Pedal to the Metal...

I've been running on all cylinders lately. I've had something going on most every minute of every day for the past couple weeks...and I'm exhausted!!! Days are filled with work or household chores, nights are filled with rehearsals, gigs, or working on these learning tracks. Last week, abut the only 'Me' time I managed to grab was 2 hours to sit and watch Undercover Brother on Comedy Central on Saturday afternoon. Even most of that was spent helping (or trying to help, anyway) a friend through a difficult time via IM. Oh, how I long for some time to just sit and do nothing for a while.

Not that It's been entirely unpleasant, mind you. I love rehearsals and gigs with my quartet. Doing learning tracks can be a lot of fun, especially when I'm proud of the end result (and paycheck). I just wish I could find some time that isn't scheduled or where I could look around the house and say, "that can wait".

Work's looking up lately. The summer slump seems to be waning and my long-dormant clients seem to be warming up to me nicely. I know I needed an adjustment period to get things flowing, but the past month has been a bit scary. Couple more obstacles to overcome, but they're only temporary (I hope). The economy still sucks and it's still tough to sell musical instruments when folks are wondering how they'll fill their tanks to get to work, but I believe the worst is over (in my little sector of the business world, anyway). Gonna need to do some financial planning for next summer, though.

Meanwhile, I'm getting a lot of nice compliments on my learning tracks lately. The quartet that hired me seems impressed with my work. That last arrangement was a REAL buggar and took me about twice the time I expected it to, but they liked the result and sent a nice first installment of my fee. 2 down, 9 to go, and the rest seem like cake in comparison to the last one (a 4-minute medley with 2 standard key changes and one that was a bitch). While I love that my tracks are appreciated, I only wish I didn't have to rely so heavily on my software to fix things. I love how adept I'm getting at using it (which is a talent in itself), but I wish I had better control and intonation without it. I shouldn't get down on myself too much, though. Even Van Gogh didn't create in just fingerpaint - he had tools, too.

Sonya and the kids are running every bit as much as I lately. Between camps, vacation Bible school, trips to the in-laws' cottage in Canada, and other summer activities, they don't sit still for very long, either. They've been out of the house more than I lately, but most of that is by choice. Seems everything I do these days is in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar in one way or another.

This week:
Monday - 9-6 work, 7-7:30 Loving Memory quartet rehearsal, 7:30-10 chorus rehearsal
Tuesday - 9-6 work, 6:30 make & consume dinner, 7:30-11 work on learning tracks
Wednesday - 9-6 work, 7-10:30 quartet rehearsal
Thursday - 9-6 work, 6:30 make & consume dinner, 7:30-11 work on learning tracks
Friday - 9-6 work, 6:30-10:30 work video store, 11-2 work on learning tracks
Saturday - 9-12 chores, 1:30-5:30 benefit gig w/Coda Honor, 6-10:30 work video store
Sunday - Likely chores, grocery shopping, and lots of work on learning tracks.

Monday should be fun, though. I plan to head out with my sister and her boyfriend to a DCI show in Toledo. This is against my better judgment, as after the last DCI Big Screen event, I vowed not to give ANY money to DCI again. However, the prospect of hanging with my sister and several old drum corps buddies was too much to turn down. There will be at least half a dozen folks I KNOW will be there, and likely a dozen more I haven't seen in a long time that I'm fairly sure will be there, and the inevitable handful of folks I haven't even though of in years.

It's been a good 5 years since I've been to a live drum corps show. Barbershop as pretty much replaced my drum corps addiction. LOTS of similarities: music, competition, lots of "WOW" moments, similar planning and pacing of competition sets, internal bickering between the "old guard" and "progressives", lots of inside jokes and history. The big difference is that I don't tend to carry a bell-front baritone in my pocket to whip out and play an arrangement with other drum corps vets when 4 of us happen to convene. Getting older, the other nice difference is that you don't "age out" of barbershop, you actually more often "age INTO" it.

