Happenings

I haven't posted in a couple weeks now. Life is much better now that I am freelancing. I can work on the house and get paperwork done without being dead tired while I am doing it. Check out the pictures of the Kitchen and Master Bath.

The Kitchen pictures are from Saturday and Monday.



The Master Bath Shower/Whirlpool Tub.




One of these days I will get more pictures from before and put together a before and after photo set.

I bought an iPhone last week and I love it. I went from a Blackberry to a plain old cell phone to an iPhone and I wouldn't trade the iPhone for the world.

I leave on Friday morning to be on tour for 6 weeks with the Creation Fest Tour. Britni is not looking forward to being alone all that time but we have scheduled a time for her to come see me in Indianapolis for a couple of days.

Not much else going on here.

_E_

Genius

I just installed i Tunes 8 and it rocks. There is a feature in there called "Genius". You select a song in your library and it will build a play list based on that song. It's pretty cool.

I had my first show as a freelancer this past weekend and it was great. I felt like I was actually valued for my skills and not by labor. We hung half of a 100+ box rig of Vdosc, dVdosc, and Arcs for the Joel Osteen event in Washington DC. It was great!! My next one is tomorrow down in Colorado Springs for Neville Brothers. I love the freelance thing.

_E_

The Next Chapter

Well, I did it. I made it through my last day at Richter Scale Productions. I am now free to work and play as I please!! I am no longer responsible to a company, establishment or institution for what I do in a given day.

The good news is that I am a freelance production professional and I have work through the end of November already! I am leaving tomorrow to do a show in Washington DC. I get back on Saturday the 6th. Then I leave on the 16th for Charleston for a week. I get back on the 23rd and then I leave on October 5th for a 6 week tour.

Life is kind of crazy when you follow the burning feeling in your gut and the open doors that God is unlocking. It actually works. I am excited and I am looking forward to this next adventure.

I gotta go pack.

_E_

Getting There

We have been remodeling our Master Bath entirely. We took it down to the studs at the beginning of this summer and started all over with it. Here is a picture of the tub/shower area from a while ago. We are now using it but there are still a few things to do like, mud the drywall, hang the door, put in the trim, find a light fixture we like for over the vanity, build the linen cabinet, and paint.

My last day at Richter Scale is 09/03/08. I have work lined up for September and part of October and November. I am working on filling the income quota and then we will see how much time is left in each month to get some more work to bring in some extra money to get ahead on things.

I can't wait to be freelance. It's kind of scary in some regards but extremely relieving in many others.

That's all for now.

-E-

Back Again

For those of you who I don't talk to regularly, a lot has been going on in my life lately. I am resigning from my position at Richter Scale Productions to go freelance. It is time to move on. I have a lot of opportunities in the freelance world and I am really looking forward to it. Britni and I have been in our house for 8 months now and we are still remodeling and making it the coolest house on the block. We adopted a Great Dane named Addie last March and she is a nut. She is like a toddler most of the time, pining for attention but not knowing how to ask for it. She cries when we leave and she wags her tail so hard when we come home it looks like she might flip over. The master bath is coming along nicely. The tile is down on the floor and I am about to do the tile for the tub/shower.

I am going to do my best to blog more now that I am leaving Richter Scale. I didn't blog for a while because all I had to say was about work and that just isn't what anyone wants to hear.

_E_

ummm

I am listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers right now. I just finished listening to Nickelback. I am in one of those moods where I am really quiet and need to have loud music. The one where I don't want to think about anything but I can't help it so I need to process. I feel like my RAM is all full and there is no space left to park things until I can get to them.

We have been running at full tilt since we bought the house. I am not complaining at all as I rather enjoy having a house to work on. I am needing a break though. We have all of the doors hung and the downstairs is all painted except for the trim. The kitchen is almost ready to move in to. The floors are going to have to wait until after we save up some money. We are going to have to live with the white sub floors for a while. Britni wants to get a new fridge as the one that was left is gross. It needs to be completely taken apart and cleaned and I think it will be just fine. The washer is in decent shape but the dryer is intermittent. Sometimes it runs great and other times it just doesn't run at all. I looked at the manufacture date and it was made when I was 2. The dang thing was made in 1982. I am surprised it even works when it does.

We went to the Sears scratch and dent store tonight. They have some great deals and some not so great deals. None of which we can afford right now though. It's frustrating. I know we have to be patient and content but it's kind of hard when you know what you want and what it takes to do it. I am ready right now!!

I need to rent an airless sprayer to paint the doors but I don't want to do that until all of the door trim is in. I don't like the trim that I got so I want to find something different. That's kind of hard when you work all day and everything closes at 6:00.

Work has been kind of rough lately too. Harold came back for a couple of days and then started his chemo. Things weren't going so well so he was admitted to the hospital again last night. Kevin and I have been left with all of the projects that Harold started in the couple days that he was at the office and the ones he didn't start while he was out that we thought he did. The work load is miserable. I can't wait for things to be back to normal whatever that is.

I actually took time out of my day to have a training session with my entire crew today. It was relieving. I have a lot more to teach but it was good to get it started.

My car needs to have new rims. Two of them are bent. One is tolerable but the other really needs to be replaced. The replacement wheels from the factory are so expensive that I might as well put new ones all the way around with after market wheels. I still haven't replaced my destroyed car stereo either.

I know I need to look at the things I do have and can do and appreciate those. I know that venting does not make things any better but I like to think it does. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a time when there were no amenities to improve or cars to fix. What would it have been like to live in 1890? Would I have the same thoughts? The same disappointments? Probably, I would after all still be human.

I need to eat something and get to bed so that is all for now.

I will try to make the next one more positive and informative.

_E_

Travel

I am sitting in the Kansas City airport right now. They have free Wi-Fi. I think all airports should have free Wi-Fi. The only drawback to this one is that it is painfully slow. I am surprised the for a wireless connection that rates at 54 Mbps it takes this long to load anything. Either they have a really slow firewall or the trunk line to the building is slower than molasses in January. I guess I can't complain too much though. It is free.

Britni's Mom bought me my Christmas present early this year. There was a special at Home Depot on Senco nail guns. I got a package of three for $200.00. It included a 15 gauge angle finish nailer, a 18 gauge brad nailer and a 18 gauge narrow crown stapler. It's a great deal. Now I am ready to install new doors and trim all over the house.

The Maxima went in for service while we were in Iowa. It was the standard oil change and tire rotation with filter replacement. I can't believe the life I am getting out of that car for what I paid for it. Britni's van had to have the cam rod and sensor replaced a few weeks ago. That was expensive. That specific part can only be replaced by the dealership which really sucks. The labor rate a the shop I usually go to is $45/hr. The labor rate at the dealership is something like $90/hr. Then the dealership charges all of these "convenience fees" and "material disposal fees". I fought them on everything and got the price down but when all was said and done it ended up costing $450.

I can't wait to get home and sleep in my own bed again. There is just something about being in your own bed. We love out temperapedic.

We are hoping to start installing doors and trim in the house this coming weekend. We have to be out of the apartment by the end of December so we have to start moving in to the house in a couple weeks. It's getting there. I have put the new drywall in where I had to tear out the nasty stuff. The guest room and office are all painted. The kitchen paint has been started. All of the floors have Kilz on them. We will get the doors and trim done next and then we are off to carpet and hopefully hardwood floors. The washer and dryer are probably next. The master suite will have to sit for a while until we can save up and completely redo it properly. We will probably completely redesign the whole thing. It has a ton of wasted space in it. It's kind of annoying.

It looks like we are about to start boarding so I should sign off and shut down.

More to come.

_E_