Hibernation

So yeah yeah it's been a while.  But winter is time to recuperate from the rigors of summer touring.   Although there hasn't been much relaxing.  Just looked and saw the last thing I mentioned was the Morrissey tour.  Well that never happened.  Rat sound and the band couldn't agree on a price.  But all is not lost.   I've been mildly busy with family work and friends.  Including a friend of the female persuasion.  ;) Since my last post from Uproar tour I've traveled to Boston for sound training, gone to my grandparents in PA for their 70th wedding anniversary party!(What?!), worked on the Coachella Cruise and Passion 2013 for Rat.  After that I spent 2 weeks in California with MC (friend that's a girl) and now I'm home for a short while.  The latest news is I'm going on tour with the illustrious DJ Tiesto.  It's only for 3 weeks but at least it's work.  Being that it's winter it's been a good season work wise.  Now for the photos...

Ok, so on Uproar we ended up in Salt Lake City with a day off and decided to go bike riding.  Thought this was a pretty cool photo op.

After tour I went to the big city of Los Angeles and got to see MC for a few weeks. Here we climbed Temescal Canyon and enjoying the scenery.

I got us tickets to the October 2 taping of Conan with Timothy Olyphant (Justified) and Ashley Greene(Twilight).  Lots of fun and hilarious.

This band is Awesome!! They're called The Record Company.  Look them up.  The drummer is MC's brother.  She lives with him.  The lead singer Chris is fantastic (on the right).  Bass player Alex is most excellent too.  Got to see them at the Enchantment under the sea dance.  Hehe.

When I got home I worked the Big Blue Madness event.  University of Kentucky basketballs first practice of the season.  I ran the pro table. Basically the graphics that show up on the sign next to the court.

 After spending some time in Boston at a training seminar I went to visit MC at her home in Elmira NY.  I was there only a day but got to see her Dr. Doolittle dad feeding the squirrels.  Her parents are really awesome.

On the way home to KY I passed through PA to celebrate my grandparents 70th wedding anniversary.  People flew in from all over to be there. Here's a lot of my extended family. G&G in the middle.

G&G with my niece Lizzie, Eric and Kendel's daughter.

Cutie

Once MC and I got back to KY we went on some distillery tours.  Here are some photos of Woodford Distillery.

Oh Linda.

MC got to dip her own bottle of Makers.

From KY I got called to go to rehearsals for an event called Passion 2013 in Atlanta and prep in Los Angeles for 4 days.  My clothes got so dirty and the laundry was so expensive I had to clean them in the sink.  Surprisingly successful btw.

One of our trips back to the hotel we had to take the MARTA.  The local train system. From the left...Billy, Casey, Brett, Mike, Chuck.

My Florida hat.  So while we were in Atlanta at Passion rehearsals Rat asked me to help them out with Coachella Cruise.  10 days going to Nassau and Jamaica in December... I guess so. 

Two of us were responsible for the pool deck.  Mostly DJs.  We split the day in half which involved about 8 hours each.  Not a bad deal.

Here's us unloading in Ft. Lauderdale.  The guy looking at the camera is security that is going to tell me to not take pictures... Whatever.

From Coachella cruise I went to my parents in Pittsburgh to celebrate the holidays. My nephew Ezra LOVES legos.  I was more than happy to help him build things.  Although he did most of the work.

Ezra and Lizzie on our Christmas morning looking especially cute.

Ezra LOVED (as much or more than legos) going down the hill that Pa Pa created for him.  Check this video of him wiping out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_zLPwnr4Vk or with added commentary.  Thanks Adam. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALNFH7pnnog

Building a snowman.. duh.. Ezra, Caleb, and Eric.

Once everyone had had enough, Caleb my father and me decided to make an igloo.  Dad was inside to support the snow as we finished the top.

Where are his arms!!!!!

Back to Atlanta.  Passion 2013 is a youth conference in the Georgia Dome including over 65,000 kids age 17-25.  Our loadin started at 1am New Years day.  Only one hour after the ball dropped.  The chick-fil-a bowl had just been completed.  We had a long night/day/night ahead of us.

Our loadin had its share of setbacks... including wires lighting on fire..  Luckily it was just a motor cable that didn't affect too much else.

Over 100 main speakers, 96 delay speakers.. This was a huge show.

David Crowder Band rockin' it.

This is where lights and sound clash.  Lights were so hot they burnt through our speakers@!#!@!?

After Passion I flew to LA to visit MC since it was her birthday.  As you can see it was a pretty dull birthday.  Here are her siblings.. from the left. MC, Katie, and Marc.

I guess Mc's mom thought we needed something to do so she got us a groupon to go whale watching.  Sounded a little dull to me, but ended up being awesome!

We got really close to a gray whale and her baby breeching.  It happened many times. The marine biologist on our boat said this was unusual for a whale tour. We spent an extra hour on the tour just because of the amount of whales we saw.  At the beginning of the tour they told us to look out for signs of whales.  One of the signs was "bird activity."  I would say we have some of that here.

It's pretty but there are dolphins swimming behind us too!

Pretty

Didn't want to miss KY too much so we went to Santa Anita horsetrack. Pretty scenery.

Aww

MC can help you!

Back at home I started cleaning out my garage.  Can you believe it's impossible to get rid of a perfectly working working tube TV!!! Put this on Craigslist for $50. No response.. $30 no response... pretty much giving it away.. no response!

 Nice January KY sunset.

Got to tour the new UK locker rooms while I was home.. The new facility is SICK!  Since the basketball team won the championship last year, they put the actual basketball floor from the final game in their new locker room.

OK so I thought I'd be home for a little bit, but no Rat has me going out on tour with a DJ called Tiesto.  Never heard of him, but should be pretty easy.  I'm glad to have work in the winter.  This guy looks really hip.

 Here's the schedule...

Hope to keep you updated a little sooner than the last post...