Monday April 11^th , my flight to London was leaving on Tuesday, so I decided to spend one day in New York rather than flying back to LA. At the airport I was trying to check my big suitcase in and was told it was 8 pounds over the limit, even though I had sold a bunch of CDs. I must have packed less carefully. Rather than spreading my laundry and everything over the airport floor, I opted to buy an extra bag for 25 bucks, fill it with my garment bag and a fairly heavy foot switch. I can deal with it in New York. Southwest let’s you check it two free bags so there was no big problem there. I got to Newark that evening, managed to find the air-train to the shuttle to the hotel and settled in my room. I opened the big suitcase to take my clothes out and put them on a hanger, when it hit me. I had grabbed my guitar, the carry-on suitcase, the big suitcase. But the bag I purchased for $25 I had left behind at the airport. I just totally forgot about it and never picked it up. Panic struck me: my stage clothes and the foot switch for my computer system. By now it’s midnight and I get a shuttle back to the airport. I got there just in time, before the Southwest counter closed and thank god they had my bag.

The next morning I made my way into Manhatten to meet up with one of my clients, Al DeGregoris. Jeff Lorber and me have been producing tracks for him and he is currently working on a new project. It’s always good to get some face time. So we had some lunch at the Carnegie Deli. I also used the opportunity to get a 9V power supply that could handle all voltages from 120 – 240 and had 4 outlets for my pedals. The batteries, seemed like a good idea at first, but some of these pedals go through them in a few hours. The delay crapped out on me on the boat due to an empty battery and there is no warning. Plus a big bag of batteries is even heavier than the power supply, and weight counts. I did spend more time when repacking the big suitcase this time and it came in just under 50 lb, which is what the allowance is.

Currently I am charging all my devices waiting to board the plane to London.

I will write the next installment from there.

Cheers

…. To be coninued

you can read part 4 here