I Will Be Your Girlfriend

Okay, I almost never even read forwards, let alone send them on, but I tried this one and the results were surprisingly astute...and I assure you this was all at random!

The Shuffle Survey

First, the Rules:

1. Put your iTunes/ music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter what.

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?

Sweet - Aya Peard

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?

All About The Money - Christopher Beck

I'm not sure how true that is.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?

Delicious - Plug

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?

As If There Was No Tomorrow - David Hirschfelder

Really, I'm not feeling quite that nihilistic at the moment.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?

Weekends - The Perishers

This is true.

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?

This One's On You - Ken Stringfellow

I'm kind of a cheapskate.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?

The Mind That Knows Itself - Sufjan Stevens

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?

Everything To Me - Liz Phair

Awwww.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?

Love Is A Losing Game - Amy Winehouse

Yeah, it's been a rough few months.

WHAT IS 2+2?

X-mas In Clownhenge - Buddy Judge

This is my version of math.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?

Drain You - Nirvana

Well, I am an introvert.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

Last To Know - Neil Finn

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?

Jesus, Etc. - Wilco

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

Frankenstein - Aimee Mann

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

Smile - Weezer

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?

I Turn Everything Over - Switchfoot

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?

Fiery Crash - Andrew Bird

How eerie is that!?

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?

I Live - Jason Falkner

He adored irony to the end.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?

Superstar - Sheryl Crow

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?

The Hideout - Sarah Harmer

Dang. Now everybody knows.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?

Disembodied Voices - The Finn Brothers

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?

I Will Be Your Girlfriend - Dubstar

Okay, and I can pretty much promise that this will be the first and last survey I'll fill out...unless there's something this fun and clever that comes my way again.

Walking in Memphis

While in Memphis, I met up with Jen Henry, a friend I haven't seen in nearly ten years. We found a spot called Huey's that just seemed...I don't know, strangely welcoming:

Probably we should have gotten ribs. But we were feeling very un-Memphis. Over our veggie burger and cobb salad, we tried to catch up on a decade worth of life-changing experiences. It was overwhelming to have so much ground to cover. But we successfully re-learned each other among the graffiti:

She was able to join me for the show, and brought a very young friend named Patsy. Patsy is a Miley fan, and quickly went into the overwhelmed-by-the-show coma that I've seen many little girls experience. She was very cute, and I think she had a really good time.

After the show, Stacy, Vashon, Jaime and I went to Rendezvous for some obligatory ribs. Dry rubbed. I thought they were delicious, but then I don't set my food bar all that high. The guys thought they were sub-par and complained like geriatrics about them. Either way, I think we all had fun.

Then I bailed on the guys and met back up with Jen. We performed a minor pub crawl on Beale Street. We started at a place that featured a blues band playing rock songs from the 80's. My personal favorite was AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" with an organ solo. We continued to fill in the blanks of our lives over Chocolate Pecan Pie and Alabama Slammers.

She's still the same Jen, but different. It's fun to see how people progress in life. She's still fiercely intelligent and fun, but older and wiser.

We ended at Blues City, over even more dessert and drinks. By the end, fun was had, tummies were full, and heads were spinning.

Overall, a wonderful evening.

Peabody Bites It

This morning around 4am, we arrived at the Peabody: by all accounts a very nice hotel. I groggily rolled out of my bunk on the bus, far more tired than usual, and dragged my luggage up to my room, which we'll call 931.

I slide the keycard into the door. Red light. Tried again. Red again. My key didn't work. Now I realize this is ironic, given that I just finished expounding on how not pro this is. But at 4am, all irony is lost on me.

I trekked down to the front desk to be greeted by a woman (let's call her NinnyPoo) who basically inferred with her tone that I was stupid and didn't know how to properly use a keycard. I insisted that she make me another and she grumbled as she did it.

I clunkily dragged my bags back up to the ninth floor and tried again. 931. Green light! The keycard worked. I just wanted to go to sleep, but I slunk into the room, dropped everything and took my daily hotel portrait for this very blog. As I was doing this, I heard my locked hotel door opening.

This was very unusual.

"Hello?!"

