Tikkabik

So you may have noticed that I've been really quiet for the past couple of weeks -- I'm right in the center of the eye of a scheduling storm, which is why. About a week and a half ago I went out to Oakland to spend a week with my father, Benny and Spot, and had a great time. The highlight for me -- outside of getting some quality time in their wonderful home and just being able to relax (something I sadly can't do too much at trade shows) was getting to meet part of the extended family -- the Johnson clan, who are second and third cousins to me.

I got back late (very late) on Sunday night or early on Monday morning, more precisely, and by late Monday morning I was already heading back up to the airport to pick up Jim, my boss.

Coincidentally, my luggage didn't make it home with me (my connecting flights were too close together because of a late start from Oakland), so it gave me an excuse to pick up my bag at the airline baggage counter. I had a ridiculously oversized bag for what essentially amounted to an overnight trip to Foxboro, but at least I had clean clothes -- Benny was kind enough to do my laundry while I stayed with them, which meant that instead of a week's worth of filthy, smelly rags, I had only a day's worth of them stuffed in a plastic bag inside my case.

It was time for my annual review. Typically, the editorial management at my company takes their staff to baseball games as part of the review process -- SBC Park is literally right down the street from the San Francisco offices -- you can see it from the building's terrace.

Jim and I aren't huge baseball fans (I'm more fairweather than anything) and getting decent Sox tickets isn't easy or cheap, so we opted for Ozzfest instead, because both of us like metal (Jim lives and breathes it, I like it a lot). That was lots of fun, though we're in the midst of a killer heat wave here in the East, and I practically passed out between the heat and the sweating.

By far, my favorite acts this year were Hatebreed and System of a Down. Hatebreed was more a nostalgia trip for me than anything -- very hardcore. System of a Down is a lot more artistic than a lot of metal bands are -- they're not really metal, at least not in the conventional sense. But their music and their lyrics are challenging, which makes for an interesting show.

The biggest surprise for me was Lacuna Coil, an act out of Italy that I've heard of but never seen live. They're more or less a goth-metal or nu-metal style band, with both male and female lead singers who offer a nice constrast and some interesting melodic constructions. They covered Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence," which showed me their roots, and God only knows exposed my own well enough. Definitely a group I'll be adding to my collection in the future.

It was a treat to see Zakk Wylde sharing the stage with Ozzy Osbourne. We'd already seen Zakk's Black Label Society headline Ozzfest's second stage, but he came on again for the headline main stage act, playing guitar for Ozzy (and shredding the shit out of the Star Spangled Banner).

I got home at around lunchtime on Wednesday, and have been playing catchup ever since. Bonnie desperately needed a break from the crap she's been dealing with here at home -- both Emme and James have been acting up this past week, and James says it's because I've been away. That makes me feel good on one hand -- nice to know the kidlets miss me -- but knowing the toll it's taken on Bonnie, I'm not very happy about it.

Especially since I take off again on Saturday morning for a week in San Francisco, this time on a business trip. But there's little I can do about that at this point. The good news is that I should be home for a while after this next trip, so everyone can decompress.