Hair, food and books.

Got a lot accomplished at the office. That felt good for sure. Ate lunch with Bernie at Atlanta Bread Co. with the obligatory walk-thru of CompUSA. Didn't buy anything though.

 

After work I stopped to see Holly for my haircut and also brought her some "manly" magazines to read instead of all the girly crap she has. The last batch of magazine I brought her got taken home by some of the other customers. Gee... why do they leave those other magazines there? Because they SUCK! That's why.

 

Checked with my dinner club members to see what we were in the mood to digest this evening. I threw out Dead Lobster as a suggestion and we eventually convened there. Dinner was excellent. My top shelf frozen margarita was excellent too... till I saw what the liquor tax was on a $6 drink... $1.40!!!!! WTF is up with that? I never noticed that before. Hmmm. While there, we were able to add another item to Kailyn's growing phobia list, translucent window shades. Not sure what was going on with that but I assured her parents that it would probably come out in therapy later on in her life.

 

Popped over to the mall for a few minutes to make the salespeople nervous thinking we were going to continue to browse past closing time. Next stop was the bookstore. Nothing really new there, but Kevin picked up a few items. After that I went home and relaxed.

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore...

A torrential downpour kept us in the mall a little longer than planned tonight. The core Guad squad was there sans Stacey - she was earning the coins down in Cullman today and wouldn't be in town till well after 8:30 or so. After eating, we all took the usual stroll down the mall each doing his or her own thing, Kevin off to do something video game related, Eli entertaining her child and the Asians... well, our usual. I followed the kids into the toy store just messing around. As luck would have it, I ran across one of the big Matrix Sentinel models I secretly wanted since I first saw one in one of my myriad of catalogs. Not only was I surprised to find it but it was 50% less than what it was in the catalog!!! I plan to put it on my desk or monitor as a conversation piece. Kyle was making fun of me buying toys till he realized he wanted some G.I. Joe stuff. Both of us strolled out with bags. I found a great deal on a shirt a Parisian that I picked up. Kyle missed out on a meet and greet opportunity apparently. Kyle (who is known for his keen sense of his surroundings... yeah right) was oblivious to what was going on. Here's the thing though, I think the outcome would have been the same even if he had noticed her. ;-)

Chatted with the girl at the sunglass place a little more and found out she was a Calhoun student studying elementary education. That's a good sign. We see her every week so it might be time to pass her a connection card and invite her to church. We'll see how that goes. Speaking of that, I need to remind Carlos to try and come out one Sunday. He'd make a good addition to our group.

Thanks for the hat Kev. Think I'm gonna head to bed now. I didn't sleep too well last night when one of the burgers I ate the other day decided to attack.

Just a lazy Sunday...

Had a very leisurely morning - ate breakfast and actually played a few rounds of UT2k4 online before showering and getting dressed for church. I was off drumming duty today for the first time in a LONG time so there was no need for me to be at the church by 9. The crowd was a little thin when I arrived but quickly filled up right at 10:30. Jeremy did a great job drumming of course. It's nice to hear songs you play as their done differently by someone else. It definitely gives you some new ideas to try. Sound-wise, everything seemed pretty good. What's a pain is that the room sounds totally different from the emptiness of Wednesday practice to the full room of Sunday morning. That's just something we have to deal with. I really enjoyed everything.

Big group went to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch; the Burns, the Asians, Tania and her mom, and John and Sharon. It was especially nice to have John and Sharon there. Hopefully they felt comfortable around us nit-wits. They seemed to enjoy it. Our waitress was Nicole. She usually has the personality of a wet towel but today she appeared to be a little more personable.

Stopped in at Lowe's to pick up some storage bins for the loads of winter/fall clothes I have. While I was there I was checking out some of the grills. There are some really nice ones there especially the one with the buil-in deep fryer and rotisserie. It was by Coleman I think. There were some others there by Jenn Air and Char-Grill. I'll have to look into those more seriously soon. The B's picked up a piece of storage furniture for their kitchen to organize things.

Relaxed a bit when I got home then decided to take a nap. Wrapped up the evening with some dinner at the B's and watched the majority of "Anger Management". That's about it. Time for bed again to get rested up for the usual Monday shenanigans at the office.

Random thoughts... and a little poo.

After listening to band practice the other night (when I wan't playing) I realized something. Pretty much nothing you do on the soundboard relating to drums does anything to the sound. Oh, you might PSYCOLOGICALLY think you have done something but no, not much has changed. The simple reason is that for changes at the soundboard to be evident, the PA system has to be able to "overpower" the natural acoustic sound of the drums - which ours doesn't. With Jeremy playing, I pulled the main faders for the drum channels all the way down and listened. Then, I pushed them up to 80-85% and listened. No change. Donny looked over at me with that "SEE WHAT I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU" look on his face. The only thing we can possibly do with our PA (relating to drums that is) is possibly make them slightly louder (by turning up the trim and going 100%) which isn't going to happen. Making them softer through the PA isn't going to happen either because if you turn the PA off... the drums are just as loud nonetheless. The one comforting thing is that with my kit being miked, even though I'm not "really" running through the PA, it does provide me with the sound I need to hear myself playing. Am I frustrated? Actually, no. We're not putting on a rock concert by any means but that also doesn't mean we have to compromise on sound either. I know that not everyone is a fan of drums or loud instruments for that matter. For those folks, the least we can do is make what they don't like, sound good. At least that way we have a chance to change their thinking. If we make what they don't like sound like poo, then there's little to no chance their feelings toward drums and loud instruments will change.

We'll soon be able to go all IEM on stage and get rid of the floor wedges. This will be interesting for sure. On one hand, we'll have more room on stage, a few less cables running around, everyone will be able to hear themselves (probably the most important) and there will be less volume from the lack of wedges (4). The guitar and bass amps will still be going though. Here's the OTHER side of the equation - the floor wedges were partly filling in the sound coming from the middle of the stage. Now, that will be diminished significantly. This is what I call the "poo effect" or P.E. for short. Because our left and right main speakers are so widely spaced and there is nothing to fill in the space in front of where their output converges, P.E. will be in full force for the majority of the front rows. I'm not complaining mind you, just making a prediction. What can I do about it? I don't know, I'm just the drummer. ;-)

At any rate, took it easy Friday night. I was going to go to HSV to check out Scott's band but I was a little tired. Kyle was up for it though it seems. I invited the Burns' along but I never heard back from them. I'm guessing they might not have been able to get childcare on short notice. Come to think of it, they've never went to HSV to check out any of the bands that I'm aware of. Bishop Black, who we saw in the studio earlier this week will be playing tonight in HSV. I wonder if anyone will be going?

It's a tad gray out today so I'll probably try and get some work done at the homestead. I've got some more minor cleaning and straightening up to do. Whee!

WOW! What a shot!!!

Just got through watching the last few minutes of the Spurs/Lakers game. WOW! What a shot from Derrick Fisher!!! Made the game winning shot with .1 second (a tenth) of a second left!!! Amazing stuff. Lakers win 72 to 71.

Quiet night at the homestead. Ate at home then did 2 loads of laundry. Woot.

Steamy Thursday

Yesterday evening, I went by to check on band practice to see how things were going. Things sounded good overall, but the drums were pretty loud... and a bit muddy. I talked with Donny about fixing the muddy part... send him the overhead mic output directly so he can add the high end as he needed to into the main mix. The loud part is going to be the difficult piece. Jeremy plays louder than I do, so I'm not sure it's too much of an issue when I play. When we go all IEM and no wedges, the drums will stand out even more. We'll have to figure out something for sure.

After practice, me, The Burns', Donny and Kyle headed to Logan's for some foodage. Not much to report from there other than that Kyle needs to work on getting his cellphone camera out and operational much quicker than he does now... like maybe while the subject to be photographed is still there...

Woke up to a rainy morning today. Luckily, I had no "plumbing" issues and started the day off well. Wrapped up my server report this morning and now I'm working on the billing. Ate lunch with Bernie at Zaxby's. Oh, we got new badges and crap at work today. We revamped our logo so in addition to badges we got a t-shirt, a pen, and a badge reel all with the new graphics on them. How nice.

Snatch the pebble from my... WHAT?!?!

Everything was going well last night until a routine bathroom trip turned into a very long saga. Apparently, a small kidney stone that should have passed normally DIDN'T. It got hung up on the way out. Without going into detail (which is unusual for me), it was rather uncomfortable. It was difficult sleeping but I managed to doze off a bit. Woke up this morning still in the same condition so I thought it best to stay home and not move around much and drink LOT'S of fluids. A little after lunch, things were MUCH improved. I rested a while to try and catch up on the sleep I lost out on last night.

Luckily, things cleared up by themselves without having to make a Dr. visit. I have a suspicion that what they do to fix the situation just might be a little more uncomfortable than what I would like. At any rate, I'm glad that's all over with.

Late in the afternoon I ran some errands with Kevin & Co. I picked up a DVD and he got a new case for one of his guitars. Also had a chance to talk to Kira a bit. She's got some excitment coming up next month as she and Gisele are heading to France for two weeks. I hope she has a great (and safe!) time over there. They'll be staying in Paris just a few blocks from the Louvre.

I stopped by the church on the way back home to hook up the IEM system so that Kyle and Eric will be able to hear what's going on. After that I went back home to rest a little more.

Quiet night.

I was a slug all day after my pasta lunch. Sheesh. When I got home, I piddled around a little then took a short nap. Ate some dinner then drummed for awhile. Got a call from my buddy who located an IEM system for the church and got us a rockin deal on them!!! Saved us over $1k!!!!! That's awesome. Can't wait to hear how we'll sound afterwards for sure. There's gonna be a lot of tweaking to get things just right since we only have 2 mixes right now but we'll be miles ahead of where we used to be.

I'm going to get in bed early... like right now.

Change in plans.

Since my original Indy travel buddy is now all gimped up, the Bernie-meister will be replacing him for the USGP pilgrimage to Indy next month. Got all the financial details to him so he can see what the dollar damage will be. He got an "all clear" from his cruise director so he's all set to go.Should be a blast! He's never been to an F1 race before but he follows the action just as closely as Bill and I. I went ahead and took advantage of my AAA membership and got maps and travel stuff to go along with my plans.

Hmmm... might have to bum a camcorder off someone. :D

Late start.

