I just thought I'd give everyone a rundown of my NAMM experience last weekend....I had the best time in Austin and I'm looking forward to getting back there in September for my shows and clinics for AMT Pedals....My adventure started when we landed on Thursday morning in Austin....Once we got our bags (Which was actually easy for once..) we were kindly greeted by a woman who was a NAMM greeter.She was so nice and she gave us maps and showed us how to get to our hotel and to the Convention Center...It's so cool that NAMM is on top of these things..It really was a help to someone who has never been to Austin before. Well we packed up our rental car and got on our way to the Convention Center.As soon as I turned on the radio what do I hear?? It's my new friend Gary Hoey live on the Austin Rock station hanging promoting his NAMM appearances and his show at Antones. Well this is the 3rd time in the last month that I have got in a rental car turned on the radio and there was Gary, It happened in AZ and in Vegas as well...Gary and I had a laugh about it when I told him....Well the hwys in Austin are very different than in Calif and the drivers are the worst!! The roads are definitely not clearly marked and the stop light are also hidden.....How we survived with out getting in an accident I don't know.. Lord knows several Austin Drivers gave it their best shot thoughout the weekend to take us out..The people in Austin are so nice to you until they get in their cars and then it's like "Lets kill the tourist!!!"Well we got lost but quickly found our way to the Austin Convention Center.When we arrived we actually found parking right in front of the venue (What are the odds??) Well we went in to registration and got our badges without a hitch (Once again we were on a roll...) Anyone who has ever been to NAMM knows that getting your badge at registration is usually like a trip to the DMV.....It's always we need 9 forms of ID ,your Mom's 2nd cousin's maiden name and the name of your pet when you were 5........No kidding....That's what I went though at winter NAMM...The NAMM crew in Austin were so much nicer.....Anyway, we went for a walk in the Convention Center while they were still putting everything up and said hello to a few friends and checked out where the booths I was playing in were at so I knew where I was going on Friday...I also got to hear some of the Austin NAMM gossip (Always great!!!) After checking it out we went to check in to our hotel and also managed to get lost until I called the hotel and had the girl talk me in....It wasn't to bad......After we checked in I called my buddy Don CEO of AMT Pedals and also my endorser...He and his son Chris were also staying in our Hotel....Well we decided to all go to lunch (Arlene and I hadn't eaten since we were in LA...) Well we had a Frudruckers in the parking lot of our Hotel and we all went to lunch (It was now 2pm Austin time...) Well it was awesome to eat!!! After lunch with Don and Chris we decided to catch up on some sleep....But I wanted to see if I could get our new laptop going in our "Computer Ready" room. Well I couldn't get it going and quickly fell asleep.. Arlene eventually got it up and soon fell asleep as well...After we woke up I called Don and my other Buddy Jody Page from Pedalsnake to see what everyone was doing. Well Jody said that there was a bridge next to his Hotel in downtown Austin that had a million bats fly out of it at 8:30 pm everynight....Well we were all over it.. Arlene,Don and Chris piled into my rental car and met Jody at the TGI Fridays in his Hotel..We had a nice dinner and we got to see the bats... It was so cool!!!! I strongly suggest checking it out if you get to Austin...After that we went to the NAMM pre-show  party at the Convention Center....It was ok and I ran into a few friends.We called it an early night after that and rested up for day one of NAMM...Well after getting some breakfast Jack in the Box I was ready to play my first day of the show...The Convention Center in Austin is so cool and parking was a breeze.. Another thing that is really cool that they do is that you get 3 re-entries to the parking garage at the Convention Center... How cool is that!! Well Day one was fun.. I tore it up at my demos at AMT and at Minarik....through out the day.During my demo at AMT I heard some guy heckling me from across the isle...Well it was Gary Hoey.......He was doing a signing at the Peavey Booth right across from me..... I went over and hung with him a bit..It was good to see him.. Later that night he was cool enough to hook us up with passes to the Peavey party at Antones that he was the headliner of...It was a great show and Gary and I were interviewed together in the dressing room fof Antones for the Las Vegas' Connections Magazine...It was a fun to be interviewed with Gary. I'm told the issue we're in comes out in October...It was a blast to hang with Gary and Matt and Erik from his band.....Everyone from Peavey was also so cool to us. We had the Best time and Gary and the guys just tore up Antone's stage during their performance......It was cool watching the show from the VIP section above....On Saturday after a trash truck trying to take out our rental car on the the fwy on the way to the Convention CenterI (Did I mention I wrote a new song called Texas Kamikaze??) I had a blast demoing all day and even did some press and met a lot of fans,signed a ton of pictures and made so many new friends...Everyone in Austin was just so cool....It was also fun to hang with Donand Chris at the AMT Booth and with Bill and Mark Minarik,Nichole and Rick at the Minarik booth....You're only a good as the people you work with and these guys are the best.....Well later in the day my good friend Eric Meyer and his Fiance Angelica who live in Texas showed up and offered to give our group a cool tour of Austin on Saturday night...Well Jody,his friend Julie,Don and Chris ,Arlene and myself took him up on it.. We all met at Jody's hotel and our first stop was the SRV Statue...It was so cool....Of course we all took pictures with it and I even sat by it a bit and took it all in.....After that Eric took us to 6th street where we ate and checked out the scene..After dinner I checked out the Coffin Case party for a bit .It was nuts....We all then went and saw the Dimebag Guitars that were painted by all the Rockstars as a tribute to Dimebag.. Well they were just so cool....You have to see them if you get a chance.. They were all being displayed at Club Emo and they had Pantera Music blaring in the club....After that we all went walking down 6th St and it was one giant party since they close down the street to traffic so everyone can walk in the street (Cool!!)  There must be a 100 bars there right next to each other with tons of great live original music...The Austin scene is definitely happening....On Sunday I played my demos took a look around the show (for the first time since we got there!!)  Said bye to all of our friends and got a few magazines I was in.. (I am in the new Guitar World and July 2006 issue of Music Trades Magazine, The Minarik ad that I'm featured in is in both Magazines..) We took off and headed back to the airport.Of course we got lost on the way to the airport...We quickly found our way and were back on course..We got to the airport checked in dropped off the rental car, got into it with the rental car people (Don't ask!!) Once we got in the airport we had some overpriced food (My cheeseburger was $10.00 with out a drink...) It was funny to see all the NAMM badges in the airport....Once we ast down at our gate for our flight Arlene noticed that our tickets were messed up.. They had us in different rows on both of our flights home...Well Arlene talked to the lady at the counter and they managed to fix the long flight to put us back together but the short flight we were two rows away from each other.It was really no biggie since the jump flight was only 25 minutes long....Well once we boarded the jump flight I ended up sitting next to Peter Stroud the guitarist for Sheryl Crow...He was a cool guy and we ended up talking about guitars and how he gets such a great sound out of his Firebird he uses with Sheryl.Our long flight was uneventful but uncomfortable since it's hard to sleep in the plane seats....When we landed my brief case was missining from our luggage.. Well it seems that the Texas security thought it was a bomb..I did manage to get it back intact but it was a big hassel....It was really a great trip to Austin and it was great to hang with my friends every night in Austin....We will be putting up a bunch of pictures from the show on my website this week (I've attached a few here...,You have me and Gary at Antones,Me and SRV and Me during my demo at the Minarik Booth!!) .I can't wait to go back to Austin in September... Next Stop the Randy Rhodes Tribute show on Aug 5th and the Calif World Guitar Show on Aug 5-6th at the Pomona Fairplex.I'm playing for Minarik and AMT Pedals.......I have some big stuff coming up that I will be letting everyone know about soon....Stay tuned!!!!