And A Good Day To You, Sir

So since july i got second job at a coffee shop, we went to new york, then i quit the second job and now we are both going to attend OSU in january for film studies.

Our trip to new york was fantastic. Not very relaxing, but full of excitement. We stayed at a pretty nice hotel near washington square park. we kind of hung out in greenwich village; coffee shop hopped; bar hopped. It was an awesome and inspiring time.

I think we are getting pretty super serious about all of our goals, I think we are tired of all the talk and anxious for the pursuit. Musically, we do have a show of our own lined up and so we are working madly on that. Our music has also undergone a major style change and so we are reworking a lot of things at the moment. all wonderful and exciting, and also sometime soon we will get a number of websites up, one for each of our artistic endaevors. the first up, more than likely to be for Evolu.

Also exciting: an awesome election day for us this year. everything from the local issues and races up to the senate, house, and governers went our way.

Well that's all for now.

Closing July

So July is closing up and our place is coming along quite nicely. We've been painting and creating so the place will have a real vintage victorian feel. We still are not quite settled in yet, so we haven't really been creating much lately, especially musically. That's actually ok though, because we have a lot of ideas, and we want to spend some time setting our place up to be a space for creating in. Somehow I couldn't figure out how to word that last sentence any better so I'll just leave it like that.

Home Sweet Home

Signed a lease Wednesday and now we are the proud new renters of an apartment not far from the one we left a year ago! We have the first floor and basement of an old victorian house- a step up from the attic of a victorian house! We are going to paint this coming week before we get any stuff moved in. I think we are only going to bring in a few things that we have used in the past: couch, stereo, kitchen appliances. We are going to try to get new stuff for a new start. Stuff that more accurately represents our personalities and styles now.

Bonnaroo 2006! Almost!!

So there is only one day left until we leave for bonnaroo! Bonnarooooo! We will be traveling in our (only) car of choice: Stella, the 196,000-mile-old '95 Avenger. We love you Stella!

Shows I'm most stoked about:

Bright Eyes
My Morning Jacket
Death Cab For Cutie
Radiohead
Blues Traveler
moe.
Be Your Own Pet
Artvandalay

...and also I'm very much looking forward to the Masquerade Ball.

Well, time to pack toilet paper and bottled water. We will be writing reviews of bonnaroo and I will photographing the happenings there as well. Check back here soon (shortly after we return) for lots of good stuff about bonnaroo, as well as the link to our review site where there will be not just lots of good stuff, but TONS of good stuff about bonnaroo!! (if you're NOT going this is your chance to get in on the excitement (and find out why you should go next year). If you ARE going, then check back and look for yourself in pictures of the crowd, read about our experience, and share yours! The forecast says it's going to be a hot hot weekend (about 90 everyday with little chance of rain!)

I think Bonnaroo is the perfect way to reset our lives into this new mode and I'm glad that we pulled it off this year. When we return, we will be hunting apartments in Columbus, OH just like last year after bonnaroo, but I think this year we will actually decide to take one. ;)

Waking Up

After another strange adventure with an abrupt end, we have landed back in Columbus, where we ran from almost a year ago. Some of the things we have seen and done were so surreal I almost wonder if they ever happened at all. No apartment yet, but we are both probably going right back to work where we were. It's sort of like we never left, but are waking up from a year long dream. Our journey taught us so much about ourselves and we've both done so much growing. I think we are ready to just stop roaming and start creating, at least for a while.

You know, it's strange to me to think that most people CANNOT pack up all of their belongings into a small car and change the entire direction of their life at the drop of a hat. That's kind of how we have become accustomed to living. It took maybe 3 hours to pack up all of our possessions into that car. It only took us about 2 minutes to reach the decision to, with not a lot of serious talk leading up to it. Sure, moments such as these are quite serious, but I think romanticizing them helps us get through. I suppose it's kind of my way of seeing the humor in it... Kind of.

So back to the good. We need to take all that we've learned and seen and experienced and use it! There are a lot of ideas zipping around between us, and I think that our band, Evolu is just about ready to work its way into the scene.

Best of all, our new chapter will sort of be kicked off with a trip to Bonnaroo! Despite the sudden change of residence/plans and the worse-than-typical poverty, we have managed to secure our most sacred holiday, and we will return from this one inspired, and ready, and glowing brighter than the sun does on the horizon. We are young and we are more motivated and more confident than ever, and our devotion to art and bohemian ideals is a mountain of its own. And of coarse, the world is a beautiful place!!