Anyway, better close the 'ol laptop and get to work. I'll see you at the checkerd flag...

Summer so full....

It seems there's never enough hours in the day to do all the stuff I want to, but summers especially are particularly full. Inevitably, there are scads of concerts, events, gatherings and such that I want to go to, but I end up having to pick and choose.

This week's a perfect example. I entered a drawing at Comics & More for free tickets to see the new Batman movie, but the date landed on the same night as a performance with my quartet and chorus. I didn't win anyway, which was a bit of a relief, but still... Tonight, Weird Al is at Meadowbrook and I had access to $10 tickets. Nope, gotta work the video store so I can have Saturday off to go to the annual Harmony Hideaway barbershop picnic. I hate having to rank and prioritize the fun stuff.

The task is even more difficult this summer as I am now TRIPLE employed again. There's the video store and the new job, of course, but this freelance job doing the learning tracks is taking up more time than I had expected. Well okay, not necessarily the gig as a whole, but one song in particular. The first one, "In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning" was simple enough and I was able to knock that out in a few hours last week. The next song they want done is a medley of "Flying Sinatra" songs ("Come Fly With Me" and "Fly Me To The Moon"). A very cool arrangement, but the Finale file I got had some errors with lyric notation, is replete with awkwardly notated syncopation that doesn't follow exactly what I'm used to doing at the karaoke bar, and the lead is in my horribly awkward break range. I'm getting through it, but being the detail-oriented nit-picker I am, I've re-recorded the lead and bass lines about a billion times to get it to a point I feel is at least 'okay' to my standards. I haven't even gotten to the oddly chromatic bari part or the tenor yet. So that's adding about an extra 8-10 hours minimum to my 55 hour work week. That's not including chorus and quartet rehearsals and performances at 3-10 hours a week on average, so you'll understand why I haven't blogged much lately. This leaves little time for other extra-curricular activities - even those I would LOVE to do.

Wednesday night was a performance with the chorus and quartet at Nardin Park UMC. We go there about every other years and do our full Annual Show to a completely packed house (being a free concert, as opposed to $17 a ticket). The chorus did okay, as did my quartet. Not our best, but good enough for the price. We have a bunch of performances coming up, so we need to get some more rehearsal in and tighten things up, not to mention get our contest set together for October's contest.

Still, I'm not overly stressed or unhappy. The learning track thing is something I love to do (despite having to turn off the fan & AC to avoid ambient noise during the hottest part of the year), and I'm able to fit in a few fun things now and again. The few nights a week I'm home, I get to spend some quality time with my family, barbecuing in the back yard and talking over dinner under the gazebo, watching cartoons with the kids, and last night I was in our 12' inflatable pool with them for about an hour playing games, splashing, and just having a TON of fun with my 2 wonderful children. True summer fun with my kids and some great Kodak moments. I needed that.

Tomorrow is the Harmony Hideaway barbershop picnic at the Slamka's in Riley Twp (that's about as BFE as you can get in SE Michigan). I always take the kids with me. Liam has a blast playing with other kids and participating in the games and the talent show. Courtney is a bit more withdrawn from the crowd and kinda clingy, but she usually has fun and as she's getting bigger, I think she'll have more fun this year. The weather report isn't terribly promising, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed (and the umbrella in the car, just in case).

Sunday, the kids head to the cottage, Sonya and I may go to see Sugar Ray & Spin Doctors at Freedom Hill, courtesty of a couple free tix from a coworker, so it's gonna be a fun-filled weekend, if a bit hectic.

...oh yea, and a TON of work on these learning tracks every spare minute inbetween.

