Awesome Week

Well, quite frankly this has been an awesome week.

First of all my youngest boys (born 364 days apart) turned 8 and 9 this week. They were at Boyscout camp; we brought them home last night and had their party today. Before we brought them home we went to the campfire and saw a ton of old camp skits, some of which I remembered from my youth. (The World's Ugliest Man Skit, The Echo Skit, etc...) Does anybody remember the "Wanna Buy a Pencil Skit?" I did that a couple times at church camp and saw it 2 or 3 more times, but for the life of me, I can't remember the lines.

The CIRCUIT Summer Jazz band gave its first concert today and raised enough money to buy a rehearsal drum set. Very Awesome! That was a dream I wasn't sure I'd see happen this Summer. That makes several things more likely now. It makes a School year version of the CIRCUIT Jazz band more likely and opens up some other possibilities.

The band sounded quite good for it's rehearsal time and I was very proud of them.

Next, Groove Duke is very close to the 300 fan mark on the Facebook page. I am aiming for 1000 fans worldwide by the end of the year. The miracle of the internet enables this dream to be a possibility. As long as we keep growing at a steady rate this is a reachable goal. Will I be any closer to my "1000 true fans?" I don't know. being a fan on a fan page is easy: you just click. But a click means an interest so even though they may be "soft" fans I may find a few people who are really simpatico with my musical tastes and are willing to back it up by buying my music and merch. And hopefully I'll find them while my health is still good!

And even more amazing news: TOFB is opening for Survivor tomorrow at the Rosebud theater in Effingham. Should be a very fun show.

So things are going very well. I am planning our next trip to Houston and have been dreaming about it every night. (Not good dreams...) So if you are wondering why I am keeping myself so busy: there it is. I entered the last clinical trial with a lot of hope, but it's hard to keep that going when this trial combines two agents I've already had. So, I'm keeping my expectations low. I just want some kind of response.

I have an appointment to talk to MDA's transplant team and though Dr. K said it wasn't a foregone conclusion that I'll have one, that fact that he recommends that I talk to them speaks volumes to me. Statistically, remissions get shorter with each round of chemo. People with remissions as short as mine get transplanted earlier rather than later. So what I need to be thinking about is where to have it when the time comes. I feel like I don't really know how to evaluate the options. My usual strategy in undertaking a project is to spend time actually doing it and learn as I go. This works exceptionally well when you are talking about playing trumpet or writing music. But you don't always get a second shot at a transplant. I know the basics of what happens and a little of what can go wrong, but which hospital is most likely stop stuff from going wrong before it does? And honestly, Graft versus Host disease is the biggest worry. There's not much I can do about that, but which hospital has the best strategy for managing or avoiding it?

That's what's on my mind right now. And it's in the back of my mind even as I try to bury myself in projects. My anniversary is coming up. I'll be making studio reservations very soon, I'll give my second performance with my new band. And please remember to back my project at kickstarter.com, it is going to be great.

Well, I have got to get to bed. It's late and I've been feeling very tired. reaching for the brass ring is tiring, metaphorically speaking.