Down, Out and Up (a mountain)

Well after a good hike today amber and i are both feeling pretty depressed. It seems as though we are destined to be travellers for the rest of our days. Our restless souls cannot be tied to one place for too long. Whats worse? We really thought this time we found a place to call home- a place to stick around for a while, and some friends close enough to call a family. It may sound sudden, but it is certainly not. We have been supressing our unhappiness for a little while and trying to stay positive. Once the cracks in the illusion began to split though, we realized that we were merely outsiders and all of this time we have been supporting someone elses dream. I think that we really have a battle ahead of us, but how do we flee without burning this bridge?

Lately there has been some unspoken tension between us all and Lori confronted us about it all tonite. We explained that we've been feeling very homesick and that we also don't feel that we fit in well here. As much as we love the outdoors, camping, hiking, and nature, we are city people. We love the multicultural mix of people, the liberal ideas, the diversity in the city. We love taking long walks, chilling at coffee shops, being in the music and art scene. At first she seemed to understand, but by the end of the conversation I think she seemed more frustrated and defensive.

I guess the cards play out how they do no matter what you try to do to avoid it. I just hope its in the cards to survive this one and keep our friendships, because after all of the misadventures we've been through, it would at least be nice to take something with us, especially something as meaningful as a friendship. But it looks like it is out of our hands now. We can only be honest in saying that we belong in a city, not on a mountain, and if the people who asked us here cannot understand why we are not happy being here, then i don't suppose there is much we can do to make them understand.

Forget Smilefest, Go Bonnaroo!

Well our Smilefest photo and press passes eluded us so we are focusing all of our resources on Bonnaroo tickets. Bonnaroo is more our style anyways. We are still just a tad short on getting two tickets and without a steady source of income, we cannot guarantee that it will happen at all.

So far we have sold necklaces, shirts, and purses that Amber made, and homemade bumper stickers that I made, AND cleaned dorms at the folklife center to make the money we have. It is kind of cool knowing that selling artwork we created may get us such a cool experience. Better than it going to pay bills.

The mailout day for the tickets is june first. Thats two days from now, and we are 85 dollars short. After the 1st of June, they will continue to take orders until they sell out. I suspect they may sell out almost immediately. Bonnaroo is kind of like christmas to us, and i do believe our sanity may be at stake, so we are spending down to our last penny to get there. Last year's Bonnaroo was such a magical experience and I just can't imagine missing it this time around. We need some inspiration, and we REALLY need a reminder of who we are, especially right now.

Therefore it is absolutely of up-most importance that we find a way to Bonnaroo. Wish us luck. :)

Coffee and Cocoapuffs

Amber and I have been working quite a bit on our music the last couple days. We are in the process of writing 2 new songs and I think we are evolving quite a bit. We seem to be moving in the direction from our folkie soft-spoken coffee house songs to some more rythmic alternative stuff. Did a tarot card reading the other night. Interesting stuff, and always so right too. Well all the while, I thnk we know exactly what to do and how to do it. I think we need to start stepping up to the plate with our music, too. The plate is, after all, right in front of us.

Song of Creation

We were all up last night and early into the morning, creating this crazy music and with spoken parts over it. We recorded it and i think its like 30 minutes long. We drew pictures and wrote amazing stuff. I actually drew a picture of a giant wave coming up onto land near the mountains and under the sun, and then we read this afternoon that an 8.0 earthquake had happened in the south pacific early in the morning and there were supposed to be tsunami warnings out there.The last time one happened, Amber and I felt the energy from it beforehand also.

May Day

Yesterday was may day!
We went to a really cool may day event at this huge 400 acre commune about an hour away from us. They did the may pole dance and had a big feast, and then a bonfire. It was all very ceremonious and celebratory- and it was like completely stepping into another universe. The stars were so bright and amazing. We even saw some shooting stars and the energy of the evening was absolutely intense. I think we were in some kind of time lapse too, because it felt as if we were there for a long period of time, but it was only midnight when we left.

Earth Day 2006

Our earth day festival was a big success! It was amazingly cool and evidentally all the people who came had just the best time :D Things really started to take off near the later part of the evening, when tons of people started showing up. A lot of them came to do the all might open mic and camp out. It was originally supposed to rain and storm all day and magically it didn't rain at all... it was actually sunny and nice all day and relatively warm all night. Our stage looked awesome, the lights were cool, and those of us selling art made a little money to buy food with for the week ;) I think the coolest thing about the whole thing was knowing that we threw an event that people REALLY dug... especially all the open mic bands and the whole late night crowd of kids that came... and by the way there were some really talented kids playing that night. They were rocking out the folklife center until like 6 in the morning. It was all so fantastic.

