Hello Dig Nation, and good morning from the West Coast in beautiful Portland Oregon. It feels good to be back after taking some time off to pack up my life and schlep my humble belongings across this big nation of ours. Since we last convened I ate cheese and drank beer in Milwaukee WI, hiked the flatirons in Boulder CO, hung with some old school lounge lizards in Las Vegas NV, dipped my toes in the stoic waters that run through Yosemite National Park, ran along the coast line in the pseudo-summer that is San Francisco in June, and high fived giant Redwood trees on northbound highway 101 all the way up the California coast before arriving at my new home in Portland. Now that it's all said in done I can boast that I saw 21 of the continental 48 states in under two months and I'm pleased to say that taking in American all at once like that truly is everything Jack Kerouac promised me it would be. Regardless, the blogosphere waits for no man and there is business to attend to so let's get back to work.

Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners have been a recent staple of the PDX music scene and were my first order of business in live music here. I had the pleasure of taking in the ragtime revival group at the Portland International Beer Fest over the weekend where they played not one, but two sets over the course of the weekend long party in the Pearl Disctrict. It was also a landmark weekend for Jacob Miller and the fellas because they celebrated the release of their first full length album on Friday July 19th. You can check it out and get my complete thoughts on their old-timey opus by clicking the Read On link below. You dig?

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