And it made me start seriously looking at Apple products. If they could make a device this cool that impacted my life in such a huge way... well - what else have they got?

Darin told me this would happen. His first Pro Tools setup was on his old PC. We recorded the Salve album on that, with a Digi 001 system. I remember when we got around to mastering and sequencing that record, he picked up his first iMac. Or was it an eMac? I don't recall.

The next time I came in to do a project Darin had bought an Apple G4 for the studio. Shiny, sleek, and quiet, that thing has been the warhorse that we've done all of our recording on of late.

Darin became... a "Mac person." He said it would happen to me, too.

Last year I decided I really wanted Pro Tools at home, but I wanted it to be portable. I'd never owned a laptop of any kind, and I was running two PC's with Windows XP on them.

It seemed since I now had a pretty large collection of Pro Tools masters recorded on a Mac, that I ought to get a Mac laptop for my portable Pro Tools solution. The new Macs with Intel chips came out, but I waited. Once Pro Tools released a new version of their software that worked on the Intel Macs, I pounced, and brought home my first Mac, and my first laptop: a Macbook Pro.

I fell in love. And I've never fallen in love with a computer before.

My Windows machines have been functional. They get the job done. But I never got excited about using them. When I pushed them hard with audio and video applications, there were problems.

My Macbook always worked right. It's like it was designed to be used for creative uses for creative people. It was like... this machine "got me." That sounds ridiculous.

But it's true.

So, now the real transformation begins. This week I backed up my iTunes library (over 13,000 songs and videos), and reformatted the external drive I use to work with my Mac. I'm gonna have to reformat the iPods, too - since they're currently formatted for Windows. I also moved all the HZ video I've collected to a Mac drive. Sadly, the Windows machine had a parting shot to get in as I completed this process - it burped during a file transfer, and I lost about 50 GIGS of captured video. The tapes exist, I could probably re-capture it. I probably won't need to.

When I upgrade my media software, it will be for Mac versions. I'm going to be picking up the new Final Cut Pro suite when it comes out in a couple of weeks.

Windows machines won't leave me completely - I still make a living programming them.

I'm going to end up getting a laptop or something for "work" - and that will end up being my only Windows machine. My current PC's will get replaced by a G5 box one of these days.

Macs aren't cheap. This will take some time, as I'm paying for album manufacture and promotion, and I'm also retiring all of my debts at the same time. My car and credit cards should all be paid off by the end of the summer.

But it's happening: I'm becoming a Mac person, too.

Hmm... somehow when I type it up like that, it seems a lot less impressive than it felt like it was to me at the time.

Last weekend was the first weekend I had off since early April. It was weird. I barely knew what to do with myself.

Went to Darin's on Saturday where we did a remix of just about every tune on the new album, and he's going to get to work on mastering those versions. Probably all of the albums were this tortuous getting finished at the end of the process, but I've probably blocked out those experiences. All I know is it's taking a long time, but then - when doesn't it take a long time? When am I not a perfectionist when it comes to these projects?

It's actually scarier now than at any other time in the process, because when I say "Yep, that's the one," and the disc gets sent off to the factory, I don't get to take it back. So it better damn well be RIGHT. So, we take a little longer. Sorry about that.

Did you listen to the last podcast? Three tunes from the album on that. As soon as I have mastered versions I'll put the songs up on MySpace.

Got sent this article from Derek Sivers at CD Baby. Now that the album is in its final stages my mind turns to what the hell I'm going to do to promote it, and that article... well, hmm. I read that and wonder if I'm up for what those dudes are doing.

Especially now that I have other things on the artistic transom that are starting to pull at me.

I definitely want to promote the new record, I'm intensely proud of it. HZ hasn't been rehearsing for over a month now. I feel like we should do a gig or two. Maybe after we play a show in front of the bartender and the sound person I'll remember why I'm not all that high on live shows these days. But I feel like we should do some.

I feel like we need some new tunes. But then, our new album isn't out yet. So I guess we need to play a lot of those ones, huh?

I'm shooting a short film starting this week. In it I have two roles.

There is a lot of work coming up in art-land, and I'm not sure how I'm going to divide up all of my time. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

For now, I need to get back to writing out the guitar parts for "Sleeping" for my cousin's son, who wants to learn how to play that song.

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I guess time will fly by when you have almost no days off in the month of April. I've been working 7-day weeks since the 8th or so, and I'd complain but I just got a very big paycheck with a whole lot of overtime in it, and you know what - I'm just too tired. It's a good time for extra money, since I'm about to drop a big chunk of change pressing up CD's.

April was a busy month, even OUTSIDE of work. One of our dachshunds, Bojangles (that's her above) suddenly started acting lethargic and lost her previously prodigious appetite. We also noticed her heart was racing even at rest. Took her to a doctor, turns out she has heart disease.

SIGH. She's nearly 10 years old, so that's getting up there for a dog, but dachshunds usually make it to 14 or 15, so I was hoping we'd be able to keep our medical-issue-free streak going. Pete is the one we're always running off into surgery. Not Bojangles.

Anyway, I don't think there's surgery that can help her. We have her on the drugs. The Betas have had her for most of the month while I'm doing my crazed work schedule (which I am VERY grateful for), but the "kids" are scheduled to come back here soon. I've missed them, even though I would have hardly had time to spend with them had they been here these few weeks.

So I'm worried about poor Bojangles. If you aren't a dog person then you're going to think I'm being ridiculous when I say that I love those dogs like family. They ARE family. Bojangles has been in my life since she was eight weeks old. Apparently thanks to the meds, her breathing is improving. Now we just have to be watchful.

Pete, on the other hand, is just FINE. I'm pretty sure that little dude could take a bullet and keep going.

Anders Nyberg in Sweden has finished the art for our new album. It is sweet. He's working up some T-shirt designs, for those of you who like T-shirts with our band name on them.

We have finished mixing all the songs and Darin is mastering them now. I hope a lot to be mailing the whole kit n' kaboodle to the manufacturer in early May.

It's really nice to finish art projects.

I'm going to act in a short film soon. Details to follow.