What is even better: we get to do the open mic once a month all summer long- and a lot of people have already told us how excited they are to come to them all. There are so many interconnected things that can happen through all this too!

Well we have another vending opprotunity this weekend to sell some art, so back to creating it is!

5 in the morn

Wow is it really 5 in the morn?

The four of us had a crazy creative spurt tonight and stayed up writing
and playing music and expressing ideas. Meanwhile we have also been
each working on our art to sell at earth day. I think we are all delirius
(sp?) now and the creative / productive boom has wained down to short
lived bursts of action in between long periods of inactivity. Time for bed!

Good night!

Circus Day!

Going to see the circus today up in Charleston... lots of fun!

Arts conference went great, we impressed lots of folks, and
it was this whole big thing. We may get more grant money
than we know what to do with. Also have a consultant
from the National Endowment of the Artss coming down to
help us write grants. It's been a while since all this happened
so my tone/descriptiveness may not be as excited as it was
immediately after returning from the conference. :)

Our earth day festival is rapidly approaching and we've got some
cool stuff made; mostly amber. I made some bumper stickers
and I'm going to make some cards and matte some prints. She's
designed and hand-made several clothing and jewelry items
that we're very excited about!

Lori and Robert's band is taking off- they are booking up pretty
fast- all the way to the fall; playing all over the state :) I think theyve got
about 30 gigs booked for the next 3 months or so. I've been doing the
lights and sound for them and both amber and I have been sitting in
on stage occasionally, usually drumming and whatnot.

We went to a yoga class with Lori and Robert yesterday
morning. It was my first one. I felt more rested and revitalized
afterwards than i have in a long time.

Our building is coming along quite well and we can't
wait till its done!! It's going to be amazing-------
I'll miss the mountain house once we move in to
the building but i think the whole thing will be
so fantastic, and there will be so much space
and so many resources for creating art that
we won't dwell on missing the mountain house.

Thats all for now! Circus time!

Fantastic!

Well we made to WV ok and we've been busy since we arrived.
We have been enjoying mountain living up in the huge, comfy,
quiet mountain house. We'll be living here for a month or 2
the building is absolutely amazing- they are still remodelling,
but moving pretty quickly. The coffee shop needs a lot of equipment and
research and money before we can get started on it and so we are going
to put it off until later- probably this fall. We need to get all of
the other functions going first. our art is priority over coffee :)
we may set up a coffee shop in a tent for festivals this summer.
I think we are planning on vending at like 12 different festivals
this summer.
We've got a workshop set up in the basement
for cutting wood, painting etc. and building a dark room down
there too.
Part of 1st floor will be gallery for photos, clothing, art,
and also we will have an office for graphic design / photography.
There is another storefront on 1st floor for our coffee shop.
There is an in between loft area between 1st and 2nd floor that
will be a lounge.
2nd floor will be apartments, another office,
our internet radio station (which will be broadcast eventually),
and recording studio.
3rd floor is huge- will be the music venue where we
will do open mics, play and book live shows, have lessons
like dance, etc. We will do live recording there for the
performances. Amber will have a full sewing room.
We also will rent the space out for receptions
and banquets as a source of income. We even have some
teachers from local colleges that want to rent out
the space to give private classes and lessons.
There are a lot of other rooms on the 2nd and 3rd floor
that we don't even know what we are going to do with yet.
So we are going to hit the photography / graphic
design market really hard. they have already started
projects for clients and with the diverse group that
we have, we can do anything like murals, signs,
photography, window displays, logos, advertisements,
etc etc etc. We can photograph events, video events,
record for musical artists, make promo packs,
promote. We even have a silk screen tshirt press
to make tshirts for peoples businesses or bumper
stickers for bands. We also have lots of artwork
that will be displayed for sale in our gallery:
Ambers clothes and jewelry, my photographs,
roberts photographs, paintings and sculptures and
furniture made by the other two guys, our cds from
local bands, Lori and Roberts band, and once we
record an album my and Amber's band.
Also there is a farm that used to be
kind of a commune/ artist colony in the 60s,
the folk life center, which we will be having our
earth day festival and culture festival on.
Culture fest this year will be a three day
festival with camping and all! Fantastic!
We got scholarships and stipends (for travel etc)
to attend this huge 3 day arts conference / seminar /
awards thing. We are going to be there representing
our organization.
Also we did a radio commercial (we also wrote
produced and recorded it) and its playing on the radio
station. We are also going to be doing a tv commercial
soon!

