Hey, Mouseketeers! Sorry for not writing more lately. While school’s in session, our weeks tend to be busy but homogeneous, and our weekends totally unpredictable, neither of which is much good for the discipline of getting things down on paper (or electrons). Here’s the latest:

• After returning from the conference in Springfield (where I had a lovely time, thanks for asking), I took all the kids off to the Texas Renaissance Festival with my trusty brother, my cousin and her husband in tow. This worked out well, as Liam was feeling rather sick in the morning, and the other kids were able to run around with the adults while Liam and I sat quietly under trees and watched people in chain mail walk past. (“Holy cow, did you see that 10 foot tall dragon?” “Really? You dressed as the Joker to go to a RenFest?” “Please, ma’am, you’re not really equipped to be wearing that!”) About midway through the afternoon, Liam’s belly stabilized, so we were able to run around to see the Mud Show, the falconry, jousting and fireworks. Great fun! If you’d care to follow along in the photo storybook, you can do so here. The Festival runs for several more weeks, so if you’re in the area, I highly recommend a visit. Tell them Sean sent you! (They’ll act like they don’t know what you’re talking about, but don’t worry, that’s just part of the security.)
• Last weekend was Maker Faire, which is kind of like a giant support group for people like Jason Young and me who like to build large, potentially lethal do-it-yourself projects. The three younger kids and I met up with Jason and Erin, his (far) better half, for a great day viewing art cars, making shrinky dinks out of recycled plastic, riding bicycle animals, watching robots fight to the death, learning to weave on a loom, meeting the Eepybird guys, dodging huge gouts of flame shooting from fire plugs, seeing rockets launched, crocheting handbags from used plastic grocery sacks, and more. Photos are here, and I’m editing down some of the video I got for a highlight reel, to be posted soon.
• This morning I went and laid down some pennywhistle tracks for an album some friends are putting together. Fun to get to take that into the studio, though I always forget how exacting recording can be, even in short stints. John, the audio engineer, had 7 mics on the whistle, so I’m interested to see what sort of tone he manages to extract from that daunting array. Between that at the Thursday night Irish Sessions, I’ve been enjoying keeping a foot in the musical world even during The Patio Boys’ recent hiatus.

Other than that, it’s school, school, school! The kids report cards are trickling in for the first six weeks, and they all seem to be doing fine. Kathy’s been kicking butt and taking names at the University — the former figuratively, the latter literally, as she’s heading up a couple of student organizations for which she’s been assembling T-Shirt orders. And I’m still plowing away at the day job, leading a rag-tag fleet on a lonely quest across the galaxy to find Earth, our long-lost home planet.

Doggoneit. That’s not me.