It was the familiar but confused voice of Kay Hanley.

She said that she thought this was her room. And her key worked in the door. Mine didn't. We consulted the rooming sheet. They listed us both in 931. Which was wrong. We haven't shared rooms at all on this tour, and there was only one bed anyway.

So what could we do? We took a group hotel portrait. And then we called down to NinnyPoo. Guess what? I had to go back down to the lobby and have a third keycard made. I was supposed to be staying in 932.

I took the annoyingly slow elevator back down to the lobby. On the way I encountered our delightful road manager, Jack Albeck, and quickly said "They put Kay and I in the same room."

He looked me in the eye and said, "So then everything worked out."

We love Jack. Anyway, I showed the rooming sheet to NinnyPoo. She squinted at it, blinked once and said "Well, what the hell?"

She didn't say sorry. Just printed me a new card and sent me on my way. She did, however, give me a pamphlet on the history of the Peabody, just in case I was in for some late night reading about useless trivia.

Ummm. Not so much.

Party In Hotlanta!

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of meeting up with my dear friends Lindy and Janie in Atlanta. Janie is an uber-talented singer/songwriter and Lindy is an amazing web designer and musician.

We checked out a local gourmet eatery that we'd heard good things about:

It was tasty, and we had a lot to catch up on.

(L to R: Janie Chu, Lindy Freeland and me)

Lindy showed me her delightful little pocket companion: an electronic dictionary.

The US version doesn't have backlighting, so she had to import hers from the UK, which means that most of the pronunciations are British. Pretty awesome. Also, it has a full-on book of quotations, complete with biographies of all the quoted folks. I wants me one of these!

For dessert, Janie led us to a charming Korean bakery called White Windmill. We had to make some hard life decisions about which dessert to get:

I opted for the coconut bubble tea, which was apparently "crazy!"

And I had the strangest little strawberry pastry roll, which wasn't as good as I was hoping, and as Janie pointed out, was sort of like a Korean Ho-Ho.

Lindy took a picture of me taking a picture of my Korean Ho-Ho.

Janie had to scoot, but Lindy grabbed a husband (fortunately her own) and came out to the show. Lindy and Jason and I spent some time playing around with Ableton Live, which she's currently learning. I dropped some mad wisdom on her.

Only not really. I have no idea what I'm doing.

And in return, she took some amazing photos of the show, which I'll be posting. This one just became my new Myspace photo:

Yay for good cameras and people who know how to use them!

Band Lingo

While on the road, in close quarters, the band has shared more than just germs. We've all adopted many of the same phrases. And a lot of these phrases come from Jaco Caraco, crazy hippie guitarist.

NOT PRO

Aside from regular surfer/hippie/Topanga-resident sayings like "you got hosed" and ending conversations with "PEACE!", Jaco has contributed "not pro." For instance, when I pull out my ghetto cellphone, which gets crushed under the weight of simple texting, Jaco says "dude, that is so not pro."

Here are some other things that are not pro:

• When Kay inevitably almost misses the bus
• When your hotel key doesn't work, and it's 4am and you have tons of luggage
  
• When Vashon has glitter on his arm during the show and nobody knows why
  
• When there's no bottled water on the bus
• When somebody poops in the dressing room bathroom
  
• When Candice opens her mouth
  

OIL SPOTTING

This one comes from Stacy. When somebody's late for bus call (was me once, usually is Kay or Candice), Stacy will say "let's oil spot Candice." Ironically, the only person who's every been oil spotted was me, as I was referring to the "Book of Lies" (what we call our tour book with all our scheduling info, as it's always changed). They left because nobody noticed I wasn't on the bus. They all assumed I was online in my bunk or something. Can you believe that?

The Thing About Dogs

Somebody made a haiku out of a picture I took of Bailey. Love it. See it at Haikute.

A List of Rules

If you're coming to see our show, here is a list of things to do and not do when you get here.

+DO make neat little signs
I think Miley likes them.

-DON'T hold them upside down
I can't believe how many people do this.

-DON'T make a double-sided Hannah/Miley sign and then hold up the wrong side at the wrong time
Also a very popular error.

-DON'T make a sign that says "It's My Birthday!"
What are we supposed to do with that information?