Hello Ohio, Goodbye

We are back home from Canada and so happy to be home. Reflecting on the whole thing, we had our good times and our bad times.

First the bad: We made a lot of money but we spent a lot of money- so we pretty much broke even. We also got stressed, overworked, and killed one of our cars.

The good: We have established ourselves as musicians! We both feel much more confident about our music and art, Amber is singing out louder and stronger. We wrote somewhere around 6 powerful folk songs that we are proud of and excited about. We have developed our own unique style. Amber has found a beer she likes - which is news because she hates beer - she discovered that she enjoys St. Andres Bohemian Style Lager. We also have new names - I'm Uni, and Amber is Indigo - these serve both as stage names and as names that we have given ourselves to signify our rebirth/growth as artists. I think most importantly, we left here feeling like amatuer kids "still learning" and came back real musicians and now since we feel that way, and put off that vibe we are automatically reguarded as such by others.

We have done a lot of visiting here in Ohio. Everyone is happy to visit with us but also no one is too excited to hear about our antics. Mansfield is still a drag, just like when we left. And it seems some family members wish I would get an engineering job and we would settle down, get a house, have a kid, white picket fence, etc. I don't think they quite understand us. Or want to. Whatever- we're quite happy in our bohemian-style instability. And even so it was nice to see everybody.

Oh and we also did a lot of visiting with Brandon. Such a cool kid. We always love talking to him.

The whole Canada thing also gave us a puh to want to go back to West Virginia, finally, where Lori and Robert have just bought a building. Long ago when we first heard their idea of buying a building, we were a little afraid and favored just vending out of a tent at festivals only, but we have since let go of those reservations and we are preparing to put everything into this. Now we will have a location in a building and tents so we can do both. We will all be living in the building, and working in the building, and playing in the building. So very fantastic!

Well as soon as we get our pay check we will be paying some bills and hitting the road again. West Virginia here we come!

Ode to Abner (and how we got home)

After a hard winter in Canada we have returned to Ohio!

Windsor to Toronto:

We left Windsor headed toward Toronto with a half a tank of gas and $7. About halfway between Windsor and Toronto (Woodstock maybe?) Abner the stationwagon began sputtering and smoking. We were not close enough to have it towed back to Toronto or to Ohio. After a couple hours of freaking out on the side of the highway in the freezing cold, we decided to have it towed to the nearest gas station and check the fluids. Used my check card to buy 2 quarts trans fluid and 3 quarts oil and $20 of gas even though i was pretty sure there was no money in my account. Fingers crossed, we jumped right back onto the road and made it back to Toronto... very slowly.

Stayed in Toronto for a few days to rest, admired the city, and went to open stage at ren cafe to play some originals we wrote, but list was full. Decided to wing it and try to drive Abner the station wagon back home to Ohio. Got paid too.

Toronto to Ohio:

Packed the car full to the brim. Bought extra oil and trans fluid, dozen doughnuts from Coffee Time. Made it all the way to the border: no car trouble! Got hasseled at the border about all the 'stuff' we had packed in there. Apparently we should have checked our laptops and stuff with customs? whatever. They eventually gave up and let us by. Into New York (yay!) transmission began slipping and started smoking (boo.) Began pouring it out just as fast as I poured it in, so we would drive for 15 min, then it would smoke, and we'd stop for a half hour to let the trans cool.

This carried on all through New York and Pennsylvania, and into Ohio. Finally, outside of Cleveland, we began to feel sick from the fumes, and it was breaking down about every 5 miles. To add to the situation, the engine cooling fan stopped working and it began to rain. We called a tow truck to get us the rest of the way to Crestline and much to our delight we made it under our towing limit by 2.4 miles! :)

Abner is past due for a retirement. Love that car, and Amber and I have a feeling it was just holding on for us. Kind of like it was running supernaturally. We put somewhere around 6000 miles (we think) on it since we recieved it for free. Well anyways, here's to Abner! Whether we were sleeping in the back, writing and drawing on all the interior with markers, hauling our guitars around, cussing and smacking the dash board because the dam thing stalled everytime a stop light turned green, or recklessly choosing to drive it for another 2000 miles on another crazy risky trip after claiming it was ready to be junked (over and over again). Goodbye Abner the stationwagon! You'll be missed!!

