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_

We're In.....Kind of.

We closed on our house on Friday!! Now we are removing all of the carpet, baseboards, and anything else thats nasty. The lady that lived there before we bought it was a cat lover and she loved her cats a little too much. There is cat pee all over the place. We are taking out everything that was peed on. We are sanitizing everything. Thank God for Clorox!! We don't know when we will move in yet but we are working away at the house. Pictures will be up soon.

_E_

Why does it take so much time to purchase a house?

We found out a couple weeks ago that we were approved for a mortgage for the house that we want. We have been signing papers and gathering documents and jumping through all kinds of hoops for the past week or so to get this thing finalized. The current closing date is November 8th. I can't wait.

Britni started packing last week and I jumped in and helped her pack a bunch of stuff today. We finally feel like we are moving! There are two remaining hurdles. We still have to get through closing without any hiccups, and we don't forsee any. The bigger hurdle is getting out of our lease with the current apartment. I am planning on going in to the leasing office and talking to them tomorrow after work. I hope they are workable. I don't want to screw them over but I don't want to be paying for an apartment and a house at the same time.

The house that we are buying is called a patio home. The outsides are cared for and insured by the homeowners association and the insides are cared for and insured by us. It comes with an oversized two car garage as well. The house is about 1530 square feet. It needs some work but that is what we have been looking for. We will be posting pictures as soon as we can.

I think that is all I have for now.

_E_

The Speed of Light

It seems that all of my posts lately have been describing a whirlwind life. I would like to slow life down a little bit but finding out how is proving to be harder than I thought. Work is the primary reason that it is so hard I think. I am working on fixing that but it is taking far longer than I hoped it would. Just when I think things are headed in the right direction it takes a hard left turn. That's my life thought right now.

We went to San Diego a week ago and picked up my Aunt Bonnie's van. She gave it to us because she is cool like that. I spent the afternoon today getting it inspected and ready for registration. I will be going in tomorrow morning at 7:00 and finish it up. It was nice to get out to San Diego. I forgot what it was like. Britni and I spent a couple of days touring around seeing old sites and friends. It was a nice change of pace. We were in the pool at least four times which was great as it was 104 degrees out there.

This past weekend was rough as far as work goes. We had six shows all stacked up. Jesse got sick and I had to cover for him which made for a really long hard weekend. This next weekend is not looking so good either. Jesse is still sick and we were planning on him driving a stage down to Cortez, CO. It is near the four corners. If he can't do it I will have to go down and do the stage. That's not going over with the wife so well right now, understandably, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Yesterday Britni and I went and looked at a town house. It is an incredible deal. We are working on getting the mortgage approved right now. We are praying very hard that we get approved. It would be great to have a place of our own. We would get out of this tiny apartment and in to a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath townhouse with a two car garage for another $200.00 per month.

That's all for now.

_E_

Life, Love, and the realities of it all

I have been married for four months now. I love it. I enjoy coming home to my wife. I like having someone to spend time with. I like having a mate. There are some things that have taken getting used to, like sleeping in the same bed, having to communicate my schedule. All in all it has been great.

We slept on two twin beds for the first few months. We bought a temperapedic bed in the middle of July with some money we had saved up and a gift from our parents. We LOVE it!!! Anyone considering purchasing a temperapedic bed should definitely do so. They are not cheap but they are well worth it.

We bought a Canon 20D camera on our honeymoon and I love it. Our short zoom lens that came with the camera (Canon EFS 18-55) was broken last weekend so I have been researching lenses. I think I have settled on the Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO. The reviews for a good middle size lense have been great and it's really not a badly priced lens for the performance reviews it has received.

Richter Scale has expanded again. We have added a video department to our list of talents. We purchased a significant amount of HD video gear from Sony PDW-F350 Cameras to Folsom switching to Barco DLP projection. It has been fun figuring everything out and developing our systems. We have hired a new department head for video. He was a steal for sure. He's great.

Britni and I have gone down to one car temporarily. Her contribution to the family motorcade is now deceased. We have been looking for a replacement and praying for an inexpensive but reliable car. Someone has offered us a very reliable and somewhat newer vehicle for better than inexpensive. They have offered it to us for free. We just have to go get it.

Britni and I have been focusing on paying off our debts. We are doing pretty well for only having been at it for four months. We have paid off three of our credit cards and are likely going to pay off a fourth this month. We can't wait to be completely out of debt but we have to be patient because that is going to take a little while.

Britni is working on a photo album for our wedding. It's pretty cool. We will be posting pictures from the wedding soon.

That's all I have for now.

_E_

Long Time

I will post a more complete post soon. Work and Marriage has kept me very busy. Don't give up hope. The words will soon appear.

_E_

29 or four and 1

The countdown continues. I am going to be a married man in 29 days. Britni is starting to stress a little bit about the wedding plans. I keep trying to reassure her that everything is going to be just fine and to take things one at a time. I can't wait until the wedding. At the same time everything is going too fast.

