Back by popular demand, it’s Band Music Friday! There really wasn’t any demand, this is just something I do when I remember and/or a certain someone mentions it’s been awhile. My background is in music education, specifically wind band, and I believe very strongly that wind band music is every bit as important, musical, and culturally relevant as orchestral music. So I’m doing some edumacating. Keeps me out of trouble.

Anyhoodles, today’s band piece is Julie Giroux’s Overture in Five Flat. Now, lemme tell you about my gal Julie here. It may be 2025, but female wind band composers are few and far between. Wind music has a better living composers/dead composers ratio but it’s still pretty much a pale sausage-fest. She has over 100 credits in TV, movies, and video game music; has three Emmys; and has worked with celebrities big and small. Julie is also one of the funniest people on the interwebz, and I highly suggest you follow her on Instagram, if for no other reason than you need the laugh in this most hellish of hellscapes.

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Now, I gotta ‘splain the confusion around the title of the piece. If a piece is in five flats it’s considered challenging. Not impossible, just requires a little more woodshedding than usual because we don’t often see a piece in the key of Db. Doable, but be ready for the bitching from everyone, increasing in volume from the polite flutes in front (and yes, that would include me…snort…) to the barely-potty-trained circus-clown trombones in back (who, due to the slidey fart machine in their hands, never STFU back there). So when I first heard this piece and saw the title I was kinda impressed. Wow, this piece smokes! And it’s in FIVE <REDACTED> FLATS? Damn skippy! Because something going that quick has no right to be in that key, it just ain’ right.

And in one of my many texts to a friend who is also the assistant conductor of my beloved wind ensemble, said something to that effect. He agreed. Let me now point out that said friend was one of the best high school band conductors in the country and knows.his.shit. We both thought the piece was in the key of oh please run me over with the marimba and leave me here to die Db, with its hellacious key signature mocking the musicians. We were both quite incorrect, and we both facepalmed quite heartily. From the program notes:

The first page of the score sums up the nature of this piece by stating: “Quarter Note = “You’ve got 5 minutes.” The piece is not in five flats but in the key of Bb and for the most part lays comfortably on the instruments. Exciting and virtuosic, Overture in Five Flat, even if not played in exactly five minutes, should please audiences and players alike. If you do in fact end at the exact 5 minute timing, that’s wonderful.

If you play it in under 5 minutes, well of course, you win! Towards the end of the score there is an increase in tempo. The rest of the tempos are for you to pick.

I got to play it a couple years ago and loved it; thank god it’s in the key of Bb, which is hella easier on the fingers. This recording isn’t of me but the College Band Directors National Association band, conducted by Lowell Graham, who was Commander and Conductor of the United States Air Force Band.

Please to enjoy, and have a great weekend!

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Yes, hello. I am here to scream into the abyss.

Sorry ma’am, abyss is closed for maintenance.

Uh, I paid for unlimited access, no restrictions whatsoever. The super duper ultimate no-holds-barred, I raised two G2e kids, I’m the gooey center of the sandwich generation, constant midlife crisis, the world is fucking ending, perimenopause can go consume a satchel of Richards, full open bar 24/7/365(6) access. Get the hell outta my way, I have an abyss to fill.

As I said, the abyss is currently down for unscheduled maintenance. You see, it’s been getting quite a bit of traffic lately. Caravans of midlife women in full Mrs. Roper garb have been showing up with martinis and throat lozenges. Teachers have moved in, rocking to and fro under rock ledges as they howl. Earplugs can’t keep up. Our staff is on an emergency rotation to protect their ears and sanity...or what’s left of it. You don’t stay sane long, working the abyss.

I thought the abyss was soundproof!

So did we! But the screams filling it lately have come from the most primal center of souls. I’ve never heard anything like it. Screamers arrive and it’s as though they’re living in the depths of hell, wailing for release. It’s caused some major damage to the abyss.

We’re all living in the depths of hell these days, my dude.

Evidently. So the abyss needs the equivalent of a full-blown roto-rooter enema. A complete flush with deep scrubbing, followed by a clay mask and an entire barrier relief protocol. That’s a new procedure from a Korean skincare company branching out into abyss care. Should help keep the abyss from getting so congested and impacted. Then we need to scaffold the shit outta the place, bring it up to code, and given its infinite size, we don’t have an eta for completion.