No money, no food, no gas! AGAIN!

Dude so more developments: yes the plot thickens. After spending 6 weeks or so living in Toronto, we were off to Windsor to travel to a really big store to try and make some money to put us ahead. Our job is kind of crazy, but it demaded that we learn to speak confidently in front of a crowd and we believe that as a result we have gained a lot of confidence to perform our poetry and music in front of a crowd. Of corse we have quickly learned to despise our new job for many other reasons.

Well as it turns out Windsor is a real drag. Good news is that we wrote a multitude of new songs in our little green hotel room. We are so super excited about them! Also just as our situation here has reached a newly undesirable apex, our friends in West Virginia have called and given us news that makes want to drop what we are doing even more! Turns out they bought a whole building in the town that neighbors their house on the mountain.They are starting a music venue / art gallery / etc etc. They are placing their beautiful house for sale and building a number of apartments within the building they bought. They want us to move there with them and do this whole thing. Sounds fantastic! There will be 6 of us total living and working in the building- kind of an artist colony/ ashram/ commune. Sounds kinda like what we had in mind the first time we were going to move in with them. Evidentally the building is super large with many floors and rooms (including a ballroom). In my mind the whole thing loosly parallels happenings of the big brother and the holding co.’s mountain home and the family dog commune’s avalon ballroom in SF in the early to mid 60’s.

Anyway, the stores in Windsor are not really hoppin, probably because it is february and the slowest time of year for retail sales. Reguardless, we are satisfied with the money that we are making. Unfortunately, we won’t see that money until we return to Toronto! Now we haven’t had a day off in over a week, and we’ve got about a week to go. We’re pretty tired but worst of all, yes we are broke again! With all the working how could we be broke? The problem is that WE are paying for the hotel, gas, and precooked food (ie pizza, takeout because there we only have microwave in hotel room) and it adds up qiuckly. We stayed one week in the hotel we intially booked, but downgraded to an unlisted, cheaper alternative for our second week. Our lovely stationwagon Abner is ready for retirement and has developed a gas leak in addition to the many other leaks he has. Therefore we are also spending more on gas than expected.

That brings us up to speed. We have about $1.50 in canadian quarters, 1 bottle of water, 2 guitars, 2 laptops, an amp, 2 suitcases, and some books. Oh also I found a mostly empty packet of sunflower nuts that have been in the car for nearly a year. We are in a small motel room that by my estimate is 8’x12’ and we haven’t eaten since 5 oclock. We are both pretty hungry that “meal” 6 hours ago was just a veggie burger for each of us. No fries, no potato, no salad. Just sandwich and water. Now I know 6 hours without food is easy, but what happens tomorrow? We wake up and go to work hungry and work our 12 hour day without food? We have made plans to buy a loaf of bread or something similar which we will consume to keep us from passing out. We kind of feel like slaves or prisoners. We are pretty fed up with the way things are going here and we are feeling ripped off: we are doing all the work and paying for all the expenses required just to do that work! To be fair, when we make it back to Toronto we will be showered our pay, but that doesn’t really help us now. I have put in a call to our boss to western union us some of our pay that we would have gotten last Friday but I’m not sure she will because I don’t think she was very receptive to the urgency of our situation. Probably because to her ‘have no money’ means only have maybe $100 or $200 left. That and she is a terrible listener.

Well now that I’ve complained about our situation suffice it to say that I’m not really complaining. We’ve definitely been in worse, and besides, it’s all a learning experience. Poverty spawns art. We have already written a half an albums worth of songs. Even if the whole thing turns out to be a flop, the crazy experience will have been worth it. Besides it may have been a necessary step to push us back toward Lori and Robert.

Valentines Day

So we went on a long Valentines Day walk through Toronto. We ate lunch at the Pulp Kitchen on east queen st. Great food there. Wheatgrass smoothies too. Then we continued on downtown and eventually crossed yonge st. to find the ice skating rink being prepped by the zamboni. Everyone sat on the surrounding benches with skates on in anticipation It was very romantic.

We’re people watchers, so we sat on the bench in our shoes watching all the couples skating or trying their best to skate. A young couple stopped in front of us on the ice. They waited for their friends to circle by for a picture. They were both dressed alternatively and had various piercings – they were adorable – quite punky. We sat for a little while longer oberving the beautiful event before we continued onto west queen st. This was our newfound favorite spot of town: kind of punky young cool crowd around. Some head shops, small music venues, and alt. clothing stores. The houses and buildings in the area are older and much prettier than on the far east side past greektown. Victorian houses, ornate designs, probably from the late 1800’s, I would guess. Colourful apartments in the 2^nd floors and attics, various storefronts on the 1^st floors of them.

