Clapboard - Full Frontal Nerdity

We were at the Coliseum!  Or is it Colosseum? Whatever it is, I got to Zagreb from Rome yesterday by way of Venice and wanted to post a quick update saying that I'm back in the blogging game with a vengeance!  Or at least back with a small whimper.

Rome was awesome.  The Pantheon is still amazing, there's an ancient pyramid somewhere south of the city, Pompei is a totally-doable day trip, although you have to be prepared because it's effing huge, and the Sistine Chapel really does have a lot of paint in it.  Renting a scooter was awesome although driving in Rome was frustrating because I'd swear I knew where I was going and *boom* we were across town in a giant park about to get on the freeway.  Ah well.

More details after the break.

I've been doing shows.  Since last I updated, i think it's been four, with a fifth tonight.  A lot, whatever the number is.  Des Moines, Atlanta, Orlando and Houston in six days, at least.  My bus has been running all over the country, hither and yon, all around Robin Hood's barn, there and back again, even.

In Des Moines I took a few more pictures for BRANDED (not on the site yet, of course, but I'll work on it some today), which counts as the first time I've done a shoot on the road.  Totally do-able, although without lights, it's sort of an exercise in futility.  At least it was an exercise in something, though since I've been entirely stagnant since I got out here on this leg.  Good thing it's short.

I managed also to get a couple of flights booked yesterday (two out of the five I need to book), and that was fine, but I was really aiming for three, with four as the outside goal.  I seem to have lost my mojo for the flight finding that I did the other day, because not only couldn't I find the same times, I couldn't even remember what airline they were on.  Yeesh.  Anyway, I'll try that again today, now that I've caught up on JVS work today.  Still have some PCW work to get through and bills, though both of those will have to wait 'till the next town (Memphis?), because my time is almost exhausted here.

It's hard to believe that it's been eleven years since the day my dad died.  I never really know what to say on the anniversary of his passing, but I feel that to let it go unmarked every year would be inappropriate somehow.  So here we are.

Looking back on the last decade-plus, I wonder how my dad would have viewed the convoluted path that I've been taking.  I wonder what advice he'd give, what he'd approve and disapprove of.  Much more than that, though, I wonder what kind of humor he would have brought to situations in my life, what kinds of things he'd have found funny or made funny by his asides.  I wonder how he would have added happiness to our lives in unexpected ways.  He'd be getting ready to retire about now, I bet (barring a golden parachute offer from the company) and prepping the garage as his permanent putter-around place.  He'd be stocking up on sweats and throwing away all of his shirts, I bet, while he was at it.  He'd have been sixty-four, turning sixty-five this year, and, but for smoking, would probably have been in pretty good shape.  At least that's what the doctors implied while they were treating him.

Anyway, here's to my dad - we loved the guy.  He wasn't perfect, but he would make fun of you if you had scruffy stubble on your face.