I have so much to do at work between now and then it's ridiculous. This week I am prepping for one show here in Denver and two shows in Las Vegas. Next week I am in Las Vegas, the week after that I have to build a trade show booth and then I have less than a week before the wedding. In all of that I have to hire some more people or we are going to get caught in a meat grinder of shows.

I have been trying to hang out with friends more instead of being at work all the time. It's kinda hard to do though. I get most of my work done between 4:30 and 9:00pm.

I still haven't been sleeping very well. I don't know if it's just all of the pressures of work and the wedding or if there is something else going on. My bed definitely needs to be replaced but I am saving up to buy a temperapedic in a couple of weeks so that Britni and I can have a bed to sleep on.

Well, I think that's all for now.

_E_

35

I might get mocked for this one but I am willing to take it. There are only 35 days left until I am married to the most amazing woman ever. Thirty five days, thats five weeks. It is also, 840 hours, or 50400 minutes. The more I think about it the longer it gets. The more I want it to be sooner the harder it is to concentrate on what is going on now. I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait!!

In other news... This week at work has been a good one. I am falling in to a rythm finally. The only disadvantage to that is that I am not sleeping very much. It's kind of wierd. I have been waking up every hour and half to two hours. Then I roll over and fall asleep again.

I had to meet Skip our IT consultant at the office yesterday at 10:00am to do some after hours updates and maintenence to the server. We finished rather quickly and left the updates running. Skip called me last night around 6:30 to tell me that the server had crashed and we would need to come in today and get it fixed. That's what I am doing right now. I am sitting here waiting to hear the, "Ok, we are all good" about the server. We started on it at 7:30 this morning. We are still going at 2:30 this afternoon. Oh, well, maybe we will have a better operating server when all is said and done.

My last post was to let all of you know that I was spiderman according to my superhero evaluation. I thought that was rather ironic as Britni absolutely HATES spiders. She is so scared of them that she won't even kill them. She just stands there frozen, staring at it or screaming. It's actually mildly amusing sometimes. I guess I will have to be the spider killer in the family.

I think that is all for now. If I remember something I will be sure to post it.

_E_

I'm A Super Hero According to......

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 70% Robin 70% Supergirl 68% Green Lantern 60% Superman 60% The Flash 55% Iron Man 55% Wonder Woman 48% Hulk 35% Batman 30% Catwoman 5%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

More Snow

It's snowing once again in Denver. Britni is supposed to land tomorrow morning at 10:30. I hope her flight doesn't get cancelled. I would be really mad. There are so many varying weather reports that it's hard to tell what is going to happen. The airport is still open but some of the airlines have been cancelling flights to thin out their service at DIA. It's not snowing real hard but it is cold enough to have ice problems. I closed the office today because of the roads. All of the government agencies are asking that people stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary. There are chain requirements for commercial vehicles on all of the major highways. At best there is one slushy lane open on each one. Oh well. I guess this is what I bargained for moving to Denver. In some ways I kind of like it. It's just a little bit annoying twice in one week.

_E_

Snow, Travel, Christmas and Stuff

Well, it has certainly been an eventful week. Last Tuesday Britni landed here in Denver. Wednesday I woke up an the snow was coming down so hard I couldn't see the building on the other side of the road. I went and picked Britni up for breakfast and while we were on our way back to my apartment Harold called to tell me to close the office for the day. It was snowing so hard that we actually closed!!! Britni and I decided to go to Mimi's Cafe for breakfast and then run some errands. We got to our second to last stop, Home Depot, and when we went to leave the car wouldn't start. It was snowing like mad and it was butt cold. I narrowed it down to the starter itself and decided to have the car towed to the mechanics. I then called a bunch of car rental places and finally found what was probably one of the last SUV's in the state. By this time Denver International Airport (DIA) was closed for the first time in history. The only road going to it was so dangerous to drive on they closed it. That's awesome.

Our company Christmas party was scheduled for Wednesday night as well. The food was already cooked and ready to go so we couldn't reschedule it. We usually have a bus come around and pick everybody up at their homes but they couldn't even get out of their garage with the bus. We decided to get as many people out there as we could so we who had four wheel drive picked up as many of those who didn't as we could and headed out to Harold and Judy's. It was a great drive. It was snowing so hard sometimes we couldn't see the car fifty feet in front of us. I love it!

It was a great party. There was a ton of good food. The snow was falling all night long. We talked a laughed a lot. Harold and Judy gave us our "company presents" for lack of a better term. I got a great Spyder ski parka with the company logo on it, a big bonus, and a huge, completely unexpected raise!!! Oh, and I got the employee of the year award.

After the party the snow was so deep that every vehicle that we brought out to Harold and Judy's got stuck on the road in front of their house. We dug each one out and were on our merry way by 2:15am.

