I leave for Steamboat Saturday afternoon, and I am not ready in any form or fashion. The only thing I know I have are my YAKTRAX. At least I know my chances of falling down on the ice/packed snow are slim. We're driving in on Sunday morning, but heading out to see RRB/Ragweed/JTNL Saturday at Azteca Music Hall. That name makes it sound like a grand venue...lol. It's actually a big hangar with a stage set up on one end and a big concrete floor. There are some chairs dispersed throughout the venue...but I'm not sure if that's only for certain shows. Anyway...it should be a great show to kickoff the week and it will keep me from feeling bad about skipping RRB's and Ragweed's shows in the Big Tent at Steamboat. I think I lasted 4 songs into RRB's set last year before bolting. I just hate. the. tent.

I just remembered another thing I've done to prepare for the trip. I've checked the weather conditions for the days we'll be driving to Denver and to Steamboat. Luckily, right now, the forecasts call for sunny skies. I drove into Denver last year in the midst of a snowstorm. It was not fun. It took ninety minutes to get from the Denver city limits to my hotel.

Downside of going to Steamboat - I am missing the Avett Bros show at the Granada on January 3rd

Other than that, I'm curious to see how this year plays out. I'll miss seeing a lot of familiar faces that for one reason or another will not be on the mountain this year.

Last week I lost every single file on my ipod. Freak out moment. I got a small ray of hope when I opened the ipod through My Computer and saw all the files there, but they just would not show up when connected to itunes. Then and there, I decided to copy from the ipod drive to my laptop and then transfer back. Sounds like a simple process... Wrong.
I have spent every night since transferring files off the ipod drive onto to the laptop and back into itunes. Not only was this incredibly tedious and slow going, but it was also a waste of time. Some of the files would not move because I didn't have "approval" to play them on my computer. What? I bought it... Some files would show on my ipod, and show the track time, title, artist, album and not play. Today, I did a complete restoration. I wiped everything down and started from scratch. I now have 10.46 GB on my ipod. Yeah. I had 74.3 prior to the crash. I imagine it will only take all my free time for the remainder of the month to move my files back over from my external drive. Fun stuff...

I'd much rather look forward to what the rest of the month holds: possibly MMC @ Woody's this coming weekend, OKC the following Wednesday for a mini-break before Christmas with a side trip to Ft Worth for some Randy (shocking!) and Eady

I've been swamped at work with writing deadlines and an unexpected Federal case that is eating up every free minute I think I'll enjoy. All that reading at work has diminished my time to read outside the office. I hate that. I also have seen only one movie in the last month...ridiculous. New Moon, if you're wondering. I wasn't really a fan. I would have much rather seen Fantastic Mr. Fox. I cannot wait for Up in the Air or Invictus. I still have yet to see Pirate Radio! 27 days until I get a full week from here...I'll get some reading done and get to spend some time with friends I rarely get to see. I'm ready to go now.