+DO bring gifts for Miley
Who doesn't like gifts?

-DON'T throw them on the thin elevated runway while everybody's dancing around
Miley almost tripped on a teddy bear one night, and another night somebody threw a beautiful rose on the runway and the dancers proceeded to trample it to bits.

-DON'T ask me if you can have my All Access Pass
You can't.

+DO have a great time!
That's why we do it.

Ticketmaster Loves HM

I just heard that we are Ticketmaster's biggest-selling tour of all time! Yay for Miley!

Can't Stop The Music - Featuring Me

The lunch meeting/podcast I had the other day with Dave, Skip and Samantha is now live. If you have nothing better to do than listen to us all talking over each other while eating, check it out on Dave's blog.

Grizzeensbizzoro

This afternoon in Greensboro, Jaco and Candice and I crashed a Christmas convention, where we blew some bubbles:
Tried on some hats:

And posed in front of the big balloon tree:

Fun. And when we returned to the venue, we were greeted by the camera crew, who wanted to film us warming up for the show singing some Hannah tunes.

[note: This is the first time we have ever warmed up.]

The show tonight was pretty uneventful. No fires or moving stages this time. But I did take my new HP camera (given to me by our sponsor) on stage and got these awesome pictures:

Candice (background vocals)

Ryan (dancer)

Miley (huge rockstar)

Marshall (dancer)

Miley all close-up

Knock Knock Knoxville

Last night in Knoxville was a weird and awesome one. The film crew came back to grab a few shots for the movie (in Disney 3D theaters in February - don't forget!). They wanted us to play Guitar Hero III with Miley in her dressing room. We had an great time. I've only played it once at Jonathan Geer's house for a few minutes about a year ago, so I had low expectations of my performance. I beat Miley though - completely disgraced her actually, and proceeded to trounce Stacy at a song he knew but I had never heard. Jaime was pretty good (he beat Miley too), and he owes me a match-up at some point. Miley probably never wants to play with us again.

I was all amped up from whooping at GHIII, so I felt great during the show. However, I started noticing that every time the dancers moved, the entire stage shifted...like in a wobbly sort of way. This was very alarming. I glanced at the other band members. They noticed it too. In between songs, I went behind the stage and mentioned it to a crew member and he said it probably wasn't a big deal.

We later discovered it was because in most arenas, the stage is built on ice, which it eventually sinks into and becomes quite stable. In this arena, we were built on concrete. Fortunately, the disaster scenario in my head where the stage collapsed and we all fell into a big hole in the ground never occured.

However, at the end, we were about to come back out for the encore, when Omar (the guy that runs the show) noticed a fire burning up in the rigging. Not a good thing. It was a tiny fire, but a fire nonetheless. So we ended the show right there.

Basically, one of the pyros (which are encased in a fireproof material) somehow caught fire. It happens rarely, and Omar said it probably would've just burned out without incident, but to be safe, we sent Cowboy (an awesome crew member) up there to put it out.

Disaster averted.

Happy Birthday, Miley!

Here's some footage from last night's bash (courtesy of Vanessabelle):

A Strange Pictorial

Some hilarious photos of our Thanksgiving evening can be seen here, courtesy of Samantha.

A Night In Nashville

The Nashville show went really well:

My family picked the perfect one to see, as it was Miley's birthday, and during the second set we played Happy Birthday and brought out a cake.

A great time was had by all:

I gave my camera to my Mom, and she and my sister took some awesome pictures, like this one:
And Miley was happy with me, cause I gave her a Beanie Baby and a card that plays "I Got Nerve," so she visited Schmid Island during the show:

Adventures in Middle Tennessee

Yesterday, we arrived in a gloomy, wet Nashville. Ahh. Just as I left it.

My sister Christina and her husband Doug live here, and my parents flew down so we could all enjoy Thanksgiving together. Christina was really impressed that we're staying at the Loews Vanderbilt, saying it's really swanky. It is. However, the view from my room is not:

We headed out to Christina and Doug's place in Antioch, and met their delightful new kitten, Samson. He's pushing the boundaries of cute:

He's fluffy and adorable, but of course my cat allergies prevent me from enjoying him close-up.

