Less than two hours from now the work week will come to a merciful end and the weekend will finally begin. Oh, happy day.

There is a huge, gargantuan, bummer this weekend. We had Rush tickets for the Mohegan Sun arena show on Sunday. Note I used past tense. We sold the tickets. We didn’t want to, but something came up for work and we couldn’t be at risk of being on the road, two hours from home, and work saying they desperately needed something done right now now now. This is the downside of having a job that occasionally requires you to be on call. It happens to all of us now and then. It used to happen to me all the time, but not so much anymore. Now when it comes up it’s always due to something major and that’s the case this weekend.

I am very sad to miss Rush but I’ve seen them twice on this tour and those two shows followed 11 whole years where I was convinced I would never see them live again. I’m good. I am Rush-Musically satisfied with the state of the world right now. The two shows we saw were amazing and I am so happy that we were a part of them. A small part, of course. In the Cleveland case we were a small part way off in the distance, but a part nonetheless. I am sad about Sunday night, but in the wider scope I am overjoyed with what 2026 has given us.

What else is going on? Tomorrow is Halloween. I have a great big pumpkin sitting on the sideboard in the dining room just waiting to be carved into a jack-o-lantern. We also have a great big bag of candy that is patiently waiting for trick or treaters to come by and claim it all. I’m not one of those grown ups who likes getting dressed up and partying on Halloween, but I do like working the door for the trick or treaters and I do miss when our kids were little enough to take part. I always enjoyed hitting the streets with them trying to maximize their candy haul. Those were good days with little people. Now that our kids are adults it is my job to help a new batch of kids get the most candy they can get. I take that responsibility very seriously and do my job with a smile.

After spending the months of July, August, and September writing as many shitty songs as I possibly could (60 songs in 90 days) I took October off. Fortunately, October ends this weekend and I can start working on the next forgotten internet based song writing/recording challenge. National Solo Album Month. Write and record an album within the month of November all by yourself without any help from anyone else. I’m thinking I want to incorporate the saxophone this time around. I’m not sure how. I think we’ll have a bunch of songs in the key of Eb minor with melodies trading off between vocals and alto sax. Something like that at least. I might want to use acoustic guitars more often as well. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Daylight savings ends this weekend. Sunrise at the ocean on Saturday is something like 7:17am and sunrise at the ocean on Sunday is something like 6:17am. I might take the camera out somewhere on one of those days. If I wait until Sunday I can work on the Frugal Film Project rolls for November. Maybe I’ll go into Boston. I’m off work on Monday too. It was supposed to be because we were going to be driving home from the Rush show in Connecticut. Now it’s just a random day off. If the weather is nice, photos might be taken. I have to get this sort of thing in before the weather goes to hell and that’s going to happen any minute now.

I saw something on social media today about the anniversary of the release of R.E.M.’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi record. It occurred to me that I haven’t listened to that album in… in… in a really freakin’ long time. Maybe not since the 90’s. It came out in 1996 and I played the crap out of it upon its initial release but I don’t think I have spent much time spinning it since then. I listened to it today and I think it is better than I remembered it. Binky the Doormat is still my favorite cut. After it was finished I started moving backward through time through their catalog. I’m back to Green now. I remember California. What a ridiculously great band R.E.M. was. We need more bands like that in today’s shitty world.

Okay. That’s all the self reflection I’ve got in me today. If you’re going to one of the Rush shows at Mohegan Sun (tonight/Friday and Sunday) say hello to the gang for me. We’ll get them next time… assuming next time is the rumored residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas sometime next year because if that happens we are absolutely making the trip out west to see at least one but preferably more than one show. Bank on it, Rush fans.