen in a while. We stayed with our friends Jen and Jason, and Pj and his girlfriend Hannah were there too. We got there Friday night, and all of us had a few drinks played some board games, etc. While Jason and Pj and I were on the porch, we heard singing coming from the neighbor's garage. The guy was completely drunk and by himself singing karaoke in the garage. He did a lovely rendition of "Whoop there it is." Apparently, all his friends were inside smoking weed, but he couldn't partake cause he had a drug test at work coming up soon. Hey, you can't go wrong with solo drunk karaoke.

This same neighbor keeps a shetland pony in his backyard. Illegal? Yes. But interesting nonetheless. Saturday morning, the girls decided to go to the mall, so Jason and Pj and I figured we would leisurely watch the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre while we sat around and sipped coffee. Yeah, after about 20 minutes each of us slowly started to get up and mill around (go get more coffee, go to the bathroom, etc.) Extreme gore is just not good for a Saturday morning. Later Saturday, Lance and Christy Jo and Nicky and Courtney showed up. We were all standing around in the front yard gearing up for the big BBQ when a baby duck waddled up to me and started gently pecking at my feet. Yep...the neighbors had a pet duck too. It was really cute how wherever I would walk, he would follow me. Jason tried to feed him some bread, but apparently he was content just pecking at my shoes.

That night we went to see Tiebreaker, Sara Radle, and The Shining Time. John's (tiebreaker) new stuff was very different, but I really liked it. His voice is amazing. Nicky's band (the shining time) were pretty good too. I also ran into Gabe and Tim (from Invitation to Failure) at the venue. This is a really long entry, so I guess I'll stop now without mentioning the cows running loose along the side of the highway on the way home and other such madness.

*the mp3s i mentioned in the previous post are here.
**the Plan for Landing cds are in!!!! Buy one today.

I went jogging this afternoon at Chas A. Guy park (yes, that is actually the name), and had to pause halfway around the playa lake to take a second to look at all the baby ducks and have the general reaction of "awwwwwww, so cute."

Even though I haven't been officially working this week, I've been super busy. I finished recording 3 songs that have turned into a side project called Built of Dissension. If you want to classify it, you could call it "instrumental melodic hardcore with breakdowns." The reason it kept me so busy is I played all the parts, recorded it, mixed it, and finally had to find some free software so I could transfer the tracks to my computer. The 3rd song (which turned out to be my favorite) - I wrote Tuesday morning then recorded it 10 minutes later. I uploaded the mp3s to purevolume.com. As soon as they are approved, I'll post the link for you guys to check it out.

The Plan for Landing cds get here Saturday, which I'm very excited about. The only thing is that I'll be in Dallas. But that will be cool...I get to see Pj, who I haven't seen since Lance's wedding...almost a year ago. I also get to see Nicky's band (The Shining Time) play their cd release party. And to top it off...John Lamonica from My Spacecoaster is opening with his solo stuff!!!!! I need not even explain how awesome that will be.

i think i've exhausted lubbock of almost all it has to offer me. i'm ready to go somewhere new. i'm ready to meet new people, build some friendships. i hate starting over, but i think i may be getting too complacent here. i do have to say that it is nice to go to Market Street or J&B or Daybreak or Sugar Brown's or the movies or a restaurant and run into my past students or friends from church or old fellow graduate student friends or pete chizinski. and i can't complain about the times when random people i don't know come up to me and say, "hey...you are in that band Plan for Landing" or "hey...you were in that band With Pins Pulled" or "don't you play guitar at trinity?"

blah...i was going to make this all a serious entry, but after typing that and re-reading it, the sentimentality is fatiguing.

I just finished the Palo Duro Canyon photojournal. Click here to see it. The photos load slowly, so be patient.