Well our trip back to the Midwest was fantastic. After Carrie and I got over our 24-hour stomach bug (which then moved to my sister-in-law, then brother-in-law, then aunt!) it was smooth sailing. We had a lot of fun seeing family and friends although it did get a bit crazy for me as I was doing so much the last few days of our visit. Even though we've left Indiana in the past thinking "that vacation was the perfect amount of time" this time I wish we could've stayed around longer. Milo charmed everyone he saw and really enjoyed his first Christmas. Grandma even taught him how to wave!

Notable Christmas loot:

The Wire Season 4 DVD-I guess my cousin Kathy heard my no-so-subtle hints as to how much I wanted this.

Choke by Chuck Pahlaniuk, The Invisibles vols. 1 & 2by Grant Morrisson-If you know Pahlaniuk, Morrisson and my mother-in-law you will quickly realize she raided my Amazon Wish List to discover these books. I can't wait to read them.

'Heat Pillow'-I don't know what else to call this but my sis-in-law K made me this pillow-like tube that you can microwave to keep hot then put it on sore muscles and such. I'm sure it will come in handy soon.

And my Mom provided some much-needed dough to help us afford our late trip back home which was really fantastic of her.

We finally made it home and after buying a new phone I've been knee-deep in car-buying ever since. It doesn't appear I'll get the killer deal I was hoping for as the vehicle we want is a really hot item and the best-selling in its class. I'm currently playing phone-tag with a bunch of dealers trying to get the best offer.

Is it really New Year's Eve tomorrow?! Yikes! I'm working tomorrow night, the gig should be pretty fun and laid-back. I was hoping to do a long, reflective "best of 2007" blog but I'm not in the mood at the moment. But go to Top Five and tell me about your favorite '07 memories.

You forget how much of an inconvenience snow is when you don't live in it. We're sitting in O'Hare, our flight was supposed to leave at 5:30 instead its been pushed back to 8:45 (if we're lucky) ... hours and hours waiting with a squirrelly baby.

Despite our current situation we had a great Christmas in Indiana (and Chicago). I'll post more later.

Sunday night I dropped my cel phone in the toilette (or tworlett if you're from Indiana). It's fried and I can't get my numbers out so if you want to get a hold of me just leave a message but please leave your number as well.

We arrived in Indy on Wednesday but unfortunately Carrie and I got either food poisoning or a stomach virus that evening and spent all night taking turns in the bathroom. Gross. Thursday was spent recuperating and rehydrating and luckily we are both feeling much better. Baby boy didn't get ill at all and has been enjoying all of the attention he's been getting.

It's a lot of fun being home for the holidays. Hope everyone else is having a good time as well.

We arrived in Chicago this afternoon, once Milo fell asleep the flight went quite smoothly. We've got some BBQ on the way and are ready to begin the holiday festivities.

... but damn!



Colts win today and clinch a great spot in the playoffs. I trust Tony Dungy gave a speech completely unlike this one.

New Top Five, go dig.

Ever since I returned from New York Milo and I have been spending a lot of time together running errands, shopping, having lunch/breakfast, etc. The other day we were at a mall and I gave him a bottle at the little children's play area. The place was packed and I was the only father there, I felt like a housewife. Milo is just so charming and smiley and fun to be around we can't wait to come back to Indiana for the holidays.

We said "Adios!" to the Silver Bullet yesterday, it was time for me to get rid of our Ford station wagon. Besides being an eye sore because of the tire debacle earlier in the summer, it was having problems starting. Since I'm buying a new car I briefly considered trading it in for our new one, but the BlueBook value is $700-800, I knew no dealership would give me that much especially with all of the problems it had. So we donated it to the Boys and Girls Club of the San Fernando Valley (with a gaurenteed tax write-off of $500, I tell you I've really been researching car buying).

You'll all be happy to know there is a Colts game at the dome while we are in Indy on the 23rd. Despite living 3,000 mi away from the team I've been to a game every year for the past 4 seasons so this is like, serendipity. I think Milo wants to go too.

I saw the latest Todd Haynes movie I'm Not There last night. It's about the life Bob Dylan with different actors playing different identities and aspects of the man; Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett and four other actors all play Dylan in one way or another.

I was really excited about the movie and from reading reviews and thought it was a brilliant idea. After seeing it I must admit I'm a little disappointed. The movie doesn't necessarily follow events of Dylan's life as they happened and it is told in a non-linear style, this is part of what attracted me to see the film. But I found myself not engaging with the characters or the story unless it was a part of his life I was familiar with. I also found myself wondering "is this from a poem Dylan wrote or something from the screenwriter?". I went in to the movie thinking that the non-linear non-factual style would be quite effective in portraying the personality and impact of an icon, instead I felt unfulfilled and detached.

