The Shower...

Next to the shower in the room is directions on how to use the shower, or rather to activate it,
1. turn on water to desired temperature.
2. Pull down on base of spigot (where water comes out) which will activate the shower
3. To disengage the shower, simply turn water off

Where the water comes out?! And the last one is awesome! Simply turn water off!
it's really not that uncommon, but it had been a while since I've seen it, and it made me laugh.

Today it rained a... lot! And that's all I really have for today, there wasn't any shows, just the other companies loading in, and it took them a while with all the start and stopping of work, with the rain and nasty storms, the merch tent that's bigger than the main stage blew down during the storm. And I ate some pudding.

It Was hot...

Day one of Ichthus Fest. well, load in, we're a day earlier than everybody else's load in, we need the forklift and space, and today we got it all to our selves, it was nice it took about 10 hours to load in, I'll show you why tomorrow. We didn't get here till after lunch, and it was hot! I felt sun burnt with in the first hour, I had SPF 50 on too! I layered that crap on but still felst crispy, it was good day though, we finished up around midnight, it's going to be a good week.

There was a group of people having a meeting out in the field, they asked for plug in for there little work light, so we let them plug it in then, then we turned on our light. This whole sentence is cheesy, but it was fun light up the whole field with the walls.



We get to the hotel/college campus (I'll get to the hotel tomorrow or the next day, it's a good thing though) and I new that I stunk but when I actually got in a small space, it was bad, my shirt was soaked, all day you could keep track of me, just by falling the sweat trail, everywhere I was working even tonight there was sweat dripping everywhere! It helped me realize that, either one I work really hard, or two I'm really fat! I'm pretty sure it's the 2nd one! The reason I'm showing just how dirty I was tonight which isn't anything out of the norm for the summer time, is becacuse the shower doesn't drain very well, so I kept moving further back in the tub as the water filled up, I looked down at the end, and there I was standing in a dirty.... really dirty tub, that still had enough water to be filled above my feet, it was....

The Last Week...

The last couple weeks this is what I've been up to, I haven't been out the whole two weeks, but what I've been working on is the LED in this shot behind the band, it's the newest LED that the Co. I've been working for has gotten. I've worked with it before and really liked it, when I heard that the Co. bought some I was excited. It's a lot of fun, there's a lot you can do with it, but it's taken up a lot of my time, not in a bad way just been busy prepping it to go out on different things and well this run of shows they have it out on, it took some time getting it ready and figuring out how to do different things with it, but in the end worth it when it turns on.

This last week has been fun, I haven't a whole lot to blog about, it's been busy and relaxing, I got a lot of time to spend with Patti. I've also got a lot done with work. The next couple weeks though I'm hoping to have more to blog about with more festivals coming up on the schedule, especially the next two, their fun and the weather also makes for some fun stories.

Scratch another off the List...

Patti a couple weeks back had a great idea, she had looked at the schedule for the Cubs and saw that they were going to be in Atlanta this week, so she found some tickets, made sure I was going to be home and then bought 'em. We then decided since it was a late game to stay the night after the game.

It was a fun little get away, not long enough, but besides it not being long enough it was a lot of fun! We've been needing a little get away, we've both been busy the last couple weeks, well more like the last couple months if I'm not at work she is. It's been good to be working, and when we have been able to do things it's been with a group of people. Which is fine but sometimes we just needed some together time!


We showed up really early, like a couple hours early, we waited in line for the gates to open, just talking and hanging out. We sat in the outfield for batting practice, we came close to catching some balls, but no cigar if you will, but still worth it standing 40ft. from Soriano and Zambrano as they catch some fly balls together, was worth it. Big Z was suppose to pitch Tuesday night but you know suspension and blah blah blah, I was surprised to see him. He was actually pretty cool with all the Cubs fans there last night yelling in support of him, and the Braves fans not yelling nice things, he waved and smiled at the comments. I mean he was 40ft. from us, we could talk normal and he could hear us.



One of the cool things about Turner Field is the LED wall, it's one of the biggest LED walls I've ever seen, and one of the heaviest weighing in at 50 tons, and really clean looking.


Our seats were way up there in the upper deck, Patti didn't like it at first, it was her first time in the upper deck, (haha) the best part was walking in circles up the ramp to the 400 level, it felt like we would never get there, and then the steap stairs almost to the last row, once up there she turned around and had a holy cow we're way up in the air moment, it was awesome! For the price we paid the seats were great! There's not to many seats in a ball park that are bad, and I thought we had good seats, I mean I don't think the Cubs could hear me chearing them on from up there but I liked it.


The game went into extra innings, we got to go a great game, the Cubs lost but they were a head the whole game, it went to 12 innings.
$4 a ticket sevearly bottles of Poweraid and water, multiple hotdogs, a slice of pizza, a pretzle and a bag peanuts, $80 later and another Ballpark crossed off the list with my wife. That's the priceless part! It was awesome!! I can't wait for the next get away we have!

