Happy Birthday...

...to me.

Ah yes, the years roll by. Good ones.

This last year was a great one. A year ago, Monika and I were in Warsaw visiting her Grannie. We were in Costa Rica for a week in June and I also had a few side trips for gigs around the easteren seaboard.

I don't know why, when I look to sum up the year, travel is the first place I look. Habit maybe.

Its also something palpable. It feels like alot of the work that I'm doing now, on my own (as distinct from the gig I play most nights), has some vague, future payoff attached to it (learning/playing tunes, developing sound/repertoire on the shakuhachi, etc).

But that is probably just all in my head.

Anyway, random thread...

So we are off to have a lunch and then I will play the Bateaux again tonight. But then there IS a payoff:

We are going to meet down at the Village Vanguard to hear the last set of the week of Brad Mehldau. Psyched about that. Have yet to see him live.