I will say the movie is quite ambitious and worth seeing because of that alone. Cate Blanchett, the stunning woman she is, plays a male character embodiment of Dylan, there's Richard Gere as Billy-the-Kid-Dylan, and a young black hobo named Woody Guthrie as Dylan. Fine movie, still not in my Top Five.

Everyone need to go and read my Cousin Kathy's Blog. She tackles health care much more eloquently than I did earlier in the year. My favorite excerpt:

There's this ugly sense of "me, me, me" in this country that really irks me. "Why should I have to pay for..." and similar lines of thinking overlook a very critical element of building a strong country: A strong country is made up of strong communities. Strong communities are made up of people working together toward a common goal. Protecting your own interests to the exclusion of the wellbeing of your community is selfish and short-sighted.

Preach on Preacher! Preach on!

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I've had an office/rehearsal space for a year and a half or so. My good friend Vinny has this enormous office that he runs his photography business out of (Vinny did all of the photography for my record) and I rent out part of it to store my instruments, practice, etc. The spot is nice and big, I can have a full band rehearsal day or night. Carrie and I also have a lot of old baby stuff stored there.

Last week Vinny and I get a letter stating that the LAUSD (that is the Los Angeles Unified School District also my wife's employer) is looking to build a school in our area and our office building has been targeted as a potential site. You know what that means, bye-bye office.

Now let me just say while giving up the office would be a real inconvenience and a total drag at least its the LAUSD wanting to build a school instead of some corperation wanting to build a parking lot.

There was a community meeting about the site selection on Monday. I've never been to such a meeting so I was quite interested. Representatives from the LAUSD told us there were two sites they were targeting; one of them is at the end of our block and encompasses a parking lot and a condemmned high-rise that hasn't had anything in it for over a decade, the other site includes our building, another office building, and nine residential homes. Seems like a no-brainer right? One site contains nothing but a delapidated eye-sore and the other includes 40 small businesses and 9 homes. At the end of the meeting a few folks (including Vinny) stood up and spoke about what an inconvinience it would be to be forced to move and asked why our site would even be a consideration. I guess the condemmned tower is still prime real estate for more businesses but as I said there hasn't been a thing in the building for a long time and in all liklihood the only types of businesses that would occupy that sort of property would be corperate low-paying retail shops; in my opinion its much more important to keep small business owners around.

There will be more meetings as the LAUSD gets closer to making their decision.

So check it out.

I flew to Cabo San Lucas yesterday to meet up with Tyrell and the rest of the band for a gig. I also had a gig Friday night and had to leave at 5:30 AM Saturday morning so needless to say there wasn't much sleep to be had, but I didn't check any luggage so the airport was a breeze. Once in Cabo I found out we were staying at an all-inclusive resort; you don't have to pay for food, booze, anything. Pretty sweet. I had lunch with the guys and caught up with them, it sounds like the Carlyle is going well for them.

So here's what the gig was: this lady named Peaches (no kidding) flew her friends and family to Cabo on a chartered 737, rented out an ENTIRE resort for them (there were no other guests at the hotel, just those there for the party), and hired bands to play every night for three nights to celebrate her husband's 85th birthday. That is some wealth folks. After we played an Afro-Cuban band lead by the organizer of the Buena Vista Social club went on. They were fantastic.

good music + free booze = nasty hangover

Despite being nauseous and foggy-headed I made it the airport alright. I ordered a snack at the airport restaurant and didn't notice the 'cash only' sign until I was nearly done. I asked the bartender where the ATM was and he told me "downstairs, they only give pesos." So I would have to go through security again and withdraw pesos for a $6 tab. Drag! Luckily there was a really nice guy next to me who I was talking to who picked up my check, lucky me. So I have some good karma I need to pay forward, who needs a favor?

Its good to be home. Even though I was gone less than 36 hours there's something about leaving the country that makes your trip feel longer.

My schedule is all clear until we leave for Indy. I plan on continuing the car search, practicing and hanging with Milo until then.

And say hello to Milo's new cousin, Craig Harrison Barnett. Welcome to the family boy, your December 2023 issue of Playboy awaits.

A friend of mine turned me on to this site CarBuyingTips.com, it provides so much useful information on buying a car I can't begin to tell you how much I've learned. Tips such as finding out your credit score, getting pre-approved for an online auto loan, getting competing online quotes from different websites, and finding out how much the dealer actually pays for the car is going to help a LOT when the haggling over the price of the car begins. It also clues you in on a few scams dealers try to run. Great stuff.

