OVER?!?! Already?!?

Man, these weekends seem to just FLY by these days. Dinked around most of the day Saturday and got plenty of rest. I did go over to a friend's house to check out some gunsmithing projects he had going on. Also got a chance to check out this surplus military truck he picked up. That was pretty sweet. I'm gonna have to go for a ride in that sometime. It's HUGE, it's camouflage, and it's diesel. (Insert Tim Allen grunts here...)

Spent the evening keeping it on the down-low as I wanted to be sure I was completely over sinus-gate. Wasn't motivated to cook so I let SteakOut bring me something. Got a pleasant surprise when on my steak and shrimp order arrived with double the number of shrimp I was supposed to get! Dinner made me happy to say the least.

The F1 race was in Suzuka Japan this weekend. For the first time ever, a typhoon hosed up qualifying which is supposed to happen on Saturday. The schedule NORMALLY is practice on Friday, qualify on Saturday then race on Sunday. This weekend, they qualified and raced on the same day... only a few hours apart between sessions. Because of the time difference, I was able to watch the qualifying, then stayed up till 2:00am to watch as much as I could before I passed out. Ended up finishing up what I missed when they had the rebroadcast Sunday night. Only one more race to go for this year and that's in Brazil.

Church went well today. Plenty of visitors! Music went well for the most part. Let's just say this, I wasn't responsible for any mishaps. Heh. On a somewhat disappointing note, it was decided to again put the drum shield back up. As a result, the drums sound like they're in a can again. Oh well, it's a battle to take it down, it's an irritation to put it back up. Since I try to be a team player, I didn't raise too much of a stink. All I thought was "whatever". I give up.

[RANT]
Ok, I guess it IS time for a rant. Everyone else has gotten one thing or another off their chest in their blog so it's my turn. You know, with all the equipment our band has, we should sound GREAT. We aren't playing on bargain basement, marked down, unclimed baggage, thrift store Salvation Army hand-me-downs mind you. We've got "the stuff" for sure. Here's what's lacking...

More channels on the sound board to accomodate all the mic inputs individually.
More aux channels to send more discreet IEM mixes to the band.
Subwoofer.
Amp and crossover for the sub.
And most importantly, consulting with someone that knows sound to set up and adjust the gear for our room.

Most of the big stuff is already taken care of. We're SO close to having all the pieces of the puzzle and have been for quite sometime. Of course there's no plan that I'm aware of to address these issues. The people/person that needs to stay on top of it should... I don't know. I'm just the drummer. Someone who's responsible to do something needs to make a plan and execute it or just admit, that "hey it sucks and it's gonna stay that way coz I'm not doing anything about it."
[/RANT]

I feel better now. There's more where that came from though. Just ask if you want another dose.

The chili get together was a huge success. BIG crowd there this evening. A big thanks to all who prepared food. It was delicious. Lot's of new folks there! It was encouraging to see all who made it out. Ended up playing No-limit hold'em poker with some of the fellas. Just with chips and not actual money for those of you that would get your drawers all wadded up over playing a card game at "church".

Looks like Kerry is gonna fill my drum throne next week as I go out of town. Cool. It's good to know that it'll be in capable hands. There's a whole new band playing next week so it should be interesting.

Time for bed.

"We're at 95% captain..."

Okey dokey. Doing MUCH better today. I'm glad that's over with.

Work went well today. Ate lunch with a crew from the office then ran over to the optical place so Lesa could compare some frames she was considering picking up. When we decided on what looked best, we headed back. Things got a little sleepy after the big meal so Kay was wondering if I had any "jam" on my iPod. I hooked it up to my speakers and busted out some tunes as my co-workers danced, shook, jiggled, etc. around. Friday was here no doubt!

When 5:00 hit, Lesa and I went over to Simp's where Lorri joined up with us. Kathy (bartender) was trying to up my Corona count but I didn't let her. Everyone ended up telling each other corny jokes and then trying out stupid bar tricks.

Not sure what I'm gonna do this weekend yet. Looks like it might be rainy so I'll be inside. Probably try to catch up on my drumming and doing things around the house. Might hook up with Ashley tomorrow and check out some of his gun collection. Lesa had mentioned me taking her to go shooting sometime. That'll be kinda cool.

Oh, just for you Sarah... "Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight..." ;-)

Oh to be healthy again...

Made it through another day seemingly on the way to feeling better. I'm at about 70% now up from 65% before lunch so I feel "slightly" better. I'll tell you one thing that's amazing, I'm taking this Claritin-D 24 hour stuff and let me tell you, that 23rd hour you KNOW it's fizzling out. After being able to breathe freely for a whole day, BAM!!! All stopped up. To help things along, I am staying pretty hydrated with water and juice. Still, I've been wearing my glasses the past few days because the drying effect of the antihistamines plays hell with my contacts.

Enough with the sick talk.

How about politics? I'll throw my .02 out there. With all the controversy and hype of the upcoming election and the main candidates, any political discussion can quickly escalate into something people take personally as is evidenced by reading some of my friend's blogs. To me, the problem stems from the fact that each of us have a different idea of what we feel the important issues are. Therefore, we are apt to go along with the candidate whose ideas line up with the issues that are particularly important to us. For example, one thing that is very important to me is legislation relating to guns. I am very pro-gun so I keep an eye on that stuff. Gay marriage legislation? Don't care. Not interested. Not important to me. What it boils down to is that I don't feel the need in politics to convince others to go the same way as me. No one candidate has all the right answers. I'm just going along with the one who is most likely to think the same as I do on the issues that are important to ME.

How's that for short and sweet?

On another note, watched some of The Bachelor tonight. Wow. Someone nominate me to be on that show. I'd make ya'll proud.

FedEx rules without a doubt.

I mentioned that I had ordered something from France last week. I ordered it on Wednesday morning. Look at the tracking information below. It reads from newest at the top to oldest on bottom.


