Opening Day!!!
I have a good feeling about this year.

Space

There are days when you just need some space, and then there are days when its just funny to create your own space!

I love that the power strip is even divided.

Living The Dream

We have a saying on the road that we say, "Living the Dream", I know why we say and to be honest we say it a lot, there a lot of people that want to do what we do cause it looks glamorous, we get to hang out with bands, we're in a different city every night, we get free food all the time, the bus' are awesome, blah blah blah.....we are blessed I think most of us that do this would probably end up in white jacket if we had 9-5 job, but the reality is that its a lot of work. And where the saying "Living the Dream" came from is that if people only knew, I would like to share with you just what we see in the morning after sleeping 5 hours on a bus.

You have to remember this is what we see literally after we wake up, the sleep is still in our eyes, your still clearing your throat, and
BAM!!!

You turn the corner from the bus and there it is, garbage from the night before, from several nights before, mostly popcorn, pop (yea thats right I was raised in the north its called POP people, who wants to fight me) puke, Gummy bears, maybe some nachos, (man do nachos sound good don't they? holy cow I'm hungry!) some more popcorn, Hot dogs, Salted Pretzels, Pizza, Funnel cake depending on what show was in the building the night before, stale beer, just anything you can get at a concert, or hockey game for the most part, then wrap em all up and put them in a bags that kind of hold together, then put it out by the door that WE have to go threw to get into the building.

If you look in the picture above this one you, this garbage bin was blocked by the wood on the right side I didn't want you to miss this one. Cause you couldn't walking by it.

It was leaking some kind of Goo that smelled even worse than the previous goo that we hopped over.

Then finally up the steps and to the door... where for some reason (laziness) the building people put a garbage bin and it was rank!

Doesn't that just say Good Morning to you?

This Is Where It Landed

This morning I went to brush my teeth, I was leaning up against the counter, and thought man it would suck if I broke the screen on the outside of my phone, I should utilize the case and put it on my belt, so I did and went on to get my tooth paste, and as I go to actually do the act of brushing I step into the bathroom we have on the bus....and forgetting that I put my phone on my belt right above my bottom, I hit the case on the stupid door in the the stupid small door way... This is my phone!!.....

And this is where it landed!!!

Yup thats right, in the freaking toilet, some of you might be wondering what happens when you drop your phone in the toilet? (IT STOPS WORKING!!!) the porcelain wanna be stole the life from my phone, it didn't die instantly tho, it had a slow and painful (painful for me! as it teased me with life) death, working at some points, and finally deciding that it wasn't going to work any more! taking the SIM card with it!!
So as I sit here contemplating the evilness of the toilet, was this part of some grand master plan from the start, will the toilet have its revenge on us! one phone at a time, I have to wonder how many other phone lives its taken! I've heard of many things going in the toilet, but nothing ever returning.

Darren's Crew Blog

Last night I was informed that Darren (the Jerky guy) has started a blog, he's calling it the crownscrew blog, but lets just call what it is, and what I hope it becomes Darren's blog, or Journal. So swing by and take a look I'll be posting every once in a while his post in hopes that he continues to blog!!

Today We're in the great town of Baltimore (its linked to the O's site, Cause its almost baseball ((3 days 3hours & 30min.)) season, so so what?? You wanna fight about it??!!), and like always, its basically tradition now that we go out to eat for lunch to the pier, or whatever its called.

Man the water taxi is huge! I bet it takes forever to get a across in that thing!


We went to a pizza place for lunch (that's all I have to say about that)

Today Is Tuesday.....

Today is Tuesday for a few more minutes, so I'm going to do a Positive Post Tuesday post...?!..

Today's post is about my wife, lets face the facts she married me, any woman that can put up with me on a daily bases, is an amazing woman.

Everyday she amazes me, its all the little things she does, like tonight telling me that my last blog was to boring! (haha) I love it, she's my best friend, its the way she lays in bed in the mornings and watches the weather channel before getting out of bed, (I guess she's trying to figure out how cold or hot it is in the isle from the bed to the bathroom) I could go on and on.

