Here’s the recap…

A decent portion of the last several months was dedicated to the destruction and subsequent reconstruction of our detached garage. The old one was in sad, sad shape to be sure and with some help from our new neighbor/contractor a brand spanking new 400 sq ft garage now resides atop the forgotten remains of its predecessor. OK, so saying “with some help” is pretty much an exaggeration because Bobby did all the work and I just managed to somehow put together the cash to pay for it all. 

Here we are on the far side of summer, which seemed to rush by in a flurry of gigs and family gatherings. The family and I did manage to take 1 trip back to the ol’ homestead in MT but for the most part I was busy gigging or trying to do something constructive around the house. July and August were super busy months for U277, but things are settling down to a more manageable pace these days. One or two gigs a month is plenty for me (as opposed to, say, five). We’re starting to work on some more tunes and have the goal of performing the entire Joshua Tree album well in sight.

And speaking of gigs, we’re playing this weekend both Friday and Saturday night.  Gig details are on our website (www.U277.com).  If you’re not otherwise engaged, we’d love to see you there!

See you round the campfire.

-A

However….

There’s the small matter of the *ahem* garage (I mean, rickety shack at the end of our driveway that purports to be a garage while looking as though it may collapse at any second). The roof is moss-encrusted, the truss supports are, well, missing, and the front door is pretty much rotting from the ground up. It is, to say the least, in need of some MAJOR attention. The good news is that our new neighbor, who just happens to be a contractor, is in the midst of his own remodeling project and has offered to help rebuild ours as part of the process. We’ll pay him of course, and no doubt the renovation of our eye-sore of a backyard blemish will only help to improve value of his place too.

The question now is, what to build? He and I chatted a bit this morning and are coming to the conclusion that it would probably be easier and more efficient to actually just level the existing structure and start over. This of course means I have to know what I want before we start. Part of me just wants to go for full-on, no apologies studio / rehearsal space (parking be damned, that’s what the driveway is for) but I’m also aware of the need for practicality. Storage is probably a good idea, as is some type of work area. And, heaven forbid I have to start thinking about it already, but we may need to in fact SELL the place one of these days and a bona-fide 2 car garage is gonna serve us a lot better than middle-aged musician’s weekend warrior music studio.

So, what do you think? If you were rebuilding a detached 2 car garage from the ground up, what would YOU do with it?

So much undone
And still you shine like the sun
We’ve got a lot to be thankful for

I sometimes tend to come off as a bit of a pessimist, or skeptic. It’s all to easy for me to concentrate on the 3 things that are going wrong and be completely blind to the 12994 that are going right. In the grand scope of things, we’re all blessed beyond reason just to live where we live, have the comforts and conveniences we all have and (in my case) to have family and friends who love me. It’s more than I deserve and I’m humbled.

So, next time I’m stuck in traffic when I’ve already worked later than I want to and frustrated that I won’t be home in time to spend more than about 5 minutes with my son who has most likely been driving his dear mother insane for the last hour wondering where Daddy is… someone give me a call and remind me of this post, will ya?

Happy Thanksgiving!