French eh?

I ordered something the other day from across the pond in France. I got an email confirming my order (or at least it looks that way) in French. Here's a snippet:

-snip-

Votre établissement bancaire nous a donné l'autorisation de prélever le montant de vos achats dans un délai de 7 jours. Pendant ce délai, nous pouvons être amenés à vous demander des renseignements complémentaires avant de débiter votre compte (confirmation d'adresse, N° de téléphone, pièce d'identité, etc.) . Une fois cette période de 7 jours dépassée, nous n'aurons plus la possibilité de valider votre paiement et nous serons malheureusement contraints d'annuler votre commande. Dans tous les cas vous serez informé par email de l'état de traitement de votre commande.

-snip-

Allrigty then. There was some other text there that led me to believe my order went through. I finally received a shipping notice IN ENGLISH today which confirmed my thoughts. It all went off without a hitch. Got my tracking number and everything. Sweet.

Looks like fall's finally here. It was nice and cool most of the day today. I hope it stays like this for awhile instead of just going from blazing hot to freezing cold. This is also one of the times of the year that I get some kind of dibilitating cold that knocks me on my ass for a few days. At any rate, I'm still going along with my regular daily does of echinacea to try and boost my immune system. I've been taking it for several months now and so far, it seems to be working.

Speaking of ordering stuff, Lesa recevied a drawing autographed by Picasso that she had won on ebay. It came from Germany. She collects that sort of stuff.

I'm STILL full...

Lot's of eating going on in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, Kay and I headed over to Logan's to grab some lunch. Her friend Rochelle came and joined us. Kay had some sort of drama going on with a guy she knows that works there. It was funny AND uncomfortable all at the same time listening and SEEING their discussion. I turned to Rochelle and said "So... you make it through the hurricane okay?".

After work, Lesa and I were going to meet up with Lorri at Simp's for a drink and some appetizers. Lynn reminded me that we had made plans to go to Macaroni Grill for dinner. Off to Huntsville we went. Dinner was beyond fabulous. I ate, no lie, what seemed to be at least a pound of grilled salmon (on spinach orzcho pasta). I was struggling to get the last few bites down. I did manage to order dessert to go though - a honkin big slice of tiramisu. When I got home, I did a few small things then went to bed. It was 9:30.

More eating today as well. Lesa, I and Lorri had lunch at Currie's here in town. I had the lasagna. Whew. When we were done, Lesa and I walked to a nearby gallery to check out... this girl I was interested in. Anyway, it turns out that after closer inspection, she was a bit young. I did run into Wendy, an old friend of mine, there working with one of the people at the gallery on choosing colors for her new home. It was good to see her again. Back to the office.

Had a good afternoon working on things and meeting with clients. After work, I again aborted the trip to Simp's and went on home to eat take out and have my dessert from last night. Think I'm gonna go watch some tube then drum for a while. That's the plan at least.

Monday is here again.

It was a typical Monday at the office. I started off by bringin in 2 cases of Mt. Dew and loading up the fridge. We have a Coke machine but I'm more of a Pepsi products guy. I also brought along one of my Red Bull's to ward off the afternoon sleepys.

Got several irons in the fire at work so I was pretty busy most of the day. Unfortunately, a lot of what I had to get done was in the hands of other people so I spent a lot of time trying to corral everyone into getting things done so I could proceed with my stuff. Had a bit of a misunderstanding with one of my co-workers regarding what I do that I hopefully cleared up. We'll see. Had a meeting over in Huntsville today around noon so I gave Bernie a jingle and we met up for lunch at Atlanta Bread Co. just like old times. Stopped in over at CompUSA for the obligatory walk-thru. Glad we did! Yesterday, I bought two 50 disc spindles of DVD-R media at Office Depot for $29 each. (For those of you without DVD burners or who never buy your own media, this is a good deal - normally they are at LEAST $50 a spindle) At CompUSA, they had the same deal BUT with 8X media!!! Yippy skippy. I can write DVD's in half the time now as all the media I had before was 4X. I also picked up a USB 2.0 hub as I'm all the time needing to plug either my camera or USB memory key in and my USB 2.0 ports are on the back of my PC which is a BITCH to get to. This hub puts it on my desk. 2 of the ports are on top so I can stick stuff straight down into it. This makes me happy.