I love that we share everything together, we don't hide anything from each other, other than surprises, (like me buying a new video game surprise!! haha)

She is the best thing to happen to me, I hope you don't ever change the way you are.

And a second Positive Post Tuesday...

I would like to Thank you my new pair of noise canceling headphones, we're new friends but I'm looking forward to what we have to offer each other in this new friendship,

You've already proved your self today when I pulled you out of the box and tried you out with my good friend 360, it was pretty cool, especially when my wife was standing there talking to me and I couldn't hear a thing! (I just nodded in agreement) Your going to be a huge help at night when I want to hang with 360 and the wife is a sleep!

If any of you were wondering I found my new friend, with the help of the CTS fam. and mostly Schwarz thanks man for introducing me!

Ps ... Strawberry Jello and Readi wip is pretty stinking great

PsS..
This guy has done a blog about me, (first time ever) and my eating habits, so check it out

Fantasy Baseball (3)

The draft is over, and here's the first round and the last round in the same pic.
here's the funny thing is that all the research, and all the polls out there had A. Rod as first, and as you can see (maybe its a little small and blury) in the red he was in the first round but when our league president that was randomly picked first and huge baseball guru if you will, picked Jose Reyes, I about fell off my chair, (and my chair is huge!!!) now Reyes was on my top 10 list just not on my number 1 pick! Here's to you "Team Star Gap Stingers" (I hope you don't win!!)
(Click on the Pick to make it bigger and see it for yourself) - DO IT!!
A. Rod went to the number 2 pick in the first round, I took David Wright. (yea thats right, big woop, you wanna fight about it)
The best part is the last round, I love it when you get down to the last round cause everybody starts to pick players they might have heard of, or players that rank up there near other players that have already been taken, you've never heard of the guy but your like he's right under someone that's been taken so he must be ok? (haha) Thankfully theres only 8 teams in the draft so we all got some pretty decent players. But to recap the very first player drafted was Jose Reyes, and the last player drafted in the 25th round and coming in 200 picks later was Kenny Lofton. (No link for Lofton he's FA so no! No link for you!)

I would like to share with you my team just because why not? (And Its my Blog!!!!)
Now heres something to mention, the league consist of 8 players and 5 of 'em are Atl. Braves fans, and I'm a Cubs fan, which causes some rivalry, but I didn't notice till the end that I didn't have one Braves player, not because I hate them (which I do, stupid Braves) but because I couldn't, (sorry typo - *wouldn't) But I did find my self drafting 4 Cubs players, (check out the player at the bottom of the players list, I think he has pretty good potential) their the ones underlined and arrowed in blue under this paragraph.

Fantasy Baseball Again

The draft is tonight, I think I'm ready I have snacks so I don't have to get up, I'm sitting in front of the tv so if someone takes to long, I have highlighters, sharpie's, my printer, and several tabs open for easy navigating.


And I was told that my team name is boring, I'm just not sure what to name my team, everybody has witty team names, and I just don't feel witty today. So for now it's just "Team Culmer"

Happy Easter

Today I was asked (more like nagged haha) to lay out Easter eggs, so I decided to volunteer (forced) to help lay out eggs for all the kids on the tour, which there are a lot 'em, and I decided to document where I laid my eggs..(hahahahah) I didn't take a lot of pic's but enough to get the idea.

Starting with the box that I couldn't get open (stupid child proof egg carton thing)

(haha) I thought that was a good spot

Then theres this one, I was proud of this one.

Yay!! Hiding eggs

Everybody was hiding the eggs so well that I thought I would help out the Kids, and make it easy for 'em

Then I threw a curve ball...

But the look on their faces when they found the eggs was priceless
(the picture is blurry, Farns was just so excited)

Even Chrisy found some, and there were prizes in side,
Now don't go running or using that little pencil, you'll put your eye out.

The best part is that, we put out a ton of eggs in the seats and around the arena floor, I'm just not sure that the kids found them all, so some lucky attendee(s) coming to the show tonight are going to find some early Easter Eggs. Good for them yea.......