On Thursday we woke up to more snow falling. DIA was announcing that it would be closed until noon on Friday. Britni called and got a refund on her flight and we made plans to drive back to Des Moines on Friday. The highway that we needed to take was opened back up on Thursday around 10:00pm.

We left at 10:00am on Friday and made it back to Des Moines at 10:15pm. It was a great drive. We took the 4Runner that we had rented because my car hadn't even been looked at due to the storm. They had to dig it out before they could even roll it in to the shop.

On Saturday I took Britni to work and ran errands all day. Sunday was Christmas Eve and I decided to fix her mom's downstairs toilet. We went to Home Depot and got the parts I needed and I rebuilt the insides of the tank. When I was done I went upstairs to wash my hands in the kitchen and when I went to turn on the water, the faucet felt like it was going to fall off in my hand. I decided to fix it. I started to take it apart and it began to fall to pieces in my hands. At that point I figured out what I was going to get her mom for Christmas. I got her a new faucet. I got a Pegasus all brass faucet with ceramic bushings and washers. This thing is great. I think we can safely say that the house will fall down before this thing dies. She loved it.

On Sunday night we went to Christmas Eve service and then over to Dan and Ashley's (Britni's sister and brother in law). We had desert and then headed home. When we got home Britni and I made the dough for the cinnamon rolls and then went to bed. Monday morning we opened gifts and ate all of the food that was family tradition. I left to come back to Denver around 3:45 and arrived at my apartment around 12:15. I went straight to bed and fell asleep.

I woke up on Tuesday morning and wasn't feeling so well but I went to work anyway being the die hard that I am. We moved the office furniture around all day so that it was done before the office staff came back to work today. My car was completed by the time I left work so Jesse was my ride after I dropped off the 4Runner at Enterprise.

Car repairs are expensive dang it. The starter cost $400.00 and the CV axles cost $500.00. Ouch!! The car is doing much better now though.

I got home around 7:00 and took a hot bath and went to bed. I haven't slept that hard in a really long time. I woke up this morning feeling great and I went to work to get a lot of stuff done. I did get a lot of stuff done actually but the list is growing faster than I can check things off.

All that said, it is supposed to snow a bunch more tomorrow and Friday. Britni is supposed to land here in Denver at 10:30 on Saturday morning. I hope they don't close the airport again.

I think that's all for now. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you are planning a great New Year.

_E_

Breakfast Rules!!

Stuart and I went to breakfast a Mimi's today. He and his family are on their way up to Breckenridge and they stayed in Denver last night. He and I went to breakfast to catch up. It was really good. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I love eggs and sausage and pancakes and orange juice and coffee and...... Anyway, it was nice to sit down and talk for a little while.

In other news, Britni will be here on Tuesday. She if flying in for the company Christmas party. It's going to be a fun one. It is at Harold and Judy's again this year. The bus will pick us up at my apartment and then go pick up a couple more people and then take us all out to their house. It's pretty far out there in Franktown. The best part is that Britni will be here.

I checked our wedding website today and it says we have 105 days left until the wedding. Yee-Haww! That means in 105 days I will be a married man. Britni's dress came in last week. She's really excited. Now we just have to find the perfect tuxes.

More Later

_E_

mmmmmm Steak

i decided to splurge a little bit tonight. I bought a steak and grilled it up. It's a boneless ribeye. I am not usually a fan of ribeyes but I saw this one and it had the most even marbling I have ever seen. I grilled it to a medium-rare. I seasoned it with "Vermont Country Seasoning". I am in heaven. Oh so good!!

_E_

again, with the cold

Today's high was 32 degrees. I know there are other places in the US that are much colder, but that is not the point. It is really cold for the Denver area. We have a low of 12 degrees tonight. Eeeek. That's cold enough to freeze shrimp in the ocean. Speaking of shrimp, I think I have a love affair with shrimp cocktail. There is something really satisfying about it. It is definitely one of my favorite foods.

The wedding plans are coming along. I talked with Aunt Bonnie a couple of days ago. She is a wedding floral designer. She is doing the flowers for our wedding. I asked her how much it was going to be and she said that it is our wedding present. That freakin' rocks. I can't believe it.

I was watching movie trailers tonight and I heard a song that I really like. I have heard it on the radio a million times but they never say who the artist is or the name of the song. I spent hours on i-Tunes trying to find it to no avail.

The next few weeks I think are going to fly by. There is a whole lot going on with Christmas parties, trips, and Christmas going on.

I heard Jimmy Eat World's Christmas EP and I really like their version of Last Christmas. I am listening to it right now. I love Christmas music. It has a certain drive to it even if it some of the slower stuff.

I need to go get a Christmas tree. There are a bunch of stands around but I have no way of getting it back to the apartment. I think I am going to ask Jesse if he will go with me and put it in his truck in exchange for dinner tomorrow night.

That's all for now.

_E_