Did the Guad thing tonight. Seems it was Asian's only as everyone else had things going on or were stuck at home covered in estrogen. (LOL, btw) Ended up picking up some things at Parisian as well as talking at length with Linda in the men's department. I finally said, "Ok, sell me something." Dang, me AND Kyle (tightwad.com) both bought stuff. Oh, Kyle's roommates showed up and chatted a bit. It was good seeing them again. Back to Linda: I commented on her hair: "Um, what's the deal with your hair?" She obviously had to get ready in a hurry and I knew it would spin her up... she went into detail about being tired, her kid, being in a hurry, yadda, yadda, yadda... it was funny. I was happy for a second time today.

Got home and found that the new grips I ordered for my pistols had arrived. I installed them without any problems and they looked great! I was happy for a THIRD time today.

All in all, it was a good Monday. I hate that some other's didn't fare quite as well. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Lesa, Lynn and me at BSJ.

Whew!

It's been a busy week for me for sure. The first part of the week was spent doing the Riverfest thing, the mid-part was getting my parents packed up and back to the Philippines and the latter part was wrapping things up at the office and going to Big Spring Jam.

Got some more pics from Riverfest thanks to Lesa. She did a really good job snapping some up close photos that some of the lesser digital cameras couldn't capture well. She's got one of the Canon digital SLR's with some nice lenses. Big thanks to her. On the flipside, it's got me thinking about a digital SLR now. Cheet.

After getting all the last minute arrangements done, my folks left Wednesday morning for the long trip across the ocean. I talked with them later and found that the trip went well... no problems whatsoever. Dad did have to get used to traveling with technology though as his laptop and digital camera were scrutinized at every security checkpoint. "That's just part of it" I told him. Very glad they made it home safely. With them gone, I got going getting my place back in order again. Been cleaning, dusting, rearranging, etc. to get things back to the way I like them. Ahhhh... it's nice to have the peace and quiet of being alone in the house again. I highly recommend it.

Work went well this week. No complaints there at all. Friday was good also. After a longer than I expected meeting in the morning, me and Joel headed over to Larry's in Huntsville to do some shooting at the indoor range. I brought along my .45 and my 9mm. Joel brought his .357 magnum. We were both very pleased with our shooting. I was especially happy with my 9mm shooting. I still have to work with my .45 to get more accuracy with it. Either way, I won't have any problems hitting a target in self-defense situation with either weapon since those typically happen at short range. The range master had us try out a sweet .22 rig he had setup with a scope and a bi-pod. It was awesome! At 25 yards, I could put 5 shots into about a 1/4" group. I'm going to have to look into that. It's a lot of fun, cheap (.22 ammo, what else?) and easy on you... no recoil, low noise, etc.

I was tired the rest of the day (had a big lunch you see) but had committed to go to Big Spring Jam with Lesa and Lynn. One nice thing is that we had been provided with tickets for free and also armbands giving us access to the VIP tent where there was food and drink free of charge! Food was excellent... they had no Corona but I made do with some Miller Lite. It wasn't too bad after all.

They were good sports and went with me to check out the band "Breaking Benjamin". I had heard OF them, but I wasn't familiar with their music. Turned out to be a bit heavy, which was okay, but I knew it was a LOT heavier than what Lesa and Lynn were used to. I checked out a couple of songs then we headed on. One thing I LOVED was how the drums sounded through the PA. We have GOT to get some subs. Holy crap it was nice.

Met up with some of our clients who later joined us at the tent I mentioned earlier. Nice folks for sure. Saw some other friends there as well which was nice. Checked out part of the George Clinton set. He came out in... a diaper. I'm sorry, I don't care how successful you think you might be in the music biz, you can't pull off coming out in a diaper.

Headed back to D-town after that. Lesa wanted to head over to the Brick but by this time I was pretty tired and just wanted to get home. Got in around midnight and crashed.

Crowd view

Doing my thing

Another one.

Side view of stage.

Slammin the kit.

