Well, happy April Fool's Day. Anyone out there get fooled? Nothing big for me, either. I think a lot of people don't even bother anymore. Although, all of the employees in my company got the monthly newsletter today. In it was an article about a new corporate uniform. Of course, it turned out to be an April Fool's, but you sort of saw it coming.

We've actually been having Spring-Like weather here in the Northeast. Glad to see it. I took the picture for this month on a small island in the Domincan Republic during my stay there last year. I don't miss the DR in general, but that was a nice beach.

The new Rush song, "One Little Victory" was, of course, available for download the very day it came out. It's a lot heavier than their older stuff. I'm anxious to hear the rest of the CD. Thanks to Jish!

It's going to be a month of fun. Other than a ton of stuff to do at work (kill the server! kill the server! yes, yes, master!) I have John Prine to see, CD's from Rush and Warren Zevon to buy, a ton of rehearsals to go to (I'm in a local play), and an improv show to put on. I also had another guitar theory lesson, and practicing is going to kick my butt up and down the block. I now own a metronome and I know that I will learn to hate it. Who in their right mind puts triplets under 16th notes?

Oh right, Neil Peart does.

I just began my first Terry Pratchett book. It's called "Equal Rites". It is a DiscWorld book, meaning it is one of 23 books about a mythical flat world that is carried on the backs of four elephants and a 10,000 mile long turtle. This one is about a 9 year old girl who wants to be the first female Wizard. Mr. Pratchett was recommended to me by a mate in my improv troop. They say he did for Fantasy what Douglas Adams did for Science Fiction. Right there, it's my cup o' tea. I own 6 Pratchett books at this writing, simply because I happened to see a sign for a garage sale while driving to rehearsal on Saturday morning. I stopped in on a whim, and picked up a Vonnegut novel that I didn't have yet, two John Irvings and 6 Pratchetts. 3 bucks! In fact, if you want to start to read Pratchett, I recommend this Terry Pratchett site. There is a ton of stuff on the internet regarding Pratchett's works and his worlds. They can help get you started, too.

Hope that you all had a happy Easter. We had the big Easter dinner down here at my house. Spent pretty much all day Sunday in the kitchen. First making the food, and then consuming it. Had the whole family over.

I've been making plans with my guitar instructor and my Dad to build a few electric guitars. (In my copious free time, yes. What?) This I am looking forward to. We're going to buy the necks, like I did for my current guitar, but shape the bodies ourselves. Then I'll have to buy the gear/electronics/etc for it.

On the Malcolm in the Middle soundtrack there is a song called Washin' + Wonderin' by Stroke 9. These guys are also known for the tune 'Little Black Backpack'. I really like this song. There's a few different versions of it floating around, including a kind of acoustic version. My favorite is the full out rocker on the Malcolm soundtrack. I don't have the Stroke 9 CD yet, but I am picking it up tomorrow. I heard today that it came into my favorite music store.

Wrote the lyrics to a song the other day. I call it The Best of Me. I have a melody in my head for it, as well. Now I need to figure out how to play it...

Another week zips by. Work has been typically busy. Next week is going to be a killer. My boss plans to be in town all week long. Now, I could use the help if he pitches in. I have a lot of bizarre problems going on around here. For no reason, machines are failing or applications are kicking people out. Our older machines are failing, too. Hard drives have eaten a few mailboxes. Not a good thing.

Had a great band practice last night. overall, the band sounded good, and tight. We figured out a song with a couple difficult movements. Normally, I capo my guitar and fake the song with first position chords. Or at least, I copy the other guitar player. Well, now that I have been paying attention to what I am doing, and feeling more confident (and a couple of lessons), I did my own thing and it worked out nicely. I was able to transpose in my head what chords I should play based on the other guys capoed fingering. That felt sweet. I also got to let loose on another tune with my wah pedal and do a kinda vamping rhythmic solo thing. Felt good to me!

I spent some time today getting all the press work done for my improv group's first show. Most of the area papers are pretty cool. You just shoot them an email and they take care of the online calendar and the printed stuff for you. The Post Star is allright, you shoot them an email for the printed stuff, and go online and enter your own info into their calendar. The Daily Gazette, though.... Geez. What a backwoods organization. They don't have a very good website, no online calendar, no phone numbers listed. I call their operator and they don't know where to send me to post an event, so I emd up in retail advertisements. They don't know where to send me, so I get to the newsdesk. From there, I finally get to the right lady. She's a very nice person, helpful and all, but they have no email. I can mail (! Mail?! Who does that anymore?) in my info, or (huzzah!) Fax it in. Ok, just the fax, ma'am!

