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This must be the year for traveling. I'd already been in six states this year and just added three more with a couple of weeklong mini-vacations along the I-35 corridor of Kansas City, Austin, and Minneapolis / St. Paul. These trips were nice but not entirely leisurely in nature and at times even stressful. More than ever now, I'm just looking forward to some downtime in my home city as fall rolls across the midwest.

I finished out August with a surprise visit from my out-of-town friend Rick. He'd heard that a few other high school chums were playing a special show at McCoy's that weekend and decided to make the drive up from Springfield for the event. We caught some great pizza and beers at Waldo Pizza and I won $20 from him in a bowling bet before we went to the show. My friends' band Golden City, Mars were the opening noise band / performance art installation. Most of the band members wore masks and their only song was 10 minutes of drony gloom-and-doom chords. I can't do them any justice retelling the mythical tale of how they came to earth from Golden City, Mars - just know that it happened. McCoy's own 30-Minute Recess headlined and were solid as usual. The highlight for me was the Brokeback Mountain theme played as an intro to one of their own country numbers. Hilarious.

The following Friday, I decided to do something I'd set out to do for a long time. I took my mom out to her first ever First Fridays art show. We got dressed up and walked around for hours at the various art galleries across the Crossroads district. We caught some dinner at Pot Pie's and relaxed at my place. I think she really enjoyed the art shows though, particularly since she used to major in art in college. It was also interesting for her to see this longtime burnt out part of the city renovated and hussling & bussling with life on a Friday night. The newer galleries on the east side were a particular treat.

With my annual trip to Austin quickly approaching, I found myself bailing on quite a few shows and other events to prepare for the trip. This was quite possibly the most last minute trip I've ever planned. I'd had my tickets to the Austin City Limits Festival for months but 4 of the 5 people in our group bailed out. I was stuck finding a place to stay, people to go with, and transportation plans. I eventually talked my friend Eric into going and thankfully he found a hotel not too far away that was affordable. He even offered to take his car which was great. We met up with some friends from KC down there and it all ended up working out well in the end. It was just some stressful times planning all of that beforehand. As I do every year, I'll give a complete recap of the festival, I've just been procrastinating a bit with all of the travel the last few weeks. Until then, here is my write-up of last year's festival. Here are the pictures from this year's festival taken by me and my friends Caroline, Eric, and Julie.

When I got back Austin, it was right back to the usual agenda. After trivia at The recordBar, I stayed for a fun electropunk show - Erase Errata. They kinda blew me away. The opening bands were fun too. I believe their name was Red Blondhead from Columbia, MO, at any rate a two-piece with a woman drummer singer! The other local opener was called Street Jizz. They were pretty funny, a guy playing bass along preprogrammed music and video backdrop while a crowd of about 10 dancers, in varying degree of dress, pranced around singing backup. It seemed like a lot of production for only 3 songs (2 of which were the same song, the Street Jizz themesong) but I was sufficiently entertained. Friday was spent playing the city's other trivia game at The Brick and watching a Tom Petty tribute band called American Girls with local favorites Be/Non play a special birthday show for one of my bandmates. I think I blew out my ears that night. The lead singer from Nada Surf showed up for some drinks after playing an early show nearby.

The first week of October was spent on a business trip working some hellacious hours at a hospital in Minneapolis. I'd flown there on a Monday and had five days worth of tough work. I stayed in a hotel in St. Paul during this time but was not able to do much of anything fun. Going out to eat and visiting the Great Mall of America was about the extent of my adventures. I did munch on some great food at The Liffey in St. Paul and The Duplex in Minneapolis. After my workweek was over, I got to reap the rewards of a free trip. My sister just recently moved to Minneapolis so I stayed with her and her roommates on the second floor of a gigantic rental house in the middle of the city. Their house was really neat as were all the others on the street. We caught dinner at a German restaurant called Black Forest Inn and later headed downtown to a club called The Fine Line. There weren't many shows playing around town that night and I agreed to see a show by a guy named Joseph Arthur. Apparently, he's pretty well known having worked with Michael Stipe and the likes but I did not care for his band one bit. His solo stuff was okay I suppose. We finished off the night with a game of pool at a hipster / dive bar called CC's. I slept like a baby that night and the next afternoon we caught brunch and did some shopping. I spent a ton of money at a local record store called The Electric Fetus. That night was interesting, we hit a local hangout called Bryant-Lake, which is a combined bar, restaurant, bowling alley, and theatre / concert hall. This place somehow managed to incorporate all of these fun activities into a cozy little space. I bowled one of the worst games of my life but still had a great time, spending a good portion of the evening talking music with my sister's DJ friend Adam. Sunday was relatively tame. Once again brunch, some shopping, only throw in a mid-afternoon movie. We saw The Science of Sleep which we all agreed was pretty good. I didn't like it nearly as much as Eternal Sunshine but it had a certain innocent charm to it.

Since I've been back I've just been enjoying the weekly things that I enjoy doing (times two). I participated in two trivia games last week and had two band practices. I also fit in a poker party at my house and a Saturday afternoon charity bike fix-up for Hurricane Katrina victims put on by Bike and Trikes for Tykes. I suppose that's still a pretty busy week but anything seemed easier to fit in after the busy workweek I had in Minneapolis. I caught the recently released DVD documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston over the weekend and thought it was excellent. I'm obsessed. Tying it all together, here's a write-up I did of the Daniel Johnston mural in Austin, TX that I visited last year. Sam and company, thanks for letting me stay wif you in Minneapolis. Oh, how I love the snow.

-ick!