It is snowing in Austin! I know, for you living in cold climes snow is a big drag once the intitial prettiness wears off and it turns to gray slush.

view out the back door of the wine cellar and studio

For a Texas kid however, snow is a rare thing known mostly from books and Christmas carols and movies. We actually took our daughter Jolie to Switzerland just to see some real snow. So when it snows here in Austin, this far to the south in Texas (we can grow olives and palm trees here) it is a large deal. It never stays more than a day or two, and the roads almost never freeze, but people here start driving like bloody fools and running into each other every time.

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We just got back from a nice little tour around the UK and then finished up in Rome for some rest and Culture. I still can't eat due to the tiny little opening in my new esophagus, but I can eat pasta y fageole and nibble on some things a bit. The amazing thing about Rome is that no matter how well you think you are prepared for it, you are not. I mean, after all, we've all seen a jillion movies, read the books, watched the travelogues on TV. We've seen the Pope creaking around St. Peter's in his silken robes waving his hands around in the air like an old man on the front porch shooing flies (speaking of which, one curious fact about Ireland is there isn't one single front porch on the island- I think a saint must have banished them a long time ago). But until you get down there on the ground in front of the Colosseum and gawp up to the top, or walked softly around in St. Peters listening to the ghostly choir reverberate against the stone and then run smack dab into Peter's tomb right there in front of you you just can't know how vast it all is. So big that you almost can't cram it all into your eyes and brain. These guys build big, and they build to last. We can't wait to go back.

Had great gigs, and some surprisingly good meals in England. More on that later, if I can ever jar my anesthesia brain back into reality...good to be home again.