Last night, we ate at a Persian restaurant. It seemed sort of like a combination of Greek and Indian food, but I'm sure I'm missing the gentle nuances of the cuisine. It was good. However, I could have done without the "Yanni: Live At the Acropolis" video playing next to our table.

This morning, Thanksgiving Day, I was scheduled to have a business meeting at Starbucks with Dave Jaworski and Skip Franklin of PassAlong Networks, as well as the always delightful Samantha Murphy.

I Google-mapped out the directions and left precisely enough time to get to Samantha's house to pick her up. As I was pulling onto her street, she called me to say she'd be out in the driveway. Right on time! Her house was 45 Bel Air (number changed for obvious reasons), I saw 43 and 47. No 45 in sight. Where 45 would be, there was a patch of grass and a sad little hill. After chatting about this, we deduced that I was all the way out in Murfreesboro. This was basically the boonies, and totally wrong. I didn't understand how this could've happened.

Samantha borrowed her Mom's car to head to the meeting, cause there was no way I'd get back there on time.

She gave me the beginning of the directions to get back, and said she'd call me when Dave and Skip arrived, cause they're Nashville geography experts, basically.

They called me about 20 minutes later, and through some grand miscommunication, they thought I was heading into Nashville, when I had already passed it and was heading out. They advised me to continue in the same direction. I rattled off the names of exits I was passing (Old Hickory, Briley Parkway) and everything seemed cool. I later found out that both of these streets loop all the way around Nashville, and I was seeing the wrong Old Hickory and the wrong Briley Parkway.

By the time we figured out what was going on, I was almost to the Kentucky border. And to make things worse, I found out that the Starbucks where we were meeting was five minutes from my hotel. So I'd been driving for an hour and a half for no reason at all.

At least the trees were pretty.

Samantha and I later investigated the problem. I entered Bel Air instead of Belair, and even though I entered the zip code (which should have put us in the right neighborhood), Google Maps got it totally wrong. We tested it again and duplicated the same bad results. MapQuest, however, got it RIGHT. [Note to self: Never use Google Maps again]. Sam and I both agree that zip code should take priority over spacing of street name. I'm tempted to write a letter.

But I digress. I finally arrived at the meeting, and it was lovely. Dave Jaworski even recorded a podcast with me (let me know if you find that anywhere).

Samantha also joined me at Christina & Doug's place for our Thanksgiving dinner. My family cooked up a delectable meal that I'm still digesting many hours later.

It was so nice to spend some quality time with my sweet family. It seems like we see each other less and less these days, and I really missed them.

My sister's so awesome. I just love her.

Oh...my Mom said something hilarious that I'll never forget. Just nonchalantly and in the middle of a discussion, she tossed out, "As a mother, you try not to get involved, but..."

Samantha and I laughed for quite a while about that one. I still chuckle when I think of it. My parents are awesome, and a constant source of entertainment for me. And they just happen to be the most generous people I've ever met. So that's convenient.

In other news, my cold has umm...sunken. It's not in my face anymore. It's moved down to my chest, which is unpleasant in a brand new way. Now I've got a crazy painful cough, which sounds...beefy. Really hoping not to cough during the show tomorrow, which my family is coming to. Maybe I'll be nervous for a change.

Just realized that I'm really overusing ellipses in this post. It happens.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!

(L - R: Gerry Schmid, Violet Schmid, Mike Schmid, Christina Pflueger, Doug Pflueger)

Links Aren't Just For Sausage

Those links on the right-hand-side of the page aren't just there to make it look like I have friends. I highly recommend you check out the blogs of two other wonderful people on the tour.

Kay Hanley, one of Miley's background singers and incidentally one of the coolest people alive, writes a blog (oops, Stacy hates that word...he wants us to call it an "e-journal") called "Strange Life". It chronicles her Red Sox fandom, tour partying, her other life (over Thanksgiving she's flying to New York to sing in the Macy's Day Parade. She wrote the new Care Bears song. Watch her on TV!), her family (complete with adorable children), and various other awesomeness. Kay is rock n' roll to the core. If she looks familiar to you, you were probably a huge Letters To Cleo fan. I know I was. (Look at Stacy on the drums with his blond hair!)