Wanna laugh your hindquarters off?

I just ran across THIS link as I was looking for the website of the gun shop I use in Huntsville. Looks like a fellow customer recently made a purchase and subsequently, a bad decision.

Not bad for a Monday

Went to bed tired - woke UP tired. That was a lot of running around and doing stuff yesterday. I'm not complaining, I had a great time for sure. Work was easy today. Had a few things to do but nothing out of the ordinary. Had lunch with the ladies at El Portal, my first time there. Place was very clean and the food was tasty. Going to have to add that place to mys list of eateries.

Before we headed back to the office, we stopped in at the bookstore to check out some magazines and have some coffee. Needed the caffeine to ward off the afternoon nappy feeling.

After work, me and the family headed over to the steakhouse in Moulton for dinner. Ran into some folks I knew there. Dinner was excellent! They did a good job on my NY strip. I didn't need any type of sauce to spice it up. It was delicious on its own.

Back at the house, I unpacked and set my drums up again. That's a lot of work. Set them up slightly different this time - at an angle in the room. Bass response of the drums is MUCH better this way. I guess I was getting some sound cancellation on the kick drum when I had it facing directly at another wall. Gonna have to clean my stuff up... chrome, cymbals, shells... they're all in need of a wiping down. Looks like my drums survived the adventures of the past two weeks and didn't get scratched. Yeah baby! That's what I'm talkin bout! I know I'm anal about my stuff but the time I take to be careful lessens the chances of things getting damaged.

Thanks to everyone that sent me pictures from Riverfest. They're looking good. Unfortunately, most straight shots of me were blocked by SOMEONE'S MUSIC STAND. Note to all involved... the Asian's made it without music as was the plan. Heh. Seriously though, we all need to learn our songs and commit them to memory. As Kevin pointed out before, the stage looks significantly better when it's not littered with music stands everywhere.

I may be in the shade... but it's hot...

Rockin' at Riverfest... From L to R: Eric, Kevin, Me, Scott and Kyle.

WTF?!?!?

WTF?!?!?! is EXACTLY what I was thinking when my kick drum beater was no longer striking the drum. A loop of my shoelace got caught around it and there was nothing I could do to get it fixed until the song was over. LUCKILY I was able to slide my foot all the way forward on the pedal to at least let the pedal touch the drumhead... why is this important? Because the kick and the snare are the foundation of the beat... if I mess that up, it can wreck the whole song. Got it taken care of right after the song and tucked my shoelace INTO my shoe. Sheesh.

With that said, a big thanks first to God for the awesome day! It was a bit warm but otherwise it was perfect. A big thanks to the great crowd that showed up from the church as well as friends and co-workers of mine. Another big thanks has to go to Philip Hughes... Philip was probably solely responsible for getting our sound stuff straightened out. He's a friend of the band AND he knows how our songs are supposed to sound. He stayed on the sound guys to be sure they had things where they should be. Thanks man!!!

Both of my fellow bloggers were there (besides the band members... we're all bloggers again), Meri and Dabney. Dabs gets an "A" for effort for driving down from Murfreesboro, TN to come see us. "I got something in my eye..." (inside joke).

Met the guys from the Eric Rhodes band. Nice fellas. Gonna have to check them out when they play. I think they're mainly over in Huntsville.

Man, packing up, setting up, playing, taking down and unloading is hard work. I'm pooped for sure. One thing that was a pleasant surprise is that we weren't relly rushed at any point. We worked quickly of course, but no one was leaning on us to hurry. That was nice. Also it was nice to have a lot of help. Big props again to Philip and Jack. Another big thanks goes to Wendy (Eric's wife). She was like a one-woman roadie. "Do you have everything you need?", "You need me to do anything?", stuff like that. Great job girl!

Oh, Kyle got some video of the whole performance and is putting a DVD together. Please email him any pictures you took of the even so he can use them to spice up the DVD a bit.

After we got done, we met back up over at Kevin's for pizza. Watched Kyle's video (which looked great on Kev's new plasma) and we all pointed out places we made mistakes. You know, even with the mistakes, it sounded pretty good. The best part about it is that I think we all had fun.

