Don't Stop Believin'

I have my first official client! Granted, it's one without activity at this point, but there definitely will be some in the near future, and you have to start somewhere, right?

In related news, apparently my negotiating skills, while still extremely uncomfortable, aren't as bad as I thought. I was able to get the software company to drop the price by a couple thousand dollars, and I signed the purchase agreement on Friday. No turning back now; this stupid software will end up costing me more than twice what I paid for my car. Dang.

I've been getting a fair amount of work from my old company this week, and it looks like I'll be spending most of April over there getting them ready to make client payments at the end of the month. If left to their own devices, they would be royally screwed in a couple weeks. But at least I get paid real money to clean up the mess :)

The weather in Nashville is b-e-a-utiful right now, and it doesn't look like that's gonna change at least in the next week! I can hardly believe it's April already, but since that's the case I guess this weather is about right. I've had a couple of landscaping surprises this spring: none of my plants died over the winter (including the bush I thought had died last summer and the three maples I planted in October) and apparently the purple bush-like things I planted in front of my windows have white flowers in the spring. Who knew? I really like them, and I may actually put a couple more in this spring. Now I just need to remember what they're called...

I get to go to two and hopefully three shows this weekend, all part of Tin Pan South, an annual songwriters festival in town. Friday night is JD Souther (wrote most of the Eagles hits), Jonathan Cain (member of Journey), and Brett James (hottest writer in Country music right now, and a member of my South Africa team). Then Saturday night are the Music City Unsigned showcases, featuring Dave Barnes, Jennifer Knapp, Charlie Peacock, Matthew Perryman Jones, and Katie Herzig, among others. I'm sure I'll have plenty of music to recommend after this weekend, so I'm going to take this chance to recommend Ben Rector from the show last weekend. Infectious piano pop at it's finest, Ben is, ironically, like Ben Folds covering Matt Wertz. Check him out:

The Beat - Ben Rector