Hmmm, had a late start this morning and had to break the sound barrier a few times to get to the office. Just in front of me was Bernie's manager - he too was a low-flying jet as well. He would be another driver that can be certified as "knowing how to drive" during the morning rush.

Arrived at Stalag 15 only to be surprised by the presence of CRUTCHES in my office! Apparently, Bill is broken. He did not climb down off a ladder successfully. Tore a bunch of ligaments in his right ankle that will keep him in a cast for weeks then over a YEAR for complete recovery!?!? Dang. That's rough.

Guaddage

Work was okay today. MAde progress on my reports and such. I should be able to get one of them out tomorrow. Next will be the billing stuff. The programmer working on that is pretty good so hopefully we'll just have one painful time getting this first one together then have smooth sailing in the future. Work's just kind of frustrating these days. It's not interesting like it used to be.

Came home and played drums a little then laid down before meeting up with Kev/Stacey/Kailyn/Kyle at the Guad. Carlos and Rey hooked us up as usual. Our drinks were being made as we walked in. Nice.

Afterwards, went walking down the mall and talking to different folks and making new friends. Saw Tanya and chatted a little. She was dealing with an irate customer on the phone. Big fun for her I'm sure. My buddy Nick hooked me up with a Zelda t-shirt (LOL)! It will be a cool drumming shirt I think.

A friend's band was in the studio recording their new album so Kyle checked to see if it was cool for us to check out the session. It was and he, Kevin and I went over to listen to them work on one track. I think we'll be recording there sometime in the near future. We need to put a new, better demo together now that we've been playing longer and have upgraded our gear and skills. I'm looking forward to that.

I'm off drumming duty this week so I can take a breather. I still plan on working on new stuff though. Talked to Kerry today as well. He's the drummer I mentioned that visited church yesterday. I'm going to get with him soon as he was wanting to watch me play and "steal" some of my stuff... he's got some good licks too so I'm sure we'll be able to trade things out. It'll be nice to hang out locally with some other drummers. It's a great way to learn stuff and develop new ideas for sure. Now if I could only make money at this...

Technology upgrade

Kyle ACTUALLY upgraded his early 90's cellphone with the latest and greatest Sprint had to offer. Now he's got color screens (inside AND out), picture ability, video WITH sound and the list goes on. I predict his blogs will become heavier with media content going forward...

Spent Saturday cleaning up around the house. I especially took the time to clean my desk which had gotten piled up with mail and crap. It's much better now. I also got in plenty of drumming time. That evening, Kyle and I rode out to HSV and grabbed some food then made our way to the Jazz Factory for some pool shootin. Got all smokified before heading back home.

Got up at Dawn's crack to watch the F1 race in Barcelona. The Renault of Jarno Trulli took off like it was shot out of a cannon. Unfortunately, he could not hold off the Ferrari juggernaut. Even when Michael's exhaust broke at lap 11, he managed to stay in the lead and finish without his car failing. Ferrari just has all the elements, best driver, best car, best team, big budget... you name it.

Church was good as usual.Plenty of guests there! That continues to be encouraging. Dave had a really cool 3D walk-thru of the area where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. That was a great visual piece. Music went very well. The drummer from another local church checked us out and enjoyed it! He complemented my playing which is nice to hear especially when it comes from another drummer.

BIG CONGRATS TO JACK AND PAM for the birth of their daughter Claire!!!! That's pretty exciting. Pam and Claire should be coming home today.

Had our evening get together at the Burns'. Lot's of folks there. Even saw someone's kid playing with a dog turd. I do't care how old you get to be or how dry your sense of humor is, a kid with a turd is just a funny sight.

Ate some grilled chicken then sat down to watch an Eagles DVD. Not too much happened after that.

Shiny and new...

Got my spiff on this morning during lunch and revamped the bloggage. Kevin re-did his this morning making mine look fairly blah in comparison. Not one to be left behind, I too made the change. Things might not work quite right for a day or two till I get everything the way I want it so hang on to your horses and be patient.

Busy, busy, busy.

Had a very busy week at the office, nothing out of the ordinary. Friday, on of our customers got the SASSER virus. That made things exciting. Enough about work though.

Band practice went well Wednesday night. Kevin's new mic sounded really good. Be nice if we had more of those. ;-) Jo-Jo Thongbottom was in quite a mood. She apparently had some kind of field trip school bus malfunction. Ah... if only my problems were as simple. Got through the music just fine then made a run to the Guad for a little Cinco de Mayo celebration. Carlos was there ad hooked me and Kev up with our shrimp nachos. DE-licious.

Thursday night I headed over to Kevin's to watch the final episode of Friends. Kyle joined us then Stace came home. Enjoyed the show although it was sad that it was ending. I'm going to have all the episodes on DVD so I'll contiue to enjoy them for sure.

Friday, I ate burgers over at the Burns'. Afterwards, watched some of my Phil Collins DVD to see my drum teacher play.Very cool stuff.

A perfect day.

Headed out early for a friend's place about 45 minutes away. It had been years since I had been there and a lot had changed. First off, there was a cabin Ray built about a year ago. It had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and a living/dining room. This cabin was located across the lake from his main residence. Dad and Lito (the missionary visiting us) took off to go fishing and I busied myself setting up targets to shoot. I burned through several magazines and got back to my shooting form of old when I used to do it in competition. Next, Ray hooked me up with an ATV so I could go explore all the trails. It took me a little while before I felt comfortable on it as I had no idea how well it would handle. All I knew is that I didn't want to flip (or worse). Luckily, I had no problems. Ray caught up with me later after he and dad ran out to get some bait. He showed me around the areas I hadn't checked out yet. Man, he's got a LOT of land.

The took off in a boat to check things out on the other side of the lake as they weren't having too much luck fishing off the bank. They were out there for a few hours so I went back to exploring and shooting some more. When they got back, I let them shoot to their hearts content. It was the first time Lito had handled a gun so I went over all the safety stuff. I get kind of nervous around new shooters for some reason. He did great though! Dad also sent a lot of lead flying. All in all, we had a great time out there. It was DEFINITELY a nice way to spend a Tuesday for sure.

Headed back to Decatur in time to get my hairs cut. Afterwards, I went and got some of that famous Scottish fast food... McDonald's. Hehe. Chowed down then hit the drums for about an hour or so. Oh look... it's time for bed again.

Wow, that was a stretch...

Sorry for the lack of updates fans... I've been busy.

Last Friday, a missionary friend of mine and my parents came into town. He's from very close by where my parents live in the Philippines. Had to put him up in my drum room so things are a tad bit cramped in there for now. He's only here for a week so it's not a big deal. Nothing much else happened that evening. Just took it easy for the evening.

Saturday found me working on my equipment rack from church. Rather than work on it there, I drug it home. I pulled out one of the compressors I wasn't using and rack mounted my in-ear transmitter. It's less likely to be damaged that way than when it's sitting on top. I also spent a LOT of time fixing how my drums sounded through the PA. It is MUCH improved now. For the time being, Heavy E is sharing my mix. Got confirmation from him Sunday that things were much better this time around. Ate dinner with the Burns that night. Dana and Stacey had been working on a project all day and had a mess they didn't want to leave behind. So - met Kevin up at New China for take-out. Ivy saw me some in and asked "Same thing?". Shrimp with lobster sauce is my "same thing". It's delicious.

Woke up to a rainy Sunday morning. Loaded up my stuff and headed to the church to get set up. VERY pleased with the IEM system I'm using now after Jesus tweaked it a bit (no really...). Everything sounded amazing through it. E and I realized, since we're currently the only IEM users, is that we're in a sonic utopia where everything sounds great! It may sound like crap out in the audience but we won't know. It's not our problem anyway as that's someone else's job. Hopefully though things are turned up to where it sounds good and musical. All went well. Lot's of folks there... more people are becoming "REGULARS"! That's very encouraging. Afterwards, the usual crew headed to Dead Lobster for some lunch. Ran into some old friends in the lobby then sat in Emily's section. It was good to see her again.

Post lunch we went to Best Buy/Circuit City and Old Navy to do some shopping. We all picked up something then went home. Met up later at the Burns where we ate, drank and were merry. I mentioned to Kevin that I would buy the subwoofer if he would buy the amp... or vice versa. He made some high-pitched noises which I took to mean something other than "ok" or "yes". Heh.

Work Monday was... work. Nothing to note there.

Had the regular Guad squaddage with the associated post eating fun in the mall. Went to Office Depot to pick up some supplies then hung out at the bookstore with everyone till I was too tired to stay up. Went home and here I am.

Taking the day off tomorrow to head to the lake to do some fishing and some shooting. Haven't had a chance to do that in a long time. I'm looking forward to it for sure.

Now for something different...

Work has stunk the last two days. Nuff' said.

Got a call from my buddy Cameron this morning telling me he had a spare ticket to the Prince concert this evening in B'ham. I took him up on the offer since I didn't want to waste a perfectly good $70 ticket... (WOW.) Prince's band had a drummer I wanted to see; John Blackwell Jr. There was also a VERY pleasant surprise! Candy Dulfer, a sax player I've liked for years, was going to be playing and singing in his band as well!!!

Made it to the concert in time for it to start. The show was good although the sound was pretty crappy at our seats. Prince's vocals came through well but all the bass stuff was extermely muddy. He played a few of his new songs as well as his big hits from the past. He did an acoustic version of Little Red Corvette that was pretty grooving. All in all, it was a nice way to spend a Thursday evening in Alabama.

It's late and it's time for bed.

Can we BE any more confused?

