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I only knew, off-hand, one song from the band called Tesla, but I was sure I'd recognize more when I heard them -- I was wrong. Actually, that band broke up; but the singer and guitar player formed a new band of which this was the first I'd heard.

One of my former students, Brian, whom I mentioned back in May, won two free tickets to a concert at Bases Loaded from Z104 radio; but he is out of town this weekend, so couldn't go. His girlfriend, Shannon, called me and offered one of the tickets to anyone who would drive to the show, so I called Butch and he agreed to drive. Two more visually impaired friends signed on, unbeknown to Butch; and although he didn't like the idea of leading four blind people through a crowd, all went well and no one got lost.

Julie bought a second car last summer so that she would have a spare to use while her other car was in the shop -- ironically, her other car, an '87 Chevy Celebrity, hasn't broken down since. When I was helping Butch move last September, we used that second car, an '84 Oldsmobile Delta 88, to haul most of the smaller stuff over to his new place, which I affectionately refer to as Club Butch. Some time during that move, Butch dubbed that big old boat of a car, The Titanic, and The Titanic it is and shall be.

About a week after I wrote of being nearly snowed in, we had a bit of a January thaw and the snowmelt helped make our alley a little more navigable. This was a good thing since we needed the Titanic for our cruise to Bases Loaded for the Sofa King concert. Butch's '80 Rabbit doesn't even have a back seat in it, and even if it did, I don't think it could handle the weight of five people (it barely carries me and Butch). I felt much better after we took the old boat out for a test drive on Wednesday just to see if we could get it out -- and so, the trip was on.

The format was the same as last time; three bands, the first being an unknown -- in this case, a band named Dump Truck -- and the third the headliner. The second band, both times we've been to Bases Loaded, was a local band from Tomahawk, Wisconsin, that goes by the name of Storm. This time around, though, I think that I enjoyed Storm more than what should have been the piece de resistance from Sofa King. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the headlining act, too, especially the one song I came to hear: "Signs." All of the bands sounded great and each was progressively louder than the one before it.

Butch said that from now on he doesn't want to lead more than two blind people at a time, and would prefer a one-to-one ratio of sighted to blind . . . we'll see.