SWEET HOME OKLAHOMA

We had a couple good shows in Oklahoma (Shawnee and Miami) to wrap up the year. We've played Miami two or three other times and I really like that little place. We brought Jeremy Elliot out on the road to guitar tech for the weekend, he was my first Tour Manager when I was out on with Jack Ingram. Jeremy did a great job working with us and it was great to get to spend time with him. We had a couple drinks each night and caught up.

When we were done in Miami, we had a great iPod party with me, Jeremy, ML and Mike Vandivier (a local legend around Tishomingo...he's kind of the honorary mayor of the town). We spanned everything from Brandi Carlisle to Otis Redding with a short foray into 80's country with Dan Seals, T.G. Shepherd and Keith Whitley. All in all, a good wrap to the evening and end of the year.

We got back to ML's place early Sunday morning. We woke up and went to look at a new bus we're thinking of leasing next year. Good looking ride. After going through the bus, we headed over to the Western Inn for breakfast. The Western Inn is the only motel in Tishomingo and has a great greasy spoon diner up front. I did the buffet. I had chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, fried okra, corn and a little peach cobbler for desert. It was greatness and I'm sure I have gravy running through my bloodstream now. When we went up front to check out, they had a little display case with crafts, etc. ML picked up a pair of black socks with cute little Christmas charm. However, when we examined closer we realized that the creator goofed and instead of saying "HO HO HO" the socks read "OH OH OH". We got a good laugh, see the socks below...





We headed back to the ranch to start the great bus cleanout of 2008. ML has lived on the bus for the last two years, therefore it was chock full of clothes, knick knacks and just general crap. She wasn't the only guilty party, I had a ton of stuff on the bus as well. It took us about four hours to get through everything. We finally finished up around 4:30 pm. Mike Vandivier (the local legend himself) asked me if I wanted to go "feed hay" when I was done with the bus. After reminding Mike that I was from a populated area, he explained that "feeding hay" just meant you drive around pastures and put bales of hay out for the cattle to eat. And that you took a cooler. It sounded like fun to me, so I said I was in. We jumped in the truck and headed towards town. We fed the first pasture with two bales. We were feeding Black Angus and they're broken down to about 60 head per pasture. Here's a picture of us pulling into the pasture.



Here's one of the cows we fed...he kinda looks a little like Alex around the mouth. But I'm sure he's much cleaner and probably smells a little better...the cow, that is.

After making some animals happy for a while (and sucking down a couple beers in the cab) Mike and I headed back to ML's. She had people to see and things to do, so I had the run of the place. Master of my domain. King of the hill.

Luckily, the Cowboys were playing on ESPN so the boredom of being on the plains of Oklahoma had no chance of setting in. I watched the Cowboys handily defeat the Giants. I got a little hungry around halftime, but there is one problem with the whole :living in solidtude" thing, and that's that nothing it near you nor open at 9 pm on a Sunday night in Tishomingo or surrounding areas. So, being the handicook that I am, I whipped up a little omelette made with fresh chicken eggs, cheese and thick cut bologna. Now, the omelette ingredients weren't nearly impressive as the flip I got on the omelette during cooking. Check out this baby...

After eating that big beast I crawled under a blanket on the couch and slumbered for quite a while. Tomorrow would hold another chapter, I needed my beauty rest. I was, however, excited about the past few days of eye opening experiences. I've missed these during the downtime.

THE VEGAS COMEBACK

No, it wasn't Elvis' return to the City of Sin, but we made our return for the opening weekend of National Finals Rodeo for a two night stand at the Golden Nugget. I made it in on Thursday, Dec 4th and everyone else was arriving early a.m. of the 5th. I took the opportunity to go try my hand at the Vegas poker scene. I played 1-2 No Limit and had a good table with a cast of characters. I played about 3 hours or so and was back and forth. The guy I was sitting next to was from Austin and an Eco major at UT. That should have been my first clue that things wouldn't end up well. Through the course of the 3 hours, the kid had pocket aces three different times and was just cleaning everyone out. I was dwindling down on chips, I had about $80 left. I drew A-10 offsuit. I raised before the flop and everyone folded but the kid. He called my raise and the flop came. It was A, 10, 6. He bet and I pushed all my chips in, raising to all in. My thinking was "I've already got two pair, the only thing that could beat me was if he had pocket Aces (which he'd already had three other times) or pocket 10's, which I didn't think he did. Well, he called my all in. We flipped and, sure enough, he had pocket aces for the FOURTH time in three hours. I was cleaned out, dejected and hungry...I headed up to my room.

The Nugget was an OK place. The hotel was actually very nice and the gaming was good, but the showroom was a little weird. It's on the third floor of the casino, was a terrible load in and the place only held about 600 people. Apparently the showroom has been in the same place for over 50 years and they don't want to move it, so they just keep renovating it. The green room was pretty cool. It had old retro shag carpet and old 8x10 shots of all the famous Vegas acts that had played there...Sinatra, Sammy Davis, etc. Ron, the head of entertainment for the last 90 years (or so), made sure to point out the crapper in the green room. "Boy, that's the same throne Frank sat on when he was here. If it was good enough for Frank..."

We had a fill in guitar tech that weekend. He ate the buffet (which was passable, but definitely not the MGM or Mandalay Bay) for dinner and about five songs in started feeling bad. He hurled himself towards the trash can and then began hurling his buffet into the trash can. He then made it back to the bathroom of the green room where he tossed his cookies into the same throne Frank sat on. If it was good enough for Frank...