Confusion reigned Monday at work. Here's the situation, trying to get a customer site up in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. By "up" I mean on the wide-area network or WAN. Here's the legend to the conversation : C1=Customer One (the people in Ft. Lauderdale), C2=Customer 2 (corporate HQ person), T=Data line provider or phone company, M=Me, E=Engineer (the one I dispatched to the site)

T tells C2 and M that the circuit in Ft. Lauderdale will be ready as of last Friday. M arranges to have E on-site noon today. E gets there a few hours early and moves equipment from old office to new (the whole purpose of this exercise) killing the OLD network connection and connecting it to the NEW. As noon approaches, I call T to check on the status of the data line. I find out that something fell through the cracks with T and it's not ready. I break the news to C2 who freaks out because C1 has been on him to make this happen. T is not sure when the circuit will be ready but C2 wants me to commit to getting E back on-site on Tuesday. I tell C2 that if we don't get confirmation from T by 2:00 PM my time that the data line will be ready on Tuesday, I'll schedule E for Wednesday. 2:00 goes by and I set up E for Wednesday as his Tuesday is already full. C2 gets a message (at 3:45) from T that the circuit will be ready on Tuesday but gets confused and thinks it's ready now. C2 calls M to see if I can get E back on-site today. "At 15 minutes till 5:00 local time? No way." I try to help and talk C1 through cycling the power on the network gear just in case I can get them running since E already hooked things up earlier in the day. No luck. I call T to see what might be wrong. That's when I found out that C2 misunderstood and that the line wouldn't be ready till sometime Tuesday. I call C1 and explain the situation completely. She's very appreciative but you can tell she's mentally exhausted because it's the end of their month and payroll stuff is due, etc. I tell her that we're ready for Wednesday but there's a chance that we can try what I attempted this evening sometime tomorrow and could possible get them going before the Wednesday appointment but no guarantees. She understood.

Left the office and met up with the Guad Squad. Had a great time with everyone. I even split an order of fajitas with Stacey. As it turns out, Stacey eats *ONE* fajita then starts whining about being full. I end up bring 5 lbs. of food home "for later". Next stop was Dillard's where we raided the clearance racks again. $5.99 ea. for some really nice stuff! I picked up 3 more items. Next we headed down to EBGames where I picked up a new racing title, TOCA. I haven't tried it yet because I haven't had the time or motivation to find my PC steering wheel. I'll get to it eventually. Sears was next on the agenda. Saw Tania and the incredibly unreliable John. Kev & Stacey got hung up buying a canister vac and the rest of the crowd, including me headed home.

Hit the ground running Tuesday morning. Called up T to see what the deal was with Ft. Lauderdale. The circuit was failing testing. GREAT. T calls C2 and he freaks out. I check with E to make sure we're still good for Wednesday. We are. Later in the morning, I discover (on my own) that the data line is working. I login remotely to their router and take a peek around. Everything's looking good. I call C1 and have her try some things. Her network connection WORKS and now she tells me she loves me and that she's single. I'll need to see a picture first before I go down that road. Anyway, I call T and let her know I got the site up on the network but not to tell C2 yet. I call C2 and leave him a voicemail to tell him I have bad news. C2 promptly returns my call. I tell him that it looks as though the circuit turn up won't be happening on Wednesday. Silence. I wait to see if he breathes and he doesn't. Then I tell him "because I already did it this morning". He freaks out of course but is very thankful. I even got an email as proof. That was funny. Gonna be expensive for them for sure though because I'm not makin all these calls for free you know.

I spent the rest of the day on other complex issues although not quite as far out as the one I've been talking about. Kudos to you if you were able to follow all that dialog.

After work, my folks and I headed over to the Burn's for a crab dinner.Dave and Dana showed up briefly to say hello then we got to eating. Got stuffed. Kevin played a little keyboard and a little guitar. Mom tried unsuccessfully to get Stacey to sing. Kailyn warmed up to mom by the end of the night. After dessert, headed home. Now it's late and I need to go to bed. What a full day.

The weekend update.

Saturday was a good day all around. I kicked off some domestic duties first thing in the AM so that I could spend the majority of the day in relative leisure. Saturday is my only REAL discretionary day as if I don't plan anything for it, then I actually will have nothing to do! Watched the F1 qualifying to see how the field would be lining up for Sunday's race. Congrats to Jenson Button of BAR Honda for his first ever pole position! I'm really happy for him. He's a good guy.

Headed out to get a can of electrical contact cleaner to try and remedy some noise on a volume control knob on one of my electronics. Found what I needed at Lowe's and came back to work on things. My folks took off around lunchtime to head down to Bessemer where my dad will be teaching at a church in the morning. Took a nap then spent most of the afternoon working on drumming stuff. Watched a good bit of TV also. Stayed in for dinner then called it a night.

Got up bright and early Sunday to watch the F1 race. There was excitement all over the track! All in all it was an enjoyable race. Michael did win again as usual but the drama behind him is getting pretty interesting. After that, loaded up my stuff and headed to the church. Got set up and plugged in the new IEM system. Heavy E hung off of my transmitter and shared my in-ear mix. His was the first IEM receiver to come in for the rest of the band. It's a different model running on different frequencies but it does have the very cool option to run in a wired mode. I just let him hook to one of my loop out connections and he was live live all the way live. The rest of the IEM system for the band should be here by this time next month so I'm sure that will be much appreciated, especially by the vocalists. Speaking of vocalists, Eli and Amber did a great job this morning. Everything went really well, the music, the message... everything.

A big crowd headed over to Logan's for lunch. It was here we discovered that Kailyn would COMPLETELY FREAK OUT when she saw crutches... Brian "The Gimp" Baer had underwent surgery Friday for a heel spur and needed crutches to get around. Kailyn came unglued at the sight of them. The weather took a serious downturn while we were eating and it was POURING outside. Went home and tried to watch some of the Talladega race but my eyes got heavy and I took a nap. It was the best nap weather... raining and gray outside, cool and quiet inside. After waking up, it was time to cruise over to the Burns' for our weekly small group meeting. Lot's of folks there! The Morgan's, The Baer's (well... Brian and his attachements), Chuck, David, Eli, Kyle and Me. Pizza was the cuisine of the evening - it was good and filling. Watched some TV then shared prayer requests. It's during this time you become thankful for what is/isn't going on in your own life. It also puts problems in perspective. Got some folks going through some tough times for sure. Wow.

Work week is FINALLY over.

Had some bonehead action on the was into work this morning. A woman in a Chrysler product was plodding along in the left lane doing 50 or so. People behind her were honking and flashing their lights. I saw a gap and took off. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that I was only one of two people that got away. Sheesh. Push bars should be standard equipment on vehicles that you can pay extra to have or pass some qalification to own. But I digress.

Dinked around on my monthly server report and got it sent out finally. That a lot of data to move around but my buddy's Excel wizardry does most of the work for me now. I just have to copy and paste in graphs it creates into a report template than change the wording to match the data. It's not complex. Just boring.

Got my "Package from Jesus" call around 9:00. Went to FedEx at lunch and saw Mike again. He's used to seeing me so often now that he doesn't need my ID anymore. Got my goodies and stuck them in the trunk. Bernie and I went over to Bellacino's for lunch and hung out. Back at the office I finished up the rest of my day then went west to go home.

After eating dinner with the 'rents, I headed up to the church to meet the fellas and hand out goodies. Some small parts were missing but I've already arrange to have them sent out on Monday. I think we're all extremely pleased with our new toys. I hope Eric's IEM receiver arrived as it was supposed to. He'll be one cranky bass player Sunday morning if it didn't.

Rolled over to Home Depot with Kevin afterwards to stock up on some 9V batteries. Kev fueled his lamp fetish by acquiring another floor lamp. Stacey showed up a bit later and took over Kailyn duties. Not much happened after that.

Work. Yay.

Headed off to band practice Wednesday after work. There was a big turnout! In addition to the folks on the schedule, Amber showed up as did Jeremy and Allison. We spent a good bit of time at the beginning trying to figure out why things sounded like crap. One big thing discovered was that my kick drum was "off" on the sound board. SIGH.... Once that was fixed, things began to improve. Still have to work on the stage volume though and the solution to that, while in the works, got delayed again.

Amber's got a set of pipes on her for sure. She just needs to get over whatever it is that keeps her from singing with us regularly and just do it! Wow. What a great voice. Turns out Allison was like the stealth bomber of singing. She grabbed a mic later in the evening and kicked out some notes as well. YA'LL QUIT SANDBAGGIN AND GET WITH THE PROGRAM! Heh!

Jeremy toted the congas and bongos on stage and mic'ed them up. The added sound from the hand drums gives a lot of depth to our sound. He was playing pretty hard last night so I imagine his hands are a bit sore today. Sure sounded good though.

Post-practice the usuals (Me, Kyle and The Burns) headed to Ruby's. Good food, good dessert, hot women. What? I weilded the "power of the baby" on what turned out to be a new mom at the next table. Kyle was present during all this but wasn't actively part of the dialog with the girl. Turns out her kid is 8 months old. Kyle did try his hand at fork-feeding the baby some of my dessert. I think he's gonna see if he can get one at Pet Depot.

Today, I had my most ambitious lunch at Edo's. I was by myself so I sat up at the bar and told Luis what I liked and then asked that he just whip something up. Whoa momma. I got 16 pieces of some of the best tasting stuff I've had in quite some time. It even LOOKED impressive. When he passed me the block it was on, people were looking over at it. "This isn't on the menu". It made what I usually got look pretty bland in comparison.

Work pretty much stunk but I made it through. Going to work on some things at home tonight and try to get to bed a little earlier than I have been. Lately I've been getting sleepy in the afternoons. That sucks when you're actually trying to accomplish stuff.

Been busy.

Monday was a good day. The nice weather continued. I also saw that Brian had finally posted his much ballyhoo'd nose hair dissertation. Great job! Very crunchy...

Nothing notable happened at the office. After that was over I headed to the house to drum a little before joining the Quad Squad @ The Guad. It was the core group (Me & the Burns) + Kyle. Kyle's fast becoming a regular to that event now. Stacey's gonna have to squeeze out another kid so both me and Kyle will have babies to use to cure our singleness. Kev - get to work.

J/K of course, but Kailyn is way cool by baby standards. She does have her bad moments but she's usually disciplined quickly before it becomes too much of a problem.

After dinner, it was too late to walk down the mall (thanks Stacey...) so we all headed to the bookstore instead. I looked through some jet ski and music related magazines while the others wandered around doing their thing. Kev ended up picking up some books on sound and mixing - guess he's going to take a proactive approach to addressing recent sound related issues we've encountered. You da man. Don't forget to bring headphones Wednesday night so we can check what's *REALLY* coming through the board. I may record our practice straight off the board as well to establish a baseline of where we're starting from. Time to take the sound thing seriously I guess. I didn't go to all the trouble and expense of getting my own equipment, taking lessons and practicing only to have the quality of my sound diminished.

Had a rough start Tuesday morning but felt better as the day wore on. Another stellar day weather-wise. Talked to my buddy up north - he got my check today and is shipping out our sound gear. All in all, he saved us about $2000 off of retail prices. VERY COOL. Should have the gear Thursday or Friday.

