Todd's drum

I come from a long line of carpenters: My grandpa, my dad, Jesus... My brother has it, too, I think. They can, and do, make beautiful things out of shapeless pieces of other things. They look at a room and think "I wonder what that wall would look like if I put it over here?" You know, sort of like Michael Jackson's does with his nose.

I got none of that in the ol' bloodline. I build other things, but I usually use words and notes. And I build the occasional, ok habitual, pedalboard. So I guess I got a little of it.

I'm surrounded by people who are good manly men, in this sense. Guys who are good with their hands. Guys who build stuff. Of all the guys I know that are, forgive the pun, built this way, I can think of no one better at it than Todd Bragg.

Todd's the drummer in Caedmon's. Before the band took off, though, he spent three or so years designing and building custom furniture. And it's cool. They bought a "fixer-upper" house. It belongs in a magazine now. He's amazing.

We played a show a few months ago in West Virginia (see "The Voices"), and Todd found this really huge, beat up drum backstage. He asked around and found that it never got used. I think he gave them fifty bucks or something and took it home.

He did the research and found out it was a 1929 Slingerland kick drum for one of their earliest drum sets. He refinished it and sent me some pictures the other day. I thought it was so awesome you guys had to see it.

Here's what he started with....







And the final product...





The moral: Todd is cool.

STT: 812,140

ready

My family is asleep and I think we're ready. I'm off the road now, the bags are packed, directions on what to feed Ella are printed out and magnetized to the fridge. We're ready to have another baby.

We went to the doctor today and he said everything was going well. We have another appointment scheduled for Monday, but he doubts we'll need it.

We've all been sick, but it feels like it's clearing up. I'd like at least half a day of feeling semi-normal before the craziness begins, but that's my only request.

I still don't think Ella really gets what's going on. She knows to point to Mommy's belly when we ask where the baby is, and often she'll try to score a couple extra cute points by kissing it, but I have a feeling she's going to be a bit surprised.

She loves babies, though, so I think she'll get into it. I mean, she's going to have to. She knows every book that has a picture of a baby in it. She picks them up to flip through, find the picture, say "bay-beeeee" and move on to the next book.

We gave her a doll that does some realistic baby things. You put its bottle to its mouth and it "drinks" it and then burps. Then I laugh, cause that's just weird and hilarious, and Ella laughs too, and then I tickle her and hug her.

She runs everywhere now. All the time. The pitter-patter of tiny feet. That's up there with a Les Paul through an AC30 on the list of greatest sounds ever. And Mark Knopfler playing a Strat.

Andy Gullahorn used his wife Jill, as well as his website, (see the fifth opinion on this page) to hook my sweet wife on a new form of TV crack: The Gilmore Girls.

Alison informed me she learned last night that the plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac. Weird. She finished the fourth season last night. The Buells have season 6. She's in need of number 5. If you have it, don't deprive the pregnant lady. Mind if we, um, er, she borrows it?

Well, that's about it for here at our house. Hope you folks in Augusta, KS enjoyed the AP Christmas show tonight. I have no doubt it was spectacular. I'm off to get a little sleep.

STT: 786,770

venting

As the airport security lady snarled at me and stole my toothpaste, I thought again about our government's current airport security charade.

Notwithstanding the obvious ridiculousness of the screening process to get to the gates (you know, scan the bags but not the people, so you can put stuff in your pockets but not in your backpacks...) or the fact that we're spending billions and billions of dollars to hire people to tell us to take off our shoes and buy expensive machinery that most of those people can't seem to work...

Notwithstanding the speeches made by Bin Laden and other Al Queda leaders who said the goal is not to kill us all, but to make us afraid, and then drain our economy as we uselessly attempt to fight not the enemy, but the fear... You know, like they did to Russia twenty years ago, causing a total economic and political collapse...

Notwithstanding that apparently airplanes can handle 2.5 ounces of liquid explosives, but not 3, and that if that's the case, two people couldn't combine their 2.5 ounces to come up with 5...

Notwithstanding all of that, our law system is allegedly set up based on the idea that we are considered innocent until proven guilty. This airport business is the other way around, though. They're assuming we're guilty and we have to prove our innnocence. Maybe some think its wise, and I obviously disagree, but it's definitely not constitutional.

To me, a trip to the airport serves again to remind me that control is nothing but an elusive idol and fear does nothing but cripple. Like traffic, cancer, reality tv and indigestion, this is just another thing that makes me long for my real home.

a wonderful sadness

I'm sitting in a hotel in Houston. The bus has left for Dallas with the rest of the gang. I've been on the tour for two days and it was so hard to leave! Getting to spend my days with some of my best friends, playing music and seeing the country. Few things are better than that. But being with my family as we grow is one of those things.

Randall and I were walking away as the bus pulled out and we were both feeling the same. A wonderful sadness. The ache of saying goodbye to something you were blessed to have had.

(STT: 648,750)

corporate sponsorship

First off, I would like to publicly thank my corporate sponsor, the Vicks Corporation, (and primarily their products NyQuil and DayQuil) for making my days on this tour possible. And by that I mean that I've been sick as a dog and primarily existing solely on the afore-mentioned digestibles.

I've been out on the tour for two days now and it's been great. We played the first of two shows in Houston last night and are about to soundcheck for #2. I left my Strat at home accidentally, which I can not believe, but Andy Gullahorn brought an old Strat his dad bought him at an FBI auction years ago. It has one of those 80's bridges with the whammy bar and, providentially, the house sound guy was a guitar tech as well and taught me about the springs in the back of the guitars and how to "lock down" the bridge. It worked and was fun to learn. And the guitar is blue.

Randall Goodgame showed up last night through some random coincidences and played last night's show and tonight's as well. Turns out he's on the same flight home as I am tomorrow, which is great. I get back to Nashville tomorrow at noon. I'll be sad to leave the tour, but very glad to be back home.

All right, I have to go soundcheck now.

(STT: 607,760)