Gettin my shop on.

Got up early this morning to get some things done around the house. Met up with Kyle at Mickey D's to grab a bit to eat before band practice. Got over to the church to find it a bit humid-feeling inside after all the rain and then the heat of the sun. Cranked up the A/C though and got things back to a J-Mo Friendly(tm) environment. Practice went well. I think tomorrow will go smoothly. This will be a great opportunity to take pictures and videos for our own and the church's website so I hope everyone brings their technology out and pitches in. Speaking of pitching in, might could use some help moving all our crap around tomorrow. Well, I could use help with MY crap for sure since I have the most to deal with.

It was a beautiful day outside! Met up with the family after practice and made a beeline for Huntsville. Dad was wanting to get a digital camera as he has a big need for one in the Philippines with all his travels. Plus, it will help him keep a better journal of things for when he comes back to the USA again in a few years to report on the progress being made in the various ministries over there. After some discussion, he ended up getting a Canon A95, a 5.0 MP camera. It's pretty slick. I picked up 2 256mb memory cards for him to take as well. Back at the homestead, I also gave dad my old Dell laptop and all it's accessories. Also gave him my rechargable batteries and charger for his new camera. I'll just order some new ones for me. Some things are a bit tricky to find in the Philippines so I'm glad to get dad what he needs while he's here. It may seem like I've given away a lot but when I look back at all the stuff dad got for me in the past... he's the one that got me all my computer stuff when I was a kid which got me to where I am today... so believe me, it's NOT a problem.

Spent most of the evening getting the laptop all prepped with still more work to go. Took some time out to eat some Capt. D's with the E-man before coming back home to get more PC work done. E and I talked about maybe going to the shooting range next weekend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get some target time in.

A nice day out...

It's so ironic that after a massive storm blows through, it's suddenly very nice out. Weird stuff. Thankfully, most everyone I know ended up with none to very minimal damage as a result of Ivan. I thin Eric has a few shingles to replace but that about does it.

Took the day off from work today to get some personal time in. I had originally planned to use this day to get all my stuff ready for Riverfest, but since it got moved a day, I ended up doing other things. I spend most of the day over in Huntsville shopping for digital cameras and CD burners for dad before he leaves next week to go back across the ocean. Had an attractive Best Buy associate help me out. Going to have to look her up whenever I need something there.

Hooked up with the crew at a severly understaffed Jemison's. The food, which is okay, comes in HUGE portions. Ended up only eating a third of my snadwich and taking the rest home in a box. Lesa called wanting me to swing by The Brick so me, Eric and Kyle headed over. Stopped over at my office on the way there to let Eric get a look at our prospective music video location. I think he was really diggin the design of the building.

Met up with Lesa & Co. at The Brick. Her friend Cynthia (okay, Monique as far as everyone was concerned) was several sheets into the wind and was "interacting" with the lead singer of the band that was playing. Lesa was embarrassed. On the one hand, it was incredibly funny, on the other, it reminded me of why you should be able to use alcohol IN MODERATION. Good grief. It was like watching Kyle on half a bottle of Zima. LOL!

Just kidding.

Lesa's lots of fun to hang out with. She mentioned that she was interested in coming to hear us play one day at church. Very cool. That's what it's all about. Glad to see my circle of friends growing too. That's a big plus. The more the merrier!

Got lots going on tomorrow. Must get in the bed.

It's raining alright...

Ivan arrived in my town today - at least a part of it. Plenty of rain AND plenty of wind. It's still howling outside as I type this. Thankfully, we haven't had any problems at my house. Power stayed on, no probs with the satellite dish (take THAT you dish naysayers) and my cable only went out for about 10 minutes at one point. Not too shabby huh?

Left the office a few hours early as things were closing down and I didn't have much else to do. Sen one of my guys that lived in Huntsville home even earlier before things REALLY picked up. Me, Lesa and Michael actually braved the elements to eat lunch at Edo's in Madison today. It was a windy ride but not too bad. After I got home, there wasn't a whole lot going on there either so naturally, it was naptime.

