I'm Heeeerrrrreeee

Well I've arived safe and sound. Checked into the opryland resort and hotel...this thing is massive. I'll have pictures sometime today or tomorrow, but this place would dwarf some of the Vegas casinos. I gotta say though Nashville is dead on a Sunday morning, although I imagine the churches are jumping (as much as they ever do). There's a nice garden conservatory with a skywalk, plenty of hotel bars and shops and some pretty good looking restraunts. It's connected to the Grand Ole Opry though I haven't been over there or even seen the place yet. Some of the rooms have a balcony overlooking the grounds of the hotel. The section I'm staying has an island with a pretty lively bar for a hotel with a live band including guitarist, bassist, singer, saxophone, drums, and keyboard....pretty impressive. Anyways I've been up since 6 so I'm starting to get a little stir crazy. I'm meeting the coworkers at 12 for lunch then setup for the show. After that....shopping!?!?!?!?!? Well I could use some new CD's.

Leavin' On a Jet Plane

At least I hope it's a jet. It would not be cool to have to ride a turbo prop all the way to Nashville. As for the destination, I need to find something to do while I'm there. I was hoping to catch a Predator's game on Saturday but it doesn't look like I'll land in time to take one in, and I have to work during the Titans game. I imagine that there are guitars galore there so I might have to wander around some stores. If anybody knows places (other than country bars) that I absolutely must hit please let me know. Anyways, gotta remember to charge the camera. In other previous news Hurricane Wilma gave good effort as far north as my self and was just enough to cancel work for the day, but luckily no permanent damage was done anywhere near my area.

GRRRRR

No new guitar toys yet. The pre-amp is supposed to come in early this week. Waiting for new toys has to be the most frustrating feeling out there. Other than trying to play that F chord :).

Damage Control

Found a nifty little product last Friday. The Damage Control Womanizer pre-amp. Two 12AX7 tubes provides excellent distortion for blues and all but the heaviest rock.The Womanizer will work as a classic stomp box or a nice little preamp or for direct recording. Granted this piece of equipment far exceeds my ability to use it but let's just say I plan to grow into it. In the meantime I plan on using this to record some of my practice sessions to see how I'm progressing. If everybody's REAL nice maybe I'll post a clip for humor. Ohh yeah and if the Womanizer is too wussy for you then the Demonizer will give you all the gain you need. Myself, I'm looking for a little more control. Hopefully I'll get my wish either tonight or tomorrow and will have a beginner's review of it next week.

Homewarming

Attended a house warming last night. A coworker bought a villa 5 minutes or so from work. Nice place, great food. But after looking around at the price of places here in Florida anything near a suburb or city is absolutely incredible. I firmly fall into the camp that believes most of the country is in a real-estate bubble and that prices are skyrocketing for no good reason. Heck in my area prices have risen maybe 50% in one year...perhaps 6 months. I firmly believe people have been using non-standard mortgages to afford houses outside of the their price range and when interest continue to go up people are going to be squeezed. Houses are going to get dumped and prices will fall. Now if someone purchased an affordable house intending to live in throughout the rises and falls this is no big deal. If someone is wheeling, dealing, speculating, and flipping then they may get burned pretty badly. Now I know very little about real-estate but when prices change this much this fast something has to be driving it and for the life of me I can't really figure out what that is. Maybe the area is growing that fast but I don't see it. I think low interest rates and high selling values for houses have created a fervor that will die quickly when the interest rates come back up.