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Well. Fuck. What about the void? I could swan dive into the void and do a little screaming there.

Sadly, the void is full. Never, in all my years here (and I’ve been here for all eternity), has the void filled. If you stripped down and greased up, you might squeeze into a spot beneath someone’s left tit, but no promises. And there’s sure as hell no room for any screaming - at best a few quiet whimpers. Oh, and there is zero fresh air in there, it truly reeks of cabbage farts, so whimper at your own risk.

So you mean to tell me that I have an exclusive pass to not a goddamned thing here? I have some screaming to let loose, I’m sick to death of this life, and I need some void time. What the hell can you offer me? I’m desperate here.

Hmmm...may I suggest the Chasm of Concern? You could register a complaint.

That’s it? May I suggest where you stick that suggestion?

O-kayyy...The Pit is open, you’re eligible, but I must warn you, it comes with a price.

I’ve already paid for an all-access pass to places that aren’t available, I’m sure as hell not paying more.

The price is that all wails and screams and gnashing of teeth in The Pit are recorded and used to train our newest AI system.

Are.You.Fucking.Kidding.Me?

AbyssAI will take your input and do something with it. Something very special, so special we can’t tell you. But we’re sure you’ll love it. We know you’ll love it. You will have no choice but to love it.

Right. I’m out. Looks like it’s gummies and throw pillows tonight. Kindly take your AbyssAI and shove it where the sun don’t shine, and contact me when the abyss and void are again available. In the meantime, all y’all can <redacted> and <heavily redacted> and <my god redact redact redact>.

Of course, ma’am, have a lovely day!

🖕🏻

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So for those just joining us, my background is in music education and I am a lifelong band geek. I’ve been playing flute for over 40 years and was hooked at my very first full rehearsal, when I could feel the bass drum pounding in my chest as a flock of other 9-year-olds honked around me. I also believe very deeply that wind band literature is every bit as important and high quality as anything orchestras play. Band Music Friday is my attempt to educate the world.

Today’s piece is a classic of wind band rep, conducted by one of the greats. Lincolnshire Posy by Percy Grainger, played by the United States Navy Band, conducted by Frederick Fennell. Buckle up, there be some ‘splainin’ to do with this one.

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Percy Grainger (1882 - 1961) was a composer in the early half of the 20th century, well known for his use of folk songs in his compositions. Posy is considered his masterwork and is based on folk songs from the British Isles he collected on wax cylinders in 1905-6. He wanted it to be reflective not only of the songs but of the singers as well, so the piece is all over god’s green earth in tempos and time changes…just like folk singers do when they just…sing. And lo, one of the movements is hella hard and a lot of ensembles drop that one when they play the piece. Many of those wax cylinders have been preserved and transferred to digital storage (thank god); you can hear many of them here. So cool.

Frederick Fennell (1914 - 2004) is pretty much considered the granddaddy of American wind bands and literature. Uncle Freddy…uh…story time. My first time playing Lincolnshire Posy was in college, with Fennell conducting. 1995. We in the Illinois State University Wind Symphony were working so hard in preparation we got slap-happy and started to referring to this maestro of wind band as Uncle Freddy, and now that’s how Tom and I refer to him. He was a tiny little dude but you never ever noticed it; his personality and charisma more than doubled his size. Anyhoodles, Uncle Freddy founded the famed Eastman Wind Ensemble, brought the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra to international prominence (which then also goosed Japanese wind bands in general and now there are some aMAYzing Japanese bands; I’m dying to play in a band of band directors/band musicians touring Japan), and wrote/arranged eleventy-four billion pieces of music. If you’ve ever heard a band recording from the mid-20th century, it’s a good bet it’s Uncle Freddy and Eastman. When he founded the Eastman Wind Ensemble, it was the first group of its size. Before then large concert bands were the norm - think Sousa band. A wind ensemble is a smaller concert band of about 40 people; essentially the winds and percussion of an orchestra plus saxes and euphoniums thrown in for funzies. Not a lot of music written for that instrumentation back in the day, so Uncle Freddy wrote to notable composers of the time to commission music. Grainger was one of the first composers to respond, and we are all the better for it. So when Uncle Freddy conducts Posy, he knows what he’s talkin’ about because he studied it with Grainger himself.

Almost done, promise.

