OCMA Finals for "Best Live Band!"

We competed in the finals for the Orange County Music Awards last night for "Best Live Band" and it was awesome! The room was full and the energy was great going on. Bobbo called a last minute audible, swapping our opening song from "This Town" to "We Are Only Young" and we were off and running. It was a strong powerhouse set, lots of big dynamic rock. One of the highlights was the introduction of our newest song, "One, Two, Three (Thousand Miles Back to You)." We just wrote it last week and it came together great last night, very fun and upbeat.

Another highlight for me was "Ellie" and I want to share with you why. It started out the tightest we'd ever played it, it just felt really dead on. Then somehow in the solo, things got a little lost in all the swirly guitars and drifted into multiple tempos, but then the most amazing thing happened. We all simultaneously felt the shift, looked to John for the next beat, and snapped right back onto the tempo in perfect time, finishing the song as strongly as it began. It was the most seamless, amazing musical recovery I'd ever been a part of. In that moment I felt like we went from being five musicians playing in a band to one single perfectly attuned musical entity.

Maybe I shouldn't be telling you about a mistake we made while competing for "Best Live Band." But to me, being a great live band it isn't just how well we play, but how well we play together. And in that moment, we played together better than ever.

Hockey Monkey!

OMG, there's a video for this song! The Zambonis are the best hockey rock band ever!



Having a good time, yeah!

Elegant Interstates

I had no idea that the national interstate highway system was so elegantly put together! Look at the logical numbering systems! The patterns of odds and evens, high numbers and low! It's a transportation work of art!

Who needs alarm clocks?

This is our morning, times two!

Fallen Stars Game!

Check it out, I just discovered a Fallen Stars video game that you can play online! It's a fun little time killer, and addictive too. Just don't let your boss see you!

What makes a president effective anyway?

In light of today's big primaries in Ohio and Texas today, I thought I'd share a book I stumbled across a few days ago called The Presidential Difference: Leadership Styles from FDR to George W. Bush. It was published back in 2004 by Princeton University's presidential scholar Fred I. Greenstein. In it, he examines the last 11 U.S. presidencies and identifies six critical factors in determining the effectiveness of a president:

• Effectiveness as a Public Communicator
• Organizational Capacity
• Political Skill
• Vision
• Cognitive Style
• Emotional Intelligence (Greenstein deems this one most critical, "In its absence, all else may turn to ashes.")

PBS.org has a good rundown of the definitions of those criteria that they published back during the 2004 elections and since I haven't actually read the book yet, that's about all I can tell you about it right now. But I love the idea that there might possibly be concrete, observable, measurable behaviors (dare I say competencies?) that could be used to assess candidate performance and help predict effectiveness - just like any other job!

Because when it comes right down to it, what is a presidential campaign but a nationwide job interview where every single citizen gets a say in who is hired for the most important job in the country?

Find me some fiction!

Anyone have any good novels you can recommend? The last few books I've read have all been non-fiction and I'm pining away for a good meaty story. So friends, what would you recommend I pick up on my next trip to the library?