Rambling that won't make...

Sometimes I feel like this bike, it use to be rideable until some musician left it behind the bus and then the driver drove over it. I guess my point is I work really hard and try not to complain to much, and yet I'm still in the same spot I was in before.

I heard today that successful people have a 10 or 15 year plan, are they successful because they have a plan? Or are they successful because they stuck to a plan? I think it's the first, I think people like the idea of having a long term Goal, so there for the people with the goals are successul because other people make them that way, heres the thing, the "other" (i.e. People that have influence or position in the world) people think this planned person is motivated and has a stick to it mentality. When in reality they just like talking about their "plan" but never really go through it, if we all went through with our 15 year plans we would have a lot more millionares out there.

I mean I have goals, I have a hard time reaching them, because like I said I'm working, some of my goals are work related, most are not like having kids with my beautiful wife.

How does one focus enough to keep one mind set for 15 years! And does having a plan or goal make you a better person in general? Or should you just live your life and see what doors open and try not to persuade them to open just so you can make your goal or plan happen?

What's that saying? Life gives you lemons, make some lemonaid.


I don't Know, going back and reading this it sort of makes sense, course my rant could be do to me being pissy because some of my favorite tv shows have been cancled next fall.

Yea it's been a while since I've posted, it's been busy, the first festival of the year is always a good one but this year we had extra gear there, it wasn't all that bad just caused me to have less time to do things, and as you can see in the pic, the first day was fun filled with some replacing things, all part of it except when it's on the top row. I'm sitting a spanset standing on a 2" lip, my toes fell asleep, course I was up there for over an hour.

That was the begining to my week of hard knock times. But in the end everything worked... sorta, I got home home for 2 days of prep and now I'm on a bus. It'll be nice when I get home on Sat. Do a little relaxing!

Baseball...

That's right folks, we're going to a Cubs game. It's going to be Patti's first MLB game, and it's the Cubs and Braves, the best part is she's the one that found the tickets, and the doubley best part is that we got the cheap seats for $4, you can't beat that. I don't mind the cheap seats cause it's a baseball game for $4 I mean come on people your going to see baseball! I'm stupid excited about the game and going with her. I love when we go on trips together, it's going to be awesome! And believe it or not I have never been to Turner Field, so that'll be fun to have another ballpark to scratch off the list, and I get to do it with Patti!


This week has been a long week, in a good way, I put in a lot of hours trying to figure out what to do for work things, and a lot of hours sitting in movie theaters. I saw Star Trek twice, once at the IMAX, and once in a regular theater, I also saw Angles and Demons, I really like going to the movies, to me it's just another form of relaxing especially when you go during the day when nobody is there.

Work was fun, Nick and I got a lot accomplished in just a couple days, it's always fun fabracating with sombody that has some road/shop experience, and enjoys doing what we do, which I needed help to come up with something quick and it needs to not be stupid. That's hard because I've spent a lot of time on things and then someone walks by and says why did you use/do that, when you could just do this, but when you don't have someone to debate things with you just do whatever comes into the brain first.

Early Shop time...

About 5am this morning I get to the shop, and once again I'm reminded how nice it is to have my 4 hour playlist on in the old head phones, and just plug away at a project. I've been a little nervous about all that's going on, I'm prepping 3 different LED things, for this one show, and because the gig is in CA. I keep double checking everything, I have this thing about being prepared, I hate getting somewhere and realizing that I don't have something, especially something that you can't just run to home depot and buy, so I've been trying to make sure I have everything all cabled up and ready.

I've recruited some help for tomorrow to make things go a little smoother, Nick is coming to help and hang out, I think between the two of us we might be able to get the one project that needs to be done tomorrow done, and I won't have to go in as early on Sat. I'm looking forward to it, Nick and I always seem to work well together and still be able to carry on conversations, usually their day dreams and schemes for the next tour and what would be cool, or about other shows that just blow your mind, but non the less a lot of fun!

Up Early...

You ever have a lot to do but your like... Eh..! That's the way I feel about this week, I've forced myself up early this morning, well I say forced, I woke up with heart burn for the first time in a long time because of late night food, but instead of taking some tums and going back to sleep, I decided to head to all the places that nobody goes to in the early morning hours in a this fine community, Lowes and Home Depot, I mean there was nobody there, I had to double check the hours on the doors to make sure I wasn't to early.

This week is going to be a little busy for me, I think, one of the things about fabricating things special for "A" tour is you might get lucky and the next tour might want almost the same thing and you can kinda cut here and there without having to make a lot of modifications, which I was lucky, on the last tour I didn't have to do a lot of re-fabricating, well now things are all cut up, and the client wants what I had before I cut everything up, so I've been trying come up with a quick solution that doesn't look like we're a bunch of dummies piecing things together, I think I've got a solution.