*****Not all the events or stories to the pictures in this blog are accurate, they may have been tweaked to make the me laugh.*****

One of Those Days

Today has be one of those days where you just hope that tomorrow isn't the same way, it all started with the lack a sleep I got last night, and already being tired, we drove threw the mountains, and it was just a rough ride, for those of you who have rode on a tour bus, every once in a while you'll just have night where even when your laying down in your bunk your holding on to something trying to not roll out.

Then to top it off I'm working on my work box since somebody put something away wrong and broke the drawer, so as I worked on the drawers I hit my thumb, I was wearing gloves so after wanting to kick something, (I did kick something) I took my glove off and saw that I broke the thumb nail half way up.
(I didn't want to take the band aid off it hurts....you have to read that with a winy voice in your head)
It was bleeding and for the rest of the morning I continued to bump it on things, for example, for those of you who don't know what I do, I need my thumbs to cable the equipment, its not easy either. The pins don't look like much but I don't care what it looks like its a lot. So don't mock me!!

And then to top it off my handy dandy iPhoto program, on my external decided to go blank and not come back to life, when I went to import some pic's so I could blog, so at the moment I'm reimporting the few picks (10,219) I had on this particular hard drive, I just hope it comes back life.


"sigh"

Fantasy Baseball

Why is there so much pressure? Maybe because I'm a big baseball fan but yet every time I get involved in fantasy baseball I flat out stink at it, usually I come in last or next to last, if I can just recruit somebody I know, that doesn't know anything about baseball....that's shady I know but seriously I just want to place in the top 3, that would be great.
The draft is Monday and I'm not sure yet but I think we have a couple openings in the league so if your interested hollar at me especially if you don't know anything about baseball!

Positive Post Tuesday

So this guy I think started what he's calling Positive Post Tuesday, it suppose to encourage somebody or post something positive in your life or maybe not, the point is to post something positive or nice about someone.

So I've decided to post something positive since according to BH there, the male population of the blog world haven't been posting something positive about someone, or maybe I'm misunderstanding him, either way here it goes.

I would like to post about someone/thing very close to me, we don't always get along, when we do have our good days its amazing, we've accomplished so much in the relationship department, all the ups and downs we've had, you've made me a better gamer and I want to thank you for that. So to you 360 thanks for fighting the good fight, thanks for always being there to help me win whatever level I'm having trouble with. And now that R6V2 is out, you and I are going to be spending more time together, I'm so looking forward to it.

Blog Tools

Since I've started this little blog, I'm always curious about who's reading it, and what people think, but since the only people that let me know what their thinking is Farns, Randy, J, and some virus person that stops by and tries to get to go to his site, (that crazy guy and his shenanigan), I get more curious about who's looking, more numbers and where from than anything else.

Yesterday I had a fluke of a day I think.

Compared to the blogs that I read this is probably a bad day, in fact if you look at the whole week their probably laughing and going, look at how low his numbers are? Isn't that cute, He's trying to be a blogger. (If he just switched to wordpress?!)
But I want to focus on yesterday, and the 60 people that visited my site, and since I started this blog mostly for my wife, so she could be apart of my day, and I could call my mom and she could be apart of my wife and I's day when I'm home. I would like to thank you the 60 people yesterday for making me feel special. And for those of you that didn't look at my site yesterday but usually do, I thank you too...just not for yesterday.

And just so you know there will be a Positive Post Tuesday at some point today.

Not My Typical Sunday Night Watching TV

Today is a great day, my wife doesn't have to go to work, its St. Patrick's Day, and I have no plans for the entire day, other than going to this little Irish place for lunch.

Before I get to far a head of myself I have to share with you what I did last night, usually I get home, go to my chair and then really don't move until its time to go to bed, but yesterday I get a text from Farns asking if I was going to the MM show? Not knowing that they were in town I was excited to see everybody.

By the time I got there, it was already time for doors, and I was bummed that I couldn't have gotten there a little bit earlier to hang, but I still got some time with the boys, man do I miss these guys, and thier crazy antics.

(Their not gay if your wondering)

One of the things I love and hate about Nashville shows is that if Bands/Crews have the day off much like myself, everybody shows up at the show just to hang out, and it turns into this big get together, people you haven't seen in a while, the best part is usually you pick right up where you left off, the industry is small enough that you hear about what everybody is doing even if you haven't talked to that person in a while, so when you see 'em you just start talking.

