This past week we passed a great benchmark in the beard timeline - the half-way mark. It’s hard to believe (I say this to you who don’t think about it every day like I do) that it’s already been almost 4 weeks (tomorrow). But it has. I do have one small confession to make: I shaved a little off the mustache. Some unruly facial hair was driving me absolutely crazy and since the lip hair (really corners-of-the-mouth hair) isn’t essential to a glorious beard I buzzed it for my own sanity.

In non-beard news, we will be laying down the vocals for the album in the coming week. We’ve finally finished about 99% of the editing (for the instruments at least) and started on the mixing. It’s shaping up to be one great sounding album. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. We’re also coming close to having a release date and album title. I will keep you informed on both of those bits of information as well.

Here are your long awaited beard pics. Since my beard photo creativity has plummeted (some might say “never existed”) feel free to send me some ideas. Keep in mind that I have to take the pictures with the camera on my MacBook so exotic location shots are fairly out of the question : )

Day 19

Knoxville smile

Day 20

Forgot to take the picture while I was actually awake smile

Day 21

Forgot again smile

Day 22

Getting too lazy to take a different picture smile

Day 24

Pretty in lavender smile

Day 25

My headphones are way bigger than yours smile

Not much to say.  Steph’s internet connection is less than ideal and the awesomeness that is Skype can’t even save it.  Sad days.  The album is coming along.  We’re pretty close to being done with editing and recording, minus vocals and “special parts”.  Can’t wait for everyone to hear it.

Day 16

Why is he touching me? smile

Day 17

Got disconnected from Skype fake smile

Day 18

Upgrade from yesterday’s earbuds smile

As mentioned in my last post about the unreliable awesome hard drive in my MacBook, I am currently touring about the southeast.  Not something that’s out of the ordinary for me but I feel like sharing this time.  It’s been a fun week and fun day in particular.  After dropping off my first child MacBook in Asheville I got to spend the night with my grandparents, who are great, in SC.  Then it was on to the party in Winston-Salem with my close, close, close friends: the Russes.  Lots of video games, VH1 Classic, and album recording/mixing … but mostly the latter.  Yesterday we brought the portable rave to Columbia (SC) and today we had, not one, but two fun band appointments.  In the morning we got to play for a local cable on-demand music program called Live at the Jam Room.  The guys working there obviously knew what they were doing and were friendly to boot.  We had a great three-song rock concert which, we hear, should be up for your viewing pleasure soon.  Next we got to take our second batch of pictures with the coolest photographer in the known world (no exaggeration) Melinda Register.  She already has a small selection from the shoot up on her myspace (see link above, but you’ll need a myspace account) and they look awesome.  She took two hours out of her day to hang out with us bunch of bums and we had a great time.

We have a show tomorrow night in Raleigh which, hopefully, will be just as good if not better of a time that today.  If you’re in the area come enjoy the rock!

What would any post be without the pictures?  I must say, I think it’s starting to look nice and manly.

Day 13

Winston-Salem smile

Day 14

Recording cohorts smile (feat. Stephen Russ and Jamie Heiting)

Day 15

Columbia smile

So Thursday night, not too long after the posting of the awesomeness that is facial hair, the hard drive in my laptop decided to die.  There wasn’t any reason - any unusual programs being run, it wasn’t in a strange location, it wasn’t being taxed - nothing.  All I get is an error message, in response to which I restart my computer, and it just never comes back to me.  The failure happened minutes after Apple Support stopped taking phone calls and, of course, the night before the launch of the new iPhone.  So the next day, the numerous locations that would normally be thrilled to take a look at my MacBook were completely ignoring my calls in order to handle the hordes of giddy new iPhone consumers.  The only place that would answer my calls is a repair shop in Asheville (NC) which, thankfully, happened to be on my way to SC (They were really friendly, helpful, and quick - I highly recommend Charlotte St Computer Repair if you’re in/near Asheville!).  That was Friday.  Today is Monday.  There was no luck in recovering the data from my harddrive - it was apparently VERY serious about quitting.  There wasn’t any real essential data on there but I did lose about a years worth of pictures and some great video of The Fire Tonight doing their thang.  *sigh* Se la vie, right?

Well, now that the computer is back I have a new beard pic for you and one (from yesterday) that will be posted later (time travel!).

Day 12

Happy to have my baby (laptop) finally home smile

Stephanie and I are keeping in touch via Skype while she is away. I am a convert. It only costs $10/month for free and unlimited calling to anywhere in the world (rather everywhere that Skype is available). That’s any time of day too. If you just want to call people nearby (the US and Canada), you can opt for the $3/month option. $3/MONTH PEOPLE. That’s insanity. A mobile company in Europe has a cell phone that will work via Skype as well. Can you image your cell phone bill only costing $10/month AND you could make international calls … during the middle of the day … for no extra charge?

And without further ado, here are the beard pics. Now with captions!

