Hiram Ring

Another thing I've been doing over the last few weeks that I've been home (besides running my sisters around and generally 'being dad' while my parents have been out of town) has been working on recording and mixing with my friend Matthew Monticchio...

Originally this post was simply going to be called 'Recording of Whales', but I thought that might be misinterpreted. No, I didn't go on a whale-spotting venture, and I didn't record whales... though I wish I did, because that would have been cool and GreenPeace would have been all over it...

In case you are wondering what I have been doing with my time since I've been back in Lancaster, I have been trying to relax with a vengeance. And failing miserably, unfortunately. But I have high hopes...

So if you've read all the posts on this blog recently, you know I was out on the road for a 9-day, 9-show tour with 3 friends which included stops in all the major cities and even a radio interview. It was a lot of fun, as much for the people that came to the shows as it was for us to play them...

In Baltimore we played at The Light Gallery, north of the Inner Harbor. It also happened to be Ravens game day, so it took us 15 minutes to get through this one intersection coming north off of 395...

We drove from Pittsburgh to Lancaster, where my parents live and where we would spend the next couple nights. I called a number of people on the drive - several of whom didn't even know there was a concert, though they attend my church, Wheatland Presbyterian, where the concert was being held...

We had some downtime at my parents house in Lancaster, which we spent sleeping in and then visiting the Central Market in town. I showed the crew a bunch of the sights, but really they should have come for a First Friday to experience the buzz of people...

It was great to have a few hours to hang out and relax at Joy's friend's house outside of Cincinatti. We hit the road around 2pm for Toledo, and arrived safely at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Maumee, OH around 5pm...

We drove from Toledo to Pittsburgh in the night - Joy and Brooke were glad to be getting home for a couple days, so we decided not to stay overnight in Maumee. We all woke up pretty tired in the morning, but got ourselves ready for the evening and had a decent turnout at the Shadow Lounge...

We woke up really early and drove from Nashville to Cincinatti, a 5-hour drive that crossed from Central into Eastern Time, so we got there an hour later. But we had planned appropriately and arrived at WNKU in northern Kentucky in enough time to get breakfast in the student union...

We drove from Greensboro to Nashville, where we got ready to play at Bongo Java. Brooke went to school at Belmont, which is right across the street, so we were able to hang out with her friends, who had a place for us to stay, as well...

Today (Saturday, Oct 3) Garrett, Joy and Brooke met me at my house in Lancaster, PA, we had dinner (groundnut stew with chicken and rice, MMMmmm) and then drove to Washington, DC to play at Busboys and poets. Here's a look at where we played...

Today (Sunday Oct 4) we drove from DC to Greensboro, NC, where Peculiar People were hosting us for a house show. There wasn't much to do on the 6-hour drive, so we talked and I read another hundred pages of Don Quixote and we listened to music...

Boston in the fall. This sounds like it could easily be a James Taylor album title. Or a line from that beloved Veggie Tales song. Take your pick. It was still fall when I drove to my brother's place in Easthampton, though it soon got warmer and then colder again. Still trying to make up its mind...