Getting settled in

I am attending the Advanced Banjo Camp taught by Dr. Banjo, Peter Wernick, in Boulder Colorado from Jan. 18 through Jan. 23, 2009. I thought it might be fun to report from the camp nightly to give you my thoughts on the event.

I’m exhausted

It’s Sunday evening/Monday morning as I type this, and the time is 1:15 am my time. However…that’s only 11:15 Boulder time, so it’s actually not as late as I feel. My body is on Michigan time still. Luckily, the exchange rate is tipped in my favor. Kind of like that 350 lb. woman I dated once. She was Canadian, so that’s only about 275 American. (But seriously folks…) I didn’t get much sleep the last night and I’m really feeling it. Hope I make it to the end of the blog post.

The trip started with me losing my $350 camera. Well, sheesh, alright, if you MUST know, I left it at Detroit Metro airport. It’s locked in an office safe & sound but that means I can’t use it to document my trip. The iPhone camera will have to do.

But now I’m settled in to the nice hotel (the Boulder Inn) and I’m looking forward to the week. I met my first fellow picker tonight and we jammed for about an hour, which was a lot of fun. He’s a good melodic picker and he does some nice, tasteful jazz and Scruggs licks that turned my head. (Oh goodie! I’m going to learn this week for sure!) His name is Darron Shupe (not sure about the first name spelling) and it turns out that Darron is the brother of a famous musician that I happen to be a big fan of. Darron’s brother’s name is Ryan Shupe, and you may have heard of him. I have an album by Ryan Shupe & The Rubber Band  (Ryan’s band’s name) and I even have an app on my iPhone to track the band. My favorite song from Ryan Shupe is the song called Banjo Boy. Banjo Boy is the story of how he is going to become a hot musician and tour and have all these tasty licks and wants to become famous; the only problem is: he plays banjo. It’s a funny song that you can view by clicking this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4IUb6qYGkY

Click me! Click me!

Stay tuned for the fun!

There’ll be more to come as the week progresses. I’m pledging to blog nightly, but I have the feeling that may be too optimistic. Stay tuned anyway and I’ll say as much as I can as we go along. Have a great week everyone. I’m feeling more and more tired and I think I sho…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Update: the next blog post about day #1 is loaded. To go straight to this post, click this link: banjo camp, day #1

Banjo Paul
“Wunse, I coodn’t even spel bango pikker…now I are one!”
www.banjosrule.com (main site)
www.mybanjolife.com (blog)