October 2025

Not as much stuff happening in October...

Wednesday, October 1, 2025: Mashantucket, CT. What a name! This was a corporate gig at a bar in a casino. We started the day by flying from Atlanta to Hartford, where two sprinter vans picked us up and drove us seventy-five minutes to the gig.
 We used rented gear for this one, and all of it was good, but hot damn, my in-ear mix was worse than ever! It sounded like I was playing along with a band in the room next to us. All I could hear was my keyboards and the kick drum. Totally survivable for ninety minutes, but it was really bad. We have another fly date coming up in December, and I would like to set everything at the same level and then start turning individual instruments down. Maybe that's the move...? Some consoles have an app and wireless so that I could make adjustments without having to ask for a million things, and I would like to try fixing it that way. We'll see. I've definitely worked my way into a giant mess.

Anyway, soundcheck took a very long time, so I missed the chance to run on the treadmill, and the gym closed before the gig finished, so no run today. There were a few dinner options, but I went with Subway (oh man, the guy making sandwiches was so inept I thought I was going to run out of time before he finished making my order), and then had some chips and fruit in the green room.

On the plus side, I used my "other" pair of saxophones because my "road" pair are in the trailer in Atlanta. Something is definitely wrong with my "road" tenor.

Thursday, October 2, 2025: travel day. Reverse it! 9 AM lobby call, 4:30 PM back home. Kip bought a dozen doughnuts for the ride back to the airport. 

Saturday, October 4, 2025: Portland, OR. I was asked to sub with the Yacht Rock Schooner guys on a fly date in Portland, as the regular guy is having some kind of in-ear/motion sickness issue and can't fly.

We flew out the night before. That's a long time sitting on a plane.

We stayed in the Duniway Hotel downtown, one of my favorite spots. 

One pleasant effect of jet lag: I am up early enough to justify breakfast! These were great.

the view from my hotel room window

A very quiet Saturday in the war ravaged PNW.

Zach Wetzel (former YRR monitor guy) was with us on this gig, running sound and coordinating all the details, and we had a chance to go grab lunch and catch up. Good Indian food just a few blocks away!

the view from the gig

OK, so this gig...somebody's birthday party, at a winery. We (the Schooner) were the opening band--the second band was an ABBA tribute, and there was a rumor that they'd been flown in from Europe. Woah! This is expensive.

For me, this was kind of a weird one. I only played saxophone, no keyboard, so it was familiar and yet not so. Some songs had no saxophone, so I just went and stood in the back corner of the stage. Am I doing this right? 

Whatever. The evening's schedule got out of whack, and we ended up only playing for an hour.

Saturday, October 11, 2025: Atlanta, GA. Delta Airlines turned 100, and they rented out Mercedes-Benz stadium for the party. We played a set after Ludacris and before Thomas Rhett. WSB must've left the party early.

We had an early call--8 AM--to meet at the stadium loading dock to be escorted in. From there, we went straight into setup.

I brought my other tenor sax from home so that I could feel the difference between my road ravaged tenor and the one that stays at home. Surprise! They both feel fine. I. am. still. insane.

9 AM soundcheck. Finished by 9:30. 

Our part of the show was scheduled for 3:30 PM, so lots of hanging out. I took a nap--no surprise there. After lunch, more hanging out. We had credentials and could walk around, but it felt crowded enough that I thought I'd probably catch Covid or the flu or something. The odds were too good, so I went back to our suite behind the stage.

I went side stage and watched a little bit of Ludacris, and it felt like most of the Delta people were there to see him and see Thomas Rhett, and probably had no idea who we were.

Anyway...the gig! Mostly good. I wasn't shaky nervous--I would say I felt kind of disconnected from the whole thing, like "Huh, this is what a giant stadium show looks like," except that I happened to also be playing at the stadium show. My mind was kind of wondering. I guess the inability to focus on what's happening is also a form of nerves? In my defense, there was a lot to look at.

As we got into it, I started to think about how I hadn't messed up the Africa solo in a while, and usually I get nervous about playing that solo at a big important gig in front of gazillion people, and then I made myself nervous and messed up the solo, so...way to go, Dave. That was annoying. I tried to think about how it was two measures in the middle of a two hour show, maybe not the end of the world, but it definitely bummed me out. I guess I should be thankful that at least it didn't show up in the news clip.

