Finally home

This past weekend GBT played The Portland Raindance in beautiful spring-time Oregon. It was a fantastic dance weekend and a nice ending to our trip. One of the highlights was sitting in with my all-time favorite contra dance band: The Clayfoot Strutters.

Also got to see our good friends Dan & Kim who now live in Seattle. We ate at a great place called Old Wives Tales. And we visited the legendary Powell's Books! Now I'm busy but home for the next few weeks. Looking forward to migration. Lots to do so I gotta run. Will try and post again soon.

Howdy y'all

Noah and I had a wonderful week hanging out in Wilmington, NC. Played some gigs, visited with friends, spent some time on the beach. Here are some pics.

Sienna-Marie, modeling her very stylish "Eat Mo Shad" bibJanet, Jim and Chris - thanks for everythingThe one and only Rev P.D. Midgett IIIWe had a great time and can't wait to come back next spring! I uploaded a few more stage pics to our MySpace page if you're interested. Noah and I got up at 4:00 AM to catch our flight to Portland, OR. Mom and Sarah are on their way, getting in kind of late. I miss my girl. Anyway, I'll post again probably after the weekend.

Bunting & Sparrow

Hi all. Noah and I are enjoying a quiet afternoon in beautiful Wilmington, NC. I'll get a "people blog" of our trip posted soon but at the moment all I've got is birds. I've had two much anticipated lifers this week. Kind of a study in contrast: the first is one of North America's most colorful and easily recognized songbirds while the second is very nearly uniform gray-brown and totally unknown except to die-hard birders.

This may be the worst photo ever taken of a male PAINTED BUNTINGAnd finally... my long-time nemesis, the BACHMAN'S SPARROWLife birds #467 and #468. My somewhat lofty goal was to reach 500 this year... only 32 left to go! Year list is also doing well with lots of new migrants. Check it out here.

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies

Some of the feminine interest in my life this week...

First up, Sarah and Abby. This was Abby's first bath. She was actually pretty good about it. Sarah's been enjoying her advanced gardening course at Caz college. Hopefully things will warm up and dry out enough to get started soon.I'm currently reading Jane Eyre for the first time! Great book of course. Should have read it a long time ago. Not sure what I should get into next. Any good book suggestions?Just found out one of my absolute all-time favorite indie-art-rockers St. Vincent is coming out with a new album in a couple weeks! Her first album Marry Me was (I thought) unbelievably cool. So I've very excited about that.I've also been listening a lot to The Ditty Bops. Pretty much impossible to accurately describe what these girls sound like so go check them out for yourself!Anybody else remember Lambchop's Play Along? What a great show! You know, occasionally I think YouTube might actually be good for something.

Chicago

Great Bear is playing at the University of Chicago this weekend. We arrived yesterday afternoon and the windy city was definitely living up to it's reputation! These pics are from the shore of Lake Michigan on the south side of the city.On our way out yesterday we stopped near Toledo and saw the beautiful first-year male MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD that's been reported for the past week or so. I believe this was only Ohio's second record of the species! I managed a couple crumby pics...

The Onion of Bluegrass

Check this out:

www.bluegrassintelligencer.com

Wow! That's seriously one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Thanks John :-)