Or else you just really love Tigger & Poo.


Gregg Garbo, the bassist for the Jonas Brothers, writes an awesome e-journal called "Let's Go On Tour." He wittily covers everything from alligators to Steve Jobs to how Joe Jonas was featured on South Park last week.

This blog is delightfully droll. I love how he writes on the pictures. Gregg is an awesome guy, and hilarious to boot. We've been meaning to hang out, but we haven't gotten the scheduling together yet, as those Jonases are even busier than us. Some days, they play a show after the show! Crazy people.

I highly recommend both of these e-journals. I read them every day. Just one warning: these humans are funnier than me. You may never want to come back.

The Tensile Strength Of A Good Attitude

I think I've reached my limit. As I mentioned earlier, my flu has progressed to a strong cold, which in my opinion, is a definite upgrade. I'm not a fan of congestion, but I can definitely handle it. I've had worse.

Well, tonight, like every other night, we were all sleeping soundly in our bunks on the bus. We were driving through Florida, up to Nashville, and we went through some severe pressure changes. When I woke up...

Yup. We're back to that. Sinus infection. But now both ears won't open.

I thought I just had to be careful on planes. Stay awake during takeoff and landing. Yawn. Chew gum. I learned my lesson. But apparently, I'm just supposed to never sleep. Anywhere. Ever. Okay, fine. I'm taking notes.

I'm not happy about this, though. I can barely hear a thing, and I need these ears! But let's not misplace our anger. I'm upset at you, altitude!

Like A Gazelle With Post Nasal Drip

Okay. It was rough. My nose didn't stop running all night, so I put a Kleenex box backstage behind the drum platform and every time there was a bit of a gap between songs, I booked it back there, bent down (so as not to be seen) and blew my nose heartily. Quite graceful.

Barry Gibb was backstage with us, which totally blew my mind. It took every fiber of my being to keep from busting into "How Deep Is Your Love."

J.Lo didn't show. Nor did Marc Antony. But guess who did?

No, really. Guess! Okay, you'll never guess.

Vanilla Ice.

...For real.

Still Sick In Sunrise

I've moved past the fever and chills. Today is Stomach Disaster Day. At least I'm moving forward. I feel so sick I could fall down, but I've got to ignore it because we've got a show to do! My main concern is that my nose will run while I'm on stage and I won't have any Kleenexes. Or that I'll cough a lot. Not really so rock n' roll is it?

And here (in Sunrise, Florida) tonight, we're expecting JLo, Marc Antony and Barry Gibb in the audience. So I'd better not fall down.

Drawn and Quartered...

...and then glued back together inside out. That's how my body feels right now. I came down with a hateful and mean flu and it's been quite an adventure for the last few days. I thought it was a cold, but...I was wrong. Yesterday I woke up with muscle aches, chills, headache, stomach ache, fever, a sharp sore throat...basically it just felt like I got hit by a truck 17 times.

The problem with the place we're staying in Tampa is that it's not near anything. So I had to walk pretty far to find food (cause I'm trying to save money, and room service was just hilariously expensive). So I trekked all the way back to Channelside. It was only a 20-minute walk, but when every step felt like my bones were loosening and falling off, that's much longer than I'd want.

I found a Bennigan's and had some dumpy chicken tortilla soup, which was tomato based. I was looking for a healthy chicken soup with noodles and broth, not filled with corn (which I'm allergic to). Eh.

It felt like a big waste to walk all the way back to the hotel with nothing to show for my journey but a terrible meal. I really felt like I needed to sit down. So I went to a movie. This is the first time I've ever gone to a movie because I needed a seat for a couple hours. I checked out Beowulf in Imax 3D (the only way I would see it) and it was much better than I expected. Very enjoyable, and with all the delightfully obvious morals still in-tact from the original story.

Afterwards, I decided to make another attempt to find a brothy chicken soup, so I went to a Thai restaurant, and was served by the nicest woman alive. I told her I wasn't feeling well and I was looking for a meal that was conducive to healing, so she brought me some Jasmine tea, along with the largest bowl of soup I've had in my life:

When I came in, I sat at a regular square table. She cleaned a booth out and said, "Why don't you sit over there instead? It will be more comfortable for you."

