Where have I been?

Well.

I know everyone is wondering... What's up with Zach?

This past weekend, I went up to Cable, WI for a weekend getaway (car) and relaxed with friends from Albuquerque and Oconomowoc (and my sister.) By relaxing I of course mean skiing 23K. That's right. It was my first time skiing the Kortelopet with the crew. Bugger of a trek that near blew out a tendon in my right foot. Stupid crab walking up steep hills will do it every time if you aren't properly trained. I didn't perform terribly but I know I can do better. It took me 2 hours 39 minutes to finish the race. I came in somewhere in the middle of the pack in every division except for my age range where I was 9 out of 11. Oh well... that's what I get for not quitting smoking like I had planned. But I've been clean since last Friday. We'll see how that goes through this week and then the next month. Yeah?

In other news, the band is still crapping along. Other members seem to be on task as far as their assigned duties. Joey V. is actually writing lyrics for new songs. Trav has started acting as the booking agent for the band. Danny is still doing whatever the hell he does. And me? I've got two songs that need some work, one song that has some arranging issues that I would say is halfway done and two new ideas that I'm going to start working on. New demos for seven songs will be ready tonight and so forth. The gloom that's been surrounding this labor of love for the past few months seems to be lifting.

As for recording, we still have vocals to track. Lots of vocals to track. Everything else is in the can. That should (hopefully) be wrapped up this weekend... which is unfortunate in one respect, since I got my new 1971 MXR Distortion + in the mail this weekend. I hooked it up this morning before I went to work and cranked out a few tunes, tweaking the sound and deciding that it was a very worthwhile purchase. There's something about vintage guitar effects that modern digital stomp boxes just can't match. A sincere thank you goes out to Adam Selzer of Norfolk & Western for pointing me to this pedal.

One of these days (by the end of march???), I'm going to take the time to build a traveling case for my Fender Twin with room for a pedal board and a cable stash. One easy package ready for some jerk-hole to rip off in an alley behind a bar in some jerkwater town in the Midwest. That lucky person could be you... let's all hope so. I know I've got an itch to enact some vigilante justice, Broadway style.

And the Oscars... blah blah blah... didn't watch 'em. I did catch the performance of the song that won best song by those European people. That made me pretty content that they won. It's a beautiful song.

And there was something else that I caught on the radio today. Visa has its IPO coming up in the near future. What the hell does this mean for the average American in these trying financial times??? only the future will tell, and in it's own time. But won't it be fun to speculate?