Hi friends, your help is urgently needed. Mae is very close to winning $10,000 for our partnership with Habitat for Humanity! We are a finalist in the Feb "Ideablob" contest which rewards creative thinking. We have today and part of tomorrow to keep rallying votes and we need your help. Please take a moment to follow this link and cast a vote for us! Thank you so much:

http://ideablob.com/ideas/4435-Music-To-Make-A-Difference

Hae-jin and I just finished watching this incredible documentary about Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in New York City. We were both thoroughly inspired by many aspects of the story. I hope you get to see it. Tell me what stands out to you the most.

We just returned from a two-day mini tour this morning. It was snowing in PA last night when we left and Robert took the first shift. We left at 1AM. At 4AM, the familiar glow of gas station light came pouring through the window and it was my turn to drive.
I have come to love this most painful of drive shifts. You see, no one wants the second shift. If you have the second shift, you are pretty much going to fall asleep for about 2 hours and then wake up to drive for 3. It is a giant tease. As soon as you are comfortable, it's time to get up and drive. It is worse when it's cold.

But here is the thing. When you live the musician's lifestyle, your work day usually ends at 1 or 2 in the morning. You very rarely see the sunrise. If you take the second shift, you hate life for two hours and then you get an incredible present at the end of your struggle. The last hour of the second shift is an entire sunrise and it is usually worth the pain. I love listening to music and watching the day begin.

I guess that is a lot like most things in life. The harder the struggle, the more rewarding the victory. Here was my reward this morning.

Check this out. I hope to be attending in 2010 :)

http://singularityu.org/

Progress.

Yesterday, Zach, Brett, and I bundled up in our winter worker wear and grabbed some coffee. We piled into my car and drove the 40 minutes it takes to get to the house that fire is building. It was cold. 28 degrees Fahrenheit cold. But nothing could have stopped us. This was the first day that volunteers were allowed to work on Rhonda's house and we were excited to be a part of it.
There was a lot of hammering, a lot of pulling out bent nails and trying again, and a lot of camaraderie.
The top photo is the house after we left yesterday. The bottom photo was taken last week after the wall raising ceremony.
We will be back over there on Saturday and I will post some more photos.