Remember the brand new computer I got in January? Well, the motherboard died. Of course it’s under warranty, but I had to send the computer back to the company to fix it and do all kinds of stress testing to make sure there is nothing wrong with it, so I was computerless for the last few weeks. I’m back up now, but last week, in the middle of my computerlessness, I ended up having to go on a last minute road trip with my dad. What’s it have to do with my music? Nothing really, but I figured it would be fun to let you all know about it.
We had to fly to Vienna, Virginia (like 20 minutes away from Washington, DC) to go through a house full of records my dad wanted to buy for our store, Wax Trax Records (btw, check out our new website that I built at http://www.waxtraxonline.com). The house was absolutely 100% a hoarder house. Wall to wall, ceiling to floor, filled with stuff… Mostly records and porn (and for some reason, tea bags…). My dad told me that we might be getting a U-Haul to drive the stuff back because he had a feeling it would be stuff he could use, and sure enough, within a half hour, he had me run over to rent the U-Haul so we could start loading up. We spend the next 36 hours loading up the 20-foot long U-Haul full of Rock & Roll, Soul, Rockabilly, Instrumental and all other kinds of records. We didn’t take it all, but it had to have been 100-150 boxes full. After a steak and a good night’s sleep, we started driving.
Due to potential tornadoes in the south, we decided to take the I-70 route which went more central. The path took us up from Virginia through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, back through a little more West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and finally, back to Nevada. We started driving around 8am on a Saturday and made it home around 2:30pm on the following Tuesday. Not too bad for my first time driving a big truck AND my first time driving cross country. And I did all the driving myself.
So what’s the verdict on America? Well, first of all – I love driving. I really didn’t mind the big drive at all. Listened to a ton of music and podcasts I had already synced up, plus some regular radio. Kansas was the worst part of the drive. Not only is it boring, but it’s the only place in 2500 miles that I got a ticket! Colorado is the most beautiful state by far. Utah had the best burger. Illinois was surprisingly what I’d expect the most back woods hillbilly part of the South to look like (to be fair, I was far outside any major cities, towards the south part of Illinois). We stopped in my dad’s friend’s Record shop near Pittsburgh, PA where I picked up the new Ministry / Wax Trax (no relation to our store, for those not in the know) box set.
So yea, it was a great time. And I got back just in time for my fixed computer to arrive so I could get back to work… And then I go on a vacation with my dogs next week. I’ll get to make some new music one of these days I’m sure…
– David