Day 6

Early morning tired smile

Day 7

Audio nerd smile

Day 8

I want to be just like Switchfoot when I grow up smile

Well, I missed a few days. Some might say crucial days. But is there anything “crucial” when your goal is to passively grow facial hair? For those of you who are interested, I have an alarm on the phone to remind me to take pictures now. So no worries.

Had a great time over the holiday weekend with the family. Played some games, watched some movies - an all-around party atmosphere. I think the early stages of miss-your-spouse syndrome are starting to set in though. Never a good sign …

Here are days 4 and 5.

My wife left for Europe today and will be gone for 45 days. As a method of keeping track of how long she is gone I have decided to shave and take a picture of myself each day until she comes home. Some of you will be quick to say that this is a stupid idea. Don’t worry - you’re right. But cut me some slack, married people without their spouse are infinitely more pathetic than single people ever are.

Here is your first picture. I shaved this morning so this represents approximately 16 hours of growth.

There are too many cool/awful things that have happened in the last week or so for me to pass on a post.  Enjoy it while you can.

Nate’s last show in Anderson was bitter sweet - because of Nate’s farewell and the unfortunate amplification situation.  I was worried that we were going to have to send Nate off with a set of tunes where the keys and vocals were both inaudible.  Thankfully we took a break, John worked his magic and got the system to behave, and we finished strong with some intense head banging and stage antics.

From Anderson we headed to the (uncomfortably) sunny state of Florida.  We had a great time with Steph’s family.  On our way back from our “camping” trip though, our Jeep was being towed and blew a tire.  Normally, blowing a tire would only be mild nuisance to your schedule and wallet.  In this case, the tire shredded, the pieces (basically) destroyed the front of the car, and the next two days were spent on the phone with repair and insurance peoples.  Thanks to Steph’s Dad we were able to get the car fixed and the insurance situation squared away.  I will post pictures soon.

Next we moved from the Tampa area to Orlando where we got to spend some overdue time with our friends Dana and Andrew.  We surprised them (like everyone else on our trip) by having our puppy with us and, though they were gracious, Andrew is allergic and we felt pretty bad.  They still love us though … we think : )  Andrew is an amazing cello player and we spent a few hours the morning we left recording some sweet cello parts for The Fire Tonight album.  Can’t wait for you guys to hear them.

When we arrived home (at 11:30 after a 10.5 hour drive) we discovered that our home was infested with fleas.  SUCK.  Thankfully it turned out to only be our kitchen area but we’ve spent the entire day spraying, waiting, vacuuming, spraying again, waiting some more, vacuuming again, bombing, waiting, etc.  I don’t much like the paranoia associated with tiny little bugs.  Every time the A/C blows on my excessively hairy limbs it feels like a flea.  Again, SUCK.  Anyway, hopefully we can sleep with some peace of mind tonight.

The last thing I want to say is that Bonnaroo is going on right now about 30 miles from where I’m at.  Stephanie is working right now and I’m hanging out with her.  Somewhere above me in the hotel are the C-list (maybe they’re on a different list, I don’t read enough entertainment mags) celebrities Janaene Garofalo (Dogma, Half Baked, The Truth About Cats & Dogs and lots of TV show guest appearances) and Rob Huebel/Paul Scheer (Human Giant, Best Week Ever).  I haven’t seen them.  I’m not going to prank their room or anything.  But they might come up and ask for something at the front desk.  In which case there will be a story : )

I love to read blogs and keep up to date on certain topics (tech, music, film, etc).  I also love sharing information that I find with my friends, hence a signification portion of the motivation behind this blog.  The school year always manages to throttle the life out of my blogging and steals some opportunities to share really great stories with all of you.

So in the interest of continuing to feed you the things I find and love I am going to start using the “share” button, located on so many blogs, to bring you the info through facebook.  As of yet I haven’t found a button that will let me post links directly to this blog … but one day.

This is not the death of the blog but rather a kind of “blog vacation” for the school year.  If you don’t have a facebook account: get off your high horse and sign-up.  We’re not impressed with your digital abstinence.

There are many, many things that I wish I had time to write about.  Unfortunately, these days it seems that I only have time to drop a nugget and run off.  So here you go.

Radiohead has released the stems (mixes of specific instruments or groups of instruments in a song) to the song “Nude” from their recent album, “In Rainbows”, exclusively on iTunes.  With this kind of release, not surprisingly, is a remix competition.  The submissions can be viewed at radioheadremix.com.  I know it’s Radiohead but, having some experience remixing, I’m surprised that there have already been 212 submissions considering the stems were released yesterday.  Do people really have that much free time on their hands?  I’ve only listened to the most popular and, while it is interesting, I’m not that impressed.  Hopefully the Radiohead cult can crank out something more creative and gripping.

Also, there’s going to be a GarageBand file released on the 11th.  The site isn’t too clear on what exactly is going to be in the file but if you download all the stems you’ll get an access code on 4/11.  Curious …