The only problem is I still don't know what I want. The RAV-4 is still the front-runner with the Honda Pilot not for behind. I wasn't impressed with the Nissan Murano or GMC Acadia. I still have a couple more to look at.

For all of you fans of 'The Wire' (and sadly that's probably only Cousin Kathy and I) Amazon has posted some digital shorts that are prequels to the series here. While you're there check out my wish list ... HA!

It's that time again folks, before we get all warm and fuzzy with holiday cheer I need to once again rant about something. This time its the abuse of the word "they."

"They" is a fine pronoun with many uses, but when it is used to make a point by giving some sort of false backup to the abuser that it gets out of control. For example:

Person A: Why didn't you come to the party last night, they said you were going to be there?
Person B: Yeah, I was busy ...
Person A: Oh, because they said you were going to show up.

Now Person A has put Person B in some sort of dilemma by insinuating that the entirety of last night's party were waiting for him to arrive before starting the festivities when in fact there were probably only a couple of people who said B might show. "They" has been used to make Person A's point with ambiguity. But the worst abuse of the ambiguous "they" occurs in two areas: small business transactions and political discussions. Firstly, business:

Customer: "I'd like a Sausage Biscuit please."
Worker: "They won't let you order breakfast past 10:30."

Customer: "Mind if I finish my Coke in the theater?"
Worker: "Oh, they won't let you bring in outside food or drinks."

Customer: "I'd like special of the day please."
Worker: "They ran out of the special earlier."

In this case "they" is used to show how sympathetic the worker is to the customer's plight, "hey, I don't make the rules, they do, I just work here". When the fact is they wear the same golden arches on their breast pocket as the manager which means they have some responsibility as well and should be using the word "we" instead of "they". If the worker really was sympathetic he or she would just wrap up a biscuit and sausage patty for you. Secondly, and probably most annoying of all, is politics:

"They are all crooks!"

"They want to take away all of my rights!"

"They're going to run this country in to the ground!"

These folks use "they" as some sort of rallying point, the whole of the American political system is out to get them and anyone else listening to them. The fact is that you can't find a handful of politicians with the same ideas and agenda, each president is vastly different from the next and even the most crooked of politicians have bigger things on their minds than your problems.

The solution to this problem is a simple one boys and girls, next time you hear the ambiguous "they" being abused simply say this:

"Who are they?"

Guaranteed the person will be at a loss.

"... for the Holidays"

That's right, Carrie, Milo and I are headed back to Indiana for Christmas. We're flying in to Chicago on JetBlue (I have credit with them from canceled flights to and from NYC) and will be in the Midwest from the 18th-28th. So we hope to see you then.

Also, this is my third blog of the day so keep reading:

My Top Five blog is happening once again this time with help from sistah-in-law Special K. We hope to get a lot of folks visiting and think it will be a lot of fun. We're starting with a bunch of "Best Of 2007" Top Fives so stop by and tell us your Top Five Songs of 2007.

Carrie and I went car shopping yesterday. If you remember the debacle with my wagon this summer then you also remember it's time to by a new vehicle. My father-in-law won't be happy and my grandfather is probably rolling over in his grave but we looked at Toyotas. I need some size so we checked out their Highlanders and RAV4s. Ideally we'd like to get a Hybrid but they are just out of our price range at the moment. I really liked the RAV4 and so far it is top of the list. Next up is the Hyundai Santa Fe, Honda Pilot, Mazda CX-9, Mitsubishi Endeavor, and (yes Dave) the GMC Acadia. Hopefully we'll have a new car very soon.

Afterward we went to the grocery store. As we were shopping a lady pulled out of one of the aisles, saw Milo and said "that is such a cute baby!" Carrie chuckled and said "thank you" but I was speechless. I don't get starstruck probably because my ego is so huge that I don't see them as being on a different level as me (did I tell you about the time I met Madonna?). But this woman was none other than Tisha Campbell who played Gina on the great 90s sitcom Martin. For those who don't know my bass is named Gina after the character and how Martin used to say "Damn Gina!" all of the time. Man that show was funny. We ran into her again, she had her little 5 or 6 year-old son with her as well, Gina ... errr, Tisha said "The grow up fast, hug 'em now!" Carrie didn't recognize her at the time and I don't think she does now either. If I had had a camera I would've asked for a picture.

Big Colts game today y'all, make sure you're wearing your blue and white.