Don’t worry, this’ll all be interesting when I’m dead.

inally, I have a few minutes to write down what’s going on. Right. So, I switched hosting services. I used to love ProHosters who are now owned by Carpathia and they’ve quickly become a company I hate to deal with. So a co-worker told me about another service, Dreamhost, who offer amazing rates for a TON of stuff. I used to pay for separate accounts for each website, but now I pay for one at a slightly higher cost, and put all my sites under it… and YOU, the viewer, never know.

I was planning on doing this in May when my contract was up with Carpathia, but my client, www.fastpixels.com expired without prior notification (a good example of why I did not want to deal with Carpathia anymore) and I had to start up my Dreamhost account immediately so we wouldn’t have to re-new with Carpathia. I lose some money from it because I’m paid up until May, but I hope it’s worth it. I think it will make www.hiddeninthesand.com a much better site. It will allow me to entice people to donate to me and hold contests because I can give out a ton of “hiddeninthesand.com” email addresses to the fans, which make people feel good. Plus a bunch of other little things that will enhance the site.

So this also afforded me the chance to change things… like the commenting system. I can’t say I like it quite as much but it will be much more reliable and y’all can still post anonymously as you love to do.

Um. Yeah, so I’ve already experienced weird little downtimes and I’m hoping that’s not a trend that will continue. I hate when my site is down — especially when I’m trying to update it. But I’ve signed up for a 2-year contract so I hope it goes well.

Oh — I backed out of the band that wanted me to play bass. I’m no bassist and I don’t want to be. It didn’t feel natural. Singing is where my desires rest and things are progressing pretty nicely. I hope to bring you some rough demos of the songs we’ve been working on within the next couple months. We’re still working on them, though, so don’t hold your breath. But… we’re about to settle on a band name. Does anyone have any last minute suggestions for a melodic hard rock band?

Changing hosts/servers.
Things are gonna be a little messed up for a day or two — and I don’t know what mail I will or will not receive (starting at 4pm yesterday).

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EDIT: Mail is working properly now, but I may have missed a few – so if you sent anything to me Saturday or Sunday, I might not have received it.

I hope you like the new commenting system. Later, I’m gonna see how much I can do with customizing it to look better. More info on the whole thing will be in the next blog. Stay tuned.
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It’s official. I’ll be in Ann Arbor, MI on 4/8 for Tally Hall’s show at the infamous Blind Pig. They’re supposed to be debuting new material that night — not to mention, they always sell out that club and always make it a special event for the audience when they play there.

I’m organizing a small pilgrimage of fans from the east coast to go out with me. If you’d like to be a part of it, please get your tickets ASAP (they’re on sale now through Ticketmaster) and let me know so when I go to rent a van, I rent one that’s big enough for everyone. Serious. Let’s do it.

BYOB. Saturday night.
My house. For no reason other than to chill in the blacklight.

Some random, windy day there was a young girl who came upon the stump of a tree. She stood on it and decided not to move for awhile.

She looked up to the fast-moving clouds and overcast skies. She looked up so long, her hair grew long and skin turned pale.

The clouds kept rolling, the sun would set and rise again. She kept right on looking, waiting for something new to happen up in the sky. She didn’t even know if anything new was supposed to appear. But she kept staring and her pupils became dilated. It all began to blur together but she did not even notice.

At some point, she sneezed. The tiny particals of mucus twinkled in the light sun for a moment and it woke her up out of this self-induced trance. She screamed at the top of her lungs so loud it could be heard for 300 miles. “WHAT IF I DID?”

The question was posed.

She sunk back into her coma and forgot to listen for an answer.

Eventually, the wind paid another visit to the girl, now aged a bit. And with it, a voice. It was not a voice you nor I could hear. It snuck around inside the wind and would have to be blown directly into the keeper of the intended ear. Today, that girl was the keeper. And how the wind howled that day.

It spoke in riddles but it answered all her questions. It soothed her nerves. It brought a lucid touch to her soul. Still, the one thing the wind could not answer was how long this calm would last. So the girl looked down at a large rock settled next to her and her stump and she looked at it and asked “Why?”

The rock, solid as it was, sat there in silence.

She wept. She wasn’t satisfied. She needed this question answered before she moved off this perch.

But the rock knew the answer.
He just couldn’t tell her.
Becauase he was just a rock.
And she wouldn’t believe a word he said.

So he stayed, silent and patient, for the wind has already answered her questions.
She just has to learn to believe.

Congratulations to The Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s a shame the Eagles weren’t in the Superbowl this year as everyone predicted, but I’m quite happy another PA team won. Especially one from such a fine town as Pittsburgh.