I took my time making my way to the bottom of the bowl, while listening to the new Radiohead album on my iPod (it's good...soooo good. The string arrangements are beautiful). All the while, my waitress (henceforth known as Thai Goddess) kept bringing me more Jasmine Tea and saying things like, "hopefully this will make you well."

Given the circumstances, it was truly a lovely evening.

When it was time for my check, Thai Goddess came over told me to get lots of rest and try to keep drinking tea if possible. She said, "You'll be better in no time." I wanted to give her a big hug. A little kindness goes such a long way.

Tasty Times In Tampa

I guess it's my turn again. The cyclical cold has made the rounds back to me. I was feeling pretty icky yesterday, but I awoke on the bus this morning with the nastiest pins-and-needles sore throat I've had in awhile.

The nice thing is: we don't work until Monday. So I have a few days to recover.

I made my way up to my room at the Tampa Westin, and before crashing like a jet plane into that comfy looking bed, I noticed this breathtaking view of the bay from my window:
I awoke again around 11am (we don't get to sleep for more than four hours at a time, it seems). I found Jackson's Bar next door, where they were serving bizarro dishes, like my spicy buffalo chicken salad. Truly weird and not so good. But all was made well as I was soon joined by the lovely Gabi and Kay. The three of us are basically the only tour folks in town, after the band left for LA, Candice is visiting family a few hours away and well...we can't hang out with the dancers, cause it's like we speak two different languages (just kidding, dancers!)

We hung out all afternoon by the bay and ate and drank and took this picture:
Then, as the sun went down, we grabbed our coats from the hotel and headed out to Channelside. All that eating and drinking made us hungry and thirsty. So we went looking for a venue.

This one didn't look so good to us:

So we went to Splitsville, a restaurant/bar/bowling alley/t-shirt emporium. We hung out all evening by the bowling alley and ate and drank and took this picture:

Then Kay and Gabi decided to keep the party going and join the crew a few towns away in St. Pete's. My serious sicky was kicking into high gear so I headed back to the hotel. But I know I'm going to hear some stories tomorrow, cause our crew is crazy! Might have to check Kay's blog in the morning.

On The Bayou

Despite the mania and excitement provided by Ally and Stormy, the Dallas audience was shockingly sedate; the quietest we've experienced so far. Towards the end, Miley was saying things along the lines of "come on guys, don't fall asleep on me."

In contrast, tonight's audience in Shreveport, Louisiana was a rambunctious bunch that would have been swinging from the rafters if there were any to swing from.

After the show, Jaime, Stacy, Vishon and Jaco all packed and left the band bus to board the management bus. They're flying back to L.A. to film Miley's video for "Start All Over." Apparently there was not enough room on the stage for a keyboard player or background vocalists. Boo.

A group of us got tired of waiting for the buses to leave, which was going to be a couple hours, so we took a van to a local casino and quickly gambled away all our income from the tour. Okay, that's a large exaggeration. Gambled away a tiny bit of today's per diem. We're a practical bunch.

Kay, Candice and I are on the bus headed to Florida right this second, and we have three days off while the guys film. This marks the very first time we've ever had more than one day off in a row.

And when in Florida, what are a bunch of singing pacifists to do? We're gonna go shoot some guns. Oh you wish I was kidding!

Fun With Children

Yesterday, I had a delightful morning at the Mall with Crista and Isabella. Crista needed to do some shopping, which she rarely (read: never) gets to do, and I was happy to occupy her cute little girl, who loves to go go go the second you put her on her feet, like a little roadrunner.

She seems to be quite a seasoned shopper (thanks Mom!), and seemed to gravitate towards anything pink or rainbow. It seemed that she wasn't looking to spend, but was happy to browse extensively:

The shopping was so exhausting, we had to go eat some apple wedges and Goldfish crackers out of Tupperware.

We had a lovely morning. And Crista was able to find a nice outfit for the show. So everybody had a good time.

