...how I spent my winter vacation...

I mentioned before that I had a lot of less important things to do besides dedicating so much free time to this blog.

How do you think that went?

I did the post on the Velvetones on New Years eve and just two hours later I found myself taking a wrong turn on an icy road and I wound up on a sandy shore of Lake Arrowhead. I tried all sorts of interesting driving techniques to get back up the steep road but it looked as though the wife and I would spend our New Years freezing to death in our car.

Luckily there were some plastic shovels and buckets some kids had left behind and I was able to scrape past the frozen sand and, for over an hour, I painstaking took one little bucket of sand at a time trying to cover up as much ice as I could. Just when I had only one or two buckets to go I was walking as carefully as I possibly could down this icy hill when I started to slide. Then, like something out of a cartoon, my feet flew out from under me and I slammed down on my back. Thankfully there was a large pointed rock that broke my fall. It caught me right in my tailbone. I'm sure the initial impact hurt like hell but I was fortunate enough to have hit my head and gone unconscious for a few seconds. I came to while I was still sliding down the hill...

...long story short...we eventually got out and decided to skip out on any New Years festivities. We went straight home and I went straight to bed. (after consuming every bit of every form of alcohol I had on hand.) I could barely sit up for the first few days and it was about two weeks before I could walk without it feeling like there was an ice pick stuck in my spine.
After the pain became more of a nuisance than anything else I went back to work. My first day back one of my co-workers went home early with the flu. I woke up the next morning feeling like my veins were polluted with cold hot-dog water. I spent another week in bed.

I got almost nothing done at all in January.

I hope you all are having a better New Year than I am.

I have received lots of emails and I've responded to very few. Today's my one day off from work so, after I do this and another post or two I will start answering some emails.

One message I received via Facebook was a link to a blog called Rusty-Knife. Its a great blog. The only release from Bouncing Soles from 1988, Boss, Deltones, Loveboats, Arthur Kay, Stage Bottles, Explorersz, The Mistakes - Shut Up and Dance EP, Tara's "Ska Man" 7" from 1980, The Skunks "Solenzara" 7" from 1980, original 2 Tone and Go Feet rips and lots of original Madness and Bad Manners vinyl rips. Not only that but lots of rare Oi!, traditional ska, and punk.