When I went out front to play Baker Street, the first time I leaned back, I caught sight of myself in the video screens up in the ceiling, and I was like DO NOT LOOK AT THAT!!!!! It was disorienting, and I wanted to look at it to see what I looked like, but there was a chance that it was going to make me mess or fall down. Can't have that! So I had to close my eyes when I looked up, but also don't look at the camera when I look down, and also, don't fall over, and also, don't mess up.

 

So much for that. I packed up my gear and went home, tired and annoyed.

Sunday, October 19, 2025: Atlanta, GA. I got a text Tuesday afternoon about playing a New Orleans jazz (known as "trad jazz," like traditional) brunch in Buckhead, in the middle of Atlanta. It's more like dixieland (but without the vests and arm garters) than Miles Davis. For me, it meant a lot of clarinet playing, so I was mostly interested in the chance to do that.

So...I got the address, the times, and the setlist, and on Sunday, I headed down there. Ugh. It was some kind of chain "New Orleans" everything-ending-in-"-eaux" restaurant with a weird parking situation, two people in the restaurant at 12:30 PM, and all the vibe of a CVS. Plus, the piano player forgot the power supply for his keyboard and had to go home to get it, so he missed the first forty minutes of a three hour gig. At one point, I had to go re-up my parking IN THE MIDDLE OF A SONG because the restaurant's validation expired after two hours. They said, "If you get a ticket, just email the restaurant general manager and they'll pay it." Yeah, I'm sure that's not a pain in the ass.

Anyway, the music was pretty fun, and the trumpet player leading the band was really good at this style. As for me, nobody hires me to play clarinet, so I liked the opportunity to play in this context. I think I did pretty good, but for the record, I did not get called to come and play again, so maybe not. 

I used the restroom before I left, and when I came out, the piano player was recommending another clarinet/sax player for the gig, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Thursday, October 23, 2025: Atlanta, GA. Yacht Rock played for the Live Thrive and the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials for several years in a row. I'm a big fan of recycling, so count me in!

The venue for this gig has bounced around. Most recently, it was at a distillery in West End, but that was horrible room for live music. This year it was at The Stave Room in town. Also a bad room for live music. At least it was closer to my house, though.

Our set up seemed like it was happening in slow motion--I think we were short a crew guy?---so the soundcheck ended up getting cut a little short (we were trying to rehearse some songs that we haven't played in a while).

The vegetarian dinner option was...half a potato with a glob of cheesy crap on it, two samosas, and some kind of little salad thing. Not enough food.

It was an ok gig. I think we played well and the crowd was great, but the room, being a big metal and concrete box, did us no favors. I tripped a little bit on the Africa solo (it's going to take a while for me to get my confidence back), and I blew a tricky spot in Everybody Wants to Rule the World, but I remembered how to play Maneater, so maybe those cancel each other out.

I brought home ten bananas from our rider. Score!

Saturday, October 25, 2025: Raleigh, NC. We flew to North Carolina to play a birthday party for someone with too much money. 

the Raleigh airport is nice

scene of the crime: a stage in a country club ballroom

vegetarian pasta dinner--pretty good!

We got into town pretty early, so we set up and sound checked and ate dinner and went to the hotel to check in and I ran (I ran so far away, I just ran, I ran all night and day, I couldn't get away) and we went back and hung around in our green room and dealt with the crazy lady who was a guest at the party and wanted to stir things up "backstage" while we were looking at our phones.

It was all pretty predictable, the crazy lady (who kept leaning over the rail to see what else was on the setlist, and also had some great ideas about what we should be playing), the drunk middle aged guys, their stylish wives, the holding-on-for-dear-life performance of the goddamn Africa solo. Yeah. It was a Saturday night gig. It was fine.

post show pizza

After everybody had decompressed and eaten a piece of pizza, we took cars back to the hotel (and the crew packed up our gear), and flew home the next day. No big deal.

September 2025

Here we go! This is a big update. Lots of gigs, lots of pics. And I'm late with it because we've had some family stuff happening at home that needed me more, so I'm just now pumping this out.

August 2025

 Beginning at the end of July...

Thursday, July 31, 2025: Dewey Beach, MD. 11 AM flight--not too bad. TSA flagged my backpack (the two spare mouthpieces in a pouch look kind of like a disassembled pistol), but the agent tasked with looking at them told the agent next to her that she "didn't feel like looking for it" and then gave me my backpack back without a detailed search. Uhhh....