Big thanks to Dave who reminded me that a new season of Survivor started tonight. Watched the whole show and enjoyed it. Looks like a good mix of people so I'll have to stay up to date with it.

On a completely different note, just a reminder to any of my "gun-friendly" buddies that you can again purchase pistols with the high-capacity magazines. Since 1994, the max capacity was limited to 10 rounds. Luckily, a friend of mine got hold of a few pre-ban 15 round magazines and sent them to me. 15 is the actual "normal" capacity of my gun. At any rate, you can also order the magazines themselves if you already have a weapon affected by this. To my anti-gun friends... you tell someone with a gun that breaks into your house that guns are bad and he shouldn't have one... in the meantime, I'll be administering a dose of lead poisoning in the same situation.

Wonder if mine still works?

Heh.

Work's been fun this week as I continue to try and wrap up my computer order at work. You would not believe the prices they charge for network racks. They have to be sturdy, but they're nothing complex for sure. Sheesh. Finally got one picked out though and I should be able to place the order for everything tomorrow.

Congrats to the Burns on their upcoming noisemaker! Kevin shared the news with me this morning. After joking around about it (you know me), I did congratulate them. That's pretty cool. Now Kevin will have someone else to blame things on. Hehe!!!

Looks like Riverfest is a bit iffy at the moment due to Ivan. The guy responsible for the bands called me today to because they were thinking of making Riverfest a Saturday/Sundey event instead of a Friday/Saturday thing as it looks like Friday's gonna be washed out. We'll kinda play it by ear but the tentative time we play is 2:30 on Sunday. We'll have to see how it goes.

Speaking of Ivan, I swung by the church tonight to put my drums back in their cases in the even the roof of our church building starts leaking. It leaks a little from time to time, but we're probably going to be in for some SERIOUS rain in the next 48 hours so it was best to be prepared. Kevin followed my lead and picked up his Vox gear. Also arranged to have the mixer and other electronics covered up as well. As a precaution, I brought home my in-ear transmitter. It's a chunk of change if something happens to it but it's small enough to carry easily so I snagged it.

I hope the people down south make it alright tonight. We'll see what the morning brings.

Hmmm... weather could be a problem...

Well, there's a possibility that hurricane Ivan could cause us some problems at Riverfest although it's still a bit too early to know for sure. Being that the storm's so strong, rain won't be the only problem - wind will be too. As Kevin pointed out tonight at dinner, at least all of us in the band have alternate rigs we can use if we still end up playing with the threat of bad weather. We can all fall back to our regular (but still very nice) equipment instead of our mega-buck setups.

Speaking of nice setups, Kyle snuck in a new Legacy head/cab combo. This is the big gun in their line. 4 - 12" and a 100W tube amp. Kyle's a big Steve Vai fan if you didn't know that already. This is Vai's series of signature pieces. Eric, Kevin and now Kyle have all upped their gear several notches of late.

Guad squad was good tonight. Ran into Ben over there and he joined the party. Had a good time on our usual mall walk. All in all, it was a good day.

I'm tired.

Had a LONG day today. Started things off with church, which is a good thing, but did things differently today. We alternated between playing a song and then Dave talking about a segment of the message. While this definitely changed things up a bit, it was a bit awkward to get used to this first time through. Overall, it seemed to go okay. Crowd was a little down today as well... don't know what was up with that but it was good to see the faces of the people that did make it out. Another big plus was that I had my personal drums up there instead of the regular kit (which isn't too shabby BTW). I just like the look and sound of mine better, that's all. Actually, it's in preparation for the Riverfest gig Saturday. Wanted to be sure all was ready to go and also that I like the setup I'm using.

After church, a whole bunch of us headed to Red Lobster to chow down. Ran into my buddy David over there having lunch with his own group. Chatted with him a bit before putting a small dent in the crustacean population. I let Eric check out the tunes on my iPod while we were waiting on our food and after scrolling through the list, he looked over and asked "Do I know you?" LOL!!! I must admit, I have quite an eclectic mix of songs and artists on there. I'm just going to make a point of broadening my musical horizons and check out as many different genres as I can stand.

Took a short nap.

