At international academy of design and technology. Talking to a web design class about how the industry works….with my boy Joe Patti.

I’m at Studio 21Tattoo today getting some work done. Here’s a quick pic of Austin getting started on my leg:

Hells yes for vacation week! This is the week that Stephanie and I chartered the sailboat in the British Virgin Islands. I must say…..it’s pretty frickin’ cool. I’m sure we will have more pics once her camera is plugged in to the Mac, but for now my camera phone shots will have to do. Just a select two. The first is our hotel room pre-cruise. The second is my bride as she gawks at Necker Island. No, Stephanie, I will never be able to buy you an island like Sir Richard Branson. You’re stuck with me though lol:

I was on Facebook today and saw this article, which describes U.S. Airways’ refusal to grant a refund to a terminal cancer patient’s family after her condition took a bad turn and her physician advised her to not travel.

Under the terms of her tickets purchased, U.S. Airways is not obligated to provide a refund. The tickets are non-refundable. However, it’s a pretty small amount of money for the airline ($4,200) but a huge amount of money to a family that could be looking at hospice care, planning for final expenses, etc.

Liz Landau, the spokesperson from U.S. Airways, advised “As with purchasing anything, it’s important to understand the terms and conditions of the tickets you purchase,” Landau said.”

That quote rubbed me the wrong way. I think this is a dick move on U.S. Airways’ part and I intend to tell them so.

I contacted U.S. Airways on their Customer Relations page and told them that I would no longer be flying with them. I’ve only spent about $500 with them this year but that represents 10% of the refund that they are refusing to give to the McKain family.

To my friends and readers who fly with U.S. Airways: will you help send a message to U.S. Airways and make sure that this cold-hearted move costs them?

Contact U.S. Airways here and tell them that you won’t do business with them if they don’t help this family.

Jimi Hendrix would have been 69 years old today. I like to think of a world in which Jimi existed for more than the 4-6 years that he changed the face of rock music. But we only had him for a few years and boy did he jam a bunch of awesomeness in to just a few years.

I don’t want to make this a long post – I want to get back to listening to Jimi on his birthday. Here are my two favorite Hendrix recordings, as well as a couple of covers by people who do Jimi correctly.

Jimi doing Like a Rolling Stone live in Monterey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J2WdcW0ZY4

Jimi doing Bold As Love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xTcLrTabS4

And on to the covers…First up is a Chicagoan,
Stan Skibby, doing an awesome cover of Hear My Train a Comin’. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Stan & crew a few times. In addition to being an amazing guitar player he is also a phenomenal human being. Check him out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgfRAw3LfUg

Next up is Stevie Ray doing Little Wing/Third Stone. This one goes without saying as one of the greatest-of-all-time interpretations of Jimi’s music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAG-kX_IlUw

To round out the covers, I offer you John Mayer doing Bold As Love. Say what you want about him being a douche, he kills this song. And kudos to him for introducing 16 year old girls around the world to the music of Jimi Hendrix. Oh, and Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan are the best rhythm section in the history of blues and rock music. Yeah, I said it :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQSGa8nZs8g

I’m sure that you are well aware of the climate change debate. Some folks think we’re screwed. Others think that global warming is a myth. The below was written by my bro Jon:

Open Ocean Post

Sounds dire, huh? I don’t understand the science behind the climate change conversation. Nor do you, unless you are a scientist. It’s a complicated issue. It’s frickin’ earth.

The media has gotten in the way of a very important issue by reducing it to sound bites. Conservative pundits over-simplify and generalize, i.e. “It was a really cold winter in 2010. So much for global warming lolhahawtf.” Liberal media makes preposterous (and not probable) claims to try and get our attention, i.e. “See that hurricane? Global warming did that. See that earthquake? Global warming! GLOBAL WARMING KILLS BABIES!!!”

Polarizing this issue has created a very unhealthy dialog. (Yeah…I just did that.)

Again, I don’t understand the science. What I do know is that my brother Jon is a goddamned genius. He’s been studying and researching the ocean for the last 16 years or so. When Jon says “the earth is getting to the point of being irreversibly screwed” over Thanksgiving dinner, I do two things:
1. Take it really seriously.
2. Call Jon a little girlie man for eating Tofurkey and slide his wife some meat. (They are vegetarians but Malory sneaks deep-fried turkey when Jon isn’t looking.)

My friends will tell you that I’m not the type to take a position on blind faith. “Because my brother said so” left my vocabulary in the 80′s. So I’m not asking you to believe that we are damaging the environment and fundamentally changing our planet just because Jon said so. Consider the following:

Working on a solo acoustic set…here’s my version of “Soulshine” by Warren Haynes. Allmans do a great version of it. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lyw1mteBzc

To any of you who said tonight’s debate was lackluster, I completely disagree. In fact, I think we left tonight with a clear leader. Here’s what I took away from tonight’s GOP debate on Fox News:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zCidiDBAb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVGu0visDbE