Not a bad weekend…

My 4th wasn't too bad. Had the day off the new job, but had to work Blockbuster in the evening. In the morning, Sonya and Liam had a parade to do in Huntington Woods (big houses, winding roads, for you non-Detroiters) with the Unicycle group. I packed up Courtney after they left and headed to find a spot to watch the festivities. The parade winded down the residential streets of the tiny community. Nice shade and lots of room to find a spot, given the small nature of the parade. Courtney and I had a lot of fun. Being the picture of the adorable, toe-headed baby-doll, she got a HUGE haul of candy from the passing groups, which she split with her brother. Sonya and Liam did great and Liam impressed the crowd, as usual.

After a nice afternoon barbecue with Sonya, the kids, Leigh, and Sonya's brother Jeremy, I head to work. It was INCREDIBLY slow. Sonya and the kids headed to her parents' cottage in Canada that night, so once again, having to work Friday & Saturday at the video store, I had to stay home all by my lonesome.

You’d think this would either lead to a weekend of boredom or debauchery, but it was a happy balance. Friday, I spent much of the day cleaning the living room and digging into the often ignored corners of the room putting away the lost treasures of the past several months. Sonya had me cancel her debit card Friday night because she couldn’t find it. The next day, I found it safely wrapped inside a receipt on the hutch. (Sigh).

Saturday, I did some more cleaning, hit the comic store, had a nice conversation with the kid Chris hired so he wouldn’t have to work 6 days a week, and visited my mother and grandfather. It was nice to be able to catch up with them. They only live about 15 minutes away, but somehow, I only get to visit them about once a month. After that, I went to work.

About 20 minutes before my shift ended, I notice my friend, Paulie B., wandering the aisles. We chat for a few and after work I head to hang with him, Sarah Bradley, and a few others at Sara’s place to watch Clerks II (which I had almost started while I was cleaning earlier).

Sunday, more cleaning, only now the stuff I despise: laundry, dishes, toilet, bathroom sink, etc.. After I come to a stopping point, I head to my sisters to drop off a volcanic rock from my grandfather’s garden that she wants to use in her own garden. I play with her dog, water her plants (as she was away with her boyfriend for the weekend), grab some Taco Bell, and head home to start on a new assignment.

The past week, I’ve been corresponding with a fellow barbershopper from Nevada that my chorus director put me in touch with. He has a quartet called the Rat Paq, and is in need of some learning tracks for the Rat Pack-esque songs his quartet will be doing. I found out that he doesn’t just need a couple, but ELEVEN! After exchanging e-mails, sending a sample of my work, and haggling the price – a LOT – we finally strike a deal. I’m giving him a HELL of a deal compared to the $150-$200 going rate for learning tracks from the pros. Being my first real gig doing such, and being that between the members of his quartet, they’re connected with 3 choruses with 9 other registered quartets between them to suggest my service to, it’ll likely bring in a LOT more business. Call it a promotional deal.

I have been contemplating trying to make a few extra bucks by doing learning tracks for quartets for a while, after doing a few gratis ones for my chorus. This will be my first REAL paid gig as such. Over the weekend we exchange e-mails and on Sunday morning I found all the songs he needed in Finale files in my e-mail box. I’m hired! I spent much of Sunday evening recording “In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning”, and I must say, I’m pretty damned proud of how it turned out.

I e-mailed it out to him last night. I think he’ll be impressed with a 1-day turnaround. I may not see the money for a while, but I trust barbershoppers. We’re an absent-minded lot, sure, but not crooks.

By the way, if you could all send happy thoughts and prayers to my buddy, Chuck May and his darling wife, Molly, they could use it about now. Chuck & Molly are kindred spirits to me on many levels. Both are barbershoppers, music educators, and 10^th level geeks in their own right, and they’re raising their 10-month old son, David the same way (bless them!).

David was diagnosed a couple weeks ago with a Wilkes tumor. He had one of his kidneys removed and is undergoing chemo for the next 23 weeks to treat the remaining tumor on his other kidney. The prognosis is good so far and David is starting to act like his bubbly, happy, precocious self, but 24 weeks of chemo won’t be fun. Any positive thoughts and prayers would be greatly appreciated.