Got my hairs cut at Holly's then hooked up with The Burns for some dinner at Zaxby's. That's about it!

On another note, I'm kind of excited about doing some recording soon. Kyle has the gear we need to put some tracks down on DAT. We also have a possibility of a really nice location to shoot a video. Kyle DEFINITELY has the gear for that. Well see what happens....

Beautiful weather on a Sunday

Woke up to a terriffic morning. Sun was shining, birds chirping, my car covered in tree sap. Headed to the church after my morning hygine routine. Parked behind the church in the grass and realized that about a bushel of grass clippings sticks to your feet when you come in that way. I noticed that the area behind my drums looked like I was starting a mulch pile which is when I made the connection. Got all my stuff hooked up and jammed a for awhile while everyone got ready to warm up. The mic switch I did on my kick drum fixed my drum sound. It has some built-in EQ that gave my kick drum some ooomph. Turns out the ooomph was only in my IEM's. Kyle made the comment (he was sitting in the crowd today) "Holy crap, there's like no kick drum or bass guitar in the mix..." All he heard was vocals, snare and Kevin's guitar. We really need to work on getting that fixed especially since the kick drum drives the tempo. I shudder to think that in the room all you hear is attack and no resonance from my kick. If our system isn't reproducing it, I should take my shield down and let the acoustic sound of the drum do it's work. It's kind of frustrating since I'm completely mic'ed but the only person really enjoying the sound is me. Oh well, not my problem. I've done my part to present the signal from my electronics to the house gear. After that, it's someone else's ball. I think a solution is in the process though. Just hope it happens soon.

The music went well this morning. Only had some minor things happen. Evidently, Joel was looking at the wrong chord chart during one song and locked up a bit when he realized what he had done. I had a stick malfunction during Ancient of Days when my right stick got knocked out of my hand. No sweat though, kept everything else going and grabbed another one I had stashed. I have extra sticks in holders on both sides of me JUST for these types of things. Got it all back together just in time for a big fill in the song. Don't know if anyone really heard it though...

Dave did our next lesson on Moses. It was very good. Even learned about a new people... the Magiptians.

Afterwards, a crew of us went over to Logan's for lunch. Jeremy & Friends joined up with the usual suspects. Kyle was hoggin Kailyn again. Speaking of Kyle, he started making noises that sounded like an old glass-pack muffler from the 80's. Apparently, this is a noise supposedly produced by cajuns. Kev mentioned that Kyle was Cajun-Asian and named off some cuisine of this new culture... Kung Pau Catfish, Sweet & Sour (forgot this one).

Next stop - Publix. Ran around the store a bit with the Burns picking up groceries for the evening then I headed home for a much needed nap. Later, I headed to their place to grill out and have our devotional time. Eli, The Wes's, Brian & his attachments, Kyle and myself were in attendance. Had a great time together rolling hot dogs across the patio then putting them back on the grill... "whatever got on it will just burn off..." (this was Brian's comment - watch out if he's cooking). Jordan came over to corral all the larvae into one room so the rest of us could meet in peace more or less. Thanks Jo-Jo.

After our devotional time I headed on home to finish up some laundry. The weekend's already over. Sigh.

A fun Saturday!

Headed out this morning for a Nashville trip with Kevin. He had a change of plans last night when Stumblin' Stacey ended up having to head to Birmingham today instead of "doing things around the house"... which means sleeping. ;-)

Things were moving along swimmingly until we ran into some serious traffic just south of Franklin. There was some paving work going on and instead of keeping a decent speed, everyone was checking out how pretty the cones were and how big the paving machinery was. Good grief thats frustrating. Got a little nauseous from the fancy clutch-work of Special K but recovered when we were able to get up to speed again. First stop was Joe's Crab Shack for some eats. As usual, we took too early of an exit off of the interstate. Note to self, EXIT ON MOORE'S LANE next time. I had a plate of grilled Grouper and a skewer of grilled shrimp while Kev had a 33 shrimp platter. Now stuffed and with emptied bladders, we continued on. Next stop Fork's Drum Closet. Tried out some smaller hi-hats as well as a heavier ride cymbal. Just shopping though since I already went over-budget on the stuff I got yesterday. I did end up picking up a set of thicker heads for my main kit at home. Ended up going with some Remo Smooth White Emperors. K picked up a shaker.

Strolled next door to Corner music and looked at more stuff. K showed me the Vox amps he was interested in. Cool stuff. He also picked up some accessories - most importantly a Planet Waves cable I mentioned a while back. It will allow him to plug and unplug his guitar cable without the ***POP*** going through the PA system. Also looked at the JBL subwoofer from the same series as the main speakers we have. It was a little larger than what I expected, but that's a good thing.

Headed north to Sam Ash. They had a lot of stuff, but nothing I was particularly interested in. There was a hottie working there setting up a keyboard (sorry Kyle, no picture...). That was about the only excitement. After that we headed back to Decatur.

Ate Jim & Nick's chicken fingers with the Burn's then finally got home. Go the new heads on and sounding good. They'll go out of tune shortly since they're new and getting settled on the shells but I can already tell I like the deeper, warmer sound of them. Going to play a game or two on the PC then call it a night.

Audio pimpin...

Due to my buddy at the sound company, I got an inside track on an employee sale going on today at their place. Now, mine and several other wallets are lighter.

I picked up another microphone as well as another IEM system... (may sell one and turn a profit)
Kev got a wireless mic (the supa-fly one)
Eazy E got a set of E5 earphones - the same ones that I and now Kevin has.

Unfortunately, the IEM system the church is wanting was not one of the items available or I definitely would have jumped on that too. Such is life.

On another note, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY IT IS!!! Warm and breezy... ah....

All UP on the brakes.

As I was hurtling to work this morning, I suddenly had to romp on the brakes. Why? Because someone a few miles p ahead had a fender bender but had moved the accident out of the way of traffic. That of course did not stop the countless biscuitheads from slowing down to see what had happened causing the traffic jam. Grrrr...

Yesterday was a good day. Ate lunch with Tina and shared our stories abot what was going on in our respective offices. Swung by FedEx afterwards to pick up another package from Jesus. (heh)

After escaping from the office, I headed home to pack up my stuff for practice then went over to the building. Since I got my mini-mixer installed alsong with my new cables, my mix was off just a bit. That took some tweaking to get right. At the end of the night, I still wasn't 100% happy but I was moving in the right direction. Somehow, the main mix got affected but I'm not sure how. All my new stuff connects to the monitor outs of MY mixer, nothing but the cables changed in my connection to the main board. What's up with that?

It would almost be nice to hire someone that does sound PROFESSIONALLY to evaluate our setup and adjust our board to see how good it could sound. Right now, you've got a dozen people with a dozen different ideas of what they "think" things should sound like but its all based on personal preference, not solid acoustic knowledge.

Just my opinion though - and I don't claim to know anything.

Isn't it the middle of April?

Then why is it cold as CRAP outside? I'm glad I didn't put any of my winter clothes away, that's for sure. I'm getting a lot of extra mileage out of my warm stuff for sure.

Monday evening involved the usual guad squad but with several additions! Dave, Dana and Eric joined us but also David and Chuck showed up as well. We all had a great time and some good food. Chuck ordered the house wine and they brought him Mike's Hard Lemonade. THAT was funny. "Maybe that IS their house wine..." Afterward, we headed down to Sears to see if Tania was working and if she had the remote controlled fart machine with her. Much to David's dismay, she had left the machine at home. Maybe next time. After that, we all parted ways. I was extremely tired and went almost straight to bed.

Tuesday was busy at work, stuff was breaking, people were getting anxious... the usual. Called in an order for some custom audio cables I was needing for my sound equipment at church expecting them to be ready sometime tomorrow. Headed to lunch at Edo's with Bill, Rod, Daniel and Pete. Had a good meal and a good time. Got back to the office to polish off my billing spreadsheets when I got a call from the cable people telling me my cables were done! What a pleasant surprise. I got certain cables done in color now depending on what they are being used for. That way, I can easily tell if something's missing if I have any problems. Much easier in color rather than looking at a rat's nest of black cables.

Came home and practiced a few of the tunes before tomorrow's get together. I look forward to a good time.

Pizza anyone?

That was pretty much all I ate today - Pappa John's for lunch and the same thing for dinner. Went over to the Burns' house just to hang out for the evening since our usual "small group" took the night off for the holiday. I brought my PC over to do some impromptu gaming - it's an ideal situation since Stacey has a PC that I could simply use the monitor, speakers and keyboard on so all I had to bring was my CPU and mouse. I brought my mouse since I'm used to how it's calibrated and such. Played some UT2K4 with Kev and I yelling back and forth to each other while playing on the same team.

After eating, Kev worked on getting ahead in Splinter Cell while I made some progress on the level I was on (Eric: I got past the plane...)

Gonna be time for bed soon...

Happy Easter!

The weather report for Sunday morning wasn't looking too good so I went ahead and brought my stuff up to the church to set up on Saturday night. That way I wouldn't need to carry anything in but my umbrella. As it turned out, there was only a light drizzle and not the downpour I was expecting. Eric was already there and was plugging things in. I got all situated and began warming up as others arrived. Soon we were all there and things took off. Had a few techno gremlins, but nothing we couldn't recover from. Somebody... grabbed one of the vocalist mics to talk through it and must have been drenched in reverb. The reverb got turned down but unfortunately in the process, the audio to me of Kevin's and Jordan's vocals got cut off - completely. I spent the first song watching Kevin's lips and singing along myself to keep track of where we were in the song. Pam finally saw me struggling and got a message back to the sound folks - "Houston, we have a problem". Got fixed in time for the next song though otherwise I would have had to stop and GET it fixed because I couldn't continue without the threat of hosing things up big time.

Oh, my new technology worked without a hitch. I just need to get a few more cables to be able to have more control over my in-ear mix. That will be very cool. I also worked on my kick drum sound by using one of the unused channels on the church's compressor. Kept things from sounding too loose and boomy. I was actually getting a strong "click" on each stroke so I turned the kick drum beater around to switch back to the felt head. Much nicer.

Dave did a good job with the message. It was "tight". LOL! Had several guests there and people we hadn't seen in awhile. All in all it was a good crowd. It always is though no matter how many are there. It was good to see Joel and Chasity too. It was funny seeing Joel with a tan. "Dude, you don't look Goth anymore" I said. "I'm not Goth, I just don't get outside much...". Too funny. Even funnier than that was when Eric started doing the "Goth dance" as portrayed by South Park. Now THAT was riot.