Delivery attempt/DECATUR AL
10/01/2004 09:31
Customer not available or Business closed

On FedEx vehicle for delivery/MADISON AL
10/01/2004 08:07

Arrived at FedEx Destination Location/MADISON AL
10/01/2004 07:55

Left FedEx Sort Facility/MEMPHIS TN
10/01/2004 02:45

Left FedEx Sort Facility/MEMPHIS TN
10/01/2004 04:39

Left FedEx Sort Facility/MEMPHIS TN
10/01/2004 02:05

Arrived at Sort Facility/MEMPHIS TN
09/30/2004 23:42

Package status/PARIS FR
09/30/2004 23:15
In transit

Check THAT out! It shipped out of France on Thursday and was out for delivery to my house Friday morning!!! You can't get some companies to get a box across TOWN in that amount of time. Oh, shipping cost me a little under $20.

Just had to post about my good FedEx experience.

Um... "What???"

I was in a bit of a daze today at the office. I woke up feeling better than I did yesterday thanks in part to "Robitussin". I didn't have a fever, which is a good thing. Went ahead and ate breakfast and got cleaned up to give work a whirl today. I called in and said I was planning to be there and the respose I got was so... human. "I know it takes longer to get ready when you're not feeling too good so we'll just see ya when we see ya!" Okay, I love my job and my co-workers. It is truly like a family over there.

Got to work and got things cookin although as I mentioned before, I was a little out of it. Suprisingly, I got a good bit of work accomplished. Lesa mentioned she wanted something good to eat for lunch so I suggested Red Lobster. Turns out that's what she was thinking too. She had a pasta dish while I had the crab stuffed flounder. Deee-licious. Also stopped in at Dabney's old place of employment (Laginapp's) so Lesa could get a latte'. I ended up getting a strawberry smoothie even though I was full from lunch. Worked a bit more at the office till my co-workers agreed that I should just go home and rest. That's EXACTLY what I did.

Set puny=1

Yes, my puny bit is set to 1. I was hoping that this cold I have or whatever it is would pass without drama. When I woke up this morning, I realized that it was not to be. I felt horrible. Called the office with the fun news then went back to bed. Big thanks to my sis for picking me up something to eat for lunch and then for swinging by Wal-Mart to pick up more things for me in addition to some drugs. Drugs are my friend. Spent the afternoon alternately sleeping and watching Return of the Jedi. My head was pounding towards the late afternoon when I realized that I had not yet had a Mt. Dew and that my headache may in part be caused my my "dew deficiency". So I'm having one now.

Kevin called me early in the day - apparently, there may be a couple of us that have the same thing. Mine might just be a little farther along than theirs so Kev was wanting to get an idea of what to expect next. So Kev, it's more congestion, headache, fever and hopefully nothing else. I really didn't want to be sick especially with the new job and all... I called into the office late in the day to kinda see how things went and to tell them I would be in tomorrow (I was going to whether I was well or not) and was told... no, you need to stay home till you're all the way better. They even offered to run any errands for me or bring me anything I needed. HOW FREAKIN GREAT IS THAT?!?!?! This just continues to reinforce the reason I like my new employer so much. For this I am very thankful.

I hate that I'll be missing out on the Guad tonight but I really can't be risking getting any worse. I'm going to continue to lay low and try to recover as quickly as possible.

Gazelles and gardening.

To Michelle Spooner on what some of my criteria on "the ideal woman" for me... I'm all about the gazelles. LOL!

Thank God I was feeling well enough to drum this morning. At least I had enough energy to fake it. It all went well though. To me, playing is becoming a lot easier now as I don't have to think so much about "how" to play, it's just feeling the groove at this point. It's hard to explain unless you've experienced it yourself but trust me, it's nice. Playing now is enjoyable, relaxing even.

Ate lunch with a good group over at Logan's. Tiffany came up and said hey. We all exchanged contact info so I can see her getting added to the group soon. The more the merrier! My food was okay but somewhat of a letdown after my P.F. Chang's the other night. Took a nap when I got home to keep rested up. I ended up skipping out on the small group meeting at Kevin's as I really wasn't feeling that great and I figured it would benefit me more just to stay in. Chicken noodle soup was my dinner of choice.

You read Eric's blog entry about his sack o' peanuts? I hope everything turns out okay and nothing bad comes of it. Ya know, when you have a problem like that, you can't just say to your buddy, "yo dude, can you look at this and tell me what you think?". Better ease up on the wild monkey stuff and go back conventional for a little while and give "the boys" a break.

Sniffle sniffle sniffle...

Well, this "thing" I've been trying to keep at bay for the last few days seems to have made some progress as now my throat's a little scratchy and my sinuses are getting a little stuffy. See? This is the one thing I dread during the season changes. I usually get sick for no apparent reason other than the temperature change. Frustrating for sure, but hopefully this will pass quickly without becoming a major ordeal.

Friday was a short day in the office for me as I was to be in Birmingham for a photo shoot after lunch. I got a couple of things taken care of before Lesa and I headed south armed with her Canon digital SLR and me with a Nikon one from the office. We got all our photos taken then took the time to drop Lesa's mtn. bike off at a shop there to get repaired. She had craked her frame at some point. While I was there, I checked out some of the bikes. Interesting stuff for sure.

Next, we headed over to The Summit to do some shopping around. At Saks, I looked at some of the new men's stuff at the Louis Vuitton counter. My LV wallet's a couple of years old and I was considering replacing it. I found a couple I liked but decided I didn't want to spend that kind of money on it right now. Also checked out some new threads while I was there but found nothing that really knocked my socks off. We bopped around to a few other stores and finally found several items we both liked at Bananna Republic. We continued on to Parisian where Lesa found some things to go along with some clothes she had also recently purchased.

All this walking and looking around worked up an appetite so we cruised over to P.F. Chang's for dinner. Lesa had some spicey beef dish while I had the duck. Mmmm mmmm good. No room for dessert though. We were both full. Thank goodness she was driving. It was nice just to ride along. She used to live in Birmingham anyway so it was easier for her to get around without having to tell me where to turn and such. On the way home, she tripped out over some of the 80's tunes I had on my iPod. Oh, it was sometime Friday when I realized that this cold or whatever I had was starting to overtake me.