A New Professional Direction for my Creativity

I've always wanted to do something creative for a living that utilizes my talents, strengths, and passions. I suppose that goes without saying and is something everyone strives for. I've dabbled in it a bit from time to time, even succeeding to some degree. I've been a professional (by that definition, I mean getting paid at least once for my services) drill designer, singer, trombonist, web designer, arranger, and music teacher. Unfortunately, none of these endeavors have stuck to a point where I can make any reliable money out of it.

Oh the marching band instructor gig was a long-term thing, with 14 consecutive years working for at least one band a season, but that was only for 3 months of the year and the money was not exactly stellar or reliable. Professionally, if not financially rewarding. The quartet gets paying gigs now and again, but usually just enough to justify the hobby itself. Personally rewarding, but not lucrative by any means. Drill designing is something I've always wanted to do for a living, but to be honest, I haven't really marketed myself much or broken through to the "big time" as a noteworthy designer. Chicken and the egg: break through to make a name, or make a name to break through.

With no marching band gigs, designing OR teaching, for the past 2 years, I haven't had much opportunity to make a little extra scratch with my talents (aside from the occasional quartet gig). Now, however, it seems I have found a new outlet along similar lines to pull in a bit of extra cash now and again: part recordings.

For you non-barbershoppers out there, most barbershoppers can't read music (at least not well), and those who do can usually use a crutch of having the part sung correctly in their ear to help learn and memorize it. I have been recording multi-tracks of myself for years - ever since high school on my double deck tape recorder. I found it fun to play around with chords, learn multiple parts of any given song, and even try my hand at arranging with it. Most would turn out fairly decent after a few tries. Over the past couple years, I've refined my techniques a bit at a time, adding more high-tech equipment, utilizing the computer, getting better software and equipment, etc. Now, I finally have a set up that - while not ideal or particularly professional - works very well. I'll spend a while on each part, recording each attempt with my recording software until I learn it and get something I can work with. Then I do the same on each successive part, remove the noise with some of the nifty tools, refine the tuning with a cool plug-in I found for my program, move the balance around for a stereo sound, add reverb, and VOILA! I have a decent sounding track that - though not something I'd put on a CD and sell as an artist - sounds pretty cool and gives me a giggle. Meanwhile, I've expanded my own repertoire and made mself more effective to teach parts or fill in quartets on multiple parts.

Eventually, I started using this technique to help my own quartet to learn songs, starting with ones that I arranged. I shift the balance of one part to one side with the three remaining parts on the other side, allowing the listener to adjust the balance according to how much help they want. I later found that these kind of recordings are used frequently in choruses and quartets to learn songs. Once I got my tuning software, I offered my services to my chorus, noting that the learning tracks they did were often of poor sound quality, lacked precision at times, and were just plain time-consuming and difficult to coordinate with 4 different guys' schedules. The director was happy to not have to worry about the hassle and was pleased with the results.

I did this for free as a favor to the chorus, since we're always financially struggling as a chapter and I have fun with it anyway. Now as a form of compensation, the director and a couple other chorus members have been dropping my name whenever the need is mentioned for learning tracks!. I have a friend or two that do this for a living and make some decent money at it - like $200 per song sometimes. I don't plan to charge THAT much, as my stuff isn't quite as polished as theirs, though it's every bit as effective for the purposes. However, I've already been contacted by a couple guys who want my services in the past month! One was a chorus member I did 1 song on the cheap for. The other is a guy on the west coast who wants about 10 songs! I'm waiting on word from him as to how much I'll do and for what money.

This should be a LOT easier to break into than drill design, and may even lead to some arranging gigs! Regardless, it's a chance to use my knowledge of and talent for barbershop as well as my skills with my computer and be appreciated for it. Even if it only brings in a little extra cash for lunch money now and again, it's nice to be doing something I love, have it appreciated, and (being paid even NOMINALLY) be called a professional at it.