The Navy Band is one of the premier wind bands in the world. All of the U.S. military bands are as good as (and in some cases, better than) professional orchestras. Playing in The Marine Band is my Walter Mitty fantasy, and playing in any military band is my road not taken. I took several military band auditions in college and would have gone that route if I hadn’t gotten fed up with the mind-numbing bureaucracy of the military. Went and got married instead. Yes, in the late 90s, not the early 50s. Most of the time I don’t regret that decision.

This recording isn’t of a concert but of a performance level play through with the Navy Band. They’d been working with Uncle Freddy for a concert and recorded the rehearsal (also available on YouTube, it’s outstanding). There are surely better recordings out there, but I really like this one because you get to watch his face and body language as he coaxes the musicians to play like early 20th century British countrymen singing old folk songs. At one point, yes, you will hear him singing, trying to get them to play like bellowing blowhards (Lord Melbourne, listen carefully).

Please to enjoy.

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Oh, my dearest Universe, when I said in my last post that I was severely burned out and struggling, that was not a call to action. It was not an invitation for Murphy and his favorite Law to crawl out of hiding and slash my tires. I was not requesting divine intervention of any sort, I was simply saying. You know how we have that summer/winter weather complaint agreement? I don’t bitch about summer, ever, and in return you don’t try to destroy me with winter nonsense? It’s worked well for the last several years. I may say, “Hooboy it’s a hot one,” or “Whew, a touch moist today,” but those are not complaints. They are statements of fact, you know this. No need to bring about a multi-week polar vortex in return. A mutual understanding, if you will. Apparently that does not cross over to other aspects of my life; it was not necessary to intervene in such a way that I would have more time to dedicate to burnout recovery.

I was laid off last week.

Not unexpected, just mortifying, as I was on a business trip at the time. I won’t say more, because reasons, but I’m gradually getting my poop in a group and sorted by size, shape, aroma, and holy crap that metaphor really took a turn. Apologies. I had that job for just shy of four years; two as an embedded contractor and two as a full-time employee. I was good at it and liked it, but in the last 10 days I’ve realized just how stressful it was. Making no changes I’ve dropped four pounds and my body doesn’t ache as much as it did. Imma file that under interesting, hashtag the body knows the score.

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Madame Universe, you threw a sack over my head and kicked me out of a blacked-out van into the land of Now What? The landmarks are only vaguely familiar and the language like something I knew once upon a time. I used to have a home here but gave it up, figuring I’d not be back. I don’t plan to stay very long, so I think I’ll commandeer your blacked-out van for my own use and live the creative VanLife™ for a short while. Who knows, maybe I’ll drive that van into a Happily Ever After of my own creation.

But my dearest Universe, if you’re gonna “help” like a four-year-old with Pledge on the wood floors, a few ground rules:

1. Communication is key. Keep me in the loop so I don’t puke if when the loop ends up a reverse corkscrew under water before mag-blasting to 90mph into a gravity-defying drop.

2. My best interests at the forefront. I know what I don’t want but struggle with what I do. I’m trusting you to sort that ish out before chucking said ish at me. Also, an underhand throw is just fine, no need to rocket the ish at my head, please and thank you.

3. All employment options are on the table; you know as well as I do what I’m capable of, what I love to do, what my interests are. Please filter them through items #1 and #2, with a run through the remote-first sieve as well.

4. All locations are on the table. ALL. Not sure if you’ve noticed, dear Universe, but things ‘round these parts are on fire and a lot of firefighters are spraying gas on the flames as they laugh at our horror. My asbestos suit no longer fits and I stress-ate the s’mores fixins some time ago.

It’s been a rough ten days after a couple of stressful weeks preceded by a few truly brutal months, which (natch) came right after a hellacious handful of years. I’m ready for a break, for things to go my way for awhile.

So, my dearest, dearest Universe, let’s keep the lines of communication open. No more unexpected life changes, and let’s stay on each other’s good side. I expect a tolerable winter, as not a single summer complaint fell from these flutist lips. And tell Murphy to stay away from my car, I just paid it off.

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When your therapist says, “Hey, your hobbies are all higher-level thinking and you need to rest that part of your brain for a bit,” your first inclination is to laugh and say no. But when you’ve been dealing with burnout and stress in every area of your life, and you’re desperate to feel like yourself again (whatever that may be), and perimenopause is winding up for a death blow, and the world just keeps getting darker and darker, and you’ve tried so much and nothing is working, then you don’t laugh and instead quietly retreat from the writing that you love and hope that you can return sooner rather than later.

