I can’t honestly say that when I first picked up a guitar that I felt it would shape my life. Didn’t even really take them seriously at all. It was just play. My friends were learning technique and chords and studying the shit. To me it was just something to get my hands on and it was many years of fucking around with one that I realized my life had changed and something was different. I bought my first guitar when I was in 9th grade. For $100 I got a Lotus strat copy and a tiny Gorilla amp. Prior to that, I had possession of a bass that had been stolen from a local school and has legendary status to this day. The last it was seen it had been given to a custom shop in Tulsa to have a steel diamond plate pick-guard put on. A few months later the guy had disappeared. That crazy bass is still floating around, I have no doubt. So I started playing guitar the way I played the bass and certainly drove my mom to Xanax with the opening line to “Iron Man” over and over. Tonight when I downloaded the web design software, I felt somewhat like I did when I bought that first guitar… but as someone who had played around with guitars and music for over 20 years… and as someone who goes on stage on a fairly regular basis and plays hours worth of songs I’ve written over the years… and continue to write. I feel like I’m picking up a new instrument, but this time I have the knowledge of what can happen when one picks up a new instrument… and the future is tangible.