Well, after 8 weeks with Ozzfest and those who are touring with that group the tour is done. What a tour it was. Plenty of nothing to do but plenty to do as well.
Lots of drinking and having fun. Oh and some folks used a lot more than pot and alcohol but I dont and so didnt get into anything other than alcohol, just fine for me.
Well now I am working on my next tour so…. I shall see ya all when it happens.
Well, that is my new tour. I do the dimming for the show for Ozzfest. And let me say that is enough cables etc to make one insane. Well, I do like to work and this show will do that for me. I am currently in production numbers in Seattle WA. There are a couple of days left and than we go into the tour.
I am not a huge fan of Ozzy but the other shows are great. Well there are plenty of lights on the show and I think the show will be incredible. Well later on today I will do the show for Ozzy for him for him to see how the show will go. This will be a good show.
Talk later when I get the time.
Well as the title says it has been one year since I had my stroke (or as the Dr’s think several of them).
Yes, it has been an unusual year for me. It is tough to figure out what one does or doesnt do when life just seems to be goofy. I now work for Upstaging as an independant lighting engineer. Not to bad for me.
And now according to the laws in place I can now go back to driving a truck when and if I need to. And that, is great for me. I do and have always liked to have a few things to fall back on. Now that is great for me.
Thanks for everything……
MMMM well I have been a lighting engineer for about the last 10 years. I do love the work and enjoy doing it. However I had been with a company for almost 9 years and realized that I wasnt really going much anywhere. I had done a lot of artists and corporate stuff but realized I was kinda in a wall for me. Well on my way out to a show I was in a truckstop in Texas and was thinking what I have done and what I could do. In the following weeks I decided I need to change jobs. To what I didnt know but I felt I need to change.
Well after a few more months and gone through Lasik surgery I was able to get a job with US Express as a tractor trailer driver. Now why would I change like that? Well at the time I was anxious to leave the company I was with. I was also going to be making around 65k a year which was double what I was making at that point. And at the time it was a good thing for me. So I left LiveTechnologies and went on.
I worked for US Express and was doing fairly well. I enjoyed what I was doing. I was doing dedicated freight for Dollar General stores. Not the greatest gig in the world but was taking home a good amount and was happy with it. I even managed to save almost 4 grand in the 4 and a half months I was with them. And I hadnt been able to do that for years. I was happy.
Well why did I leave?? I didnt have a choice. On 20Jun06 I was delivering a load back to the warehouse. Well on my way my right arm was out over my head and I couldnt control it. Not to bad. I was able to get my arm back to my lap and in a couple of minutes I was fine. Or so I thought. I knew my next run was going up to Detroit. Well for me that meant I would have a few hours to stop in Columbus to see Erin. Well I managed to get my next trailer and head out. I started to realize that something was wrong when it took me almost 45 minutes to get fuel in my truck. I finally was able to finish and went in to get some food for me. WEll the lady at the Subway thought I was way out of somewhere when I asked her for my food. I have know idea what I said. Well I said it again and at that point I realized I had now idea what I just said. HMMMMM Now what? Well I was able to get into Columbus to see Erin to see what she thought.
Well it took me almost 45 minutes to tell her where I was. And I was only 10 minutes from her. At this point I knew something was wrong. And I begin to get worried. She was able to come and get me and we went straight to the emergency room. Well after 5 days they let me out. I apparently had a stroke or several strokes. I basicly could not really speak at all. I did get the new driver the key to my truck but…
Well it took my ability to speak as well as how I needed it to get out of my head. Basicly I had trouble speaking. And for me that is bad. But after almost a year I have come almost full circle. I still have trouble speaking from time to time but in my speech most dont even know. Most of the time I will usually change the subject if I cant get the words out or kind of back out. But usually I figure it out a few minutes later.
Well I need to go for now but… I will talk more on this later.
Well it is Memorial Day 06.
Just wanted to say to those who have served or are serving or those who plan on enlisting or becoming an officer that there are many folks including myself that are thankfull for what you have done or will do as an emmisary from the US.
Thanks all for what you have done.
Well after almost 2 years I am back. OK I have had major changes in life and careers but I think I am doing alright. Anyways… I will post things further as I write stuff about the various things that have happened to me.
Anyhow…..
DAMNNNN!!!!!
Just got back from the RUSH show tonite here in Columbus. All I can say is WOW!! They put on one hell of a show. I do believe that it ranks in the Top5 of all time shows for me. They played for a little over 3 hours. Something that is rare for any act to do anymore. The lighting effects were spectacular as was the video animations on the screens behind them. Definately not a show to be missed. I had thought myself to be somewhat of a fan but there were more fanatics there as was evidenced by the crowd sing alongs for much of the evening. Including many of the older tunes. I still recognized about 80% of the songs. If you have the RUSH in Rio cd or dvd they did much of that material.
Just an absolutely stunning show.
See it if you get the chance. Superb!!!
TheHeretic
Well I have been in Detroit for about 10 days now and as I had plenty of extra time I brought my lathe with me and was able to make a few more small turnings. The bowls are poplar and the pens are maple and purpleheart. As my first pens they were a bit difficult as the wood is turned down to only about a millimeter thick. I had about 8 pieces (each pen needs 2 pieces) blow apart as I turned them.
I have started to do smaller bowls and even boxes as in the picture below.
