'It Barks and Bites!"

Hey! I got a mandolin! I returned the rental I've had for a couple months and got my very own solid-wood F-style bluegrass mandolin. Here she is, in all her glory. I did a fair amount of research about it online, but in the store I am too much of a novice to even really tell a difference between the $200 mandolins and the $2000 ones. Consequently, my Rover (on the inside it says "Rover - it barks and bites!") is on the lower end of the price spectrum. But as you can see it came with a fancy case, so I'm ready to hit the street corner with my ragged version of Cripple Creek an see if I can make a few bucks. Since the last mandolin update I've learned 'Red Haired Boy' and yesterday figured out the chords to some Tom Petty song that my iPod decided to play on shuffle. But I'm about to go download some new ones to practice from Folk of the Wood, which is a great online resource for any stringed instrument.

And just because no blog post in the post-Banjo era would be complete without a cute picture of him, here you go. Kate trimmed off some of his long neck hair the other day, and stripped a bunch of his other hair (that's what you do with wire-haired dogs), so he may look a little different. You should ask her about what he did to her laptop cord, too...