Guess it's time to add another service to my Keiser Pageantry website and maybe take it a bit of a different direction. There may be a bit more money in this "hobby" than I thought...

If you want a sample of what I do, you can contact me through Keiser Pageantry Productions. I'll be adding the learning tracks to my services on that site soon!

In Perpetual Motion...

What a week! Seems like I haven’t stopped moving over the past several days. Aside from my regular duties at work, fate has conspired to fill up almost every minute of my day, with a few evenings of sheer boredom.

Last Monday I went to chorus and to my delight, one of my favorite clients from work took my suggestion and came as well! He was a bit self-conscious, being more an amazing keyboard player than a singer, but he did manage a few bars here and there. After rehearsal, he and I, along with my friend and quartetmate Lou, went to Four Green Fields and had a great time swapping stories about gigs, women, life and such over a couple beers. I hope he comes back. Not only did I have a blast, but it’d be great to get another real musician in the chorus. He’s got a great bass sound.

The following Wednesday, my quartet got together for the first time in almost 2 months to rehearse for a couple upcoming gigs we lined up for the weekend. We ran down a list of songs we knew well, ones we sorta knew but needed to brush up, and ones we need to learn. I was pleasantly surprised at how many we actually knew well. We had a disappointing gig several months ago for a birthday party. We generally charge $260/hr with a 1-hour minimum, and we were hired for an hour. Now, that usually (especially at birthday parties) involves about 30-40 minutes of actual stage time with some banter included. THESE people put us on a stage and expected us to sing for the full hour. I hadn’t expected that and we weren’t terribly prepared. About 40 minutes in, we ran out of material (we sang a bit fast and banter was rushed). We managed to eek out a couple shakier songs to fill the time, but it wasn’t pretty. Lesson learned.

NOW we had AT LEAST an hour’s worth of music. We went to our first gig (a birthday party) and did wonderfully. Only glitch was that it was an outdoor party and there were some passing thunderstorms. They had canopies, so we stayed mostly dry, but one lightning bolt hit what must have been about 3 houses down and nearly gave me a heart attack! Still, we sang on and everyone was pleased with us.

From there, we went to the Relay For Life at Ferndale High – a benefit for cancer research. We were supposed to be ambient entertainment on the track, but due to the weather, we were moved to the gym. After singing at the entrance for a few of the high school kids there (who, not surprisingly, were extremely impressed with our choice of footwear), we moved inside the gym. At first, we figured our sound would be completely sucked up by the ambient noise and echo, and we’d be barely heard. Acoustics are a funny thing. We started out with “Zippidy Doo-dah”, one of our better songs and has a great barbershop 7^th just before the tag and a big cut-off. We’ve gotten REALLY good at ringing chords lately and LOVE holding that one at full volume because we do it so well. We get to that chord and as we sang it, we heard the wavelengths reinforcing each other in the echo. It got louder and louder as we held it. We cut off and it just RANG FOREVER! We look at each other with the biggest shit-eatin’ grins you ever saw, finished the song, and never had another worry about being heard in there.

Sunday was Liam’s belated birthday party for his friends. Planning Liam’s party is always tricky, as his birthday lies almost always around Memorial Day weekend, so we usually put it off a week or 2 so more kids can attend. This year, the planned weekend for his party coincided with one of his classmates who had invited his entire class. Rather than try and compete for guests, Liam went to his friend’s party and had fun with his friends while collecting a few phone numbers for his own guest list. After several calls, it turned out that only one of his friend from Cub Scouts, Lucas, and our friend Jenn’s 4-year-old daughter could attend. Being a small party, we decided to have it at Civic Park in Madison Heights; a WONDERFUL park with lots of room, facilities, and even a skate park. That was the clincher for Liam, as he’s been having a blast tooling around on his new Heelies and roller blades lately. The teens that usually hang out there are absolutely great, making room for him, encouraging him, and giving him tips along the way. He brought his unicycle along and impressed the teens there with that as well. We were there for over 4 hours, talking with Leigh, Jenn, and Sonya’s parents, eating pizza, and watching the kids play. Sonya made cupcakes in wafer cones and airbrushed Transformer logos on top, as well as using the same stencils for food coloring tattoos for the boys. Despite the low turn-out for Liam’s friends, he said it was the best birthday party ever. Mission accomplished, largely thanks to Sonya.

