Reckless Kelly's David Abeyta is gearing up for the LIVESTRONG Challenge coming to Austin on October 8. Team RK/5k is hoping to raise at least $1,000 for the fight against cancer, and Abeyta and friends are within 20% of their goal. You can help by adding your pledge today.

It's been nearly a week since this year's ACL Fest wrapped up, and neither my energy levels nor my hearing have fully recovered.

Marah proved the weekend's top highlight. Despite a pre-noon Saturday start time ("feels like 4:30 a.m. to us"), the Philly band just plain rocked for all of its allotted 45 minutes. Brothers Dave and Serge Bielanko clearly love to be rock (almost) stars, and their onstage chemistry and fevered one-upmanship is everything the Gallaghers could have been.

Other high points included a Friday set from Nickel Creek (including their goofy cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic"), the greatly-improved-in-the-year-since-I-last-saw-them Eli Young Band on Saturday afternoon, and the blissful folk-rock interlude from Iron & Wine on Saturday evening.

I was fortunate to have my wife as my companion for this year's festival, and to have her parents come in to keep the kids so we could more fully enjoy ourselves. We took a casual path through the weekend, shunning the horrific food lines for dinner at Shady Grove on Friday, and leaving during Willie Nelson's set Saturday for a more relaxing meal near home.

With my in-laws gone and the threat of storms, we opted to stay away from Zilker Park on Sunday. We enjoyed our family time and had few regrets (among them missing Robyn Ludwick and Son Volt). Friday and Saturday were more than enough to content us on this year's ACL Fest experience.