I spent the night before the new year in a friendly forest (our nickname for the Creative Workshop studio in Nashville, TN). I’m in my old hometown once again, this time gearing up for a short run with the Connecticut-based Alternate Routes. We’re headed into the ocean to play a four-day cruise-type-thing called the Rock Boat, which should be a ton of fun and a much better way to spend the first weeks of January than back home in the arctic tundra of Minnesota. While I’ve been here some friends and I have been putting down finishing touches on Dave’s record, which will hopefully be ready to mix this spring.

if there are any lessons I can carry into 2011 with me, it’s that I’m lucky to know, and be friends with, such talented and kindhearted people. It’s pretty damn inspiring.