I had plans to go shooting at the crack of dawn Saturday morning with Heavy E and Jack S. Called E and found out that he couldn't make it. I still got up in time to meet up with Jack at 6:30AM and head to Swan Creek though. After we got there, Ronnie and Michael joined us. Ronnie brought a good bit of his arsenal along, a few of which I wouldn't mind adding to my collection. There was bull-barrel Ruger 10/22 that I used to punch the bullseyes out of several targets. That was one sweet shooting gun. Then I tried Michael's Bushmaster .223... that was AWESOME! That's one fun weapon to shoot. At any rate, I got back to my pistols which both Jack and I shot. I also tried his .357 Magnum and .40 S&W. I can't express how pleased I am with my Sigs so far. Nary a hiccup after several hundred rounds. The new grips worked out great too!

After all the shooting was over, Jack and I headed to Huntsville to Larry's as he had never been there before. Jack's eyes lit up when we went in and he saw all they had to offer there. I met some more folks that work there so now I know John, Warren, Vince, Ben and Jim. The bad thing is that now they try and sell me something every time. LOL! I looked at a few things I was interested in that I'll know more about on Monday. Heh. I think Jack's trying to figure out how to fit this hobby in the budget.

Came home after that as I was feeling pretty crappy. Stayed home the rest of the day and did some laundry and watched TV. I played drums a little but I again felt lousy and went back to the TV. I hope I feel better at least for tomorrow morning. If I can make it through church okay, I can spend the remainder of the day resting, which won't be too bad.

Oh, congrats to the Burns on 2 big ones... sold their crack house in B'ham and picked up a new car.

French eh?

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

-snip-

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

-snip-

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

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

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

I'm STILL full...

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

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

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

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

Monday is here again.

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

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

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

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

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

Lesa, Lynn and me at BSJ.

Whew!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crowd view

Doing my thing

Another one.

Side view of stage.

Slammin the kit.

Wanna laugh your hindquarters off?

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

Not bad for a Monday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WTF?!?!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gettin my shop on.

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

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

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

A nice day out...

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

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

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

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

Just kidding.

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

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

It's raining alright...

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

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

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

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

Wonder if mine still works?

Heh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm tired.

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

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

Took a short nap.

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

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

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

Time for bed. I'm pooped.

Whole lot o nothin goin on...

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's a lot of stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's not broken at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All together now...

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

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

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

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

Welcome back Heavy E!

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

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

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

Yo. It be labor day.

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

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

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

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

But I digress.

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

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

I got one.

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

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

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

Well, that's kinda funny.

A funny thing happened today. A former church I attended had its domain name expire today. The funny part is that the domain name is registered to my current pastor. Neither one of us had overly thrilling parting of ways from this particular church back several years ago. How ironic that now their domain and email functionality is in our hands.

As ironic as that is, the decision to transfer ownership of the domain to them has been made. While that was the right thing to do, it would have been entertaining to point the domain to... let's just say, a "different" website.

In other news, Stacey took me by her new office to check out "cabinet-gate". Apparently, the colors of the cabinets and shelves were made by a colorblind person. I wondered just how bad it could be. It was worse than I imagined. The building itself is great. Nice brick, layout, painting, flooring, etc. It's ruined by the fact that some obstinate old guy decided it would be FUN to do ALL the cabinets in primary colors. This has transformed the look of the place into a nursery or day care. I mean cabinets are done is yellow, red, blue, yellow... incredible. They all match great!!! IN THE DARK. It's a sad situation.

Things at my office are going well. I've been spec'ing out the new server I'm having installed to replace the old one we currently have. After a vast underestimation of what my budget was, I am redoing my specs and proposing a much more powerful server. It's nice to now be involved with a company interested in doing things RIGHT from the get-go instead of half-a$$ing it. I'm going to have to get rid of my old ways and expectations and start from scratch. Not a problem. ;-)

On another note, looks like I'll be heading up to Nashville this weekend for a drum lesson from Johnny Rabb. My regular teacher, Chester Thompson, is still on tour with Phil Collins. It sounds weird to be saying that, but it's cool to be taking lessons from drummers known worldwide. What a blessing that is. I only wish I could have started when I was younger.

We've got the "stuff".

Well, everyone's gone off and done it now for the most part... Kyle has his Mesa-Boogie rig (that he hardly brings out), I've got my off da' hook drums, Eric added to his Lakland bass with a new amp/effects/cabinets and Kevin brought up the rear with a new Vox rig (he already had a new Strat). So as far as equipment goes, we're all hooked up.

The plan for Riverfest is to bring out the good stuff unless of course the weather's iffy. Then, it'll be time to bring out the less-bling gear. Whatever happens th0ugh, we'll have a lot of stuff to tote around. Hopefully, we'll have some extra folks to help us set up and take down.

Had another good week at the office. Making good progress there on the new job. I still can't get over what a blessing it's been for me to change careers. Very cool things are happening.

Lesa and I had some business to do over in Madison, and I lucked out and Bill was able to meet up with us for some sushi at Edo's. Had a good time catching up with each other. Regretfully though, it sounds like things are still the same there at the 'graph.

Today, I met up with the Burns, Jordan and Kyle at Mickey D's for lunch. There was a downpour going on outside the whole time. As usual, there was funny stuff involved. Jo-Jo tried out the love meter thing that tells you how you rate romantically, you'll have to ask her what she was rated though.

I got a bunch of domestic crap done at the house today, laundry, vacuuming, dusting... generally straightening things up. Fooled around with drums for a good bit also. Not too much else happened. I stopped over at the Burns for some Steak Out. Kyle was there trying out Kev's new amp. Jordan came over to show off her furry pink slippers. That about wraps it up.

I have some extra bacon.

