Maybe some day I'll live in the place I want to spend Christmas, and I won't have to spend so much of my holidays shuffling to and fro in airports and their ilk. But for now, it's my annual hassle. I had these brilliant flight plans that would've landed me in Greensboro (instead of the normal Raleigh) at around 5pm. This would've meshed perfectly with the annual Christmas eve gathering in Winston-Salem because the airport is right on my dad's way there from Greensboro. However, the flight that landed me at that perfect time was canceled, and I was bounced to a later flight that lands me in G'boro around 11:20PM, hours after the end of the family gathering. However, then it was decided that the family gathering would be moved to the 28th, meaning nothing would be missed. This is good, but its also a bummer. The Christmas eve gathering is a tradition older than I am. I've only missed it twice in my life, and now it is no more. It was to be expected, with the family matriarch aging and the proliferation of grand kids, and great-grand kids. I will get to see my brother, for a few hours. He leaves Christmas afternoon.

I already got this year's Christmas present to myself: A 1 TB external hard drive. That's right, a terabyte. The spell-check software on my blog doesn't even recognize that word, that's how new and absolutely huge it is. That's 1000 gigabytes. Considering I've started doing a lot of home recording again, it'll be useful to have that kind of storage. Another gift to myself was a backpack that includes a laptop compartment. This is extremely useful, because I previously burned both my carry-on's on flights with my laptop case and my backpack with all my other useful valuables. Now, it's all in one, meaning I can carry-on my duffel bag and check nothing. It'll pay for itself in 4 or 5 flights of not paying checked bag fees. Or less.

I'll be in NC from tonight until January 4th. Get in touch with me if you are around the state, as well. I may have more free time than normal, since family gatherings are spread out and not many of the core circle of friends are going to be around.

Speaking of that, it looks like there will be no Bob Spelled Backwards performance to debut the new album. Josh isn't coming in, Reuben's visit will be very brief and Mike may not make it in, either. Just not enough of us are here to do it. And, if Mike makes it in, we won't even make our previously agreed 3-five-7 performance at BeansTalk. This saddens me greatly. But, I may still be floating around the state with the ability to burn copies of the Bob album, so flag me down. I also have all the latest tracks from the as of yet unfinished earthShine album. These still need work, so I may not be handing them out, but I have them for listening to. With all that isn't going on this time around, I'm going to have to start figuring out what IS going to be going on. This likely means that Chris and Kelley will have unlimited access to me. I just know they're thrilled.