Oh, it looks like Kyle has a groupie now. Apparently, he sends shivers down the spine of a particular member. ;-)

Gonna eat some lunch with the family then probably slither into the bed for a much needed nap. It's gray and rainy out... the BEST kind of sleeping weather.

Vroom vroom!

Friday was busy at work. Had sushi for lunch at Edo's. Met all the main staff now, sushi chefs Luis and Koz and Keio, the head hostess. They're some really nice folks. Wrapped things back up at the office then cut out to head to the track. Bill and I picked up a bite to eat then headed on. After we got our pit armbands we walked down to the trailers and met up with John and Frank. Got John ready to go for his warm-up practice time and he took off. After a couple of laps, he got into the gas a little too soon and the car came around, smacking into the pit wall. The car was a bit banged up - John thought he was done. Bill, Frank and I got to working on the car and had it ready to go for qualifying. I used a LOT of duct tape to repair the sheet metal tunnel feeding the radiator. Bill and Frank were working topside to fix the nose as best they could.

Watched several other classes race before our race began. It was exciting! John had another wall run-in but it was relatively minor. He finished the race... he wasn't last - AND the car survived! All in all, it was a good experience for us all. John had raced in the past but on much larger tracks in an SCCA class. This is his first foray into round track racing.

Stuff is here.

My buddy came through and my IEM trnsmitter arrived today. Gonna go play around with that to be sure the frequency is set right and such on it so I'll be ready to go Sunday.

Gonna work on getting a PC up and running for my folks tonight. Woo hoo!

And now for something a little different.

Got my Friday night lined up... I'll be part of the pit crew for a friend racing at Huntsville Motor Speedway tomorrow night! I'll be heading over there after work for warm-up and qualifying. After warm-up, we'll be changing out tires and such for the qualifying run. For those of you that used to work with me at the 'Graph, it's John Munroe who's back into racing now. He'll be in the orange #21 car.

Just got some more details, we'll be outfitted with gloves, crew shirts and hats. There will only be me and my buddy (and office mate) Bill on the pit crew so we'll be sure to see plenty of action. Apparently, I'll be the jack man. Also will have a collection of spare lug nuts in case one goes flyin. This might be pretty dang exciting.

Can we have a little more traffic over here?!?!

Haven't gone on a traffic rant lately and it's about time... Heavy police presence this morning tagging folks on their way ino Decatur. Saw a city cop and a trooper on the way into wrk and they both had someone pulled over. This is a good thing. On the way home, it was another story. What's up with the random braking just past where traffic from Madison merges into the westbound lane of 565? Somehere right in the vicinity of the Greenbrier bar-b-q place, people just romp on their brakes for no apparent reason. Boneheads. Sometimes there is a culprit, an idiot in a white ice cream truck doing 35. He needs to get ticketed for going below some sort of minimum speed. Anyone who drives back and forth to Decatur in the evening will know the truck I'm talking about. Once I get almost to Decatur, the traffic stops. Turns out there was some sort of traffic stupidity involving a firetruck and police right at the boat harbor entrance. Dave was ahead of me and gave me a heads up on the situation so I'd know what to expect.

Work today was busy. Had a customer coming to visit so had to dress all nice. GOOD NEWS! FedEx came through for me and delivered my package overnight anyway! It arrived at 8:20 AM. I'm pretty pleased about that. Hopefully, my replacement unit shipped out today and I'll have it in time for practice tomorrow. Ate lunch with Bernie at Tellini's. That was a mistake as I could later barely keep my eyes open at my desk.

Got hom and laid down fo a bit as I was unusually tired. Ate dinner with the folks then went to practice my stuff before our band practice tomorrow. Easy set so it should be no problem. Kinda was in a weird mood after that. Played on the PC a bit before winding down to crash. I'm tired.

Monday... again.

Everything went well Sunday. Music was right on. Dave delivered a good message. Afterwards, a crew of us headed to Logan's and fed our faces. Next stop was the mall to watch Kevin spend money. Jordan and Erin scurried off to look at something while Kyle hogged Kailyn and paraded down the mall. I wandered around a little as well. Went home next and crashed for a few hours for a much needed nap. Woke up and headed to the grocery store for stuff to bring to Kevin's. I ran into Chuck and David at Winn-Dixie doing the same thing and they followed me over there.

Amber and Butt-Zit man showed up a little later and hung with us awhile. After suggesting some benzoyl peroxide-soaked depends undergarments to cure his "condition", they left. LOL!

Kevin got cranked up with the discussion for the night just in time for the kids to start acting up. I decided to take one for the team and haul the kiddies upstairs for a free J-Mo behavioral modification session. Put one kid on my left and installed a sippy cup another on my right with the same configuration. Loaded up "Piglet's Big Adventure" on the DVD player and proceeded to watch. Suprisingly, the kids stayed still AND quiet. Of course it helped that whenever they started doing something I determined to be undesireable (which was pretty much anything) I asked them something about the movie. That usually jammed them up and they forgot about how they were about to do something to piss me off. All in all, it was a decent experience without any major malfunctions to speak of.

Work went well for a Monday. Got several things handled. Also was able to get my in-ear transmitter shipped off but not overnight as I had planned. Evidently the size of the package was the big factor in this case, not the weight (5.5 lbs.). $60+ for overnight! I opted for 2 day service instead. Gonna have to bite the bullet on Wednesday though as I probably won't have the new transmitter back by practice time. I guess I'll use my earplugs and a floor wedge old school style. It will probably be a good exercise anyway in case something ever happens and I'm without my IEM's at some point in the future.

The weekend!

Nothing of note really happened at work since my last update. It was just regular ol' work. Kevin met me for lunch yesterday at Edo's to try some sushi. He was a trooper and tried everything. It was then I learned he had an aversion to cucumber. That was unexpected. Out of everything, I think he dug the tempura shrimp the most. The hostess later told him that on his next order to be sure and note "no cucumber" and they will happily oblige.

Later that night, I hooked up with the Burns again for dinner at Golden Phoenix. It was okay, but not as good as the Tai-Pan buffet I have on Thursdays. Afterwards, swung by Parisian's to try on some shoes then I headed over to the church to reconfigure my drums. Since I no longer have to accomodate anyone else on them, I decided to set them up the way I used to. Got as far as I could then went home.

This morning I met up with the group at the church to do some work. I was mainly involved in the front flower beds along with Sharon. Planted a few azaleas and spread out mulch. Also did trimming on the bushes to get them neater looking. Eric did lots of mowing and trimming, David was spreading chemicals, Jack and John were demolishing an old shed, Kevin and Dave were raking, Dana, Stacey and Wendy were putting together the kids playthings. It was a pretty good crowd out working. There were a couple of people missing, but it was the usual ones so it was no surprise.

Gonna take a break this afternoon then get more done tonight. Whee.

Another day down...

Woke up this morning and realized I had no more clean pairs of jeans (that fit anyways...). I had to kick it up a notch and go "business casual". Headed off to work on a cool start to the day. Talked to Stacey on the way in. She was heading in the opposite direction to Florence to work today. She called later to let me know she arrived safely. That's cool.

Work was slow for me overall. I worked on improving some processes and procedures to hopefully make my job easier in the future. Went to lunch with my manager, Kim. After lunch was pretty much more of the same thing. Headed to Holly's afterwards to get my usual haircut then stopped at the mall to pick up some alterations. Talked to Dave pretty much the whole ride home. Got home in time for the rain to pick up a little.

My cable company came and swapped out my modem for a new model that would handle the speed upgrade. Very nice service. Called them yesterday afternoon and they showed up this morning. I'm supposed to be getting up to 3mbs down and 512k up. SWEETNESS. I can host some games now with good performance. Thanks to Kevin, I'm involved in several - Splinter Cell - Pandora Tomorrow, Far Cry, and UT2K4. Might get a chance to try some of that out this weekend.

Had a small dinner then played on the drums a bit. Set list is pretty easy this week so practice should go well. Donny helped me get my new kick drum mic set up on the mixer... a supa-fly Shure Beta 91. I may take the other mic I was using, an AKG D-112 and use it on my lowest floor tom. We'll see. Got a small fortune in mics now that I think about it... (4) Shure Beta 98's, the Beta 91, SM57, (2) KSM-137's, AKG D-112, and an Audix SCX-One. I'm all set to go the next time we go into the studio for sure.

Dang, it's late again.

This isn't natural.

I *actually* got caught up at work today! I even started going through stuff on my desk and throwing away old things. I went to bed late Sunday night and paid for it today after lunch. I thought I was going to keel over at my desk. Speaking of lunch, I headed over to Publix (in Madison) for a sub then went by my cleaners to pick up some laundry I had left last week. So there I was, stomach full, comfy chair, the sound of rain on the roof of my office building... it was hard keeping my eyes open - BELIEVE me.

On the way home from work, there was a big traffic jam on 6th avenue. As it turns out, something happened that killed the power to that area of town. I called my sis and found out she was sitting in the dark at her office finishing a project. That must have been fun. Was cheking email at home to get the song list from Kevin when I got an IM from Sarah. We chatted a little then I invited her to join the Guad Squad. She joined me and the usual suspects at the restaurant for our usual Monday routine. Strolled up and down the mall before we all went our separate ways. Eli was having some trouble at the homestead which kind of put her in a less than optimum mood but I'm glad she was at least able to make it out and walk around with the group. I really hope her situation improves because I know she would be so much happier if things were even just a *little* more different.

Tonight, Kev brought along his new Musician's Friend catalog - holding it like Gollum with the ring of power. It was easy to imagine him looking at it thinking "My precssss-ious..." LOL!

Time for bed.

set pooped=1

Standard Sunday

Got up to the church and set up my stuff. Everything went smoothly today except for a problem with a wireless mic. Donny got everything ironed out eventually and there were no major problems to speak of. Music and the message were good.

Afterwards, headed to Ruby's with Kev and Kailyn for some grub, then over to Office Depot to see what was on sale. Nothing there appealed to me and I only picked up some vlecro ties and a screen wiping thing. Check out the bookstore too before heading home. Ran into an old friend, Wendy and chit-chatted with her a little as I was leaving.