What a busy past few days! Wrapped up Friday with the crew over at Jemisons. Part of the crew was my sister's ex-sister-in-law with her new fella. She seemed to be doing well. It was also interesting to hear some of the OTHER side of the story. Anyway, just hung out and had a sandwich as well as a Corona with NO lime. Supwifdat?

We loaded up into Kevin's Explorer and trekked up to Nashville to eat, shop, and stroll. For the eating, we headed over to Joe's Crab Shack in Franklin, TN. Eric ordered some fried soft-shell crab which I tried a piece of. IT'S DELICIOUS. You eat the whole thing too! It just looks like a big fried crab-shaped mass. That may not sound appetizing to you, but trust me, it's great.

Next stop was Fork's Drum Closet http://www.forksdrumcloset.com to pick up some other items I was wanting. Got a few more heads, a stick holder and a snare drum. This is the one I got: http://www.pearldrum.com/c9114p.jpg

After I got all my stuff, I walked over to Corner Music where the rest of the crew was drooling over guitars and such. Eric was caressing another Modulus bass while Scott was caressing... well, Derek. LOL! Just kidding. Actually, Scott was cheking out a Fender guitar that he subsequntly dropped on the floor. See kids, that's what happens when you don't wash your hands after handling bacon. (Kyleism: WHAT?!? I don't even know what that means.)

Rolled downtown next and walked around. Eric wanted to stop at the Hard Rock Cafe to pick up a new cap. The selection was non-existent. Did some more strolling around and I saw these really cool cut crystal globes I wanted to look at. The globes turned out to be beautiful, but for $140 a pop, they weren't THAT beautiful.

Kailyn got to pet some horses that were pulling carraiges through town. She really liked them. I took a couple of pictures that I'll post soon.

Next stop was back to Decatur for a get together at Dave's. Bunch of folks there. Good times were had by all. Nice to see new faces there as well. That's always a good thing.

Sunday was rockin. I was going non-stop from the time I got up till the time I went to bed. Our biggest crowd ever at church so far. There was a lot more energy in the room. Had a great time playin. Met some new people and saw some old friends. Afterwards, a bunch of us headed over to Applebee's for lunch. When that was done, it was back to the church for Riverfest set practice. Scott joined us and made some awesome contributions to the music. Dude's got skillz.

After practice, headed over to Wal-Mart to pick up stuff I was needing as well as some food for the thing at Kevin's. Another good crowd at Kevin's along with having the Spooner's there. They're fun folks. After that was all over, I finally made it home and got in bed.

Cooter Johnson

Well, the above was my attempt at a new band name. Definitely not "churchy" but it does have a funny ring to it. You THINK there just might be some other meaning to it but you can't quite put your finger on it. ;-)

Anyway, getting ready to head to band practice #2 for the week in a few minutes. Should be a good time. Helps us to not suck when we play out live. We had a practice session last night where one of our less reliable members failed to show up. Sigh. Due to an unscheduled beach trip rescheduling (diagram THAT sentence), our regular guitarist will be playing again this weekend.

BAND BLING. Heavy E pointed his wallet to the north and lit the fuse this week. The companies he was aiming for returned fire with packages delivered by the Santa in the brown truck. Hopefully, he'll get all his stuff in time for this weekend. I'm happy for him for sure. It's always cool to get new stuff. What's gonna suck is when he'll invariably have to turn it down so he doesn't overrun the mains... kinda like how the drum mics are run. Heh. At any rate, it's always better to be able to turn down instead of not be able to turn it up any higher. The size and shape of our playing space kind of dictates the volume we can run.

Oooo.. gonna be late if I don't leave now.

That was a new experience.

Just got through with 2 days of jury duty. It was very interesting to see how the trial process unfolded. The whole thing from panel selection, "striking" a jury, plaintiff's case, defense presentation, cross examines, closing arguments, jury deliveration and finally rendering a decision... very cool stuff. Luckily, we had a fairly straigtforward case on our hands and we came to a decision fairly quickly. A friend of mine in another case may be in court through next week!?!?

In other news, I received my new laptop yesterday. Wow! It's a hoss. It's not one of those "thin and light" models for sure. It's what they call a "desktop replacement". I'll be using it with clients as I show them some of my company's capabilities and such. I needed a quick one since a lot of the multi-media stuff we do may not present too well on a slower, less-capable machine. At any rate, I'm pleased.

Gettin old...

This week was another good one. Got things cranking a bit more at the office as I get used to things and what I need to be doing. Got to go on a video shoot for a project we're doing for a local organization. It was interesting to see. Lot's of cool equipment: lights, lightboxes, jibs, cameras, teleprompters, scripts, etc. Plenty of things going on.

Realized that Macintosh OS9 and Windows PC's just don't want to play together without using translator programs. OS-X is supposedly uch more PC-friendly. I'll have to do some more research before I get us a new Apple server. The agency is all Mac except for me. My long term goal is to keep the creative folks on Mac's and put everyone else on PC's. I'll have to do lots of planning before I pick which way to go. I don't want to go and spend a lot of money to find out that I overlooked a crucial speed bump. Speaking of PC's, my laptop has shipped - YIPPEE! I'll be able to retire my 4 year old one and get back up on the cutting edge. I think I might give my old one to dad since he travels a good bit in the Philippines. Otherwise, I have no practical use for it at home since I'll have my new one.

Had a nice birthday party at the office when I arrived Thursday. My co-workers had some fun presents for me. Joel and I headed to Huntsville for lunch and stopped off at CompUSA before trekking over to Larry's to check out their firearm inventory. I didn't get anything but I got some ideas of what I like to get next.

