—HERE YOU ARE AGAIN, AND SO AM I

…Hey, I’m back.  Thanks for waiting for me.

Milwaukee was just as fun and thoroughly enjoyable as I’d thought it would be.  There are few things better than having the kinds of friends who you feel naturally at ease with, where you’re comfortable enough to trust them with your good stuff and the bad.

The only problem with that is since these are long distance friends and I don’t get to see them often, sleep gets eschewed in order to be around them as much as possible, for as many minutes as possible.  So yes, I’m a little comatose, yet I wouldn’t change a thing.

…And because I hadn’t had enough fun in Milwaukee, the very next day (yesterday) I went to Deck The Hall Ball with my daughter, a mini music festival featuring six bands that began at 3pm and went to around midnight.

There were 11,000 people in attendance, the sweet spot (age-wise) being 23-30.  I didn’t see a single African American.

I did see some firsts—the lead guitarist for Portugal. The Man (yes, that period in their name is actually supposed to be there) was in a wheelchair.  That seemed pretty cool, but of course you never want anyone being in a wheelchair.  The other first was the piano player for The Lumineers.  He was barefoot the entire performance and often traipsed around on stage, bouncing atop different pieces of equipment.

The bands were all very different from each other.  Odesza was a mash-up of Blue Man Group and some very gifted techno band on steroids.  I was surprised how good they were, how incredibly entertaining.

But of course the highlight was the last band, one of my top three or four favorite musical groups of all time—The Killers.  It was my first time seeing them and I was worried they wouldn’t meet my expectations, which they didn’t, because they exceeded them.

Brandon Flowers is a beautiful man, but he’s also an ardent performer.  He sang his guts out, as did I, right along with him.  There were only two songs I did not know all the words to.
 

…So the fun is done for a while and now it’s time to get a rhythm back.  Today’s a big day for me...

…But Bud the beaver just swam by.  I always take that as a good sign.  I haven’t seen him in a while.  There’s so much fog on the lake I can’t see the other side.  But I can see a nearly-full moon out my window, which I also always take as a good sign, the moon visible during daytime.

…I hope your day is fabulous.  I’m pretty sure it will be.