Went over to Kevin's later and hung out for awhile. Eli joined up later and we vegged on the couch and watched the tube most of the evening. Came home to finish up some laundry. Time for bed now. Another fun week at the office begins tomorrow. Yippee.

Full house.

My "guests" finally arrived. My parents arrived from the Philippines Friday afternoon after a lengthy (it always is) flight. It's about 23 hours to get here from there. Me, Solita, Daniel and Dave met them at the airport. We headed to Cracker Barrel so we could all get some real food in us. Had fun catching up with them then headed back to Decatur.

QUICK FUNNY: I have a friend that works at Shure, the microphone company. He had located some items for me and shipped them via FedEx where they were to hold it for me to pick up. My buddy's name is Jesus' (pronounced, "heh-soose", accent on the "soose"). FedEx has this automated system that calls to tell you they're holding your package. I answer the phone and the computer asks "Is this Jonathan?". "Yes" I replied. "We are holding a package for you from *Jesus* (pronounced the regular way)." It went on to give me instructions but I was laughing so hard at how funny this all sounded. When I went by FedEx, the lady there said "You must be pretty important! Not too many people get packages from Jesus..." LOL!

Didn't do much but hang with the parents for the remainder of the day. Daniel and Solita came back over for dinner with us. Called it a night shortly afterwards.

Saturday was pretty slow. I really didn't get going till after lnch. Mom and dad are still trying to adapt to the time change. There in the Philippines, they run 14 hours ahead of us - so 12 midnight here is 2 PM in the afternoon there. That's a BIG difference to get used to.

Ran some errands in the afternoon. Saw Kira at Emiron and picked up some cables from her. Also was able to get her to loan us her band's PSM200 IEM system to try out. Dave was wanting to compare them to the ones the church had just bought. That will be good.

Hung with my folks again tonight. Updating my blog while they watch Gladiator on "the system".

Action packed week so far.

The highlight of my Tuesday is that my car had a SEVERE miss in the engine. It was okay driving to work, but when I went to lunch and ran errands, it was very very bad. So bad that I had AAA come get my car to take it back to the shop. I had planned on riding home with a co-worker but the tow dude said I had to ride to the shop with him. So... short day at the office.

Got to the shop and they pulled it in right away. Turns out that one of my spark plug wires had split on the plug end and was sparking to the head instead of to the plug. I saw it myself and thought "wow". Got a replacement wire and fixed that problem. They also cleaned out my idle air control valve, adjusted my idle, tightened a motor mount and changed my oil and filter all free of charge for my trouble. That was pretty cool. Ran a few more errands afterwards then went home.

Wednesday I went to the mall to pick up some games that were released that day - Far Cry and Splinter Cell:Pandora Tomorrow. Got a free t-shirt with one of them. Stopped by at Dillard's also to see what was left of the sale items. I ended up picking up another jacket and a few shirts. Kevin was heading to the mall to get his games too and bring me a pressure washer. I hung around and went down to Parisian where I found some pants on sale in my size. Got those and got them measured for some alterations. By now, Kev showed up and we decided to eat lunch at Gibsons. Kev suggested we see if Dana wanted to join us so I gave her a ring. She met up with us and we had a good time chomping down some grub. We talked a little bit about church buildings, one "nearby" in particular and one from Kev's past. I mentioned, "So, if you see a church with this kind of design and floor plan, they're gonna screw you over..." LOL! That's actually funny but more of an inside joke. In another funny moment at the restaurant, Kev mentioned that he felt like he was cheating on Jim & Nick... with Big Bob! He was referring to the restaurant of course but out of context it was pretty funny.

Went home and loaded the games and tried them out. Both look great. Then it was time to pressure wash. Did that for awhile. Next, I had to get a bed frame since I inadvertantly gave the one I needed away. It subsequently became part of Jack's welding scrap so there was no getting that back. Whoops. Ran out and picked a frame up then got it back home. Next, I had to work on that new Agnes Dei song we were going to be practicing. I hadn't heard it a lot before so I would definitely need to get some practice time in. Worked on that for a while then jumped in the shower. Off to band practice.

Kev and Dave were there setting up the IEM system for the band. I set my other drums back up while they were busy. Retuned them as well because they were a good bit out and sounded like crap. Once that was done I was all set. Practice went well although the IEM's will take a little getting used to for everyone. Stacey seemed happiest with them. "I can actually hear myself!". I've been using IEM's now for over a year and love them. I could not imagine playing without them.

Logan's won out as the dinner destination. Me, The Burns, Kyle, Eli and "The Slapper" went. Dinner was good and follicle-free. The fireworks started when the two kids were seemingly getting along then all of the sudden, Emma smacks Kailyn across the face. While Eli hauled Emma off for a beating, Kailyn looked all confused as to what had happened. She didn't cry though she was a little bewildered by what was going on. That was an ugly scene. I hope she doesn't think that it's okay to do that to other kids as a result. I'm glad Eli addressed it quickly. That's not something you let slide.

Can I get some coffee first?!?

Dropped my car off to get the repairs finished then headed to work with an officemate who gave me a ride. 60 seconds after I sat down on my desk the phone started ringing, then emails and IM's came pouring in. Spent the better part of the day trying to get a site in Colorado up on the WAN. After replacing equipment, it turned out to be a problem with the phone company (Qwest) gear. Suprisingly, they showed up on site a little over 2 hours after we got a trouble ticket opened with them. That's pretty dang impressive. After they fixed their stuff, me and my people came back in and got the other pieces in place to get things humming.

Picked up my car after work... hmmm, I have one lingering problem - the car "stumbles" a bit when accelerating from idle. I'll call tomorrow and see what the deal is with that. Got home and felt really tired all the sudden so I crashed for a bit before the Guad Squad get together. Got up and met Kev at the mall first to pre-order a game. Once again, I got screwed on the perks - Kev got a free CD thingy for Far Cry. That was the last one. Last week, I pre-ordered the special edition of UT2004 on DVD. Kevin got his, I got screwed because we actually weren't supposed to get them (due to a stupid issue) but Kev picked his up before EB Games realized the error. GAH!

Got a battery in my watch changed by some old friends at a jewelery store then made my way to Guad. Met up with the usual suspects, the Burns, Eli & Co., "Biceps" Root and the suprise guests - the Andersons! We all had a great time. The margaritas were at a tooth enamel dissolving level tonight. I stopped at one. Finished then went with Kyle, Eli, and the kids to Dillard's to shop. I picked up 2 more casual shirts. Went home after that.

Joined Brandon and some of his friends on their UT server for some Onslaught. Did pretty good. It's fun getting back into that fast action game. I look forward to doing more of that. Time for bed now though.

Twistage... then relief.

Got to church this morning ready to have a great time. Eventully that was the case, but we had a ROUGH start. Sucked like a Hoover during warm-up. I have a feeling that a certain somone is going to have a set of IEM's one way or another very soon. I know how they feel though as about a year or so ago I was in the same situation when I could either use wedges and go deaf or switch to in-ears and have a MUCH lower volume AND be able to hear what I need to in the mix.

Several visitors were there including Eli's friend from Montgomery. She was in town to celebrate Eli's larvae's birthday. Another gues I knew from a past job I had. I hope they come back. Steven came out too. It was good to see him there. He'd be a great addition to the band. I hope he decides to plug-in with our group. That would be awesome.

Well, it came time to play. I just prayed to God that everything would go okay although I was prepared for a train wreck if one arose. Suprisingly, no problems whatsoever that I could tell! BIG thumbs to Eli - she must have done a lot of work between last Wednesday's practice and today. Nice job. All of Kevin's new toys worked as well. New guitar was great! One minor tuning issue arose due to the wild temperature fluctuations we were experiencing but it was taken in stride. Dave did a good job with the message as usual. Hope the recording turns out okay though - his mic was pointing straight to the left as it was clipped too high up on his shirt and flopped over. Consequently, the sound from the PA was quite hollow. Ya live, ya learn.

Ate at Dead Lobster for lunch with the Burns and Root. Late into the meal, Kyle looked like an Irish Setter pointing at some prey as his gaze was locked on... his plate. Turns out there was a hair on it. "Eat around it" was our server's suggestion. ROFL! He ended up getting his meal for free and a dessert as well.

Kev and I headed back to the church to load up my drums and to pick up his keyboard and guitars. That reminds me, we're gonna have to look into doing something about ventilation in the men's restroom. After the service was over, I ducked in there to get rid of a Mt. Dew I had earlier. I walked in and almost choked. I thought the EPA would show up as this would definitely qualify as a release of toxic gasses into the atmosphere. Wow. That was rough.

So much for frequent updates...

I had a blindingly busy week. All went well for the most part. No major malfunctions to speak about. Ate at all the regular spots.

Took my car in Friday to diagnose and fix several little things that I haven't had time to get repaired. Some brake stuff, a rough idle issue, oil leak and O2 sensor problem. The shop didn't get done with everything as a part that was needed hadn't arrived so I'l be taking it back Monday for them to finish up on it. Ate dinner with the Burns at Dead Lobster. Ran into the Wes's (yeah I know Kim...) and the Prevatt newlyweds.

I had a pretty aggressive schedule for Saturday. The plan was to fix 2 toilets, move my drums to the church, and move some furniture around in anticipation of my guests arrival. Packed up my drums - which also made me realize how thankful that I don't have to do this every week anymore. That was a chore but it went by suprisingly quickly. Kevin showed up and we hauled it all up to the building. Unloaded and set them up. Kev brough along his new guitar, a VERY nice Fender HSS Strat. While I was getting things adjusted, he was playing on his big amp. That axe sounds TONS better than the Hooptiephone model he'd been using up to now. Once I got all my crap in order, we jammed a bit then made our way to meet Stacey and their larvae at Logan's. Next stop was Lowe's for some gaskets and plumbing junk.

Got started on toilet #1 - it needed to have the gasket between the tank and the bowl replaced as when you flushed, water leaked out as the bowl was filling up. Kev and I wrestled with some corroded bolts and finally were able to get the tank off. Put the new gasket on and installed all new innards as well. Re-assembled things then turned the water back on (had to use the water main - that's another story though). Took a couple of flushes but we were still leaking. We theorized that the bolts holding the two together weren't tight enough. So... as we were tightening, I mentioned at one point that I had a small drip going. Suddenly, a huge crack appeared and water started shooting out. I scrambled out to the front yard and cut the main off again but not before I had a small pool in the back bathroom.