Crista and Tarek deposited Isabella at the neighbor's house, and rented some kids for the night to form a lovely makeshift nuclear family:

(L.-R. Ally & Stormy). These girls were so adorable, and so completely out-of-their-minds excited about the show they could barely speak.

They screamed their way through the show from the front row, a perfect vantage point of yours truly...oh and some girl named Miley too.

I hear she's okay.

And to top it all off, as we were leaving we ran into the Jonas Brothers backstage, and the girls got a picture with them:

And then their brains fell out.

Dilly Dallying In Dallas

Today I was in Dallas with a day off, which means I had time to visit with some wonderful friends. I met up with Crista and her daughter Isabella, who is absolutely adorable and almost two years old, and my old college roommate Jonathan. We headed out to the Dallas Zoo, which is apparently not as cool as the Fort Worth Zoo. Eh. We had a good time anyway.

Here are some fake and real flamingos living in perfect harmony:

Isabella took her very first pony ride:

She conquered the monster slide:

So cute:
We ate lunch at an delightful, inexpensive and tasty restaurant called Madeleine's or something. Ridiculously awesome pumpkin pie.

Then we basically just sat around all afternoon, which was such a nice change. Crista introduced me to Skype. People have been telling me for months/years that I need to use Skype and somehow I always just shrugged it off. But Crista basically forced me to install it and it's great. Her husband Tarek came home to find Crista and I video chatting while sitting next to each other. Kind of odd but fun. Try it.

We topped off the day with dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Yes I know...not very original or indigenous to Texas, but it's somehow always better than I remember. And we ended with the most mountainous chocolate cake I've ever seen...I'm still paying for it and it's 1am.

Tomorrow will be a lot of fun as Crista and Tarek are coming to the Dallas show. This is the first time I'm having friends out to see it. They're bringing some young ladies along who will most definitely be screaming their little lungs out. I can't wait.

A Hearty Welcome!

Just reading the Analytics, and I want to say hello to all my new readers in Italy, Australia, Denmark, India, Malaysia, Israel, Norway, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Zambia, Croatia, Kuwait and Sri Lanka! Thank you for visiting.

Completely Disoriented

I can't sleep. It's 4am. I'm really tired. Yet I lay here awake. This could be because I have absolutely no concept of when and where I am.

Today was an odd one. We woke up in Houston, made the drive to San Antonio, played the show, and then made another drive to Dallas. Three cities in one day. That's a first for us on this tour, and probably a first for me in life. It's getting pretty hard to keep track of.

StripHouse/MuteMath

Last night I went a-wandering the streets Houston looking for food. Once again, the pickings were pretty slim. I straggled into a steak place called The Strip House. Other than the dicey name, it looked pretty nice, and as I wandered in I saw Stacy, Jaime and Kay at the bar. A while later, Charlie (asst tour manager) and Vishon (bassist) walked in. I would say "what a coincidence!" but it was truly the only thing open.

We had a lovely (albeit extremely pricy) meal of delicious strip steak, goose fat potatoes, and about 92 different side dishes.

Then as if by magic, we found ourselves at the Warehouse watching MuteMath play their little hearts out. It was an incredible show and it really inspired all of us, even curmudgeonly Jaime, who doesn't generally like any music released after 1975. The lead singer was doing handstands on his Rhodes, they were picking up pieces of the drum kit and reconfiguring them, climbing the rafters, it was pretty crazy and pretty awesome. I was already a fan, but many of the other band members were converted. These guys are amazing musicians and amazing entertainers, which is a tough combination to find these days.

Tonight's show in San Antonio was a blast. Miley brought her cute little doggie to soundcheck.

And now we're headed to Dallas. I'm looking forward to seeing some friends there.

Ummm....Hello? Houston?

Okay Minneapolis. You're not alone. I'm starting to realize that if you don't live in L.A. or New York, on Sunday the USA is pretty much closed. Since we got into Houston yesterday, people have been recommending I check out the awesome Main Street, where everything happens. I thought I'd go there for breakfast this morning:

Not only was there only a tiny smattering of shops; almost all of them said:

So after about a half hour of walking through a ghost town, I headed back to the Four Seasons for some overpriced Cinnamon Rolls.