Anyway, we flew to Baltimore, and the vans picked us up and drove two and a half hours to Dewey Beach, through some pretty heavy rain a couple of times.

these need another week

We did the usual set up and soundcheck, and then I tried to squeeze in a run before the next line of rain came through--and failed! I got soaked. 

I think this was a pretty good gig. It seemed good and raw and loose, but I was told that the room does not sound good--there are too many people trying to talk over us. Oh well...it looks like it sounded good!

With all the rain blowing through, it was really humid--I had to turn the sensitivity on my EWI down because it was trying to play by itself whenever the lower drums would rumble. 

No Wheel of Chorus tonight.

We had a one hour van ride after the show.

Friday, August 1, 2025: New York City. We drove all morning to get to Pier 17 by noon (I slept most of the way). 

We stopped somewhere in eastern New Jersey. Lots of New York sports memorabilia, including this sweet Keith Hernandez jersey from the 80s (he was my favorite player).

It was kind of chilly and misting during set up, so I didn't do any kind of warm up--my saxophones and flute stayed in their cases.

We did the "soundcheck experience" for about twenty-five people. 

cookies!

my view off the back of the stage

Good gig here (finally!). I have a lot of anxiety because of the various ways I've sucked real bad when playing NYC, but I had a good time and actually played well, so yay.

I think the tenor reed I played in this show might be done. It felt really dull, and my chops were worn out by the end of the gig. The alto reed I used on this night...probably also done--I pinched it shut when I was trying to put a lot of air in the horn a few times.

Also, my effects pedal for my saxophones went nuts--the settings started changing on their own during the gig. I don't know if the riser was making it bounce, or if there was some leftover sand from the Windjammer in there or what, but the delay volume changed on one setting, and in the middle of My Old School, the octave that I had it set at changed to a major seventh or something. It was weird. I didn't have time to stop and fiddle with it, so I tried the ol' unplug-it-and-plug-it back-in, but that didn't solve anything. Gremlins!

Wheel of Chorus: You Can Do Magic and How Long. Piece of cake.

Post show pizza was good here.

Saturday, August 2, 2025: Asbury Park, NJ. Today's drive was only about an hour, and we stopped at a Wegman's grocery store for lunch. My sandwich was good. Kip ended up with some doofus waiting on him, and the guy took forever--we think he was confused because Kip wanted two identical sandwiches.

The gear beat us here--it was already on stage when we arrived--so I got to work setting things up. One of the crew guys had some electronics cleaner, so I blasted my pedal around the knobs. Hopefully that fixes it.

While I was at it, I took some q-tips and cleaned up a little more around the rods on my saxophones where the key oil has seeped out.

It was still pretty early in the afternoon, so I went for a run. We did the "soundcheck experience" for around forty people this time. Pretty popular.

tonight's dinner: this block of noodles

This gig was great. The weather was perfect. The Wheel of Chorus was Baby Come Back, and More Than a Feeling (we played the whole song for a young fan with a sign).

no problems from the pedal tonight

Big hang afterwards (I got to catch up with our friend Kerry Glennon), and more good post show pizza. This tour manager guy is doing a great job!

We drove for an hour after load out.

Sunday, August 3, 2025: Vienna, VA. Wolf Trap time!

Unfortunately, this was a long day of driving--I think it was about four hours. Everybody is tired, and we probably only slept for around five hours. 

Chipotle for lunch

We love Wolf Trap! The local crew is excellent and the room is beautiful. Kip doesn't like the way it sounds, though. Sorry for that.

free t shirt

The gear had already made it on stage, so I went ahead and set up my gear, cleaned some gaff tape off of my pedals, and changed out my tenor reed.

Most of the band had yet to arrive, so I went out for a run (very hot and sunny).

We did a "soundcheck experience" for around thirty people, and then I got in a good flute warm up.

dinner was weird

I wasn't in the mood to play this gig until we walked out on stage--it was packed! Pretty crazy, especially for a Sunday night. I guess that inspired me to some better solos than I've had the previous couple of nights, which I would describe as "disjointed crap." 

Wheel of Chorus: Purple Rain and I Keep Forgetting.

We had tacos afterwards. Kip was in a big hurry to leave, and everybody jumped in random vehicles to get to the hotel, and then we left something behind and one of the vans had to go back and get it...big mess.

Monday, August 4, 2025: Dulles International Airport. This was supposed to be a Delta flight that left at 10:15 AM and arrived at noon in Atlanta. Twas not to be.

