Happy New Year!!!

What a great holiday season we had. After a depressing start to the month, the remaining days fell together nicely. Mrs. Alva recovered quite rapidly from her surgery and was able to partake in holiday libations without restriction.

The Christmas festivities began in earnest upon the arrival of my little sister, brother in law, and nephew from Frederick MD. Katie loves her cousin to death, and despite Katie being a yucky girl, the two of them got along well enough for the rest of us adults to enjoy our grown up activities such as alcohol consumption and watching college/pro football. Christmas was a huge hit and I was the envy of all after receiving a most excellent pair of Rolling Stones tongue and lips pajamas from my two beautiful and thoughtful women. Mrs. Alva became the first iPod owner of the family thanks to yours truly. We began ripping CD’s the minute we got it home.

We embarked on our previously postponed trip to the NYC area on the 28th and arrived at Newark Airport to sunny skies and balmy temps. It felt great to finally be “home” after such a long hiatus. After kicking around for a day, spending sometime with my wonderful in-laws, we had dinner with the Wilson clan of Fort Montgomery where we were joined by Jackson and the Legal Diva. Katie got to hang with her future husband Tyler and he got a taste of what his life will be like once they both graduate from West Point and are enjoying life as newlyweds on their first military assignment together. It was a great time and we can’t wait to come back.

I headed into the city early New Year’s Eve to assist my good friend Jackson with the task of finally get his bedroom furniture through the upstairs window (suburbanites note: moving is 100 times more complicated when it’s in NYC). This single act became what Jackson referred to as the linchpin for getting his and his beautiful gal’s apartment set up after many months (since June) of living amongst boxes and piles of brand new furniture all still in original packaging. While we didn’t get the entire place sorted out completely, I will say that with a little focused effort, they should be fully moved in by the late spring just in time to renew their lease, or move.

Somehow we were able to jump over to the “NEW” Smoke and Mirrors recording studio for my first peek at the new digs. There are no words to describe how cool a place S&M now is. If you ever visited the Hope Street location, forget about it and come see them at the new place. Large, well treated rooms, and a ton of great gear including some deadly new stuff in the rack. It was good to finally get to see Chrispy again. He exudes a new found enthusiasm for the recording arts since moving into the new space and is getting the best sounds I’ve ever heard him capture. We actually got a good bit of work done on two songs I brought with me: a re-recording of the Darrell Scott dirge “Harlan” and the Bob Ezrin/Alice Cooper hit “I Never Cry”. Chrispy, Jackson, and I seem to share a common thoughts about the “Harlan” tune and with a some work yet to be done on it, I feel I left them the best vocal performance I had in me for them to work with. I’m anxious to see what the guys do with it.

Mrs. Alva took a train in later and met up with all of us for that evening’s New Year’s celebration. We hooked up with Paul from Figo and his lovely gal and we dined at a wonderful French restaurant in Manhattan. The food was superior and drinks flowed liberally. There is a picture of me dancing with some very drunk French women on the way back from the bathroom and being French, they actually yelled to me that they thought I danced well. Go figure. Following ringing in the new year there, we retired to a rock-n-roll bar somewhere in the city (by that time I became complete unaware of my surroundings) and finished the evening with drinks and conversation arriving back at Jackson’s place in the pouring rain at 5:00 am.

I spent the next couple of days at S&M finishing more recording work before re-joining my kinfolk in Paramus NJ. We managed to find our way up to Highland Falls again to have dinner with Katie’s fairy godmother IDM reader Hairdresser to the Stars joined by one of her lovely daughters who regaled us with stories of her new job as a pharmaceutical sales rep for Eli-Lilly selling Cialis and some far less important medication (okay, it’s insulin, but most would agree that Cialis is far more interesting to talk about). Did I mention she sold Cialis? Good. We dined at The Hotel Thayer and our cheeks hurt from laughing during the drive back down to NJ for a nights rest before returning home to Georgia the next day.

So much happened while I was out of town and away from football it took a while to catch up. Georgia Tech actually put up a solid effort against West Virginia before finally running out of gas. I was IN THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY while Rutgers was playing in the Texas Bowl and was heart broken to discover that the game WASN”T TELEVISED in the NYC/northern NJ area! Rutgers won, but it would have been nice to see it. The Terps won their bowl game, Penn State was victorious, my other Cinderella story fav The Demon Decon's of Wake Forest failed to close the deal, and the one I really wish I hadn’t missed was the Boise State vs. Oklahoma game that was so exciting that my Dad called to tell me about it before I could even read about it in the paper. Came home to find that the Atlanta Falcons had fired head coach Jim Mora (not sure the team’s performance can be blamed on him). Was giggling my ass off when Tony Romo bobbled the snap and blew a chip shot field goal that would have won their wild card game, and then got dumped by American Idol Carrie Underwood. Hmmm... American Idol dumps America's Team's QB. I was of course also sad to watch both NY teams get eliminated yesterday as well.

And so it goes, back to our regular routine here at home. We’ve got Mrs. Alva’s forty… I mean, milestone birthday party coming up on the 27th and I’ve got to get my shit together for that and get my work search effort fired back up post haste.

Thanks for sticking in there during a month of light posts, but rest assured you can bet on a 2007 filled with political rantings, sports jaw jacking, music chat, and other crap that fills my ever degrading brain matter here at Intravenus De Milo.

Happy New Year!!!