She made that suggestion when I mentioned that I used to be able to write full essays in my head, type them out in rapid-fire word-vomit, edit, and hit post. I can no longer do that. I’m lucky if I have a string of words that make it from idle rumination to keyboard without losing 8/9ths of them. I am not kidding. Most of If This is a Gift, Can I Send It Back? was written in my head and chucked onto the page at coffeeshops in the precious few minutes I had when the kids were otherwise occupied. Same with 90% of the blog posts at Laughing at Chaos. Now? I’m not being facetious when I say that I forget words and phrases as I’m reaching for my pen to write them down. It’s a problem. The only thing saving me in the day-to-day is the processes and systems I’ve developed over the last 40-odd years. Write it in the planner, keep the planner close at hand at all times, and check in with the planner constantly. When you don’t know what to do, the planner does. All hail the planner!

But writing? Yeah, I’m struggling. I’m using up 80% of my executive function and higher-level thinking in my day job, another 5% is dedicated to day-to-day function (my god in heaven above I’m sick to death of meal planning AND MY HUSBAND DOES MOST OF IT), a solid 10% is background worry about the state of the world/family/finances/health (like a computer program that hangs and sucks up all available RAM), and the remaining 5% is a buffer to fill in as needed. I’ve made the analogy before (at least in my head) of a sock that has a hole where it’s been rubbed between a foot and shoe. My whole brain feels like that most days now. Holey. Sure as hell not holy.

There’s so much I want to write about. The mental hell of perimenopause, (mostly) launching young G2e adults, what it’s like being the gooey center of the sandwich generation, how GenX and Millennial gifted kids were screwed over, the world at large, playing around with some fiction writing…shit that I want to say. And my exhausted brain gets to the end of the day and says, “Oh honey, no. Fuck that shit. Have dinner and go play Nanogram or something. I’m tired, my bunions ache, and I’ve taken off my bra so I’m not doing a goddamned thing now.” I mean, I get it. I’m tired, my feet ache, and once that bra is off there is no going back; I just expected more of the grey matter directing this meatsuit. Who the hell is in charge here, anyway?

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So I’ve been taking an unwelcome but probably very much needed break from the break I also didn’t intend to take when I stopped posting at Laughing at Chaos. Burnout is real, and for those on the gifted/twice-exceptional mechanical bull ride, it’s even more intense. Given that G2e people are MORE in every sense of the word, it figures that burnout would be MORE MORE. My back of the envelope calculations indicate that I’ve been stuck in a pretty significant depressive burnout for about five years. Life since March 2020 has been…intense. Not quite as personal as the shitstorm of 2011-2012, but close. It’s harder now in that everyone is struggling, so support is like a stretched out bra; it’s there but it’s fighting for its life against gravity and it’s all just one big sneeze from snapping free, taking an eye out in the process.

My analogies and metaphors, however, are still fire. I’ll take my wins wherever I can.

I don’t know when I’ll feel better. I don’t know, as we scream down this greased slide into more and more horrifying fascism, if I will feel better. But I know this; I’ve said it so many times and it needs repeating now:

If you decide to confide in others, you’ll discover you’re not alone

Burnout may have me in a death grip but I’m still kicking.

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“Get in the parade; don’t let the parade pass you by.” 💃💃💃

He was encouraging us to get involved in life, not to stand on the sidelines and watch, but to dive in and have experiences. And lo, how I have done that. Sometimes I look around at all I do now and back at all I’ve done and I’m gobsmacked by the sheer variety.

One of my favorites was something my 16-year-old self never would have imagined. 🤯 Take a look at this photo, recently unearthed from my mom’s picture stash.

That’s me on the podium, conducting a youth flute choir I organized with the help of the Colorado Flute Association. And the gentleman playing along with us? 🎶🎵

None other than Sir James Galway, the Man With the Golden Flute. You may have heard of him. 😳

It’s been 25-ish years since this took place and I’m STILL astonished that 1) he agreed to play with this group of young flutists, 2) that I CONDUCTED SIR JAMES GALWAY OH MY GOD, and 3) there is photo proof. 📸

Life has been awfully life-y lately and kicking back to watch the parade march by has been far easier than lacing up the shoes and searching for my shako; yes, the marching band hat whose mission in life is to ruin your hairdo. But the joy and fun of life is in that parade, not the sidelines, so I guess I’ll give up on good hair and get in the parade.