 

that's a lot of concrete

Long story short, we spent the whole day hanging around, finally departing at 4:30 PM. The delay was so bad that Delta ended up also booking us on a 6 PM flight--leaving from Reagan International!--in case the 4:30 one didn't work out. Holy moly. What a mess.

dinner

Thursday, August 7, 2025: Hampton Beach, NH. Ugh. We had an 8 AM flight out of Atlanta; I had to get up at 4:45 AM. I understand that some travel days are just crappy but unavoidable, butttttttttt...I'm getting to where I would rather pay for my own hotel room and fly up the night before so that I can get enough sleep. I don't bounce back from days like this very easily.

Anyway, we flew to Boston and then drove to New Hampshire, to this historic music hall. Duke Ellington has played here, Simon and Garfunkel have played here, U2, Led Zeppelin, and now us.

It's an oddly wide room. I don't think I've ever played a room shaped like this.

I went for a run along the beach after soundcheck. It was a beautiful afternoon.

Pretty good gig--and sold out! Things went ok. I left out two measures in the intro to I Can't Go For That and nearly derailed the band (Nick followed me, but the rest of the band did not). Let's blame that on me being braindead from lack of sleep.

Wheel of Chorus: Careless Whisper (our Anchorhead fan Pete Reindeau steered the wheel to it because he'd never heard us play it), bass solo!, and then we did a bonus spin and got I Keep Forgetting.

Pete also makes the shirts for the DBF Fan Club. Here's this year's model.

After the gig, the load out took an extra long time, and by the time the guys were ready, Nackers and I were dead asleep on the couches in the green room. Long day.

Friday, August 8, 2025: Boston, MA (Night One). I slept til 10:30 AM, and boy did I need it.

Leader Bank Pavilion is awesome in a lot of ways. We got there in time for lunch. I had this salad, and then I went back for a potato and some other crap (I didn't take a picture of round two).

I went for a run (Boston is still confusing, but I ended up along the Charles River, where I have run before). After that:  warm up, soundcheck, dinner.

green room ice cream!

an old set list of ours in the "hall of fame"

huge crowd--another sell out!

Wheel of Chorus tonight with Mrs. Roper: Love Will Find a Way, Purple Rain

so close to getting the recycling right

Yay for no load out (though I packed up keyboards, saxophones, flute, and my pedal (which is still working as normal), so maybe it's not as much of a bonus as you might think. Anyway, in bed by midnight!

Saturday, August 9, 2025: Boston, MA (Night Two). Slept late, went of a run, got a sandwich to eat for lunch, and then we headed back to the venue.

dinner!

dessert!

Galaga in the green room!

Wheel of Chorus: Biggest Part of Me, Turn Your Love Around, and the theme to Cheers

another sell out!

post show pretzels!

Sunday, August 10, 2025: Logan International Airport. My flight was supposed to take off at 9 AM. There were delays. We at lunch at an Italian place when we were still optimistic about going home.

Monkeyboy's snack

my lunch

new fridge magnet I picked up

Some serious bullshit. We did end up getting on this plane, but it didn't actually push back from the gate until almost 6 PM.

When I got back to Atlanta, the DOT had chosen tonight to repave one lane of the interstate. 

I ended up getting 15,000 skymiles, which was fine. I got 5,000 for the day I spent at Dulles. 

Wednesday, August 13, 2025: Lewiston, NY. I had the row to myself for a minute, before they moved some middle seat guy to the aisle. His presence had no effect on me at all--I slept the whole way to New York.

Lewiston (and Art Park, the venue where we're playing) is near Buffalo, NY, and right on the Niagara River. Canada is right there on the other bank. We've played here two other times: once, opening for Richard Marx, and once opening for Train. It's a pretty shitty backstage situation if you're a support band, but since we're the main act, we get to use amenities like indoor plumbing, and it's a much nicer time.

Canada! Right there!

We stopped for lunch (Chipotle) on the drive from the airport, so when we got there, I went ahead and got my stuff set up and then went for a run.

acceptable, though a little sticky--prolly good by the weekend

There was a "soundcheck experience" for the people who paid, and they got Ride Like the Wind (our usual first soundcheck song), Guilty, and Heart to Heart (those were special requests from the audience).

On to dinner. It was ok. Salad, potatoes, pasta with tofu, and a piece of chocolate cake.

Pretty solid two set gig tonight in pretty hot and humid conditions. I used a new alto reed, and the older of my two tenor reeds, which I think might be done (compared to the new guy that I recently put into the rotation).

