The Bay...

I don't play guitar too often these days. Every once in a while I'll pick one up, but those times are few and far between.

Twice a year, though, I make a pilgrimage to the Bay Area to sit in with a musician buddy of mine, Chris Estes. Music is what Chris does, and he's pretty good. It's great to be able to play a few gigs twice a year with him. Once I get back to San Diego, I can start the process of being "over" playing guitar for about five months, and then I'll start gettin' the jones to play again.

And then I'll come back to The Bay.

I left San Diego at about 3:00am this past Monday morning. My plan was that I be north of Los Angeles by 6:00am to avoid the Monday morning traffic. Well, I overshot that goal a little, because I was north of Los Angeles by 5:00am. By 6:00am, Los Angeles was a distant memory.

I attribute this to two things. First, I left San Diego at an insanely early hour. The second thing, and probably the one which shoulders the greatest responsibility for the pace of my trip, was my rental car. When I come up here, I'll rent a car so I don't put the miles on my 1999 Ford Explorer. Well, when I was at the Avis counter on Sunday, I asked the woman what kind of car I was getting. "A Chevy Impala" was her reply. Oh yeah, that's sporty. I made a comment about a complimentary Corvette upgrade, and she countered that with a "Mustang hardtop". It was only a total of fifteen bucks more for the duration of the rental, so I said "Oh, gimme' the Mustang".

I walked into the parking garage and hitting the "UNLOCK" button on the key, and the headlights of a 2010 Ford Mustang GT with a 5.0 came to life. "Mother of God" I thought. And I was right. What an amazing car. It wasn't enough that this is a fast car, it's also Fire Engine Red:



The Beast

See, when cops are looking for people who are speeding, they're never looking for sleek sports cars that are red; never happens. The truth of the matter, though, is that I only saw two Highway Patrol during my entire trip up here Monday, and they were both seen at the tail end of the drive, so it was all good.

We played a gig at a local club last night called Meenar. It's a cool little place, and Andy, the bartender, seemed to be on a mission to make sure I was not short on bourbon all night. Kudos, Andy, mission accomplished.

I'm still trying to figure out how to embed the video from my drive into my blog, so I don't have that ready yet. My Canon G12 was mounted on the dashboard, and I shot nine short, separate segments. I want to edit them all together as one video before posting it here. Big fun and many laughs await you, trust me.

We're going to have a "lay low" day tomorrow; I might even go try to find a jacket I've been wanting. Hey, I got eighty bucks in "Kohl's Cash" just burning a hole in my pocket!

And, remember, you can always find me on Facebook, too!