So we're at Lowe's buying a toilet now. Get one picked out and heave it back to the house. Got the old toilet removed and then had "fun time with the wax ring". Got ready to install the new one and the wax ring that was supposed to be included with it was missing.

So I'm standing at the customer service counter at Lowe's... Third time there today. The got me a new wax ring no questions asked. Back to the villa for more action. Oh, also in the same trip, Kev picked up his wet/dry vac to clean up the mess. Got most of the water up then proceded to work on getting the new toilet in. SUCCESS! At this point though, I had no desire to do any of the other things I had planned. This plumbing debacle sapped the life out of me. Big kudos to Kevin for the help he was today.

I'm looking forward to church tomorrow, especially since I'll have my "good" drums there. Kev will have his Roland and his Strat and Eric will have his fly Lakland. I hope Kyle brings the Jem and his Mesa Rig. We'll be in full-bling mode at that point. I hope we have lots of visitors AND lots of returning folks as well. Should be a good day.

Tuesday 2-day wrap-up and hypen-over-use.

Monday wrap-up: Work was busy AND productive. That was nice for a change.

Had our gathering at the Guad. I arrived first and was surpised to see an ex-gf there with her parents. Said hi and chatted for a bit then headed for my table. Soon Kevin waddled in with his "peeps". Next was Eli, who took 15 minutes to get from around Chik-Fil-A to the Guad. Last but not least was the new "regular" - The Root of All Evil. We all dined on Mexican fare then unleashed ourselves on the mall. I went ahead and hoisted Kailyn up on my shoulders and took off with her. First stop was EB Games where somehow I got talked inot pre-ordering the UT 2004 Special Edition (a lot of drama later on as a result). Next was a visit to Sears where we talked to Tania. Also saw Andrea there and chit-chatted. Back with Kailyn perched up high we headed down the mall again. I stopped over at one of the kiosk things to say hey to a girl I had met a few weeks back. Eli was right behind me to thwart any attempts I made... at anything. (Note to self: bring along a toy to entertain Eli to keep her occuppied) Ended up at Dillard's again for some shopping. I picked up another shirt, 2 winter scarf things, and a black casual coat. Now I wish it was fall again so I could wear all my new stuff. At least I'm ready for this coming fall. I've spent a LOT on clothes the past few weeks. Also took Eli into the dressing room to evaluate jean lengths. We apparently disagree on lenght so to make peace, I'll eventually get a pair of jeans to wear when she's around. I may look like Shaggy walking to the Mystery Machine but I least will know Eli's not rolling her eyes about it. As we were leaving Dillard's, Kyle took an interest in trying out the "Power of the Baby". After a bit of uncertainty about how to operate the baby, he hoisted Kailyn up on his shoulders and took off. Turns out he really dug it. It seems like as long as one of the Asian's are around Kailyn won't have to walk much. Took some fun photos then headed home.

Watched "Average Joe" before going to bed. Looks like it will be a good series. I'll have to keep up with that.

Tuesday wrap-up: Got to work late and left early. That was messed up.

BIG mix-up with my UT2004 pre-order. Turns out Kevin and I should not have been offered the pre-order deal. Kevin lucked out and went to the mall early in the day and picked up his copy before they caught the mistake. By the time I arrived they figured out what happened and I got screwed. We'll see about that. The manager is trying to fix things for me and was real apologetic for the situation so I'll give him a day or two to get me copy before I open up a 55 gal. drum of whup @ss on em.

Went to get my hair cut. Holly was running behind so I got caught up on all the tabloid news. I can't believe people pay money to get that crap. Next, I went over to Kev's to check out the new games and eat part of a bird. It was good. Now I'm home doing home stuff and am getting ready for bed. I practiced a new song we've got going for tomorrow. I hope practice goes better than last week. Ugh. That was rough.

The weekend has past...

Saturday started out with an interesting excercise at the church where you evaluated yourself for strengths and such. While I'm sure it was beneficial to some, I had been through others before so I was a little bored. Hopefully it helped someone. It was good to see a few new faces willing to participate in these sorts of things though.

Went home and worked on some things I need to get done before my "guests" arrive in 2 weeks. Ran out and did some errands. Also checked out the new Publix. FINALLY! A real grocery store. While I was waiting to order a sub sandwich there, I met a guy named Darius from over in Atlanta. He and his wife moved here about a year ago and were also eager for the Publix to open. Turns out he pastors a church somewhere here. I told him a bit about Crosspoint. He seemed interested in that. Got my food and we parted ways. Saw Terry over in the seafood department. He normally works at the Madison Publix. He was bummed that they didn't transfer him. He lives in Trinity so it would have been convenient for him. Oh well.

Got back home and did more work in the yard. I hate leaves. Just need to get that out there. Leaves suck.

Know what else sucks? Cleaning bathtubs and tile. We must have some really hard water around here as a thick layer of lime builds up on the surfaces and is like chalk to get off. Major pain in the butt to clean but I got it done. Later, I did some laundry before going to bed.

Church went much better than our practice last Wednesday would have led you to believe. Everything pretty much went off without a hitch. Sound was slightly off but Donny came on the scene and got everything back in order. It's definitely nice to have Donny around. He mentioned he had a bit of a rough week. Hope this next one's better for him. Everyone did a great job this morning. Dave did great as well with his message and illustration. Lots of visitors this morning. It was good to see all who made it out.

Applebee's won out for the lunch choice. My food today was good, suprisingly. Kyle and I gave our necks and eyeballs a good workout looking at all the "scenery" there. It was few and far between but if you worked at it, you'd find something worth checking out. Next, nap time. Ahhh....

Got up and headed to the grocery store to pick up some items for the get together at Kev and Stacey's. Had some good burgers and a good time just hanging out. Kyle showed up a little later to join us. We all had a good discussion about spiritual things and where we were, etc. I laid out some thoughts of mine and shared them with the group on how "connected" I felt to God and why. My basic complaint was that I found myself to be too passive instead of taking an active part in reaching others. I've got to think on that then do something about it.

The weekend at last!

Sorry for the sporadic updates but I have been quite busy lately and haven't had a chance to update as often as in the past. Thursday was another busy day at work. Joined up with my regular crowd for the Chinese buffet and ate too much as usual. Spent the remainder of the afternoon tying up loose ends.

Got home and piled up on the couch to get a few minutes of rest before heading back over to the church again to tighten up the tunes for Sunday and work on some secular stuff as well. The song Kevin wrote is coming along nicely. It just improves as we try new things each time then either add or remove things depending on how it sounds. It's a cool process. After packing up my things, we headed to Logan's for dinner where Stacey and Kailyn met up with me, Kevin and Kyle.

When I got home, I unpacked and put the pieces back on my kit at home. Fiddled around with some new hardware a little then called it a night. I slept great.

Friday was good. Plenty of meetings and time spent fixing problems whose resolutions were long overdue. Had a sub for lunch from Publix which was a nice change. Also went by my cleaners who lately have been hosing up with some of my dry cleaning. When expensive stuff of mine gets messed up, I get irritated. I'm making them paranoid now - I don't just pick my stuff up through the drive through, I go in and look over my things in front of them. We'll see if that has a positive effect. If not, I'll be looking for a new place to use. Hope that I don't have to though, I've been using them for 5 years now.

All day today I've had a headache. I thought it would go away after lunch but it didn't. Got worse as a matter of fact. Went home early and laid down for a few hours but it didn't seem to help much. Took some drugs and now I'm feeling much better. I usually like to hold off on taking anything unless I absolutely have to. While that sounds good, I don't know if that's such a good idea in reality. I did lose some time this afternoon that I could have avoided possibly.

Just relaxed at home this evening. Chatted with a couple of friends online, drummed a bit and ate dinner. Guess I'll head to bed. There's a thing at church I'm supposed to attend in the morning. It's at 9. Yipee.

Midweek update.

Yesterday was another good day at the office. Dave (not church Dave) came in from out of town. He's a project manager I work closely with. We all went to the driving range together for lunch to just hang out while Dave and Bill hit a few. I FROZE MY ASSETS OFF. Took me all afternoon to thaw out.

Headed home after work and found another package from my buddy at Shure. I told him that one of the drum mic mounts I had seemed to be cross-threaded and was a pain to tighten. He sent me a whole new mount! I was just expecting one or two parts. This thing sells for $50!!! Very cool.

I got some laundry started, washed dishes and did some sweeping before I went over to the mall to see if there was anything else I was missing from the big Dillard's sale. I picked up a couple more things - 75% off is awesome!

Saw Ivey at New China. She gave me a VERY hard time about not coming around for a long time. It's been about 2 months since I've eaten there I think. Nice to have been missed though. Went home and practiced some of the music for the upcoming practice.

Just read Kyle's blog about his Dillard's adventure... I almost don't know what to say. I IM'd with Jeff briefly and we've pretty much decided that your club "membership" has been upgraded to lifetime status after that last episode. The only thing that prevented you from having dinner with this girl is... the fact you didn't ask. She will probably be happy to certify your club membership since you passed the test she gave you. LOL! Too funny.

While on this subject, Jeff made a disturbing statement duing our IM exchange regarding dating... I quote: "Well female is a good quality. It is almost always the first thing I look for..." DUDE!!! That better be the first quality. Sheesh.

Ya'll are killin me.

Hump day is going along well so far. Had lunch at Edo's and put a dent in the seafood population. A couple more hours here at work then it's off to band practice. Lookin foward to it.

Monday, Monday...

Monday was a very good day. Work was busy, but productive. I like it when it turns out that way. Got an email from Carl (Pearl) apologizing for not getting a package out to me as he's been down with the sickness (heh) for a week. I bought a piece of hardware from him 2 weeks ago and was waiting on it.

Got home and played around on the drums a little then headed to the mall a little early to do some shopping. BIG sale at Dillard's. I ended up picking up more clothes because you could not pass these deals up. Met up with the Guad Squad and had a good time haning out and eating. Eli & her entourage took off first, then Kev and Kyle headed to Dillard's to see what I was all excited about. I hung with Stacey and Kailyn and kept them entertained. Kev made it back with a full back of stuff. He was like a little kid showing off everything he picked up. There were 15 minutes left so we paid our bill (and Kyle's too) and scooted back down to Dillard's again. Kyle was down there waving a questionable pair of jeans around. I picked up two more casual shirts and Kevin got something else. A big night of shopping as you can see!