After work today, my coworkers and former coworkers (there's a lot more former than current) will be getting together for happy hour. That should be fun. After that, I am going to see one of my favorite bands perform. I think I have talked about Antigone Rising here before. Very good band.

Oh! Sushi for lunch! So good! Wassssabi!

I actually have a fairly quiet weekend ahead of me. Nice. I'm still reading Terry Pratchett, and I have to practice on the guitar some. Oh, and I have to buy a red dress...

Monday night. Usually, it's my only free night of the week. Tonight, I was to have band practice, but it got cancelled at the last minute. Well, fairly last minute. Last minute enough to miss my drummer, and have him show up to an empty practice space anyway. Luckily, he doesn't have to drive an hour to practice like I do. Anyone notice the ridiculous gas prices lately? Sons of (*@&#$*)#$&#*($&#$. The long story short, it's a free night again.

I finished my first Terry Pratchett book. I may have mentioned this. So, I'm hooked. I need to thank my friend, Dale, right now for turning me on to an author that has not only written 23 books in the Discworld series - he is still alive and writing more! I hope you detect the sarcasm. Thanking Dale at this point is akin to cursing him. I have to say it - eBay rocks. Well, when you win the auctions, that is. I played 2 auctions for more Discworld books on Sunday and did eventually win them. But there was another bidder, so the price got hiked up. On average, I paid $4.71 for each book. I got 7 more, and now I have the first 4 or so books. That should hold me. I may try Amazon next, since they have a big used book section.

My parents tube rat, Friday, had surgery last week. He had his spleen removed. (I am tempted at this time to link to a picture of a ferret spleen. Be glad I stopped myself.) He was doing well enough on Saturday morning that he got a weekend pass and came home. "Liberty", my Dad said.

The weekend update (in a nutshell, or, a log, rather): Friday night was go out and see some bands night. I went to see Anitgone Rising. As usual, they rocked. Opening the show was a bonus band, which featured Vinny, the drummer from moe., and his friends. They were pretty good. I met up with a drummer friend that I haven't seen in a long time. He has been touring the country, doing ethnic music, drumming where he can and living pretty close to the ground. It was nice to catch up with him.

On Saturday, I had some errands to run. My housemate made us ham and cheese omlettes, and thusly sated, we set off to the stores. I was in search of the perfect...red dress. After a failed stop at Goodwill (for the prices they charge, you may as well be on Fifth Avenue!) I scored the dress of my dreams at Sal's Boutique. (Salvation Army) The festivities are coming this Saturday! Looks like there will be a party afterwards, as well.

I also had to pick up a book on Music Theory. I had had to order it, as it is not typically carried in stock. It was quite a windy day on Saturday. In fact, as we were pulling out, my housemate's scarf beat us out of the parking lot. He said, "Oh, there goes my scarf." I stopped the truck and, with a fleeting feeling that I was in a Marx Brothers movie, chased down the errant accessory.

So, being in the general neighborhood, my housemate and I stopped in on my parents. We saw the horror of a naked ferret (Well, partially shaved, but Naked Ferret is a much better band name, don't you think?) My housemate wanted an exercise bench that my brother didn't want anymore. So he and I ventured into the floor to ceiling stacked with boxes tomb that used to be my bedroom. For the last 7 years, I have been using my old bedroom as a storage space. Well, it just happens to be "take anything" week where my parents live. Basically, you get to put anything you want on the curb (bedframes, tires, tv's, vcrs, trash, metal junk, car frames, razorblades, airplane engines that may have fallen in your back yard) and your neighbors will come by and take it all away. Ok, well, actually, the town sends a truck around, but your neighbors do get the first go at it. My brother showed up to drop of my Dad's computer (freshly repaired) and between his junk and my junk, we had quite a nice pile of crap on my Dad's front lawn in no time. It didn't last long. After some rubber necking, and carefully timed raids, the neighbors had indeed carried off "the choice crap." Including some old wooden water skis with no bindings, some warning lamps from roadside construction sites (I found them in trash myself), several old xt class and 286 class computers, a laserdisc player, a VCR that weighed 50 pounds, and some 1200 baud modems (Yes, Virginia, there was such a thing as 1200 baud). My Dad let me know that the truck came today and took the rest of it.

Sunday came. For the most part, I rested. Can you blame me?

I put together a mini-web site resume and uploaded it. Just samples of the sort of sites that I have done.