All this week, Liam has been spending his entire day at day camps, starting at the Cub Scout day camp from 8am till 4, then heading to Flint with Grandma to catch their church's Vacation Bible School. It's been very long week for Sonya as well, as she's been getting up at the crack of dawn to help the Cub Scouts set up and helping with the very high-energy kids and activities. They're both exhausted. Thankfully, the Cub Scout camp only ran through Thursday, so they get to sleep in today and relax a bit before heading to Flint for the final session of Vacation Bible School.

Monday night was the annual Detroit Target Fireworks along the Detroit River. Sonya, the kids and I will often join Sonya's parents for the event by parking at Sonya's parents' place in Corktown and walking to the embankment by the Lodge Freeway to watch them. The view is a bit obscured there and we catch maybe 1/3 of the show through trees and between buildings. This year, I took my sister up on her offer to join her on the 40th floor of the Comerica Building to watch them from one of her law firm's offices. I was hoping to take Sonya and the kids with me, but the kids didn't get back from Flint in time to leave and Sonya was to exhausted to get moving quickly, so I left solo. It was a small gathering including myself, Valerie, my friend Paul Bastian, and a couple of Valerie's friends. The view was AMAZING and I had a blast.

The rest of the evenings this week have been rather dull. The kids have been in Flint for all or much of the evening and Sonya has been tired and sore, so most evenings have been spent coming home, doing a few chores, making or buying dinner and vegging in front of the TV. This is rare for me, as most of my nights are filled with errands, rehearsals or work. It's been a bit boring, but a welcome change of pace.

On the docket for the next few weeks are trips to the cottage, quartet gigs, more camps for the kids, and of course work, work, work. It's going to be a BUSY summer.

Coming up next: "It must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays"

My Father's Day Weekend.

In Perpetual Motion. More than my favorite internet radio program, it's the mantra of my life.

Friday, the usual: work the day job, work Blockbuster, go home to a house full of people and dogs, have a couple beers, and go to sleep.

Saturday, Sonya runs off to do some errands and check out a new garden plot she reserved with the city and I take Liam to one of his school friends' birthday party. I spent the majority of the afternoon there, watching the kids play in the pool, slip-n-slide, play games and eat, while occasionally staving off one of Liam's tantrums spawned by some minor incident. It wasn't a chore, exactly, but there were plenty of things I'd rather do. Then I went to work at Blockbuster.

Father's Day, I got to sleep in till 10:30. That was nice. Then I woke up to help Sonya and Liam gather to be in the Frankenmuth Bavarian festival Parade with the Redford Unicycle Club. I got a nice card and some artwork from Liam & Courtney for my office, then commence to get them dressed and prepped. The parade started at 1, so I figured if we left by 11:30, we'd be fine. Silly me. Apparently, we needed to stop by Wal*Mart for white shoes for Liam and white pants for Sonya for the parade uniform. Okay, that sets us about 30 minutes behind. No problem, we'll still just barely make it. THEN we have to stop by her parents, because her mom may have a pair of pants that fit so we can return the pair just bought and pick up her brother. That turns into the better part of 1/2 hour as her mom makes French toast for everyone. Finally, we leave her parents' about 12:55. I barrel down the highway at breakneck speeds to get them to the parade site. We get there at about 1:25 and all run to catch up with the group, who is near the tail end of the parade, barely catching them. I pick up Courtney and run/speed-walk - while carrying her - the mile or so to a point in the parade to watch, getting there just in time. I snap a few pics of the group and meet up with my drum corps buddy, Caroline, and a few other corps alumni to watch the remainder of the parade. Courtney is thirsty, so Caroline points to her house and allows me to invade her kitchen for some water for the girl. By the time I got back, the parade was about done.