Went home and crashed.

A very nice day!

Woke up to a beautiful Sunday morning. Somehow I hurt my hand last night setting up my kit at church - it was still bothering me this morning. I was concerned that my sticks would rub against it and make it worse but luckily that was not the case. Got there a few minutes late but set up quickly to sound check. WE HAVE TO GET SUBS! Wow! Having the two we borrowed for the concert last night was awesome. My kick drum was sounding THICK baby! With the proper equipment (just adding an EQ) we would be all set.

Music went well except for a bobble on my part. During "We Are Hungry" I got a bit lost. No one but Eric probably noticed though. Not to worry though, I was there to enjoy myself and as long as we didn't have a train wreck, that's all we ask. Oooo... our pre-worship jam stunk up the place though. Turns out Kyle couldn't hear Eric and just stopped. I thought we were quitting and stopped too - a couple of times. Um, we must communicate if we have a problem please.

Dave did a great job on the message. Big props to Jacko for wearing the high priest outfit and for keeping a straight face the whole time. Also, having the real goat for an illustration was a nice touch.

Went to Logan's for lunch with Kyle, The Burns, and Eli & Co. Ate too much as usual then went home for a nap. Got up a little later then went and picked up more crap in the yard as the wind had been blowing and dead limbs have been tumbling down. I've got enough sticks to build a log cabin sitting in a pile on the curb now. Looks like I'm not the only one though. Lots of my neighbors have brush piles waiting to be picked up too. Hit the grocery stroe then went to Kevin's to hang out. The Morgan's and the Wes's came out. Stacey made and Kevin grilled some excellent burgers. YUM! We talked about a lot of things and had some good discussions. Later, we watched a good bit of the Dave Matthews Band concert in Central Park DVD. That's an excellent show. I want to have that kind of fun on stage. We all do! We're going to work on it going forward.

Gonna wrap up a few things here at my underground lair then curl up in the bed.

Wow. The 2004 Ferrari's are fast... and reliable.

Spent the majority of the day on domestic stuff - laundry, grocery shopping, post office errands, etc. I spent some time fixing my sister's computer this afternoon eradicating over a dozen viruses from her system as well as fixing a few registry errors. What a mess. I may give her some computer parts as her PC is pretty slow. Kyle swung by for a bit to check out a video from the Dave Matthews Band. That's a good concert.

Went by the church for a few minutes at Kevin's request to wire up the subs for the concerts tonight. I went back home to catch the F1 race - the first of the season. Kimi Raikkonen, one of my favorite drivers, retired early due to a water pump failure that resulted in the engine locking up and sending him spinning off the track. Fernando Alonso did pretty good finishing behind the two Ferraris. The Renault car looks good. Nice color scheme. The next race is going to be in Malaysia.

Headed back over to the church to set my drums and mics up. I ran into Sarah there. That was a suprise. She said she was feeling better than she did when I had talked to her earlier. That's a good thing coz it sucks to be sick especially when it's nice outside. Got everything set up in record time then went back home. Time for bed now.

The weekend is here!

Had a busy day at work. Got PLENTY done, so that's a big plus. Ate lunch with Bill at Edo's and got filled up. We were both decked out in our F1 shirts, Bill's was Renault and mine was Ferrari. F1 is kind of lost on the locals here though, this is more of a Nascar COUNTRY than anything else. No matter though, it's something I enjoy so I couldn't care less what others think. Please note that this is the proper use of "I couldn't care less". Lots of people mistakenly say "I could care less" which obviously means you still "kinda" care about something. Just thought I'd throw that tidbit of info out there as a bonus to my loyal bLog readers.

Ate dinner with my regular eating partners and filled up on dead crustaceans. Delicious, dead crustaceans. I went straight home afterwards to veg on the couch as the large meal left me short on blood sugar and I was tired. After I recovered, I played on the drums a bit while also doing a few loads of laundry. By the time I was finished, it was time for qualifying for the opening F1 race in Australia. Ferrari's are in front again. While I like Ferrari, I'd really like to see another manufacturer turn up the heat on them. The only two or three that have a chance to are BMW, Renault and maybe Honda. We'll see how it goes.

For those of you who don't know about F1 but want to, let me know. There is only ONE F1 race in the U.S. It's in Indianapolis, IN. That will limit confusion from when you see what you think are F1 cars at a race but in reality you watching another series - CART or the IRL. If you see a bunch of cars going in a circle or an oval... it's not F1.

Had a stormy evening. It's soggy outside for sure. As a side note, even during the rough weather, I never lost my satellite TV signal. That makes me very happy.

Okay day overall.

Work was work. Nothing special. Had the Chinese buffet for lunch. Yum!

Got my hairs cut after work then went home to relax a bit before "jam time" started. Heavy E showed up then Kevin a short time later. Kyle didn't make it - he was exhausted after a short first day on the job not doing anything (LOL)! Jay and his buddy Darius showed up a little later to check out what we were doing. Jay's interested in the bass so he and E had much to talk about. We played a few tunes for them which I think they liked. I looked over at Darius and he seemed to be getting into it. Earlier, we played a song Kevin had written. There's a lot of potential there. He's going to make a scratch track for me so I can develop some more dynamic drum parts to the song. It's very cool to be working on original stuff for a change. I think that's going to be lots of fun.

Formula One season's started so I'm pretty jazzed about it. Unfortunately, Ferrari already is looking like they are poised to dominate once again. I like Ferrari and all but their continued dominance is really becoming detrimental to the sport. We'll see how the racing goes this weekend though and what pans out.

G'night.

Wednesday already!

Wow! This week is rushing by! Made big progress today at work and got my WAN simulator project working. Whew! That was exciting. I've got finish documenting how to configure and use it then hand it over to the folks needing it. It's nice to be doing technical stuff for a change instead of B.S. reports.

Picked up some dry cleaning after leaving work then headed home to pack up my gear for band practice tonight. When I got there, Heavy E, Jeremy and Scott were playing. They sounded pretty good. I could tell E was getting into it over there as he had the "I've got wood" look going on there while pumping out the bass line. A bunch of us are getting together at my place tomorrow night to jam again like we did last week. Should be fun. And LOUD. I'll be sure to rig up my mini-disc recorder again so if anything turns out sounding good, we'll have it down.

When practice was over, we cleared the stage off for the bands coming this Saturday. Disconnected all my mics, cables, and electronics to put them aside so that no one walks off with any of it. Got a few coins invested in that stuff so I tend to keep a close eye on it. Headed over to the barrel of crackers next for some chompage along with Kyle, Kevin, Kailyn & later, Stacey. Sarah, our waitress from last time was there. I came up to the hostess and asked if Sarah was working.

Hostess: "Which one?"
Me: "The little one"
Hostess: "We have two."
Me: "Is one bigger than the other?"
Hostess: "Yeah"
Me: "I want the small one"

Lo and behold, we got the right one. She looked a little different though with a new hairstyle. Still looked good at any rate. Had a good time up until she cracked on the size of my pen... Later, she showed off an ear piercing she had done.

Me: "So... what else ya got going on there...???"
Sarah: "None of your %$&* business"

When she got ready to walk off she leaned over and mentioned that "it didn't hurt as bad as the other ones..." then grinned.
Girl's got a sense of humor too.

Went home and unladed all the stuff from my car and set my stuff back up in the studio in preparation for tomorrow night. Going to wash some dishes and crash.

A packed weekend...

Had a great weekend at the WPBA tournament. Got a late start Saturday morning after Kyle and Jeffrey made a run up to Nashville the previous evening. Kyle apparently lost my email address to let me know that we were going to leave later than planned... so he posted in his bLog about it in the hopes I would read it. While that's a bit goofy sounding, it actually worked as I usually go through bLogs sometime during my morning routine. I put some laundry in the wash and slithered back under the sheets for another 2 hours of sleep.

Kyle came and got me then we headed to pick up Jeffrey. Kyle deftly dodged some chasms in the driveway next to Jeff's housing project. I don't think Jeff had recovered from the previous night yet as when he came to the door... you know how you look at 4 A.M. when you get up to pee? That's what that reminded me of. But I digress. Next stop, Tuscumbia for some eats at Subway. A few hours later we arrived at our destination but not before passing through some of the most boring wasteland commonly referred to as "northern Mississippi". Guys, we do NOT live in a hole. THEY live in a hole. Wow. That was a depressing couple of hours of scenery.

Got our room and headed promptly to the arena. There were a few people there but it was by no means packed. I was suprised at how close you could sit to the actual billiard tables and players. They were literally RIGHT THERE. I took extra caution to disable the flash on my camera as it was not allowed. As a result, some of my pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have wanted. We watched for awhile then went up to Corky's BBQ for some dinner. It was okay but nothing to get all excited about. Watched the remaining matches that evening then made my way into the casino. Played blackjack for awhile and also made some friends at the table. That was a fun time. I called it a night around 3:00AM while I was up a couple of hundred dollars. Got back to the room for the least restful night of my life. In the morning, I discovered that the hotel must have set their water conditioning system to HIGH as I could barely get the soap and shampoo off. On a positive note, the water pressure was great and the hot water never ran out.

Ate breakfast then lined up for the final round matches. Met some girls from Louisiana that had driven up for the tournament. I was chatting with them for a bit till Jeff got back from getting some candy. He started talking to them and they moved. (LOL) But I digress...

Got some GREAT seats!!! We'll be all over the ESPN broadcast I'm sure. Allison Fisher ended up defeating Jeanette Lee in the finals. Kyle and I took pictures with them. I also got a shot with Dawn Hopkins and Gerda Hoffstatter. They were very gracious ladies. Oh, the previous night, I approached Jennifer Barretta for her autograph which I got. WOW! She was super hot. I wish I would have asked to take a picture with her as she was just phenomenal. She finished 7th in the tournament. I saw her later in the casino but I had chips going everywhere and couldn't just get up to talk to her dang it.

The pit boss remembered me from the previous night when I walked by the blackjack tables. He hooked me up with a comp for 2 people at the grand buffet. That saved me $26. That covered me and Jeff. James Swann, a friend of ours from Decatur, covered Kyle with a comp he had. After dinner, we headed back to Decatur. Big props to Kyle for driving. Thanks buddy.

Kyle's posted some pictures I took over at his website. Check it out.