Eric and I headed up to Nashville today (Saturday) to just get out of Decatur for a bit. Grabbed lunch at Joe's Crab Shack in Franklin then made our way to Fork's and Corner Music. I exchanged a cymbal, picked up some heads as well as an Iron Cobra beater (for my kick pedal). I also checked out some shallower snare drums. Went next door to see what Eric was up to in the bass section. He was playing this Uber-nice Modulus 5-string that had a gorgeous neck made of carbon fiber. The finish was transparent leaving the intricate fiber pattern visible. It would look KILLER under stage lights. Checked out the bass heads and cabinets also. Eric did the right thing and will wait to get what he wants instead of picking up something he really didn't want. I think he ended up getting a set of replacement strings and a heavy duty instrument cable.

On the way back, we stopped off in Franklin again but this time we went to the Harley store and checked out the bikes. Very cool stuff. Pricey as all get-out, but nice nonetheless. Got home in time for dinner with the family.

Watched some of the olympics and now I'm getting ready to hit the sack. Getting up early in the AM to catch the Hungarian Grand Prix. I have a feeling the red cars are going to win again. We'll see.

Well looky here...

I made an update...

Now that I've made the job change and all, there's a lot less to post about! No more traffic goofiness on I-565 in the morning, heck, I don't even have to get on 6th Avenue! No issues at the office, just learning new things.

It has been an adjustment to find out where the good eating places in Decatur are, especially on the side of town that I'm on. As you all know, I'm all about some good food. So far at lunch I've visited: Logan's, The Brick, Currie's, B.B. Perrin's and Ruby's. After work, I've headed over to Simp McGhee's with Lesa to have dinner. The food there is delicious albeit a little on the pricey side. Can't be making that a habit. It even puts my old trips to Edo's for sushi look fast food bills.

Spent Friday night over at a friend's having some dinner and watching one of my DVD's on an extremely small TV. Played a game of UP-WORDS which I lost at. It's like scrabble except you can place letter tiles on top of each other to make new words up. I'm not used to seeing the board that way so it was a little tough. As I am quite competitive, I was not happy with the end result. Gonna have to work on my UP-WORDS skillz.

Saturday, me and A#2 headed to Huntsville scoping out some new threads. When I was at Intergraph, my department was "jeans casual" every day. At my new office, jeans are fine but I would actually feel more comfortable if I took it up a notch and stayed business casual the majority of the time. I picked up some shirts, some DVD's and one of those Tempur-Pedic pillows from Brookstone. I've actually been looking at those pillows for years but never bought one because they were expensive. Well, they aren't as expensive as the best down pillow you can get (@ $130+) but they are up there. I figure it would be a good investment since:

A) It's for me
B) It's supposed to be good for you
C) I'll use it every day

Slept on it a couple of times so far. As far as I can tell, it seems to do it's thing. I'm comfortable, sleep well and have no pains or anything after using it. I've got 90 days to decide if I want to return it, keep it or upgrade to another size or style.

Church today was great! Plenty of folks out. It was great seeing all the folks there. Music went well, Dave did a great job - all in all, it was a terrrific day. For lunch, about 20+ of us went to Applebees and chowed down. Later, a small detatchment of us headed to Publix to pick up some stuff for tonight's get together.

Heading over to the B's now.

Sigh.

First off, one of my friends passed away Monday. It's a sad situation for sure... Definitely had me thinking a lot about what's going on in other people's lives. Kind of puts things into perspective as well. Some things that seem like big problems aren't quite so significant when other people are going through much, MUCH tougher situations.

By the way, not to get "preachy" or anything, but ask yourself if you do know where you're going when you pass from this life? You CAN know... regardless of what religion you are. If you don't know, you owe it to yourself to find out. It's in the Bible. Go read it. I think we sometimes spend more time researching the purchase of a new gadget than we put in trying to find out what's gonna happen when we die. That's a bit sad.

How's that for short and sweet?

Weekend's over with.

This weekend was fairly restful. Friday night I went and listened to Gulliver at the Brick. It was okay (there were a lot of new members) but not as rockin as the "old" band. Came home smelling like an ash tray and crashed.

Slept a good bit Saturday. All the rain made staying in bed sound like a better and better idea. I ended up doing some stuff around the house but finally got the urge to get out. Headed over to HSV to the mall in search of some things. Found what I was looking for on sale (schwing!). I also found some cool stuff at Bananna Republic but I'll have to go back there when I have more time and can also bring someone along with me to get some opinions. Now that I'll be dressing more "business casual", I have to change my wardrobe around a bit. I actually prefer that to dressing slouchy though slouchy has its place. Some folks consider anything remotely being "dressed up" as being equal to "not comfortable". That could not be farther from the truth. You just have to get the right clothes. But I digress.

Tinkered around with my drums a little then watched TV till I was sleepy.

From all the sleep I got Saturday, I ended up waking up at like 5:30 AM Sunday. Whoops. Played some Joint Ops online for a while till it was time to get breakfast going and packing up all my cymbals and stuff for church. Stepped outside into a freakin SAUNA. My contact lenses even fogged up. SHEESH! Set up all my stuff and also put my shiny new portable tornado into service. (I got a new floor fan yesterday). It gets hot up on stage with the lights and activity. Things were much improved with the airflow. I got my breeze on. Church went well - had a good crowd out. Music went off without a hitch which is always nice.

After church, an equally large crowd headed to Logan's for lunch. The Spooners join us which was a nice addition. They were talkative and a lot of fun to be around. I sure hope they connect with us and join in the fun. Watched some of the Nascar race while eating. Little E ended up having some kind of malfunction and swapped out with John Andretti for driving duties. Anyway, ended up eating too much then went home for a nap.

Headed to the B's later for some dinner with everyone. It was the usual crowd. Props go out to Heavy E for all the lasagna.

First week at the new job...

was GREAT. I've really enjoyed my new office environment - nice atmosphere, surroundings, pleasant people, clear direction... it's just all a breath of fresh air! Had a chance to meet several new folks and also to learn more about the print side of the business. Got to go to 2 "press checks" where the designer reviews a print at the press prior to running a job. That way, there's on last review to make sure the printed result matches what the designer intended. The 4-color press I looked at was quite an impressive piece of machinery. The print people I met were VERY helpful, offering tips to make both our lives easier. Very cool.

