Leaving late in the day to take on the rough 3 hour drive to North Myrtle is never the way I’d prefer to make the trip, but as our stores doesn’t close until 3pm on Saturday, that’s how it all went down.

A bit of a family tradition has become the stopping at Captain D’s in Wadesborough, on the way. Usually, we kill 30 to 40 minutes in this stop but this time we decided to hit the drive through and within 15 minutes we were back on the road.

The whole focus of this, essentially 2 night and 1 day trip was to take Delilah to surprise her mom at the beach, as she was already at the North Shore Tower 1 condo our friends are kind enough to let us use. The plan was to show up unannounced for a big surprise. 

This time, we’d be staying with the granddaughter a few places down at Grand Camen. But before that knowledge was out, we knew it’s be a really mood killer for Summer and boyfriend, Patrick to think we’d be staying with them. 

The trip was uneventful, though it did rain for about half the drive. Delilah, who didn’t have a nap at all Saturday, got a little rambunctious for the last hour so. 

It takes about 3 hours of driving for me to get fatigued, but as compared to our recent trip to Bill Herman’s place in Ravenna, Ohio, it was a brief joyride. 

I was able to multitask a bit by listen to our latest bounces from the current album I’m creating with Harrison Foreman. 

In addition to that there was rounds and rounds of Jingle Bell rock, Delilah’s favorite song of the moment.

When we arrive at the Condo, after a brief stop at DG where Nancee forgot most of the things she went in for, Summer and Patrick were actually heading into the building as we pulled up. But for Nancee’s whoop of excitement, I think they’d not have noticed us. The look of pure anxiety on Summers face was hilarious. 

After a bathroom break for Delilah we got checked in a visited a restaurant next door, which was fine except that I think Delilah was the only one who was actually hungry. The place had a cool license plate theme with mounted sharks and a bear skin and the food was passable. The service was friendly which was a bonus as it very rainy and windy outside.

Summer and Patrick came over and headed to the giant indoor pool and lazy river at Grand Carmen’s. It was like a jungle in there so Nancee and I headed back to the room for a 1 hot break.

Delilah was absolutely buzzing when she got beck to the room. It took a bit to calm her down but when we did she was fast asleep. This ended evening 1.

The Last night, along with 4 of my musical friends, I stepped on stage to kick off the 12 show series for 2019, dubbed the “Last Tuesday,” concert series. Having anyone with me always increases the energy level but having a 5 peice band, even in our formative stage as it were, was really a lot of fun.

While we are far from what we can and will be at the end of this series, I thought our first show was quite nice with a few high points. One of which was our rendition of the deeply personal, “Late Summer.” We played that with some pinace and I enjoyed hearing the playback.

I wanted to espresssly call out my musical amigos.

• Paul Tharp – Keys & Backing Vocals
• Daniel Medley – Bass
• Chris Gutierrez II – Drums
• Tony Torres – Harmonica, Flute & Percussion

We are drawing ever closer to the end of the line on this record. 

Last night I had the most amazing dream that perfectly encapsulated my time working in IT and really a large portion of my life. Before I get into it I need to quantify it somewhat with the following: I almost never dream or really even think of my times past working for First Union – Wachovia – Wells Fargo. Forgive the hyphenation. To me it’s largely the same community and occupies the same address in my memory.

Most nights in my dream state I’m either writing songs with Elvis Costello, making epic Spielberg – esque film works or communing with my father who passed on years ago. I don’t use term, “dead” because to me, in my inner most reality, he’s more alive and more a part of my psyche than ever. Strange I know, but I digress.

In this dream I was putting the final touches on a shelf and a half of books I was planning to leave behind in an upper mezzanine of other shelf’s of books at the bank. It was Wells Fargo, but it really looked more like eChannels floors converted to a sort of library.

Now on these shelves of mine were all manner of books in various stages of use. Some were Japanese manga series still in plastic. There was the very same Japanese language book for children to learn to read katakana which a tutor once got for me in Japan. Keiko I think it was. There were also books written in Spanish and English.

There were also tapes and cd’s on the smaller shelf. One CD which I picked up and examined was a home produced album from my friends band, Borghal Rantipole. It lacked the front slip cover and someone had drawn 4 dudes faces staring up from the cd in black sharpie.

Nearby on a table there was a table where someone had made a pleasant country scene with a farm, barns, horses, chickens and Sasquatch peering over a brown stained rail fence.

In a moment it occurred to me that these shelves were memories I was consigning to the past as I move into a new chapter.

Now, fully two years removed from the Information Technology field and back at night school training for what’s next (more on that another time) I really just never think of IT, at least consciously. On the whole I’m slightly ambivalent about it I supposed. At times my work there was both esteemed and at other times woefully taken for granted, but I suspect that’s most peoples experience at most jobs. I walked away with no hard feelings and mostly just thankful for gainful employment for so many years.

I do, however still really miss the people. It was an eclectic community of diverse individuals whom I respected and valued as a formative part of my life.

Some, I follow from time to time on social media, but most reside strictly in memory. This dream, this perfect dream created such poignant snapshot for the old photo album of memory I just wanted to share it along with my thanks. I hope you are all doing wonderful!