I was back up at the church at 4 as planned... Eric and I arrived at the same time and wondered the same thing... didn't someone say they were going to be there at 3:30? Heh. Kevin showed up around 4:20 or so. What was funny was that later on, Kyle asked the question out loud "Where were you at 3:30?". Apparently, he had come by. Philip showed up with his mixing board so we could crossover the subs on the PA. Big thanks to him for that.

Had a good night playing for the teens and a couple of adults. We let it all hang out tonight and turned the volume up several notches. I played pretty hard myself. To be honest, IT FELT GOOD. Things went well overall. I think we're really getting into a groove now as a band. We're used to each other's styles and such so we can play off of each other easily. It's very cool.

Dinner was at Logan's. Service was decent, but slow. Food was okay, no hair in anyone's food or anything like that so there were no hygine infractions to speak of. As usual, Eli and I had a few short exchanges of inappropriate conversation but no one else heard... we just laughed under our breaths like we always do. (Eli, we should really write some of that stuff down and come out with a book.)

Time for bed. I'm pooped.

Whole lot o nothin goin on...

Spent Saturday night at the homestead for once. It's kinda nice since I've been out practically every night during the week. The original plan was to venture out to Princeton's and check out Ben with his full band but I didn't feel like getting out again. Heavy E probably would have gone with me but one of his kids is malfunctioning so he's going to do the dad thing and hang with the family. I don't blame him. If I were in his shoes I'm thinking I'd do the same.

Speaking of families and kids, getting older and being single is kind of an unusual situation. On the one hand, my life seems more peaceful since the only person I really have to be concerned about is me. The flipside is that as I get older, I'll have less "young j-mo" time to spend with any kids I eventually would have. If I dwelled on that, I guess that could be depressing. Thanks goodness I don't get depressed easily. Thinking back, the only times I can remember getting really depressed or sad were when something was going wrong in a relationship. That could be why I'm in no hurry to get involved with anyone these days. Hmmm. I'll have to ponder that a bit. At my age, I guess I can call myself lucky that I don't have any emotional (or other) baggage to tote around as many others my age do.

You know, what it boils right down to is that being single at my age pretty much equates to being a teenager with a really good job. How about that?!? That's funny now that I think about it. Some of my friends tell me I seem pretty young (referring to me socially). I guess I am because I never had to "grow up" and raise a family. That might not be a good analogy as a friend came to mind that has a family and he's more of a "teenager" than I am... LOL! Nevertheless, I'm really fortunate to be where I am and be in the situation I am in. I'm not complaining.

On a different note, I chatted with one of my younger friends online today. She's having a bit of a tough time with school and social life. I wish there was some way I could show her that in the scheme of things, the "problems" she's going through now are nothing compared to when she gets in the real world later. I know I can tell her this, but I guess it's one of those things that until you experience it for yourself you really won't know. "Cheer up, you."

It's getting close to bedtime again. Got to get up early to catch the F1 race in Monza tomorrow. There will probably be some fireworks going into the first turn... Juan Pablo in his BMW is sandwiched between the Ferrari's. Fernando Alonso of Renault (who makes blindingly fast starts) is in the mix as well. Should be exciting.

Regarding F1, one of my less racing knowledgeable friends commented that "you like watching cars go around in a circle" when I mentioned F1. I guess that's what you'd think if the only racing you know about is Nascar. F1 is big bucks, highest technology, cutting edge racing. Here's a small tidbit of info... an F1 car weighs no more than 1300 lbs., fully fueled, INCLUDING the driver. Couple that with an engine producing more than 900 hp at revs exceeding 19,000 RPM. This ain't no tin can going around in a circle. Your F1 courses have a myriad of thing going on, turn left, turn right, corkscrews, chicanes, altitude changes, long straights, heavy braking... etc. PLUS they're not hampered by rain. Makes for an exciting race for sure.

That's a lot of stuff.

WHEW!!! It was a major operation moving then setting up my almost full drum kit at church this morning. Thanks to The Morgan's for helping me with the few items that wouldn't fit in my car. While they proceeded to cut the grass at the building, I was inside trying to get everything set up. First thing I noticed was that my kick drum sounded all weird. I had to re-tune it because the acoustics of the bigger room it was now in. I had to do some work on my snare too but eventually get it where it needed to be.