Afterwards, we drove forty-five minutes to the hotel. Plenty of time to ruminate on Kip's comment to me after the show: "Can you hear when you're out of tune?"

Thursday, August 14, 2025: Travel day. The vans, trailers, gear, and crew would be driving from Buffalo to Chicago, but the band flew. Buffalo to Chicago, with a layover in Detroit.

Detroit airport

Management invited us to join them as their guests in the Delta Sky Club in Detroit, and so we got to see how the elitist shitbags get to waste time in the airport. 

I think I would have rather found a place to eat and avoid my traveling companions.

fancy coffee machine

lunch part one

lunch part two

he doesn't like it

she does

We took a cab to our hotel in Chicago, The Drake. Cool place! The building is around a hundred years old, just off the Miracle Mile. 

I tried to take a nap (ineffective), and then I went for a run along the lake (excellent). The weather was pretty perfect, and the air force was practicing their part in this weekend's air show (the "air and sea" show, which Peter Searcy misunderstood to be an unexpected opener at our gig--"Aaron See).

Indian food for dinner--yaaaaaaaaaaaay

I got a ticket to see Charles McPherson playing at the Jazz Showcase. I was here with my college roommate in the nineties; neither one of us remembers why we were in town, nor whom we saw here at the Showcase.

Charles is really old, and he sounded like it, but the trio backing him up was made of local hotshots, and they were great. The audience was invited to stay for the second set at no additional charge, but I decided to bail and catch up on sleep.

The walk back to The Drake was mostly two miles up Michigan Avenue.

Prudential!

Wrigley building

the curse!

Chicago water towers

John Hancock building

Hotel room tour:

Friday, August 15, 2025: Chicago, IL. I did another lakefront run before we left for work. More airshow stuff was happening.

Today's venue: The Salt Shed, former home of Morton Salt. We made it in time for lunch.

They had BBQ for us, and the vegetarian option was jackfruit BBQ. Totally edible. I had two sandwiches.

bruh

More airshow practice. It was impossible to get a good picture with a iPhone--the planes came by so quickly that by the time you'd get your phone out, they were long gone.

Set up my gear (the interstate ripped all the components out of my rack, so I had to take a few minutes to lock everything back into place), warmed up, and swapped out that old tenor sax reed.

We did the "soundcheck experience" bullshit for fifteen people.

green room

cake!

dinner part one: salad

Dinner part two: some kind of fake meat, potatoes, asparagus

There was a caricature artist in catering (why?) doing portraits of us. As you might imagine, I was not interested.

 

I went back out the stage to do some more noodling, and I got called in to have my portrait drawn.

I stopped by the green room to let management know that I'd taken care of the caricature, and the rest of the band was setting up to shoot a promo video without me. "It's ok; we don't need you." So I got dressed off camera while that was going down.

Anyway, here's my picture. Maybe it'll end up on Pete's t shirt for next year.

We went out and kicked off the gig, and. the count off from Not in Love to All Right was so different (and different from what had happened at soundcheck) that it derailed both Mark Bencuya and myself for a couple of measures, and at that point, I was just totally done with being here.

Wheel of Chorus: Love Will Find a Way, Thank You for Being a Friend, and Cool Change.

Kip said that the crowd was so noisy he could barely hear the band, and I believe him.

Anyway, cool venue. I took a shower and ate a piece of the Salt Shed cake afterwards. We drove to just south of Gary, Indiana to spend the night.

Saturday, August 16, 2025: Indianapolis, IN. 9 AM lobby call for the three hour ride to Indy. We are tired.

We made it to the venue in time for lunch (yay!), but it was pretty crappy (boo!), so I opted for peanut butter and an apple. 

After lunch and setting up my gear, I went for a run along the river. 4 PM was not the best time--it was sunny and hot, and I had to really boogie to make it back for soundcheck.

the Wheel of Chorus

Dinner: meatless meatballs, glob of "pasta" made of squash, and lentil soup. Bleah.

The gig was fine. In the past, we've had a lot of issues with radio frequencies in this area, but our monitor guy Van (and a rented rack of in ear monitors on a different frequency band) nailed it.

Wheel of Chorus tonight: Thank You for Being a Friend and Careless Whisper. Ooof. I bombed the sax part on Careless Whisper because I couldn't remember the first note, and then my wrong guess derailed me for a few seconds of more wrong notes before I finally recovered. 

