I gave Reed a trip to visit his sister for his birthday. He had some problems.---Made it into Fargo finally! I was supposed to leave Jax at 7 and get into Fargo at 11am but I didn't end up getting to Fargo until 11 PM. Stayed at the Jax airport for 5 hours then in Dallas for 7. LONG DAY. Made it though. Here's a pic for the blog.------------------------------------------- Still traveling. Hit the dam yesterday. Also stayed with cousin Dave Palmquist and wife Pat in Mesa AZ.

On the way to AZ and UT. Dinner with Iris Bouvet, an old friend from Guam. Iris' son JP won the Guitar Center drum competition Iris showed us this great video that JP blogged on his experiences with the Generation Axe Tour

A weekend of visiting friends in Watertown. First were the Goldhorns who are the closest thing Northeast South Dakota has to Guamanians. Don was General of the Guam National Guard and Jan taught music for the Guam DOE. Then Mike and Sharmell Murphy who I've know since grade school. Mike was the star QB for Black Hills State back '69-'71 and threw me a pass or two.--------------------------------- And then, Dale McElhany, who taught me how to teach Geometry. So for the hundreds of kids I had in class on Guam, this is the guy who taught me to make it fun.----- And still looking good at 75. And last but not least, new grandpa, my brother Rick. The first to wear the title.

Hit the Mall of America yesterday and did some virtual reality AND saw this interesting novelty item called a splat ball. First time I'd ever seen this stuff. It was kinda cool. Got these off YouTube.

Back in Sioux Falls with obviously a few miles in between. Did just get a hold of an old friend from Guam Iris Bouvet and wanted to show her that there that there was indeed music life after she left Guam. Sometimes Reed shows his true Guamaniam self===Here's a picture from my last show. We played at the Omni for some cooking competition. A couple celebrity chefs cooked it out to see who could prepare the best swordfish dish...you know, rich white people stuff.

So we did The Arch yesterday with all the stuff there is with it. Afterwards, we were walking down the street and got offered baseball tickets (2) for $20. We took it. And yes the game was well underway. (We arrived in the 5th inning.) But the price on each ticket was $150. Besides, $8 lunches at Busch Stadium were $14. Good game though. Cards beat the Phillies 4-0.

Spent Monday night in Atlanta with friends Gail and Frank Hogue. Tuesday off to Nashville to see 2nd cousins MJ and Camille Schmidt. Camille is the wife of (mostly) country songwriter Chris Wellin (Webpage). Chris has had a number of top 40 country hits and we got the tour of their house and recording studio and stayed with them Tuesday night. MJ showed us around town and we heard some excellent country bands. Today we hit one of my bucketlist towns-Cairo, IL. A small town (with a cool library) but it's where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK so I'm taking off tomorrow to spend the summer in Sioux Falls. Reed and Jade are taking over my apt and came over today for pointers. After, Reed had Big Band practice and that's him and Frank and Marah.

Went to see Almost AHBA last night. The music was good but thought there should have been more ABBA history, jokes, etc. Like maybe the Happy Birthday song they sung should have been ABBA style--Hap-p-py B-birth-day. Just suggesting. They did have some video on YouTube so I stole it. Dancing Queen was the Encore.