Just home from traveling in Korea and Japan. I stayed with my brother and sister-in-law in Busan, and it was wonderful. But I’m home now and working on cleaning the garage. The vestiges of my parents’ lives are in that garage, and I’m supposed to get rid of most of it. It’s pretty sad when you think about it. So of course I’m thinking about it.

I went to see Bob Dylan at Mystic Lake Ampitheater in Shakopee, MN on Tuesday (2026-07-07). It was amazing. Joel Patterson is his new guitarist; he’s from Madison and is kind of a local legend. The legend is growing now that he’s in Dylan’s band. He played opposite the guitarist Julian Lage, and they seemed to be having fun playing off each other.

I went with my buddy Jeff, who is a pretty good singer-songwriter himself. It was fun to go on a road trip with him right after flying around the world.

I just put medium strings on my main banjo, on which I had only ever used light strings. Mediums are the right gauge for this instrument. Why didn’t I try it earlier?