You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Let's begin where we ended...

With After the Jump Fest 2008. Well, it was a great success. For the most part, everything ran really smoothly. In fact, people kept coming up to me saying they were surprised I looked so calm. What can I say? I'm a professional. And when you've run enough events like I have, you learn to plan for a lot of inevitabilities.

I woke up at 6:30am on the day of in order to make sure I was in Williamsburg at 8am to meet the police, who would be on the street to drop off barriers and tow cars that had ignored the no parking signs. To my surprise, they also sent a street sweeping team, which was nice. I felt a twinge of guilt as cars were towed but evidently, they were just moved onto the next block.

The stage arrived a little before 9am, around which time the couple living next door to The Music Hall came outside, half dressed. Apparently they were to hold their wedding inside the gallery where they lived that evening and lets just say, they were none too pleased to find a stage being erected outside their front door. Luckily, the officer helping me (and the wider Make Music NY which was happening that day) with the event drove by as the bride was yelling at me and told her that she signed a petition for the event to happen months ago and we had every right to be there. But on your wedding day, what does that matter? I felt terrible for her but I had been told that all the residents knew about the fest so what could I do at 9 in the morning with thousands of dollars of equipment sitting there?

Around 9am, ATJers started to ramble in (note to self- next year put 8:30am mandatory arrival) and the stage began to go up. Bagels were brought, dressing rooms taken over with boxes of ATJ t-shirts and cases of beer, sponsors were set-up with tables outside, bands started to load-in and by noon, we were in full swing.

It was all pretty exciting and somewhere between seeing Julia Stiles in the crowd and Rain Phoenix perform with Wil during 'Leave the Light on,' it hit me how amazing it all was and I grabbed Matt and just went - 'Oh my God, this is AWESOME.'

There were some great moments, like seeing Daniel Hart play with Pattern is Movement, some not so great moments, breaking my flip-flop an hour after I arrived, and then some fucking weird moments, like introducing two people to each other that probably should never meet and seeing how similar they are. There was moshing during Health and beers had with bands. There was silly Sirius radio interviews and walking across the stage in front of a full crowd to check on amp problems. There was hugs and 4am tater tots and driving home as the sun rose and not falling asleep until 10am the next day because of all the excitement.

It was an incredible day and there was great press there to document it all but I am glad that for another year, it is over. And that wedding that was going on? It ended up that the guests loved the music and brought chairs and drinks outside to sit and watch. Alls well that ends well.

The week after, I tied up loose ends and the week after that, Sea came up and I took off work to spend time with her and begin our dreaded apartment hunt. I am happy to report, we found a place. The perfect place. I love it so much. It is in Greenpoint, situated right in the middle of what feels like Poland, near Europa and McCarren Pool and not too far from all things Williamsburg. Move in is Sept 1. I'm to start the Fall with a clean slate, with a new place, new furniture and hopefully, new men.

So that is where I am. Looking forward to a Summer of trips to cabins, visiting friends and cold beers at good shows and also planning for the Fall- CMJ and my sister's wedding. I find myself surprised it is already nearing the middle of July.