Now that I've rambled on about that, back to being up at the crack of dawn, if I can actually get up I enjoy it, if I have things to do, I would rather do them early, I can usually get more done before 9am than I can if I were to start doing things at 9am, my phone doesn't ring, I don't have to check emails, I have nobody to call, (other than Mom, she's up earlier than me) and there's nobody around, it doesn't matter if I'm home or at work I prefer it, and one of the other reasons to get up in the morning is a Naked smoothie. And that's the whole reason for this post and the pointless information of why I like to get up and do things, or what I have to do this week, just wanted you to know that I really enjoy drinking the Amazing Mango Smoothie by Naked.

New Things...

Since I've gotten off the last tour I was on there has been some changes around the Culmer house, and one of them is the way we eat. We've been meaning to start some new eating habbits, and we've finally found some reasons. The reasons... there are 2 weddings we are attending this summer, and both of them I'm in the wedding party, so we're on a mission to get better into shape, and I don't look like a the fat guy I am. Both of us have been wanting to get into a routine of exercising, it's hard to do together when I'm in and out a lot, but we're getting there.

We've been eating a lot more organic things, it's been fun trying new things, course not being able to snack on things has been the hardest (as I eat a little be piece of chocolate) but I'm getting better, the easiest has been giving up pop, surprisingly enough I don't really miss it, I still have an occasional sprite when we're out cause water at some places just tastes aweful, and I'm a bit of water snob! And I don't want to pay $4 for a bottle of water! It's exciting though having a goal to meet.

The other thing that is new this week for me, is this app for my iPhone, I don't download a lot of apps for my phone, and I for sure don't buy a lot of apps, until recently I've only bought like maybe 2 or 3 apps, I just don't want to spend money on these things, but! This one at $0.99 has to be one of the most addicting games. And if you've played this game then you'll know that my 127 high score (that was a fluke) is pretty stinking amazing! Come on give some props?! Seriously props please!

Backing Things Up...

I have a lot of dvd's that I've backed up stuff on, mostly picture since I take a lot pictures, and I have discs from when I use to use my .... that other computer I don't want to say what brand cause this computer might... I just don't want to say it, but I'll give you a hint, the type starts with a "P". Well when I used that computer I use to back up all my files all the time, cause I never new when it was going to crash.

So, I have a lot of disc's like I said, and I labled them at the time I thought was a good system, and now that with hind site I realize that it's a bad system, because I don't really know what all is on those disc's, so now I'm going back through them finding out whats on them, and putting the info into this computer, but I find myself at the same point I was in then, and that's how to create a lable system that makes sense to me. Hmm...?

Orange Conference...

It's been a while since I've done a picture blog, it's all I use to do, and now I just do stupid ramblings that don't make any since and I make grammar "errs". So I thought since I haven't really shared a whole lot from my week I would do a quick snippet of what I've done. Starting with of course sLite, the reason I'm here this week. And to explain the week a little better I'm doing "The Orange Conference" which is a youth pastors conference, or seminar if you will. I've been sitting at FOH for most of this show, and it's been really interesting and a fun conference, some really good stuff.


Well after I unlided all my sLite I was in hurry up and wait mode, and since the truss I was hanging off wasn't going to be ready till after lunch I decided to help out where I could, so I bolted together the PJ truss. What was funny about that was our PJ guy was .... it's hard to explain, lets just say I filled in for him for some of load in, I didn't take a picture but I put together all 5 screens, without hands thank you very much, all to help the cause of getting the rest of the rig up quicker. Not braggin or anything just poppin my colar a little.


After I got my LED up and at trim, I continued to help out the other company loading in, they seemed pretty busy and needed some help so myself and my other co-worker (Anderson) helped them out for a bit. To make it short we came up with a number that we ran over 6000 feet of just BNC cable for this one gig, which isn't a whole lot in reality, but when it's just 3 of us running it in a couple hour span, we were movin'! And that's not including all the power runs we made, Soco, feeder, edison, 4 pin.


I think it looks pretty good, the designer didn't do to shavey.


It's a cool pic.. so it made the blog.


Kinda what it looks like on, FOH is like 50 feet from the stage, so the all the LED when it's flashes is bright as all get out! I love it!! I have a pic of that but chose these two for some reason.



We got back to our hotel room this was in front of the door, we were like hmmm? We didn't have anything shipped to us, then we saw the little "Orange tags" that said our names, they were little gift bags of snacks and drinks and what not. Look below to see!This is the first Conference/festival type event that when we returned to the hotel they had something waiting for us, it made the 4 hours of sleep we got worth it. See it's the little things that make a crew guy smile and want to get up in the morning... Maybe?