Happy Fun

Happy Fun is now available at iTunes and CDBaby. Here is a video for the title track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8LgWRjrutY

Voice Of The Wetlands

This weekend the Voice of the Wetlands Festival took place at the Southdown Plantation here in Houma. The event, created by Houma musician Tab Benoit, is meant to raise money to help save our wetlands here in south Louisiana before it is too late.
Lauren ran in the 10K race, and won! She had to sprint the last 100 meteres or so to hold off a competitor. She won by 2 seconds!
My old friend Susan Cowsill was one of the performers, and it has been several years since I had seen her. She put on a great show, and was joined by her brothers to play some Cowsills hits from the past. Luckily, I was able to spend a few minutes backstage with them.

Pics--me and Susan with Tab in the background, me and Bernadette with Cowsill brothers, Lauren with other top 10K runners and Tab.

First day of school

Today was the first day of school for Colette and Bernadette. Can you believe it?

Blog catch-up

There never seems to be enough time for everything. Of course, every one I know seems to have that problem. It's one of those universal western civilization things I guess. Anyway, here is a blog hodge podge:
Last week I went with Bernadette's class on a field trip to the post office. Had to leave early for a dental appointment.
Picture 1 is of a new business construction here in town, one of what seems like about a thousand new businesses going up. This one is near the new Peppers Pizza restaurant. Not sure what it is going to be. My last blog about all the new construction etc actually inspired a new song of mine, which I plan on recording for the next album.
Picture 2 is of Colette. She received her report card today and got straight A's. On top of that she qualified for the finals of the school spelling bee for 1st grade. The top 3 made it to the finals in each class, and I believe there are 4 or 5 classes. The finals will be in April.
Frederick has kept us up a good portion of the last several nights. I've not had much sleep. Today he started running a temperature, so Lauren took him to the doctor.
The day job is keeping me busy, and generally speaking, it is not something I talk about publicly. I did have to run an errand for it today and stop by there for a bit in addition to dealing with some phone calls even though it was my day off.
Dealing with a few music biz issues too---one which has to do with digital sales and one with performance royalty paperwork. Things that got messed up by no fault of mine but seemingly impossible to get fixed.
More music issues but this has to do with the equipment and software to record the demos on my computer. Can't seem to get that straight.
I was able to correct a minor issue with my family tree program so I am now able to print some genealogy reports to send to my cousin.
I probably won't be blogging tomorrow--I have a rather long day ahead of me.

Life In A Boomtown

Recent reports place Houma as #2 in the country for increasing home values. We were very lucky a year and a half ago to get an incredible deal on our home when we bought it. We live in a neighborhood of doctors, lawyers, business owners and oil people. Shipping and oil are big businesses here. Seems like most of the men I meet around town work on boats or offshore on the rigs. Anyway, retail businesses, hotels, banks, and restaurants are popping up everywhere, and new neighborhoods are also being developed.
Soon after we moved here in our house on Buena Vista, someone in the oil business purchased the one blighted looking house on our street and had it torn down. (It is across the street and one house over from us). New construction has begun and I've been told it is a $500,000 house being built. Thats a good thing. Sure to raise our value here even more.
Picture is of the construction of the house being built.

Mardi Gras

We celebrated Mardi Gras here in Houma. We set up on Main Street, near Hollywood Road. Lauren's parents, Allen and Colette joined us. The crowd was mostly families, as opposed to Endymion, which was a lot of college aged people. The Krewe of Houmas parade was first. We got a lot of beads and stuffed animals. My 5 year old godson, Joey, who was staying with us for a few days, even got a skateboard. I took turns holding my daughters Colette and Bernadette to help them get some beads. Bridget didn't want to be held. Frederick fell asleep. Uncle Steve was on one of the floats and even though we were yelling at the top of our lungs, he didn't see us. I was happy to see the Budweiser Clydesdales. They remind me of home. Although, I must admit, I was happy to be in the warm, breezy 80 degree weather as opposed to the snow they experienced during their "Mardi Gras" parade in Soulard, St. Louis, which was actually held on Samedi Gras (Saturday). The Krewe of Kajuns, aka "the truck parade" was next and went pretty quickly. Little Colette was excited to see her friend on one of the floats. None of the floats in the Houma parades play Mardi Gras music though, its all hard rock or hip hop. I'm not quite sure what Boston's "More Than A Feeling" has to do with traditional Louisiana culture, but, c'est la vie--it's carnival time!