Got the email situation on the way to being fixed. Swapped our domain and email service over to another host. Hopefully, the DNS changes I made will go into effect in the next few hours making our transition complete. We'll see.

For lunch today, I met up with Sarah at The Brick. Had a good time catching up on the latest with her. Going to be heading back there tonight to check out Gulliver with some friends and co-workers. It's also nice to once again be developing a social life. Ahhhh... Normalcy.

Last night, I met up with another friend at Simp McGhee's for a DELICIOUS meal. Going to have to do that again soon!

Start of an era...

Today was my first day at my new office. The first order of business was to get some photos made of me and the other new employees at the agency for the company website. Later, Michael (one of the designers) and I headed over to the newspaper office for some press release photos as well. Before lunch we had a staff meeting with the goal of getting everyone up to speed on the current business.

Worked on a Macintosh today for the first time in a VERY long time. That's going to take some getting used to. Luckily, it's a temporary situation as I'll soon be ordering a PC as my regular workstation. Ugh... our email situation is in need of help. I could never sucessfully email myself today. Our webhosting partner is implementing some type of spam control system and they're saying it could be the end of August or September before they are done with the implementation!?! I'm going to look into that more in depth tomorrow to see if I can rectify that sistuation. It's unacceptable.

Email issues aside, everything else is pretty nice. I can actually say I had a nice day at work today. That's something I haven't been able to say for quite some time now. It feels good to be able to say it, that's for sure.

After work, I met up with the crew at the Guad. All the usuals were there plus Dabney. Her sister joined us later for our walk down the mall. Headed home after that.

Now THIS is interesting...

I was a little bored tonight so I thought I'd Google my old high school's name back in Knoxville to see if there was any good info out there to peruse. One of the first hits I got was the above link for MTV's Johnny Knoxville's bio. I thought, "what the heck" and read through it. To my surprise... Johnny was a buddy and classmate of mine! I was a senior and he was a freshman but we hung around some of the same circles. I yanked out my senior yearbook and sure enough, there he was. What a small world. I went to school with "THE" Jackass. That's hilarious.

End of an era.

My last day at Intergraph was yesterday. YA-HOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I showed up for work around 10 but it looks like I could have waited until after lunch just in time for my exit interview. Oh well. It gave me some additonal time to finalize packing my things and being sure I got everything. I did a secure delete on all my files so that the next person to get my PC can start with a fresh slate.

Headed over to HR for my exit meeting and talked things over with Annette before I hit the road. It was an amazing feeling, the weight of a job where there was no light at the end of the tunnel has been lifted off my shoulders (and unfortunately has been put on someone else). My former director called me on my cell as I was out and about needing more information about what I did.... sigh.

Me and A#2 headed to HSV to catch The Bourne Supremacy since the only theater in Decatur that was showing it was Tetanus Cinemas. That's my new name for the Carmike here since it's a dump. You need to wear old clothes and shoes since you'll get crap on you AND your shoes will stick to the floor. Hopefully some bulldozers will drive around that place soon.

Movie was great. Some of the camera work left a little something to be desired but it was enjoyable, much more so than the previous one.

It's almost over.

Tomorrow is my last day at the 'graph. While I'm sad that I'll no longer see some of my friends on a daily basis, I'm excited about the new ones I'll be getting to know. I swung by my new office last night on the way home and checked on things over there. Got a brief run down on their server and backup system. It's a straightforward setup, nothing complicated. One of the first things I'm going to do when I get over there is evaluate their current IT environment and see what, if anything needs to be changed or upgraded for better performance. Wheeee!

Once I got home, I warmed up on my drums for a while then packed up my stuff for band practice. That went well and went fast. The usual group (the b's, the a's + Sharon - Stacey's sister) mounged it over to O' Charleys for some Irish food. Had a fun time there! My food was decent for the 2nd time in a row so things look to be be improving there for sure.

Oh, in other news Kailyn and I had an "incident" the other night as I was babysitting... I was teaching her how to say "My name is Kailyn" when I noticed that my legs suddenly felt damp under where she was sitting. Lifted her up and found that both legs of my jeans were soaked with pee. Nice. Brought her downstairs to her mom. There was a ladies get together thing going on in the kitchen and when they saw me and what happened, everyone was rolling. I think someone asked if I was okay or needed another pair of jeans to which I replied, "No problem, it's just urine". I don't think I ever envisioned myself saying that. My jeans remained slightly mounge for the rest of the night.

Ok, I know you might be wondering what "mounge" is. Sharon, who is from Minnesota, was inventing words last night. "Mounge" was the first one which quickly turned into things like:

Mounge chair
Teacher's Mounge
Mounge-tain range
Look's like your dog has mounge
My mounge is acting up again, etc.

Something also happened with the mis-use of the word "contents" but I can't recall exactly how we made fun of that. Maybe Kevin can elaborate in his blog.

In other travesties of the English language, my manager's manager came in and asked me how to spell "solemn" yesterday. I spelled it for her and she went back to her office. I followed her there and when I walked in, she looked at me and said "it still doesn't look right". "It doesn't look right to you because you didn't know how to spell it in the first place" (heh). I took her to www.websters.com to show her that my spelling was correct. I think I rolled my eyes at this point.

Cars, water, sun and orange juice.

The past weekend was lots of fun. As I had planned on Saturday, me and the Burns' headed to HSV for some fine lunchtime dining at Macaroni Grill. I had one of my favorites, the grilled salmon on a bed of spinach and orzo pasta (looks like rice). After that, we trotted down to Toys-R-Us for some gift-age for Kailyn. There's a LOT of toys out these days. Holy crap. After I picked up what I wanted to get her, I went next door to the bookstore to pass the time with some magazines on cars and music.

