Goin' to California...with a shiver in me bones.
Tonight I'd like to welcome you all virtually to balmy Southern California, where – January be damned – fragrant ocean zephyrs fondle the fronds of swaying palms, where sexy low cars prowl suburban strips jewelled with light, where life hums along carefree under velvet skies, where the Anaheim Convention Center dazzles like Oz, bulging with the hopes and efforts of passionate builders of instruments and the steely visionaries who invest in them, their wares arrayed in glittering settings, all in restless readiness for tomorrow's influx of dealers daring to defy economic doom and gloom, of players and gawkers and dreamers and doers...
I'd like to welcome you to sunny SoCal, yup I would, but the truth is that I'm grounded in the frigid midwest.
I was to have flown from Louisville to Chicago this afternoon, and on to Santa Ana tonight. I should be in the air over the Rockies by now – but my flight was cancelled earlier today for poor conditions in Chicago.
Truth is, I'm half-relieved about that. When I'd checked the forecast yesterday, Chicago was slated for gusting northwest winds tonight, and windchill to 35 below. There's up to a foot on the ground, it's still snowing, the snow is blowing, taint a fit night out for man nor beast, and it's colder there than it can possibly be. The whole upper midwest is an artic mess.
I don't blame the airline for wanting no part of it, and I'm trying to figure out whoever thought it would be a good idea to put a city or an airport in such a place to begin with.
So there's that. I've been rescheduled for tomorrow morning at 7 bells, which means rising at an hour I don't even want to contemplate. I'm camped on my daughter's couch across the river from Louisville, not far from the airport, under an eeee-lectric blanket, and my bags are packed, I'm ready to...etc
Tomorrow's itinerary routes through Dallas-Ft Worth, and should avoid the meterological unpleasantness afflicting the top half of the country. ETA at John Wayne Airport, 11:30 AM NAMM time.
All of which means the show will have opened a couple hours before your intrepid reporter swoops in to get the scoop, but whaddayagonna do. You can't fight mother nature, and all that.
I'm sure there'll be plenty of NAMM action to make up for it over the next four days, so this just means you can get a few hours of work done tomorrow before you start slacking off and having to hide the screen every time the boss walks in the room.
Be safe brotha
