Happy Anniversary Sharon! April 11, 2010

Three years? Can that really be ALL?

Oh wait... next June, we'll have been together EIGHT years!

Regardless, Sharon, thank you so much for your generosity and your amazing capacity to love in taking on both me (hard enough!) and my two kids (are you kidding?!)

I hope your joys in this marriage continue to be many, and your regrets few.

And I can't think of a better way to celebrate than an early east coast viewing of Rodney On Legit!

xoxoxoxo

Happy Birthday Sharon!

Sharon is 51? Barely seems possible!

And OF COURSE today of all days would be a nightmare for you at work...

But the whole, extended family will celebrate with you tonight!

Love you Sweetie!  xoxoxoxo

UPDATE April 3:

Had a really nice dinner at La Cabana in Venice with Sharon, Nick, Sam & Liberty, Sarah,
Friday, and Elizabeth, plus Hailey the babysitter.

The food was good but more importantly AFFORDABLE.  Of course, Friday ate too much and had to stay home sick today (what's he gonna do about that in the Army?)

Sharon opened some gifts at the restaurant and then came home to open mine.  Not the greatest array but she seemed pleased.  And then, I was finally able to give her my "Audio Birthday Card" which was a CD greeting from a Sam Elliott soundalike! I don't think she was fooled (and James Herron, the actor, admits he's not Sam halfway through) but her facial expressions while listening were priceless.

Dino's 56

Today is the day. Please do not take this information and steal my identity.

This means my last official CD release, DINO'S 50, is starting to look very, very old.

For lunch, I had a roast beef sub off a truck called "Deano's Deli."  It was awesome, and worthy of my birthday.  Then I went to CVS and paid way too much for Prilosec, which both Nick and I must take daily. (Or Daley.)

A great gift early this morning:  LEGIT got renewed for Season Two!  I was so excited I awoke Nick to tell him.  He was quite surprised, and then he was asleep.

Dinner at the old Pasta Factory (whatever it's called now) with Sharon after work.

Just found out I have tomorrow off, in honor of the guy they nailed to the wood.

Somewhat Happy Birthday

I turn 56 on March 28, but that's a Thursday, and I asked Sharon for a nice hunk of cash to spend at the monthly record sale on McCadden.  Sharon teased the hell out of me the night before, when I kept hinting about the cash gift.  Turns out the card with the money was on my nightstand the whole time!

I could barely sleep, though I thought it was from excitement.  I was also having trouble peeing (i.e., it hurt!)

I did the record sale, but didn't feel that great.  After taking all my records to Soundelux, I realized something was very wrong. Got a 2:30 appointment at Motion Picture in Burbank, and discovered I had a bladder infection! Started taking Cipro an hour later, and it's practically gone already. I was also able to slip back into the record sale for one more hour, though my wish had been to hang out there all afternoon!

Anyway, I made some great picks, even in my infected, weakened state.

Dinner with Sharon on the actual day - somewhere cheap! LOL

Below, the record sale.

Being filmed For A Sound Editing Doc at USC

The film is currently titled YOU AIN'T HEARD NOTHIN' YET (hope they change that) and they invited myself and fellow Soundelux editors Chris Assells and Dan Hegeman to be interviewed on Saturday March 16.  We had a lot of fun and laughed a lot, and I believe they got a good 3 hours of footage. Word is they will follow up with location footage here at work.

Chime-Palooza

Wow! Going to the Chime Charter fundraising show at Cal State Northridge was a total trip.  I knew it would remind me of Julie but I had no idea how much.  They kept saying things like "Chime Charter School began in 2001 in a small church in Winnetka..." and I'd think: "Yeah, the church Julie had found for them!"  They'd say: "Chime Charter began with 70 students" and I'd think: "Yeah, and my kids were two of them!"

And then to have my wife Sharon and my stepson Nick involved, even for just one night, almost exactly 10 years after Julie's accident, was mind-blowing!

Nick did really well onstage, though he did leave for a pee break! He's a big Benjamin Bratt fan, and it was great to see Bratt take Nick under his wing, literally: he helped Nick find his marks onstage and otherwise seemed very protective of him.

And then out comes Sharon, moving microphones and breaking down the bass rig! Kind of late for a Roadie Career, but it was so cool to see her doing it!

Ten Years

My late wife Julie's car accident was ten years ago on February 25.

Tonight I'm going to a show put on by Chime Charter, the grade school she helped create, in which my stepson Nick Daley is a performer.

Weird! But very cool, Circle-of-Life stuff.

And this coming July, the kids and I will be taking the train to Michigan for the first time in at least 4 years.

Below, Julie and Elizabeth in Grand Rapids, Michigan, December 2001.