Next stop was the Nissan dealership. George, the guy who helped me before was there and he had me sign some papers and then me and the crew could go driving by ourselves in whatever I was interested in. Went riding in the Armada first. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the Armada's a little too big for me. It's really a lot like a Japanese Humvee... The Maxima fit me much better. Nice engine in it too. Plenty of power. Anyways, I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm really adverse to getting a new car and taking that initial depreciation hit. Since I'm in no rush, I'll be doing some checking into used vehicles before making any kind of decision.

Church was great Sunday. I was off drumming duties so I was out in the crowd. I got Kerry to move out of the Baptist back row and get up in the front. Music was great! I especially dug the mandolin playing by Steven. Nice touch.

Had to make a quick run by Wal-Mart afterwards and get some supplies. Dropped stuff off at home then headed over to the pool for Kailyn's birthday party. Had a great crowd there! Jack resurrected the party favorite of all insurance agents... pool surfing. The surfboard is made of 2 floats, one on top of the other. The bottom one is your standard "I don't wanna be white anymore" tanning float while the top is a thick foam rubber one that gives you a somewhat firm surface to stand on. Someone centers the float in front of the diving board then the surfer takes a run down the board, lands on the float and tries to stay up as long as possible. It's a good time for everyone. See pictures of the actions below.

Made a quick run home to get cleaned up and changed then headed back to the Burn's for our group get-together. Big crowd there again! Had a good time talkign about ministry and church in general then a fun time grilling, eating and reading trivial pursuit cards. We are all like a brain trust of odd knowledge. You wouldn't believe some of the junk we know about. It's scary for sure.

The Cake

The birthday girl!

Presents!

Jack showing good form on the pool surfing.

Jordan taking a stab at it...

Dave with more "Y-axis" velocity than "Z".

A festival of open-toed footwear.

Candi the pool critter

One week to go.

The days till my departure are rapidly counting down. As a result, I have been showing others how to do what it is I do every day. I received a compliment the other day from one of my co-workers who mentioned that I had gotten to the point in a relationship with many of the vendors I have the opportunity to work with to get them to do things to help me and the company out that they may not be contractually obligated to do. They only do so since we're not only business associates but friends as well. That's something I never really thought about before, but in retrospect, I can see that now. That's not really anything I can train someone into doing though, you just kind of have to BE that way. I like to have fun while I work and what's more fun than working with your friends?
 
On another front, a buddy of mine hooked me up with a tape drive to use for backups. I scrounged around and found one of my SCSI cards to connect it to. You know, tape just isn't a fast media to work with. Backing up to tape is definitely a "start it and go do something else" operation. I did at least back up all my mail, document, and digital camera files to tape so if something were to happen to my hard drives, I can restore my critical files.
 
Looks like a blah kind of weekend due to the weather. Probably going to try and get some things done around the house and also mess with my drums a bit. Kev and Stacey are having a birthday get together for Kailyn tomorrow so I need to get out and get her something. I think we'll head to Huntsville after awhile and do some shopping for her and also have lunch at Macaroni Grill. Might go test drive some cars again too. I did get to drive a couple the other day at the Nissan dealership - an Armada, Murano and a Maxima. I liked the Maxima the most I think followed closely by the Armada. I really didn't care for the styling of the Murano after getting in it. Really though, I'm leaning towards the Maxima at this point. That's a good handling vehicle right there.
 
Talked to Kevin's brother Gareth last night. Kev had shot me some pictures of his new DW kit. Very nice looking set of tubs... the finish was tobacco satin. It's a classy kit for sure.

I'll bet it's raining...

We've been all about the rain here lately. It seems like it's rained everyday for the past week! Late this afternoon some strong storms moved through Madison - there was also a tornado on the ground NE of Huntsville. The tornado warning sirens were in full song. It was a bit creepy to be outside with the sirens blaring and the wind gusting. I was out in it briefly after picking my car up from getting the tires roated and balanced. I quickly made it back to the office and hung out there till it all passed.

Work was interesting to say the least. I've stirred up a nest of activity due to my resignation. At this point, they are looking at a combination of up to 3 people to manage my heavy workload. Hmmm. Got a lot of comments from my co-workers as well: "You dawg!", "Lucky B*stard", "So you escaped?", "You look much happier!", "Do they need anyone else?", "So, how hard is it to do your job?". I'm going to miss working with my friends there of course, but I've got to move on. I'll stay in touch with all them anyway since they're all on IM - it's not like I'm moving away either so hopefully things will stay close to the same.

Met up with the B's for dinner (shocking, isn't it?) and put a small dent in the chicken population. After that was a fun run to Wal-Mart. Band practice was last night to accomodate the schedule of others (I'm off drumming duty this week anyway). I think Asian #2 is off this week as well so A1 & A2 will be in the crowd this Sunday. It's nice to have a break every once in awhile.

Got some new hi-hats today that I had ordered over the weekend. They're the 12" Meinl Alien Hats. Very cool sounding set. The bottom cymbal has jingles mounted to it giving it a different sound from my regular hats. Also, they're smaller in diameter making them very "fast" and slightly crisper than even my 13" K/Z set.

Oh, want to send happy birthday greetings to my sister and dad. Solita's was Monday and dad's was today. I'll add a year to my count as well next month. Crap, this getting old thing stinks.

No F1 racing this weekend. :-(

And so it begins...

It's been awhile since my last post simply because a LOT has been going on with me lately. At any rate, I've got some big news to announce...

I'm finalizing a career change!

As you can tell my my history of posts, my current job has it's few high points but the majority of the time is filled with low points. While I like the IT industry, my actual day-to-day tasks are wearing me thin with no real end or turn around in sight. There were some rays of hope that things would change soon but it wasn't anything concrete, just more uncertainty.

There are several benefits to my move (in no particular order):

1) working with old friends
2) less driving
3) interesting work
4) "family" environment
5) still work with technology
6) better growth opportunities

and that's just a few of them!

More to come...

