Here’s a little something I want to share with you. I put this video together for a video contest.

Speaking of contests… Back in January, I entered (and won) a contest where the challenge was to write ukulele-themed limericks. I wrote several obscene ones that I was rather proud of, but this was my winning entry:

There once was a cat named Bailey
Who learned how to play ukulele.
He never chased rats
Like all other cats;
He preferred to caterwaul daily.

But the cat was kind of a putz.
And his cat friends thought he was nuts.
Did he know how they made
The strings that he played?
‘Cuz they came from a relative’s guts!

That is all.

COMICS UPDATE: Comic Con was last month. Unfortunately, we didn’t win the Eisner award, but it was still really cool being nominated and attending the award ceremony. Dave blogged about it here. I had a lot of fun at the show, hung out with the family, went to Sea World, and just generally enjoyed San Diego.

Oh, and while I was at the show, I discovered a comic called Super Siblings which has a lead character named James Clark who looks just like me circa 2002. Like me, the character has a wife and two kids — a boy and a girl — and his dad even looks like mine. And he acts kinda like me, too.

It’s both eerie and cool to see myself in a comic book, especially since the comic’s creator Patrick Scullen and I had never heard of each other before. Weird.

MUSIC UPDATE: I’m about 90% done working on my album of children’s music, and maybe 80% done on my second rock/pop album. I’m hoping to finish up a bunch of those tracks in time to have a demo CD together for when I perform in LA next month. You can read about that here.

OTHER STUFF: My kids turn five this month. FIVE! Where did the time go??

I’ll try to get back in the habit of writing more often, in case anyone actually reads this thing.

I think she really captured the true essence of Courtney Love here.

All the best, from our family to yours!

(This short story was written by my 4-year-old daughter for Grandparent’s Day.)

Once upon a time, there was Eva, Mommy & Grandma.
They were driving in their car to the beach.
Then they were parked at the beach.
They got out of their car and went swimming.
Then they played on the swings
Then they all went home and got out of their car.

Then Eva, Mommy and Grandma went into the house.
They caught their eye on something.
They walked close and it walked further away again.
It was a shadow that looked like a big monster!
Mommy and Grandma were scared but Eva wasn’t scared because she was brave.
Eva took her Moo-Moo, put on her purple cape and zoomed out there.
Moo-Moo took a bucket of ice cream and dumped it on the shadow’s head!
Then Eva flew out of the house and got help.
She picked some flowers and found a hummingbird.
The hummingbird sucked up all the flowers and grabbed the shadow, picked him up with her feet, flew outside and threw him to the desert!
Then the hummingbird took back the flowers and flew into her house.
Eva, Mommy and Grandma were saved and lived happily ever after.

THE END

I wrote this for my lovely wife Lisa as a gift for our anniversary, which is today. Thirteen years married, twenty-two together as a couple.

(It was raining really hard outside my window during this… some of it is audible, especially at the end.)

Here’s to you, darlin’. I love you.

[Download this song here!]

It was raining really hard yesterday, and when the clouds parted we could see some snow up on the mountains by our house. Taking a chance that it wouldn’t melt quickly, we packed the kids in the car and headed up to Figueroa mountain. There was plenty at the top. We found a nice, level spot where there was lots of untouched snow. Many snowballs were thrown, and the kids made a snowman they named Mr. Angry Eyes.

Snow is such a gift here in Santa Barbara. We only get it once a year in the mountains if we’re lucky, so I’m glad we got a chance to go up this year.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Wishing you love and joy, from our family to yours.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!