And one last picture from my turnings this last week.
Thanks for looking. And should you want a pen made of just about any type of wood let me know. I will take requests.
Dean
I finished these two bowls today as the first projects on my new lathe. They are only 2 1/2 inches wide and about an inch and a half tall.
They do not seem like much but words cant begin to describe the rush I got while doing them. I screwed up a couple before these two but learned a lot in the process.
Just had to tell and show someone.
TheHeretic
Well in the 5 years or so that I have been driving tractor trailer I have only had to be pulled out by a wrecker twice. Well I added anther to that last nite. Not fun.
I was pulling one of our mobile stages for a college show at Kenyon college in Gambria Oh. (talk about small town Americana, this town made Wilmore look like a bustling Metropolis. It even had some Amish thrown in to really make it look quaint) They were having a summer send off festival and the day was nice but the problem was it had rained the previous 2 days.
So, I put the stage in, not without a little slipping even than. We did the show but at about 7pm (show scheduled to end around 1130pm) the rains started. just a slight drizzle, but there were a few severe cells that dumped massive amounts of rain in very short time frames. It stopped long enough for us to get the gear up after the show, thank God for small things. I than went to hook the tractor up to the trailer. Thats when the fun began. No go. AS soon as I had put the trailer back on its wheels (it sits on hydralics for shows) it sank 4-6 inches. Not a good sign. well first attempt and I went nowhere.
Fortunately for me I had seen a tow truck earlier that day and had asked him for his card as I felt something like this just might happen. I called and he said he was expecting the call. To much rain in an already wet field is a recipe for stuck trucks! Long story short after two pulls I was back on pavement. And it started to pour down rain again. But, by this time I didnt care. It was 430am and I jsut wanted to get home.
So chalk up another tow truck story. Not the most fun but it could have been worse.
On 14April04 I had the opportunity to listen to a speech by the former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo. Granted I was playing games on the laptop while he was doing much of the speech but I was still able to catch much of his speech.
In my listening I found that he has many of the same thoughts on some of the ills that are currently besetting this country. He has no love for Dubya either, which was very nice to hear from a man of his stature and politics.
He, like myself, finds it appalling what the FCC and the current government in Washington has/is doing to Howard Stern. Now, dont think I am a Stern supporter, quite honestly I dont much care for the guy at all. But, the point that Mr Cuomo was making was that freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and that the current regime is slowly trying to make this a “christian state” and yet we are of so many different religous and socio-economic backgrounds. The State, in this case the US government, is trying to dictate to us what we can and cannot see based on its very conservative, and in my view outdated, views.
Anyhow I guess the point is that if you get the chance to hear Mr Cuomo speak, you should take advantage of it. I dont know the political affiliation of most of you but I think what he has to say, at least what I heard, was to me as close to non partisan as one could be without saying it was indeed non-partisan. Mr Cuomo will obviously use much of the Democratic party line but, as his tenure as New York governor showed, he is not afraid to step out from those party lines and do what needs to be done for his constituents.
He has written a couple of books of which I may just go and pick up to see further how and what he thinks. Might just be worth the price of admission!
TheHeretic
Well it seems as if the Supreme Court is once again going to listen to a case that should never have come to it. That would be the removing of the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance.
Seems it stems from a father in California who wanted to “protect” his daughter from hearing the words in class as they recited the pledge. What is surprising is that he does not have custody of his daughter so he doesnt, by the letter of the law, have the right to bring the case up. But, in our increasingly complex and confusing legal system he was allowed to.
I am simply amazed at the extent that people feel they need to go to either eliminate religion or God from their lives. Why? Is there some guilt here? Fear? Who’s to say. Why is religion so bad. OR is it the state of political correctness that we cant support or prioritize one faith over another.
I find it surprising that in todays day and age where the muslim faith is being dragged so badly through the news in the form of Al-Queda, and Osama bin Laden that we are also so vehemently trying to eliminate God from ours. Or is it a result of this. I dont think so but to some it would be an option i.e. “eliminate god from our society and we are than not the evil that Islam portrays us as” Bit farfetched but to some viable.
Are we as a society so full of ourselves that we need take God out of our everyday life and only let him in on Sundays and times of great peril. Not even our legislature sees it this way. For they inoke his name at the beginning of every session. So than do these same lawmakers forget so easily. (ok dont answer that its rhetorical)
Ok, well I know I have been rambling on a bit but I hope that you at least think about your stance on something such as this. It may not seem much but it gives the extremists a little victory and sets precedence. And, as we all may or may not know, the law is based on precedence.
For a read of the article that prompted this check out the excerpt below. It is a link to the full article on MSNBC.
TheHeretic
Well I finally got around to asking if DrBacchus had server space to host a log and lo and behold….. So I went ahead and set everything up with him and here I am…..
I hope to use this to rant and rave from time to time on whatever happens to me my current peeve. I will also use this to update from the road. I currently spend about 100 days a year away from home doing various shows and have never kept any type of log or journal. Coupled with the phone in my camera, I think I’ll be updating from the various shows on the road.
I will also be posting about my current woodworking projects. As some of you may or may not know I have been woodworking for about the last 18 months or so and finally feel that my works are ready to be seen by someone more than the garbage man as he hauls it away. 
But enough for now. Thanks for stopping by.
TheHeretic
Columbus. OH