Walking about, several hours later we passed the young alternative couple from the skating rink in the area. All around the streets were people holding hands, kissing, carrying flowers. Someone had even painted and chalked hearts up and down the sidewalks of all the streets west of downtown. On the subway couples holding onto each other in anticipation of getting home, perhaps. I know we were. Every station we passed seemed to display at least one couple on the platform about to catch the next train in leiu of their own distractions. Toronto may have been cold on Valentines Day but to a pair of moniless bohemian kids in love it was warm and cozy.

Open Stages

So we've been doing the open mics
on tuesdays its poetry /spokenword /music
and on thursday its accoustic music.
There is also one on wednesday night that we havent been able to make it to yet,
but we starting to get involved with the whole scene and the artists.

Last Tuesday night we did the spoken word open mic and a guy had Amber go on his radio show after with a bunch of live booked artists to do some spoken word and an interview. So she was on the radio! It was awesome. The featured band for hte radio show was called Lucy (formerly Chykweed). They were awesome.

So we've been writing more songs up here. We have also picked up a couple more covers. Our sudden decision to sign up for these open stages twice a week has forced us to realize that we needed to spend more time writing and playing and practicing. It's great!

We've also had the opprotunity to do quite a bit more reading because we have cut television completely out. I'm actually reading a biography about Janis Joplin written by her sister Laura.

We now must get ready to head out into the cold snow to go to another open stage tonight. Amber has a poem about our homelessness last autumn that is crazy with magic!

Toronto

So Amber and I have been living in Toronto for almost 3 weeks now. We are staying in this crazy big condo. It even has a fireplace in the living room. We have 2 roomates. One is an actress. The other is our boss. So our job is going okay right now. I think we are getting better at it.

Most importantly I think it is helping to cure our stage fright a little bit (especially amber's - she had a really bad case). We have given ourselves new names to use here. She is Indigo and I'm Uni. We found lots of really chill places during our explorations in the last couple weeks, but there is a place called renaissance cafe at which we feel pretty at home. We scoped out the open mics (called open stage here) this past week, and we are reading at the open mic poetry on tuesday and playing at the open accoustic stage on thursday. We've started writing songs again and picked up some new covers. I've also started new photo project.

Starting New

So it is 2006. Amber and I are leaving the day after tomorrow for Toronto. San Diego turned out to be too full, and even though we were looking foward to that warm weather, I think we are just as excited about Toronto despite the cold. We are almost all packed, and we *almost* have our scripts memorized :) .

Well we had a good Christmas. My sister threw her first holiday dinner in her new house and everything turned out really well. I thought she and Bill did a great job. It was tranquil, but not dead: people talked like normal people. In my family thats odd. We also had a good time playing bingo with Amber's parents and sisters.

A couple days after Christmas I did a real photo shoot for Amber's little sister Misty. I think I found something I really enjoy doing that I'm also good at. They were for her senior pictures, and since she doesn't get much of a chance to be her true self, that is what we focused on. We went to the city to do some of the shots, and there was some drama in her family that stopped us before we even got started. Misty had to make a tough decision on whether to rush back home to deal with the situation or to continue doing her own thing. I think it was the first real decision of her adult life. I am very proud of her for what she did that day. I think the photographs are very honest and symbolize an important time for her. I hope that she feels empowered by the whole experience and I hope it inspires her to get to know herself.

We had an amazing New Years as well. We took Brandon with us down to West Virginia to our friends house in the mountains: the ones we were going to move in with at one time. It was incredible. I think it was a perfect apex for the dawning of a new time. I think that Amber and I both had a very spiritual, perspective-widening experience and it was completely indescribable. Brandon, though had probably the strongest spiritual awakening of all of us. He's been kind of stuck in a rut in the same town, same job, same situation for a while, and the people he met on New Years and the things that we did and all of the music and drumming and jamming really inspired him. After we got back he told us how he felt about the whole thing, and he has decided to go find himself and his dream. He is already being more creative. It is a really great feeling to inspire someone else to follow their own dreams and find / create themselves. I guess I could say its one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, and it was partly by accident. One of my favourite things anyone has told me in a while came from him on the ride home from WV actually: he said "You guys sound kinda crazy, but it's the coolest thing I've ever heard."