From there, I walk with Courtney to about the end of the parade (another mile or so) to meet up with them. Sonya's parents drove up to see the parade, missing it entirely, of course, as we almost did, and gather us to drive back to my car. Sonya, me, her parents, her brother, and both kids, crammed into a Toyota Corolla (cue the circus music). We spend about 40 minutes finding a place for lunch, and after a pleasantly quiet and uneventful meal, I decide to head home to finish up a learning track project that's a couple weeks overdue.

Ahh. Finally, some calm and quiet, and I can do some stuff I need to do....

...then I hit the traffic. 2 mile backup on I-75, taking an extra 1/2 hour from my day. The rest of the day was spent in the bedroom working on the learning tracks for my chorus, sweating like a pig, as I have to turn off the fan to avoid ambient noise on the track.

Don't get me wrong, the day wasn't entirely unpleasant, but not the relaxing Father's Day I was hoping for. Instead of enjoying a nice parade with friends, it turned into a mad dash to be everywhere 20 minutes ago.

Oh well. I'll me mellow when I'm dead.

The Secret to Blogging: Location, Location, Location…

Ah… Familiar territory. Liam’s finally out of school and on summer vacation. This means I don’t have to cart him to school in the mornings anymore. With my new job starting an hour earlier than my old job and being 20 minutes more commute, this means my 2 hour morning constitutional at the Caribou Coffee in Royal Oak has shifted to about 30 minutes at the Burger King ½ mile from work – if I time it just right.

Aside from the GREATLY diminished time available and my laptop being on the Disabled List for the better part of the last month, my environment has changed. I can still get wireless at my new morning home, but the atmosphere is just less than ideal. Caribou has a cozy, but not crowded atmosphere, occasional friends dropping in, and some great jazz playing at a very soft level in the background. It’s perfect for thinking (aside from the occasional noise of the coffee grinder and milk frother).

Burger King is Spartan, austere, a bit corporate-crass, and has MSNBC playing on TVs in every corner. It’s hard to concentrate on peaceful thoughts when you have talking heads and pundits arguing the latest canned talking points in your ears. Plus, the coffee just isn’t good.

So now that Liam’s out of school, I took the first day of his vacation to get up a bit earlier and hit my favorite thinking spot again. It was like walking into Cheers and having everyone shout, “NORM!” I chatted up my favorite barista, Leanna, ordered “the usual” (mug of dark roast and a lemon-poppy seed bread), and opened the laptop to catch up on the mountain of blogs I subscribe to that had accumulated over the last month. I got through maybe 20% of it. Now, I have 35 minutes left to write a bit and get to work – which means about 10 minutes for actual writing.

I can’t do this terribly often, as the $3.50 or so for my “usual” can add up, and it’ll be nice to spend a few mornings with my family (even though Sonya & Courtney tend not to wake up before 9 voluntarily). I anticipate a couple mornings of eggs, coffee and toast around the kitchen table (if we ever get it cleared), and some nice shared morning breakfast time.

Still, I truly cherish this time and place. At the risk of sounding like a commercial, my mornings at Caribou are some of the few times I can sit, undistracted, and think clearly. I would love to spend a day here just writing, arranging, and catching up on …well…everything.

My time’s about up. You have no IDEA how tempted I am to skip work today and just enjoy the peace and nice weather, but responsibility beckons and I must heed the call. Well, off I go; from the comfy, peaceful atmosphere of a neighborhood coffee shop, to the gray…VERY gray, professional office.

I gotta get me a plant or something for that place…