During the show, a line of thunderstorms approached Indianapolis, and Kip used his "voice of God" microphone to let everybody know that they had to pull the spotlight operators down from the ceiling because of the threat of lightning.

At the end of the night, we cut the encore down from three songs to one so that everybody wouldn't be leaving the venue right as the sky opened up.

I didn't go to the after party/meet and greet (no surprise there), so once my gear was packed up, I took a shower, took my contacts out, and made myself a second dinner--another peanut butter sandwich and another apple. Most of the band got trapped at the party because the security thought the weather was too sketchy to walk back over to the green rooms.

Thursday, August 21, 2025: Atlanta, GA. I got called Monday afternoon to see if I could fill in on a gig with Blair Crimmins and the Hookers. Sure! But also...I had no time to get ready. I did my best to go through the charts, and was surprised to find that the prep work I'd done for a previous gig was still rattling around in my head. It wasn't a big deal to get back up to speed. 

Weird gig, though. It was an end of summer party at an assisted living place, and they held it on a sunny 90 degree day in the middle of August in a concrete courtyard at 2 in the afternoon, and they planted all of these old people with mobility issues out there. It was kind of mean.

The band was under a tent (thank god), but as the sun moved, we'd have to move to stay in the shade. At one point, it dawned on me that we probably should've been moving the tent instead of our gear. 

Whatever...super hot gig, but I did well, and we had a good hang, and I was home before the traffic got too bad.

Saturday, August 23, 2025: Atlanta, GA. Chastain!

We (the band) have gradually worked it out so that we don't spend the whole day at the venue. I got there at 3:45 PM and all the gear was already set up (thank you Kip for building my keyboards). Most of the band trickled in over the next hour.

Good gig! Nick's daughter said I "slayed." The weather was the best we've ever had for a Chastain show.

Wheel of Chorus: Love Will Find a Way, I Keep Forgetting, and Careless Whisper (which I got right!)

Sunday, August 24, 2025: Atlanta, GA. Oooof. The gig hangover. We played this private fundraiser in town, and it was hot and we were sleepy. Better than playing my church gig, though.

carb loading for dinner

It kind of felt like a party in some rich guy's backyard. When we started, people were paying attention, but they gradually tuned us out--when I went up front to play the solo in Heart to Heart, somebody walked up to her friends in the front row, turned her back to me, and started talking, all ten feet in front of me. Maybe I wasn't slaying today.

Friday, August 29, 2025: Syracuse, NY. Another early flight (left home at 6:15 AM).  Pete's suitcase was found damaged when we got to baggage claim in Syracuse, and the Delta luggage guy immediately handed him a brand new suitcase from his office. How crazy is that?

We stopped for lunch next to Syracuse University. I went to this Indian place, which turned out to be pretty far below average (would it be too much for you to label the things in the buffet?). 

The best part of my meal was listening to someone who had ordered a pickup online argue with the manager over a dollar--the manager said something like, "Yeah, we changed the price, but we haven't updated the website. Sorry." And they went round and round about it. It was the difference between $4.95 and $5.95. 

I'll give you a dollar to shut up.

A quick lap on campus.

We played the New York State Fair (which you might think would be in Albany, but I guess not). Anyway, Vertical Horizon was playing when we got there, and once they cleared off, our crew had a big chunk of the afternoon to set up our gear (I wandered around for a little bit and tried to take a nap).

gross

gross

I just want to point out that earlier in the year (in Reno), we opened for Vertical Horizon, and now here they're opening for us. How times have changed! Maybe not, though. They were probably at the airport by the time we got everything set up.

Good gig, though. The weather was pretty perfect. As an experiment, I brought a heating pad to sit on, trying to see if that would keep me warm. It did not, just burned my butt. I was fine--it was breezy, but not intolerable.

I messed up the end of the Africa solo because I was thinking about something stupid.

Post show: a Pub Sub I brought from home and an apple. They had a fruit tray in our green room fridge, but they'd unfortunately put it in the freezer part, so everything was solid. Grapes were good, pineapple and cantaloupe were ok

We opened for DJ Pauly D of Jersey Shore fame. Still has the same haircut.

I ran on the treadmill at the hotel and watched the end of Footloose and the beginning of Sixteen Candles. A pretty wild Friday night in Syracuse.

We flew home on Saturday. The flight was delayed forty-five minutes. I wonder if that's worth any Skymiles?

The Syracuse airport had dogs for petting! I talked to this guy three times.

lunch!