We're just about finished getting packed. We head out tomorrow for Boise. We're looking forward to heading out to the Northwest again. We both have strong connections there, Jenn lived in Seattle for a while with her Dad and I studied at MSU in Bozeman. We've also done a good amount of playing out there, and it feels a bit like a second home for both of us.

Packing for a flight is always stressful. Making sure you get everything you need, not just the basics of clothing toiletries etc, but the cords and technical stuff. That is really the tricky part making sure that you have all of the cords and gear. We have downsized a bit lately, but we still have a six space rack unit ( heavy!) and then instead of bringing a pedalboard I pack all of our pedals in a small suitcase with the cords. It is pretty heavy, but still lighter and smaller than the pedal board case. Things always get a bit stressy around here trying to get it all set. Unfortunately, just as we got everthing packed and set out we realised we had one extra bag...whoops:) Tomorrow well get up at 4am and head out to catch our flight at 6:20.

We watched an interesting movie the other night. Actually, it was more like a lecture. The premise was a "conversation between God and Buddha". Deepak Chopra was doing that part of Buddha. I forgot the other professors name, but anyway, they would introduce basic philosophies and then compare the the similarities and contrast. The most important fact was one of the basic tennets of the Buddha, which was basically that all human suffering was caused by not knowing the true nature of reality. (I paraphrased).
There were a few other tennets but they were all subservient to this basic one. I find this interesting because it is an idea I have been thinking quite a bit about lately, not only from the personal perspective , but also from a societal... even global one. In essence we are all in a constant process of creating our realities through our thoughts and ultimately actions. Of course, we are all dependent on one another too, since we're sharing the planet. We all have different perspectives based on our culture, thought patterns etc. To some extent these shape our world and the one around us. I remember seeing an inscription in the wall of the statehouse in Jefferson City, MO, that relates to this concept. It read: "Ideas rule the world". -- I guess we should all choose carefully.

Ok, well enough 'deep thoughts' for today.

We just got back home from our gigs in FL. We had a blast at the Marion Theatre. The staff was totally first class and audience had a great energy. We look forward to playing there again.

We spent the day driving today down to Ocala, FL. I had some fingernails trouble this week and have been experimenting with playing with shorter nails. It has it's pro's and cons. Pros are that it makes playing in the steel string a little easier and you can really dig into the strings with out fear of breakage. Cons are that it is a little harder to get tone colors on the nylon string, however it has forced me into a slightly different hand position which seems to be a little better. I'll keep experimenting...

We have had some good opening gigs recently at Rhythm and Brews in Chatanooga. We have met some cool folks there in Chattanoogie and look forward to going back in Nov. to do a full show. I've also enjoyed working with Doug the sound engineer, he has filled me in on some new approaches to our live sound, which I like. Last gig we tried running six channels to the board. (One for each cello, guitar mic, guitar line and stereo out of the looper.) This worked well, the only drawback was that one of the lines came loose from it's socket so we lost part of the cello for one track. Unfortunately that seems to be a shortcoming of that particular mixer. Once I work that out, I think this will be a good way to approach the sound in certain venues.

We recently added our version of "The Wall" (Pink Floyd) to our set. It is a work in progress and is still evolving quite a bit, but we're both having a lot of fun with it. We've been in a bit of a Pink Floyd phase recently and rented The Wall (movie) on netflix and even watched the Wizard of Oz with the Dark side of the moon.