How I Spent My Vacation: Cold, Flu, Holidaze & More

Wow- thanks to how the dates fell for xmas and new years, that was the longest stretch of time off I've ever had! 2 weeks! Seems like forever since we've been on the air!

Well- we're back now (Mon) and we're ready to go! Hope you all had some time off for yourselves and hope you had a chance to breathe a little bit after the crazy holidays.

I had a pretty laid back holiday/vacation, to be honest! As usual, as soon as we stop for the xmas break - everything catches up to me and I get sick! Ugh - had a killer head cold for much of the first week, and then Valerie got some kind of flu like thing during the 2nd week! Still- we did have a very nice relaxing break, and for the most part we spent it close to home!

We didn't get to have our Christmas till a couple days after the actual day, but that's cool. The older you get the less it's about THAT day and more it's about whatever day everybody can be together! On the Friday after xmas, Tyler, Morgan and Cait and Bri came over and we had a great time opening gifts, having some food and drinks and enjoyed the day. Christmas to me now, is more about the time than it is the gifts. We downsized bigtime on gifts this year - one gift, secret santa style- 30.00 limit- and it was awesome. We focused more on the quality time and we loved it.

We did get to get out a couple times- Valerie and I hit one of our favorite restaurants - The Rail at La Stazione in my home town for an excellent italian dinner!

And then we hit Juston Mckinney's Year in Review show with our friends Dave and Jolene!

It was a great show - and it had to be a ballbreaker to put together all year, but Juston crushed it!

Got out with the camera a few times - even though the weather was sh*t! Clouds almost everyday, but at least I got a little sea smoke action!

Heres shots from New Castle NH, Ogunquit ME, and Cape Porpoise ME

Did a little eagle hunting too -

And for New Years Eve, we were supposed to go to Tupelo to see the Adam Ezra Group, but Valerie wasn't feeling well, so she didn't go. She did, however, insist that I still go with our Brew Crew buddies Gary and Lorraine -

It was a great show, and I even got to sit with two of our favorite listeners - Jess and her Mom from Ontario Canada who came down to spend Xmas here and see the AEG show!

And I have to confess this - if you remember I have said many times that I am not a fan of Bob Dylan. I totally get, accept and appreciate his contribution to music history, but I just can't listen to his records. Having said that- I DID go see this movie-

And I have to say - IT'S EXCELLENT. And Timothee Chalamet and Ed Norton shold BOTH get Oscar nods for their incredible performances. And CHALAMET ACTUALLY SANG THE DYLAN STUFF! It's really well done. And on the way home from the movie I did something I've never done before- I put on a Dylan record and listened to it the whole way home- and I LIKED IT! Lesson learned!

And it totally cliched "YEAR IN REVIEW" style- I did throw together some of my favorite family and photography moments from 2024 and thought I'd share em with you -

As always- family first.

And behind the camera-

And that's how I'll wrap up my first day back.

Looking forward to a great 2025.

Ps. If you read this far- I'll throw this in. There was a lot of questions about retirement for me last year, and I figured I'd share this headline that made a bunch of radio related press while we were away -

So now you know.

We ain't going anywhere...

Thanks for being part of the family-

g