Just got home from Kansas City... (Patreon)

First off, thank you so much for being here with us for the month of October!! 🎃 Your support means so much to me, and it's not something I take for granted. 🖤

I just got home from my trip to Kansas City on Tuesday night, and I would have posted sooner, but I caught a bug sometime during my travels and have been sleeping it off for the past 2 days. Words can't even express what an amazing time I had during my trip. I went there to play harp at Belle's wedding (you might know her from JHS 😛), and I rented an absolutely GORGEOUS harp from the amazing harpist, Calvin Arsenia. Calvin is based in Kansas City and plays an electroacoustic Salvi Rainbow harp, and the harp glistened and changed colors in the light. I was SO grateful for Calvin, because Russ and I were spared over 50+ hours of driving my minivan to Missouri. We were able to jump on a plane with our carry-on luggage, and we made it to KC within 5 hours. In case you were wondering, YES -- I still got stopped by security for a really scary lookin' luggage x-ray, because I had forgotten that I packed my Para DI Acoustic Guitar Preamp + DI pedal just straight up wrapped in a shirt. It's been a long time since I had the box for that one, since it's one of my oldest pedals that I use for wedding gigs when I don't know for certain if I'll have access to an outlet (it's battery-powered). I don't blame them at all.

In addition to the wedding, I also played a show last Friday night at The Rino with Belle and Nick. I had an AMAZING time, but I'll be honest with you -- I was NERVOUS. I don't do super well in these kinds of settings, where I'm up on stage, and everyone below me has to be quiet and watch me under those blaring stage lights. I do GREAT at weddings, livestreams, and YouTube videos, but once you put me on a stage at a cool venue like this, I freeze up and my mouth gets dry as sandpaper. At one point I legitimately felt like I was going to faint up there. Luckily, nobody was able to tell (or at least that's what they told me...) and Josh Scott snapped some really great photos of me. I played some fun pop bangers like Panic! At The Disco songs and Mr. Brightside before I delved into my original songs using Dark Star and Particle pedals.

We stayed in an AirBNB for the week, and I thought I would have more downtime to either livestream from the space we were staying in or even just chill out, but honestly, we had NO downtime at all (NO REGRETS!!!!) -- we decided not to rent a car, since the place we were staying was so close to all of our friends, and we were thankfully able to carpool with them every day. I was out of the AirBNB for most of the days, either hanging out at the JHS shop or boppin' around KC, visiting the local libraries, or walking on the creaky floorboards at Prospero's Bookstore. Joshua was the BEST unofficial 'tour guide', taking us to an amazing BBQ spot, Farmer's Market, and coffee shops (Crows Coffee, in case you were wondering. SO GOOD.) At one point, we ended up on the roof of the giant Kansas City library, where they actually have GIANT CHESS!! I played a match against a stranger named Jeremiah (guess he's technically not a stranger anymore, since I know his name...) and lost, but fought valiantly.

We also did the livestream "How Not to Start a Pedal Company" for the JHS channel on Thursday, which actually turned into a main channel video since we experienced some technical difficulties. If you were there when it first streamed, you'll know what I'm talking about, but if you weren't there, you'd never know -- the edit is so seamless, you really can't tell when it happens. I'm THRILLED because I'm getting to keep a set of those special Uncle Em pedals, and I will cherish them forever. Nick did the graphic for them, and he said I can use them however I'd like.... mwAHAHAHAA.... what do we all think about Uncle Em stickers?!? 😈🔥

Since I've been sick in bed for the past 2 days, I've been reading for as long as I could manage to keep my eyes open. I'm almost finished with this INCREDIBLE book, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. I just finished The Poppy War during the 5+ hour flight back home, and that was an amazing read as well (albeit graphic towards the end...). I'm still trying to find an apocalyptic book that's on-par with The Road by Cormac McCarthy, but I think that will be difficult, because reading The Road was SUCH an amazing experience. I think the only book that comes close to that feeling of despair is, like, The Grapes of Wrath or something.

How's everyone doing so far? Have we read any good books lately, or played any fun games? Have we tried any new pedals? Speaking of pedals, I'm most likely going to be posting another pedal sale sometime in the near future...! I just have to get my inventory together, and as always, you'll get some pretty great deals for being a Patron here. <3