It’ll just be tough to top that photo. 😏

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One of the few, and I mean VERY few (as in this is the only one), things I miss about teaching through Covid was introducing new wind band music to my students. Every day, without fail, I started class with the Band Piece of the Day. It started as a way to create some sort of structure as well as kill 3-30 minutes of class time. Hey, no side eye, we were all making it up as we went, and you try teaching middle school band online. I hear the Google Meet chime and to this day I get the shakes. IT’S BEEN FOUR YEARS. The very opposite of good times, good times. But I digress. I'd give a little entertaining background on the piece and composer and let 'er rip. I have no idea if the kids were listening or if they even gave half a golden shit but I was putting it out there. Given our technological limitations it was the best I could do some days. 100+ days of band music in a time when everything was scary and uncertain, including wondering if a kid was gonna accidentally have the webcam on as they took the laptop on a bathroom trip. Really happened. 🫩

I kept it up when I left teaching and started working at a small edtech marketing firm. Band Music Friday was born when I needed to share a piece I loved and really felt the pull to write. Again, sharing a band piece I loved with background details on it, only this time it didn't have to be rated G so I had a good time with it. My colleagues there, being A+ awesome human beings, loved it, actually listened to the music and loved it, and so I tried to get a BMF up most weeks.

Why? Why do this? Who gives a shit about band music? It's just little kids honking through a beginning band concert, or high schoolers in odorous wool marching out of step as people buy hot dogs during halftime, right?

Bitch, please. 🙄

Wind ensemble music is having a moment. The quality and depth of music written over the last 25-30 years is extraordinary, and don't even get me started on the ensembles playing that music. It all deserves every bit as much respect granted to orchestral music and ensembles, but struggles against tired band stereotypes. This one time, at band camp...? Legit one of the funniest movie scenes I’ve seen; Tom and I went to see that movie one lovely evening, and I wore a T-shirt with flute printed on it in 20+ languages. The movie has been out forever so it's on you if you don't know the punchline to that joke and why my shirt got SO MANY STARES; go consult with The Google Machine if you don't know it. But those tired stereotypes persist and that pisses me off.

So I’m bringing Band Music Friday here. Might not be every week but it’ll always be on a Friday because this is my playground and I’m on something like my fifth rodeo. Sixth, if I count that one time at band camp…😏

Today’s Band Music Friday is courtesy of our composer friend Gustav Holst. You may know him as the composer of such bangers as "The Planets," but true band geeks know him as “the orchestral composer who respected and loved writing for wind band and so he did.” My dude knew quality.

The piece I picked is his "First Suite in Eb" (recognized as one of the earliest examples of modern band instrumentation) and I’m sharing two versions. First is the full suite, performed by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra (a fantastic ensemble in Japan, which BTW, has an incredible wind band history courtesy of Frederick Fennell who was at Eastman School of Music forever and brought it over. But I digress; Uncle Freddy and wind band in Japan is an entire Band Music Friday by itself). Your standard lovely performance; I’m starting BMF with classics before sharing some blow your soul straight outta your body favorites.

The second is a YouTube video of The President’s Own Marine Band. I wanted to share this because it best shows what musicians did (or tried to) during the early months of the pandemic. There were a lot of these “bands in squares.” We needed to make music, even when it was damned near impossible to get together. Every one of the musicians has a click track in their ear and they recorded themselves playing to it. This being the best wind band in the country (and my very own Walter Mitty fantasy) they have impeccable tuning, and balance was essentially after the fact with mixing board music software. I get emotional watching this, because at the time none of us knew how long we’d be playing solo or if we’d ever get to gather to make music again. I did one of these “band in a box” recordings during the pandemic and it’s harder than it looks. There’s so much interplay between musicians, especially of the near-psychic sort, that playing into a camera and hoping it all comes out ok is a paltry substitution.

Please to enjoy. Have a great weekend!