Grabbed a quick bit to eat at Subway then swung by the house to get cleaned up. Back to the church again for practice. Knocked out practice pretty good. We still had a few bobbles here and there but for the most part, things are much tighter now. We'll have a chance to run through the set again tomorrow night at the teen rally so that will be cool. Philip showed up and brought us some subs and and amp to use for Sunday night. Very cool of him. We SO need subs to fill in the low end in our sound. A few of us in the band have discussed just buying the stuff ourselves.

In other news, my yard dude showed up today and got the pasture all back to being nice and trimmed. Sweet.

Pack it up pack it in, let me begin...

Busted out my drum cases to get ready to move the big boys to the church building tomorrow. Again I am reminded of how grateful I am that we have our own building and our own set of drums at the church so I don't have to haul stuff back and forth all the time. We've got a LOT of playing going on the next few days as we get closer to our Riverfest gig and also play for a youth rally this Sunday night. I figured I'd haul my drum bling out since we really need to put our best foot forward and besides, everyone else is going to have their "good stuff" as well.

Work went well today, made progress on several fronts this morning. Ate lunch with Lesa and Mike at the Guad. Suprised everyone there by showing up with a different crew on a different day and a different time. Note to self, having a potent margarita at lunch impacts your afternoon productivity. Ran a few errands then took time off to visit the eye doc for my annual checkup. Looks like I may need to crank up the prescription in one eye. I'll be trying out a lens for a few days to see how it does for me. If it helps, then I'll have a new prescription. Yay. Getting old is lots of fun. They dilated my eyes again to do a thorough check-up. Unfortunately, they have to use some strong stuff that keeps me dilated for several hours. A nasty side effect of that is that your near vision is hosed. I went home for a bit and really couldn't do much till my eyes recovered so I did what any normal person my age would... I took a nap.

Headed over to Jemisons to meet up with the rest of the crew to eat, drink and be merry. It was a relaxing evening but a little on the chilly side. Heavy E was all comfy in his long sleeved shirt but a few of us were obviously NOT warm. The funny moment of the evening was when there was a pseudo-political discussion going on for some time then Wendy interjects with "Did you know that they're having a big sale on pants at Goody's?". Everyone's reaction was the same - "WHAT?!?"

It's not broken at least.

Went and visited a podiatrist today to get the scoop on some pains I was having in my feet. Turns out it was nothing to be concerned with which were evidenced by some x-rays and some explanantions from the doc. I just have to refrain from wearing any unsupportive shoes and wear shoes when I'm drumming as the kick pedal is rough on the joint where my big toe is if I'm barefoot. Makes sense.

I've been enjoying my iPod all week as I've found some websites that show you some cool tips and tricks for using it. It's very convenient to have my whole music collection with me in such a small package. I'm over my initial qulams about spending so much on a small gadget now that I've had time to spend using it.

Went to Simp McGhee's for dinner last night with Lesa. Some of her friends joined up with us later as we kicked back and had a few beers and ate some goodies. SOME FREAKIN EXPENSIVE GOODIES!!!! They were delicious though but I can't make this place a habit coz it'll put a dent in the ol' wallet.

Flew solo with a customer this morning... everything went well. That's a good thing for sure. Unfortunately, I can't share any specifics as I'm under an NDA but I can say that things are going well at the new office for me.

Got band practice tonight in just a bit then afterwards me and few others will be heading to Princeton's to listen to our buddy Ben Walker play. Lookin forward to it.

Oh, congrats to the Dabster for landing a new job and for the dancing gig.

So I'm sitting here in an ephod...

Not really, but if I was I'm sure it would be comfortable. The top would probably be like a wife-beater of some sort and the bottom something along the lines of a kilt. Or, it could be a trimmer fitting toga. Seriously though, Dave talked about David's attire during a time of worship in the Bible. You know, if it's cool for the King of Israel to dance around before the Lord in what would amount to an undergarment in today's society, I'm thinking God's not too concerned about what you're wearing when you worship. While you don't want to be a distraction to other people who are worshipping, I don't think the emphasis on "church" clothes is as important as some people/religions/cults make it out to be.

