Hi everyone,
Nic here…
I’m up in Canada for the weekend playing for some French-Canadian friends of mine. Jean-luc and Yves Lajoie, and Sean Cimino is playing guitar, he’s from L.A. We’re in a little village called Waskaganish which is way up in Northern Quebec where it is about -10 deg C (13 degrees Fahrenheit!) right now… coldest weather I’ve ever been in.

I got a new app for my cordless iPhone and I’m lovin it! More than McDonalds. It makes my iPhone pics look way cooler and more interesting than they normally would. (thanks to sean!) So it’s nudged me to take more photos and it also reminded me of how much I like it and how much I love sharing them with the friends and fam. Looking at pictures I haven’t seen in a while is always rad. My Grandma Pri was this way, perhaps she passed it down to me. When she died at the end of 2008 she had close to (or maybe even over) 100 photo albums, real ones of course. Grandma was pure analog when it came to photos, but she sported her own email address so she could print the photos people sent her, even into her late 80s, so cool!

I really love being able to connect with my fam and friends even if I’m not with them, and even if the quality sucks. I am certainly NOT a photographer, there’s no room for another one of those! This is total consumer quality, and it’s not really about the photo as much it is about the memory – the “moment”. I love telling my wife the story that goes along with picture, even if I already told her (she’s super patient with me when I repeat myself). It’s one of the cool things about me having a sub par memory, bad memory sounds ‘bad’ and is usually stamped as a negative thing, but I can enjoy something over and over… might not have remembered if it wasn’t triggered by a pic. Its a way of coming back to an event that made me feel a certain way, my own Delorean with a Flux Capacitor. Music does this of course, and so do smells, and when that happens it’s almost always completely unexpected. It instantly transports you back to a moment, such a neat thing.

I must be stimulating my nastalgia muscles lately, cuz my wife and I found a Super Nintendo on eBay last week and bought it. Super mario brothers 3 is as fun as it was 20 years ago. Setting that up was really fun- pushing the cartridge in, sliding the power switch, the feel of the controlers, the music, sound fx, low low tech graphics and even the way mario responds to the controler. Super Fun stuff!!

That’s all for now, heading back to Montreal tomorrow then flying home on Monday. I think we’re mixing a few FALLBORN songs next week so it will be an exciting one!!!

Nic

Gigantic Christmas ornemant by the studio in Brea, CA

Heres a nice photo of Jules and Adam workin on a hot guitar idea that Jules came up with.
-nic

One of Jules’ (or adam’s) cymbals is missing a percentage of it’s real estate
Sent from nic’s phone

I just learned a lesson the hard way… Nobody likes the department of motor vehicles. And everybody has to pay for registration. Fun. So I payed my dues, but failed to recieve my tags. Lame. This past Saturday my car was towed for expired tags, huge bummer. Just now got the car back after a beautiful morning, filled with a trip to the auto club to clear the expired registration and to get a moving permit, then a trip to La Policia to get a certificate of release, and a trip to the tow yard to present them with a certificate of release. Oh yea and the tow yard gave us a bargain of $426 USD, just for towing the car 1.5 miles!! All of this because of one little incorrect digit on the insurance card -way back in May- which rendered the car uninsured and resulted in expired registration, OUCH. Who’s fault was that? I guess it takes a hit like that, seemingly undeserved and unfair, to learn to not wait to take care of these things. Now that that’s over I can legally drive to go jam with Adam Jules and Matt!