Yippy-Skippy

Went into the office late today since I would be staying till 7 in the evening due to a "special" client requirement to move their network at 6:30 PM. That'll cost em. Spent the day largely on that and also getting things in-line for a lot of activity next week. Thank goodness for Angela at one of my subcontractors. She's got her act together and makes things happen for me. While on the subject of subs, I've got a great relationship with all the ones I work with:

@ the BIG phone company: Cheryl & Jackie

@ my wiring contractor: Angela, Jesica & Tamra

@ my network mgt. partner: Gail, Ben, John, Brad & Rob

We can all be ourselves on conference calls, reach each other via IM, we've all got each other's private contact numbers... even home numbers in some cases! There's a certain level of trust in that you only use these alternate contact numbers in emergencies - but it's not something they are required to give out. If it wasn't these folks, I couldn't make half the stuff I do happen.

Oh, thanks to the band for moving practice to Thursday night this week on short notice to accomodate my late night at work. Luckily, even if I would have had to miss out, I know all the music this week already so it wouldn't be such a big deal.

Gonna drum a little then call it a night. I got plenty of sleep last night and felt great all day today. Maybe that's what I need more of.

Yep.. a 3-day weekend's where it's at...

While floating in the pool today, I have come to the conclusion that a 3-day weekend is the presciption to alleviate the symptoms of work stress. Amazingly enough, I'm actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow. Of course, it could be Mr. Cuervo talking too... (whassup Jose'!)

Slept in a little this morning but finally reached operating temperature around 8:30 or so. Messed around a little then stepped out into an EXTREMELY HUMID day and gave Kelsey a bath. She seemed to enjoy the cool water. Since she's so well-behaved during bathtime and it only take about 10-15 minutes, I'll try harder to bathe her more frequently. I'm sure she'll appreciate that.

Printed out some of the photos from all the pics I took yesterday then got cleaned up to head over to Anderson Sr.'s house for grub: ribs, corn, beans, potato salad, hot dogs, etc. After eating, we inched our way to the comfortable chairs in the den and watched... Sponge Bob, Square Pants... for an HOUR. Some of the kids were watching the show so for some reason, no one took the initiative to change the channel. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, most of us had dozed off. The decision was made to move the fun to the pool so we all packed up our stuff and hit the pool for the remainder of the afternoon.

Had the usual Guad-squaddage and the requisite walk down the mall. I found some sale items at Dillard's that I picked up. Kev got something too. Kyle found some items at Parisian (see his blog for details) and Kev found something else to get at EB Games.

Got a busy week this week. John races this Friday so I hope that by then he has the high-speed miss issues sorted out. We'll see.

Peektures

Some random pictures from the pool party this afternoon.

Dave "Speedo" Anderson

A barrage of water bombs is about to be unleashed.

Kyle "I've worked out for 8 years on these muscles" Root.

Some of my friends, Kailyn, Jo-Jo, and Kandi. Oh, that's Muscles in the background.

Kevin trying to look like Johnny Bravo by not breathing.

Humidi-tay

The only thing worth noting from Saturday is that Kyle, my sister and I headed to Hunts-vegas to see Spiderman 2. Excellent flick. Solita originally wanted to see it here in town but the only theater showing here was the crappy Carmike you'd need a tetanus shot to venture into. That place really just needs to be bulldozed. After the movies, we made our way to McAlister's for some foodage. Ran into Jimmy P from my old church there. That was a surprise.

Called it a night after a short stop at Barnes & Noble. Oh, I did manage to see the end of the Nascar race before conking out.

Got up at dawn's crack to catch the French Grand Prix. My boy Fernando Alonso of Renault came in 2nd despite putting up a great fight with The Michael in his Ferrari. What an exciting race!

Church was good this morning. We had our standard technical glich that was eventually worked out. Music was good - I played louder than I normally do, but it felt good to play that way. I did have a malfunction of my own when I bumped my snare strainer - turning it off and turning my snare into a timbale. No biggie, just fixed it and only lost one snare hit. It all went real well.

Ate lunch with the folks and grilled out. I took over grilling duties and let everyone else relax. Shrimp, steaks, beans, salad... it all added up to a filling lunch. Next stop was Dave's where the pool party was already in full swing. Good crowd over there. Had a great time with everyone not to mention more than enough delicious food. More steak for me! Swam around and relaxed till a freak storm blew in out of nowhere. We had just gotten out of the pool when suddenly the wind REALLY picked up and got bad really fast. That little squall blew through as fast as it had come in though so the cookout resumed and we went back to enjoying the outdoors. I took a bazillion pictures. I'll post a few.

A 4th of July 2004 memory.

Another shot... 

Thomas tearing it up on the kit... 

Me and Mr. Drums. 

WOW! Thomas Lang is awesome.

Left the office early yesterday to catch a drum clinic with Thomas Lang, a talented drummer from Austria. Before leaving, I had to swing by my insurance agent's office to get a new homeowners insurance policy in place. Yay. Arrived home to find even less trees in my yard as a result of 5 trees being removed from my yard. The house and yard will be much brighter now, less leaves to deal with in the fall, less bird poop on my patio and no more sap issues parking under trees in the driveway. All in all, it's for a good cause.

Kyle showed up and we headed north. Stopped in at a Kyle Recommended™ eatery, Famous Dave's Pit BBQ and had a filling dinner. I had some surprisingly good cornbread with my meal. I'm usually not a big fan of it but this was exceptional. Made another pit stop to drop video stuff off at Shane's place before we continued on to our destination. After realizing that I didn't figure the estrogen factor into the driving directions I had been provided, we made course corrections and arrived at Soundcheck Studios only a few minutes late. Got in our chairs and spent 2 hours dazzled by Thomas' skill. WOW. HE'S AMAZING. Afterwards, I was able to get him to autograph my DVD of his as well as a poster. Also got a goofy shot of he and I as he was signing my stuff. Ran into Kusi up there too. Gave Jennie a hard time about the driving directions then took off.

Headed back homeward but had to make another pit stop at Shane's to pick up some stuff. Got to talk to Melody a bit and play with the dogs. After a long ride home, I finally got in bed around 1 AM.

I'm a little tired this morning.