the Florida Theater is our first headlining show since Greece… luckily we get a long soundcheck and can rehearse all the pieces we haven’t played in all the weeks with Santana… tonight i get to use the Midi guitar again…

Jon and i go for lunch to the nearby Riverside Mall and end up searching for a relatively quiet corner where we don’t have to hear the loud music that fills the mall, courtesy of a country music radio station and a P.A. system set up on a stage… why do they force this loud music on everybody… why is our world getting so unbelievably noisy… speaking of noisy, last night we measured the ambient noise on the bus – just the sound of the engine and air conditioning, no music and no talking… Patch guessed that the bus noise was around 45 decibel loud, and i guessed it was around 65 decibel… i pulled out my trusty Radio Shack meter and the noise was in fact around 74 decibel on the “C” scale, 69 decibel on the “A” scale… pretty loud!

we have laws against smoking in many workplaces, restaurants and public places… hm, what about noise abuse?… i mean of course laws aren’t the answer because they would probably police anybody having a little fun singing along to a tune in a car with an open window… i’m just talking about an awareness of the dangerous aspects of noise… and that starts with people designing and manufacturing machines, lawn mowers, trash blowers, cars, trucks and of course buses, and ends with us choosing not to have load music in so many public places… peace