Well its 4:30 am and my brand new cold is keeping me from sleep. Only a sliver of moon and a few Texas mosquitos to keep me company. I would hate to wager how many times I have sung that tricky little song "Sleep" over the last 10 years, but it couldn't be any more true today than that morning I wrote it. So much has changed since then. Those days I was a gardner by day recording music by night with a rusty 86 Jimmy I had named "The Hendrix" overloaded with gear getting me from event to event. Today its a 40 foot diesel pusher named Henry with a car and family that we pull along... actually I don't pull the family, they get to ride inside. Back then I would awake each morning and set to work forging new opportunities for my art to be heard. These days are the same but its gotta wait till after Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and
the Doodle-Bops pay a visit to start the day. My little boy Zeffren raises his arms and sounds a jubilant "cheerios" like he discovered gold in the Yukon. Crazy thing is he has them every morning, and yet he reacts with the same excitement each new time.

I guess what I am trying to say is that life looks so much different now, a better different. The girl I used to dream about is now my co-pilot and the kid I never thought I would have is imitating the sound of rumble strips as I over correct this steering wheel. 10 years is a lot in dog years, and this dog is finally ready to sit still. I am retiring from the wonderful world of contemporary christian music... I'm guessing thats what they call it, what ever it is that I do. I will always write music both the satirical and serious. I will always share the gospel with the story God has given me. I will always find great joy in making people laugh. But my days following a grueling calendar all over North America will come to a close at the sun rises on 2008.

I do have one last project soon to be available that I will tell you about in the next few weeks, and if any one would like to have me come by with a concert one last time please let me know at rileyarmstrong@gmail.com I will be open to fill a few events this coming fall spilling over into the spring if the Lord blesses that way. We will be keeping our myspace and website updated as best we can from now until the Lord returns, so please keep in touch.

peace to you on the journey,

Riley, Shannon, and Zeffren

2007 will take us away like a slow moving ocean-liner pulling away from the harbor.
At first glance you wouldn't even think its moving, but as new horizon is unveiled and the old disappears behind, you can be certain it is moving and no two hands or football stance will stop it. I worry that 2007 will take me farther away from my dad who died suddenly in February and inevitably it will.
I guess the truth is I'm worried I'm going to forget him, time has a tendency to do that you know.
I hope this time is different.
I hope I can remember the little things that are so easy to remember now, his laugh or smile, his concern for us, his pride in us, his wonder, his answers, all those things that made him dad.
Sometimes I think we try so hard to make everything seem business as usual, or tis the season, holiday as usual. I feel kind of disrespectful that we don't allow the hole in our lives to trip us up more. Is it weird that I feel like some awkward time would be nice, a table setting left empty some how consoling. If life is this fickle once earth has past us, it kinda dishonors the part that came before. I think God would understand my sad heart when I think of my dad. I think God wouldn't mind if I was quiet for a while and skipped out on a smile or two right now before the new year gets too carried away. If I be very deliberate I hope I can keep his memories real, so I can pass on to my son the legacy my father left me.

Welcome. I learn stuff everyday. Sometimes even two things
a day. One time I learned three things, and I spent the remainder
of the day very very dizzy. It is here on this blog that I will do my best to
inform the world of these new things I'm learning.... of course, they
might not all be new to you the reader but please humor me and play
along anyway.

Today I learned that indenting a new paragraph is very old fashioned
and no one does it anymore.... so who decided this? And why didn't anyone tell me? I have been happily indenting for years and years, and all of a sudden I find out its not cool. Its like someone could have pulled me aside and very discreetly told me, in a manor one would tell another that their zipper is down, but no, the embarrassment is all mine I guess. I blame this evolving communication ettiquite on that pesky metric system, its truly messing everything up.