News update!

I am sure many of you have been wondering: when is the CD going to be available? Well, the story from conception of the idea to fruition has been a long and winding road, with many set backs and disappointments along the way. And getting the final track list together wasn't the end of the disappointments.

The place I was counting on to donate money to see to it that the CD could get made decided against donating to benefit Wayside Waifs because, as the company president wrote in his reply, "Unfortunately, it doesn't fit in with my charitable giving philosophy." I will decline to make the name of the company known, but it was a major disappointment nonetheless.

Not unforeseen, however. I mentioned earlier that if I could not get the donation, I would go into shoestring budget mode and that's what I had to do. It took me some time to find the right company to go with to get the CD made, and I finally settled on Mixonic. I am going with a low print run at first then will just go from there!

But in the disappointment, there has been good things to report:

Gary Lezak, of KSHB fame, has let me know there is a good chance he can plug the CD on the air, or at least promote it through his weather blog. Gary is well known around these parts for his work with animal charities, and I HIGHLY recommend you all read the article written about him in Paw Prints Magazine, so I believe he could really help get the word out pretty far about the project.

Wayside Waifs is 100% behind this (and for those of you who think that should just be a given, you'd be surprised! I originally tried to do this for the Humane Society of Kansas City and they opted out of me doing a CD for their benefit because they didn't want to be "distracted." Or some asinine reason like that. I originally wanted to do the project for them because they have an online store and I thought that would be an awesome place to sell the CD. But they thought it would be a distraction! Good to see they have enough donation money that they can just turn away some more!) and they are having a Holiday Open House on Dec. 6th and I will be there noon-3pm to sell the CD! They will have it for sale otherwise, but I will be there with my dog (he can sell more copies I can!) so if any of you are from the Kansas City area, stop by and meet us! It would be GREAT to see you and to give you a copy of the CD personally! Click on the link for Wayside to find out where they are if you are able to come!

Additionally, Wayside Waifs has a media manager, so they will be able to help me get the CD promoted on the air on their local news spots so if Gary Lezak is unable to help due to station policy or whatever, then no big deal, I have a back up plan!

Now, the question you are all asking, WHEN CAN I BUY THE CD???? Well, I just placed the order with Mixonic today (I know, I wanted to do this earlier, but I was waiting on other people to help out, as I detailed above, and those people just did not come through for me) and they notified me the order will ship on the 21st, and it's coming by UPS 3-7 day shipping. Once I get it, I have everything set up on Pay Pal to start taking orders RIGHT AWAY once I get the CDs! So once the box comes, I will be on the ground running! But the CD won't be available until shortly after the 21st. I wish I had a hard date for you all...it depends on UPS getting the package to me at this point.

In the mean time of waiting, of trying to find the right company to make the CD, and all the other mundane details, I decided to change the track order and Rick Malsick (who gave us Christmas Tumbleweeds last year!) made a VERY late submission for the CD, but it was a new original track, and I was in the process of making the CD graphics when he sent it, so I took one song off (sorry to Happy Death Society...NOTHING personal! But their track wasn't new and recorded for this project, and it wasn't really a Christmas song!) and put Rick's new song in it's place. And I think that the track it follows makes for two great songs together (and I am NOT saying that just because I wrote the song that comes before Rick's!) So you will see that I updated the track listing...I rearranged some of the tracks for various reasons (one reason is because Worm Is Green's track is so professionally and beautifully recorded that it made my track "Oh Santa" sound pretty poor as a follow up!) but the track listing you see now is indeed FINAL.

Last, but not least, I have a track to share with you. Ethan Waters was gracious to submit a track, but it wasn't newly recorded for this compilation. I believe this was a single in his homeland of New Zealand, but I am glad to have it on the compilation nonetheless. But I saw on his My Space page the other day he has a different Christmas track up! I wanted to contact him to see if he would let me use this on the compilation instead, but I really didn't have the time, and I am quite happy to have his Christmas single to offer on the comp. However, that doesn't stop me from sharing his other Christmas song here! I am liking the work I hear from this guy...here is to hoping he's a long time friend of this blog! (You can also view the music video for his Christmas single on his My Space page!)

Ethan Waters-Winter Smile