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Nineteen years I opened a browser window and started writing the blog that became Laughing at Chaos. It was the era of mommy bloggers (lord do I loathe that term) and I fell in love with writing for the first time since picking up a flute at age 9. What started with random musings soon became a blog on parenting neurocomplex twice-exceptional kids. Laughing at Chaos led to a book, If This is a Gift, Can I Send It Back?, which led to presentations and keynotes and becoming quite well-known in gifted circles. Evidently my writing was authentic to the point that other parents felt I was living in their closet or had cameras hidden in the power outlets. For the record, I've never lived in anyone's closet nor do I even know how to install hidden cameras. I’ve backed away from that writing, not because I didn’t love it, but because my kids are now neurocomplex twice-exceptional young adults who deserve some modicum of privacy. They’re (mostly) launched and their stories are not mine to tell. I will say, however, that parenting young adults ain’t for the faint of heart and everything you’ve heard about the frontal lobe finally considering thinking about maybe developing in the mid-20s is absofuckinglutely true. Take that as you will. Send gin, JFC.

Then covid hit, and writers block, and life changes, and writers block of concrete, and the gooey center of the generation sandwich (including the death of a parent FUCK PARKINSON'S FORFUCKINGEVER), and writers block of concrete encased in titanium, and more life changes, and writers block of concrete encased in titanium grown over with giant hogweed, and finally to the today of political and cultural upheaval sliding a greased pole to hell screaming YippieKayYayMotherfucker all the way down. It’s been…a lot.

I’ve changed. Oh gods how I’ve changed. I’m no longer the person who innocently started that blog in 2006. In some ways that’s a relief and in others it’s a little disconcerting. It's just...who the hell am I now?

Well. I’m a woman in the third act of her life, deep into the hell of perimenopause. An empty nester married for 29 years. A dog mom to Lemon; mostly Great Pyrenees with a variety of shepherd breeds, 100% loving goober, and the gentle guardian of my entire mental health. A flutist and writer, or was, and wants to be again. A foul-mouthed liberal with little to no patience for bullshit; quiet, reserved, and introverted until I’m not; deeply loyal once my heart and soul have been won; and leaning hard on the twin load-bearing supports of absurdity and gallows humor (I'm either professionally distracting you in the ER or I am your absolute worst nightmare). A very late-diagnosed woman with ADHD "with a sprinkle of the 'tism." Other than all that? I have no fucking clue.

But what I’m absolutely certain of?

I’m past apologizing for a fucking thing. My mouth, my opinions, my march-to-the-beat-of-their-own-drummers-out-of-the-box family, my deep desire to do what's best for me while not harming anyone else. I am almost 52-fucking-years old and I am over a lot. At best I have a solid 30 years ahead of me, and that's a freakishly small number when compared to all I want to still do with this one incredible life.

When I started blogging in 2006, what drew me was the community. Others who wrote long-form posts, sharing their points of view and lives. Essays of life and connection, not SEO and sales. Community is my goal here. If this is something that you didn't realize you needed in your life, or have been searching for, welcome. I have exactly one rule: Wheaton's Law. And to that, I present a story I first shared several years ago in a Facebook group I co-adminned:

A few years ago I was a chaperone for a 7th grade field trip to the zoo. I was in charge of five tween boys, one of whom was my youngest son. Knowing that five tween boys can easily go off the rails, especially during a field trip on a beautiful spring day, I called a huddle with them to explain my ONE RULE. Just one: Wheaton’s Law. They looked around at each other, confused. My son, knowing where this was heading, just shook his head and quietly rolled his eyes. Mrs. Merrill? What’s Wheaton’s Law? I drew them in closer before whispering, “Don’t be a dick.” I’m sure you can imagine the shock/horror/delight from these young men, that such a phrase came from a mother’s lips. The boys were fantastic on the trip, so awesome that I got all of them Icees on the way out…because nothing is better than sugaring up a bunch of boys before climbing on a bus for an hour drive, right? They slurped them down while we waited for the rest of the grade and for the buses to show up. And, of course, they got a little rowdy. One started climbing a small tree in the plaza. “YO!!! Kid’s name!!! WHEATON’S LAW!!!” He froze, “oh yeah, that’s right!,” and hopped out of the tree without another word.Wheaton’s Law covers everything, is succinct, and is just snarky enough to be humorous getting the point across. ✌🏻❤️

If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, I’d love it if you subscribed. I have no clue how this is gonna shake out over time, but the roadtrip of life is a lot more fun with someone riding shotgun.

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