Where I go to church now, a casual type of attire is the norm. If you come in wearing jeans, shorts, pants or whatever, it won't raise an eyebrow. At some churches I've attended, you would think you had violated some sort of cardinal rule if you wore one of the above. On the other hand, we have to be careful that now if the reverse happens in our church and someone comes in dressed to the nine's that we don't look or treat them like the above, otherwise we're not any further along in our beliefs than before. What I'm saying is that what you're wearing is not important, so don't even try to make it an issue because it's not.

All together now...

After a long string of deleting the links of bloggers who have given up or found an excuse not to blog, I'm ADDING some for once!

For some Tennessee goodness, check out the Dabster's bLog. Also a big shout to Meri! I would have added her sooner but it took her awhile to get a link to me. A link to her bLog is posted as well.

Just got back from having lunch with E at Zaxby's. I think he's gonna be spending the afternoon on his yard before Frances dumps a ton of rain on us in the next few days. That reminds me... where's my lawn boy? My yard's starting to look like a set from Field & Stream magazine. Gonna have to give him a call tomorrow and see what b the deal.

Swung by Home Depot to pick up some new air filters for the hacienda. Gotta keep those things fresh. They get pretty nasty if you don't. Heck, it's the air you breathe so keep it clean. Got a few hours before the Guad. See ya'll in a bit.

Welcome back Heavy E!

A big shout out to the E of Heavy as he re-joins the blogging communi-tay. For those of you just joining us, Eric plays the "big strangs" in our band. He's sounding even better these days with his new gear.

In his blog he mentions he needs it for stress relief and to deconstruct. I can already smell the excitement...

Linkage on the left of course or you can click on the link above (the title of this post).

Yo. It be labor day.

It's Monday morning and I'm getting into the groove - got several things I plan to accomplish today, set up a laptop for my dad to take back with him to the Philippines, re-arrange my drums, general house stuff, move more CD's to my iPod... things like that.

Speaking of the iPod, I'm really liking it. It's a very cool design... but the case is so delicate that it'll scratch if you LOOK at it wrong. That's a bit irritating as I generally like to keep most of my stuff looking new for the most part. My car's another story but I'll be replacing that soon.

Church went well Sunday. There was a bit more energy in the room as more folks got into it during the worship time. Things sounded good up on stage as far as I could tell, but I heard some comments that the mix could have been slightly better out in the crowd if someone else tried their hand at mixing. It would be nice to have a "pro" step in for a few sessions to see what they could do with it. Dave did a good job with the message despite having the wrong book/chapter references on his power point slides. I was able to find where he was but for some others, they may be thinking that their Bible translation is WAY different. Hehe.

A group of us hoofed it over to Logan's for some grub. Always a fun time as usual. Kids for the most part behaved. I've come to the conclusion that if you beat your kids when they do something you don't want them to do, they'll tend to not do those things anymore. If your kid's still doing things wrong, you're behind a few beatings. Your mileage may vary. I heard an interesting quote last night during the cookout: "The reason Kailyn's a dream kid is because she gets spanked whenever she does something wrong." From the results I've seen, the Burns are on the right track with her.

But I digress.

During our get together last night, we busted out with some guitars and the bongos and played several tunes. That was cool. It was also entertaining to hear Scott complain about pretty much every song. Also, there was his comment: "Ya'll are probably too old to remember this..." Seeing as how I was the oldest in the room, I was really touched. Nice.

Speaking of Scott, got his blogizzle added to my blog links. I've also added links to just a few of the sites I visit regularly.

I got one.

After weeks and weeks of kidding around with Lesa about getting iPods, we both bit the bullet last Friday and ran to Huntsville during lunch to pick some up. I also found out that Scott had ordered one, but he got the HP version. So... now we're all 'podded up.

I'll tell you what, you don't realize just how much music you have until you have to manipulate it. I'll spend a good part of the holiday weekend getting all my tunes sorted out and arranged the way I want it. I'll also be ripping my CD collection and getting it loaded up as well.

Wow it's late. I better get to bed.