Friday, December 22, 2006

Lemons -> Lemonade

I was really hoping to get to ride my bike today. Ma Nature had other plans. Who am I to argue with Ma Nature? Time to activate Plan B.

Since the rain was falling, I hoped in the car instead and drove into the abject and vociferous madness that is Knoxville traffic. Traffic here is usually only this bad on college home game days, but the month of December is like a month of October Saturdays. Fortunately, the traffic this morning wasn't quite so nutty. At least not this morning.

I headed downtown to do some stocking-stuffer shopping for MG. John B. called while I was out and mentioned something that we just couldn't pass up doing for lunch, so I incorporated that into the plan-of-the-day.

Todd Steed and the Sons of Phere (the name makes more sense if you are fairly familiar with Knoxville) were playing on the Blue-Plate Special on WDVX. John knows most of the guys in the band, and has played with several before (including Todd). I was several minutes ahead of John getting downtown, so I order take-out sandwiches for us at the Tomato Head. He showed up just before the food was ready, so we got it and walked on over to the studio.

The Blue-Plate Special is a regular feature at WDVX (most weekdays at noon). Today's show was more crowded than most, perhaps since more people were off work, or because Todd Steed and the boys have a pretty good following. It wasn't the whole band today, but four of the guys. There isn't really room on stage for a drum kit, so Ed was playing a cardboard box. Don't knock it - it sounded great for that venue. So for an hour today John and I ate our lunch while standing over by the elevator in the studio, joined by Derek who wasn't eating. I we saw others we knew there as well, such as Tim and Susan (other local musicians) and another guy whose name I can never remember. Shame on me. Anyway, it was a great show, and Todd and the boys (especially Todd) have really good 'stage presence', for lack of a better term.

I followed that up with more shopping as John, Derek and I went our seperate ways. I won't say where all I went just in case MG happens to read this post (though she usually doesn't read my stuff - I don't know why). I will say that traffic got horrid as the day went by. At one point it took me five minutes to go 30 yards on the Bearden Hill section of Kingston Pike. Yikes.

I can say one place I went. I stopped at an auto parts store to buy a Christmas present for the truck. A brand new set of wiper blades. I installed them when I got home. I can tell it really likes them. Maybe I'll give it a bath tomorrow if the rain will hold off long enough.

I'm going to close now. I've got to go get ready for my Anniversary Dinner with MG. Sixteen years, if you must know.

Maybe trivia answers tomorrow?

2 comments:

Big Mike said...

16 years... my wife and I either beat you or not, depending on what you celebrate. Our wedding anniversary was 14 years ago but we recognise the day we met. On that basis we're up to 16 and a half.

Big Guy on a Bicycle said...

Well, we don't celebrate it as much, but we do note the day of our first date back in January of 1983. So I guess we're coming up on 24 years next month of that.