February 2006

Back to the old grind - It only seems like yesterday since I finished my last journal. Wait... it was only yesterday. Well, not really, but it was only posted like a week ago. I got this one in a lot earlier. It's still not on time, but not weeks late like last month.

Unfortunately, not much has really happened this month. Since it's my first show back from holiday, money's really tight. And with Sharon in Florida doing shows there, I'm not really going out much. So this month's journal isn't as fun as last, but I've tried to fluff things out as much as possible. Come on, not every month of my life can be all "fun, fun, fun!"

The month started out with my trip to Arizona. It's a grueling drive almost coast to coast on I-10. It's about 2100 miles. The worst part is Texas. It's a full day's drive just to get from one end to the other. I-10 takes a little dip after Houston down towards San Antonio which adds to the length of the trip. So, last year Sharon and I tried a little short cut. We cut across at Houston to Austin and then on to El Paso from there. It shaved about 100 or so miles off the trip. But, the coolest thing was the little town we found along the way. It's called Fredericksburg. It's a little German settled town in the middle of nowhere. They have all kinds of neat little shops and a microbrewery, not to mention a bunch of little vineyards. So, I stopped there to have lunch and get a few gifts for Sharon. It was definitely the highlight of my cross country trip. Next stop Phoenix, to open the first show of the '06 season and debut our new merchandise cart.

 

At the microbrewery in Fredricksburg

Our new cart

The first week after opening weekend Ronn and Heather went to Las Vegas. They asked me to watch London and Jasmine. Jasmine is Heather's dog. She's a cute little Pomeranian. She's very fluffy up front but shaved in back due to some hair problems. She looks like a little lion. They were both very well behaved. And, as far as I know, Ronn and Heather had a great time in Vegas. But I'm sure he wrote all about it.

 

Babysitting the fluffball

Only fluffy from the front

After the second weekend I went home to visit Sharon. I booked my ticket 2 months earlier since flight ticket prices have gone up so much. The only problem with that was that I didn't realize that the second weekend this year included Presidents' Day. Normally, Presidents' Day falls on the 3^rdweekend, but the festival started a week later this year to begin after Superbowl weekend. Anyway, I planned to fly out Sunday night. But I found out that we had to work Monday so I couldn't leave and would have to reschedule the flight. I checked the flight schedules but everything had tripled in price. It looked like I wouldn't get to see Sharon 'till she came to visit in 3 weeks. She was not pleased. The Friday before I was supposed to leave I was talking to Sharon on the phone. She was really bummed and I felt really bad since it was kinda my mistake. I told her I'd check the flight prices again knowing that last minute prices were usually insane, but every now and then there's a last minute deal. Sure enough I managed to find a ticket for $240, and with only 3 days notice! Thank god! Sharon and I don't do well past the 10 day apart mark. The only remaining problem with this situation is that I'll only be in town for 3 days.

I left Monday night and flew thru the night to arrive in Tampa at 9:20am. It's a good thing I can sleep on planes or I would have been useless. The first order of business was to service the wife. Ahhhhh, much better. Now we can both relax. While in Florida I had to fix the living room floor, hook a water line up to our new fridge, meet with the insurance adjuster about our trailer, and try to spend quality time with Sharon. Like I said, not a lot of fun in this journal. We did manage to go out to a nice dinner one night. We went to Cevíche, a cool tapas restaurant we've gone to before. (SeeDec.'05) We also managed to get to the pool by my house to lie in the sun and have some cocktails.

At the pool bar they had one of those bar top games that have all kinds of video and card games. Sharon and I like to play Zip 21. It's a blackjack style game were you try to get as many 21's in a certain amount of time as possible. The more you get, the better your bonus. Well, I had the all time greatest score ever. The old high score was 77,000. I got 305,870! I've never seen a score that high on this game anywhere. So, I took a picture with my phone, knowing I didn't have much for this months' journal. Pretty pathetic, huh?

 

Bartop video games

My high score

AZ student days

After our third weekend were our student days. They fell on Tuesday and Thursday. Most people dread doing student days. We used to as well. That is, until we created a kids day version of our "R" rated show. We just took out all the naughty stuff and that made the 45 minute "R" show about 20 minutes. That's the perfect length for a kids show. It's about as long as they can keep their attention focused.

After Tuesday's student day, Sam, the guy that sells jerky at the fair had a Mardi Gras party. He made jambalaya, etouffeeé, and boiled crawfish. The food was awesome!! And, just about everyone on site showed up. One of the acts, Clan Tynker, even did a little Mardi Gras parade. They marched up in costumes with one of them playing a trumpet. They had pink plastic plates with nipples on them around their neck. It was really cute! The plates made their way around the party and made for some great pictures. I had a great time although I managed to drink a little too much. I had a bit of a headache the next morning, but it was totally worth it.

 

Mardi Gras, AZ style

The boys try to earn their beads

Well, that's gonna do it for February. Arizona is running great. We're on a new stage with more seating and better traffic flow, and numbers are up across the board. There's even talk about this being a record run for the Arizona festival. One can only hope!