One of the fellers that was there last night, I haven't seen in a while is this guy the blog-master, working hard running a camera (I'll explain why above the next pic) with the supervision of his boy keeping him on track.

MM is taking over the internet with the help of the blog-master, and last night was the first and successful attempt at MMtv, I think its great, I really do, I love what he's doing for the industry.

And to end with some props to a couple of bands, I don't usually do this but I just have to say something especially since the tour is over, one of the props is to this band, they had a 15 minute set and since I have done pyro, I understand how much work goes into shooting it, and all the things you have to do and whats involved in the everyday process, and last night was the first time I've seen Special FX for a band that only has 15 min. set. so props are in order.
All in all it was good night I wasn't planing on staying for the whole show since I've seen the headliner band before, but I stayed for most of their set and since its been a while since I've seen them play I stood at FOH and even tho I've seen 'em probably 200 times in the last couple years, I still get goose bumps, thanks for the refresher guys.

Google The Sky is Falling?!

I was already to do a blog on when the crew gets done early and how we kill time till lunch, and then today happened and now I'm going to blog about what we do when we don't get done before lunch time, but thats just depressing so I'm going to do both.

Starting with what we do when we get done early.
What you can't hear is the "AhAHAhahaah GRRrrr"
that was put into swinging at the "Wiffle Ball"
And if you look close enough you'll see a couple RC Airplanes flying around, that seems to be the big craze as well.

Stike!

Greg is looking towards Right FOH like he hit the poop out of it. But nope (haha)
(I have to say that after we told Greg to hold the bat with two hands he did hit the ball really good)


And now for the days when we don't get done before lunch.
I have to explain a little first of the situation, which is the rigging, as you can see in the picture all the ceiling tiles are part of the problem, and the other part would be O.E. (Operator Err)
So first the rigging was taking forever, baseed on a lot of things, and the reason I'm sticking to which is that they were just slow. So once we finally got our points we started working I was like hey my chains are up against the railing up there. I got "no big deal, do what you have too, we'll fix it later". (haha) At this point I'm getting frustrated and so I'm not really saying to much, and then we get a few rows built and "BAM!!" there goes the tiles and the railing, as you can see the outside railings and tiles come falling 44 feet to the ground.

It may not sound dangerous but when something is falling 44 feet from the air it turns into something not fun to be under especially when its falling and its shaped like a knife at one end.

It was also fun to see everybody scramble to cover the gear, when the tiles break, pieces go everywhere.

For those of you who don't read Randy Hicks' site, you should its fun, and when you do you'll see that I have stolen the arrow in the pictures routine, to help with my story tellin'.

Patti's Scared of Heights (Again)

I'm going to attempt to show a few pic's from our anniversary with out complaining about how much I Hate Gatlinburg. (Nope no link)

Patti and went to the middle of nowhere for our anniversary to relax and get away from the norm, and as you could see in the previous post one of the things we did was go on a chair lift, (And I spelled Height wrong "sigh") now most of you don't know but this is how it started - me: oh cool a chair lift, Patti: you wanna go, me: well yea - so we buy the tickets forgetting that Patti is afraid of heights we go to get on the chair and still she hasn't mentioned that she's afraid of heights, and still I have forgotten, until I see the face, you know what face I'm talking about...the oh crap what have I gotten myself into face, especially when she saw the mountain from the lift. (haha)

thankfully the lift didn't go to high, and wasn't to high off the ground so she did great.
Course once at the top she was cool...

We also went and hung out with the fish, at the place where all the fish hang out at?!



MMMM.... Funnel Cake

Ah yes yet another adventure up a mountain on a thin cable just this time we're in a tram car
Patti was still a little nervous (haha), but she's the one that wanted to go.
White knuckled and all, she did great.

Once at the top we had some fun, yup ice skating, it had been a really long time since I've been in ice skates, and I think it was Patti's first time and it was fun (haha)
Then it was off up another lift, to an even higher mountain top, and the view was pretty stinking cool it was worth it. (The ride up the lift with the wind blowing and it was cold was worth it)