My son, the party, and the lost files...

Ok... if you're someone who likes to get right to it, I'll start this email off by letting you know that we've decided to bump this Thursday's song release 'Beyond You' to NEXT Thursday, October 15th. I apologize in the BIGGEST POSSIBLE WAY for the schedule change, but given the unusual circumstances (detailed in the story below), hopefully you'll understand... Ok, that said, onto the story we go... :)

So, over the past couple weeks, we've been wrapping up the first new full-production release, and this past Saturday was spent putting the finishing touches on the vocals. Around 4 o'clock, happy with how everything was sounding and ready to take a break, I decided to call it a day and go get ready for a birthday party friends of ours were having for their daughter (side note: nothing says 'party' like a 2-year-old Disney princess themed soiree... awesome... :). At any rate, as I was shutting down the studio, I figured I'd backup the files, a process that usually takes about 5-6 minutes. So I hit start, turned around, and headed up the stairs. Encountering my 2-year-old son, Renn, about halfway up the stairs, he glanced at me as if to simply say 'Hey Dad... just headin' down to the office... got some paperwork to catch up on...' Now USUALLY... I never let him go down to the studio by himself. Between the drumkit, piano, and various other pieces of gear, there are about a thousand things for him to destroy. But we were already running late, and since I'm the REASON we're always late, I figured it was more important to just get ready fast and grab him on the way out. And I mean... c'mon... how much could he destroy in 5 minutes anyway? (can you tell where this is going yet?)

Ok, so a few minutes later we're ready to go, and my wife (always leading the charge) is the first one downstairs. In a moment that couldn't possibly have been more slo-mo-movie-esque had it been scripted, I hear Barb shout 'Oh, no NO, Honey! That's Daddy's compuuuuuuuuuuter!' Immediately rushing down the stairs, I see my son, huge smile on his face, banging his hands up and down on the computer keyboard. 'I play piano, Daddy!' he shouts at me in unadulterated glee... Running to my computer (not unlike a gazelle fleeing certain death on the African grassland), I immediately notice something missing... two words... BEYOND YOU. No files. None. Zero. Gone. Now, if you've ever had that moment when you're finishing the last paragraph on a 10-page paper and your computer crashes on you... you know how I felt in that moment. :) My stomach dropped to somewhere around my ankles, and shaking, I began searching frantically for the missing folder. Scanning the hard drive, I noticed that although the folder was THERE... it was much SMALLER than it had been before. i.e... most of the audio files were missing. And, upon opening the project file itself, my worst fears were confirmed. Renn had managed (in what HAS to be a statistically remote combination of keystrokes) to not only stop the transfer midway but summarily delete most of the original song as well.

Sooooo, yeah. Let's just say I didn't make it to the birthday party, and the rest of the weekend was spent trying to recover files and rerecord lost tracks. As I told a close friend last night... love my son, I really do. But right now? Mmmm... not so much. :) At this point, the song is back on track, but we definitely need a bit more time to get it to you. Thanks for your understanding, and if there's any moral you can take away from this story... here it is...

RENN + IMPORTANT THINGS = BROKEN

:)

Gavin

ps - when we have more time, I'll share the Renn-started-the-blender-with-the-top-off or Renn-thinks-colored-glue-enhances-our-white-couches stories. 2-year-old boys... oh so easy to manage. :)


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