My calendar at work says 48 days to the "official" close of my golf course. But that's just the "official" calendar.

I'm thinking more like 60-70 days. Two months of snail-paced days until things like sleeping in (I guess that's up to Max), taking care of my boy, cleaning the house, staying up to watch Letterman, and, of course, capturing some new ideas in 1's and 0's.

Yes. There are a couple of ideas floating around in this fertilizer fogged and grass-clipping choked brain.

Question: What do you do when you don't have much time on your hands to work on new material? Answer: You mess with the old stuff. At least until such a time when you can manage to keep your eyes and ears open past 10 P.M. And without waking the rest of the house up...

Back in the winter of '02/'03, in tiny apartment in Howell, MI, with not even the prospect of a social life, I hunkered down at my desk with a bunch of little recording gadgets and a really cheap guitar and managed to put some ideas down on tape. Well, not really tape anymore, more like converted into millions of 1's and 0's on a hard drive.

Our wives, grandparents, and babysitters who put up with our sporatic practices over the last year and a half. Our friends who've supported SJ emphatically over the years. Sound men Casey and Ikes for doing a great job with stage and front-of-house. The Small Planet for humoring our nostalgic sentimentality.

My dad for driving all the way from South Carolina...

Last but not least, thank you to Dave's mom for making the whole thing possible.

R.E.M. - Accelerate (2008)

It seems I lost the old R.E.M. for a time. They brought me back pretty hard in a rockin' sort of way with this one.