I’m back. Did you miss me? Clearly you did, because it rained a lot while I was gone, and rain’s like tears. [Or something.]

I was in Ohio, and it wasn’t as somber as it could’ve been. This time we did all the sad stuff first, then hung out with people in our old hometown. Watching Mom get re-acquainted with Beavercreek was quite fun. Getting a zinger in on one of our church’s notable zinger-givers, even better.

But anyway, I’m back, even if I am still dreaming of that Empire Victorian house in Van Wert. Well, that, and of manned spaceflight being in Dayton so I can go back home. Man, I miss Ohio.

My photos from the 4 Apr 2008 Caedmon’s Call show in Dyersburg, TN are online. I’ll work on the recording some tomorrow. This will be my first attempt at a matrix of a soundboard patch and an audience recording.

FAILBOAT! on Flickr

So, last night, Amy, Stephen, and I went to Nashville to the Cannery Ballroom to go see The New Pornographers and Okkervil River. Early in the trip, Amy and Adam were talking on the phone [or maybe it was texting at that point], and Adam indicated that we needed to name the road trip. “All good road trips need a name.” Well, last night shall henceforth be known as “The Voyage of the S.S. Failboat“.

Let’s just review the list of things that went wrong:

1. I failed to do the appropriate level of research on the show, not knowing all about Cannery Ballroom. I’d been to Mercy Lounge upstairs, and so I figured our chance of getting to sit down if we got there early was 50-50. FAIL factor: 7.5/10.
2. I dumped photos from my CompactFlash-based photodrive yesterday morning but didn’t check the disk out until right before I left the house. Something went wrong in the deletion process, rendering the CF drive unusable. I didn’t know this until after I’d left the house, because I didn’t take 20 seconds to find out what “Err 02″ was on my Canon 10D. FAIL factor: 4.5.
3. Also, despite putting a decent amount of thought into my mic selection, I didn’t double-check to make sure that I’d packed the desktop mount that might have allowed me to use my cardioids, leaving me stuck with my omnidirectional mic as a practical concern when I got to the show. FAIL factor: 5.0.
4. I never fully realized that there was battery draw on my battery box/bass roll-off when not in use. The battery was dead when I got to the venue, which I didn’t realize until trying to record. FAIL factor: 7.0.
5. I had done a lot of work trying to choose a great place for dinner. I’d picked Noshville, which I had heard really good things about. I even checked with my friends about it. But I didn’t realize that there were multiple locations along the same road, so I assumed that the one I knew would be open for dinner wasn’t. FAIL factor: 8.0.
6. We left a little late, as Stephen was continually sucked into a vortex of meetings. Amy and I went out to the car when we thought he was done, which was a mistake; we should have stayed right by him to ward off the vultures. FAIL factor: 0.5, completely nullified by the fact that I was driving the WRX, and bitch, please, like we’re gonna be late when that’s happening.
7. Adam asked if the WRX was fast. FAIL factor: 3.0 for the dumb question, 4.0 for me not throwing him in the car when he was in town last. No worry, I’ll scare the hell out of him next time he’s in town.
8. We get to the Noshville location south of Green Hills Mall, only to find out that it had closed at 4:00 p.m. FAIL factor: 8.5.
9. We ended up eating at Pei Wei, which was pretty good by my taste. Plus, it inspired a discussion amongst us about how we all liked Thai and needed to coordinate going to Thai Garden for lunch on a semi-regular basis: FAIL factor: 0.5. [Only the possibility that the Thai Dynamite contributed to my feeling ill later does this get any FAIL factor whatsoever.]
10. Realizing that we’ve got lots of time left, we decide on a coffee shop stop while we’re driving. Knowing where I am, I take us to Fido. FAIL factor: -10, because I have great memories of Fido and always enjoy going there.
11. Seeing the other Noshville location on 21st just as we get ready to get onto Broadway. FAIL factor: 8.5. “But now we know where it is for next time, and now we have multiple dinner ideas for when we come to town again for a show.” FAIL factor revised down to 6.0. [A&S, do either of you remember what the other place we talked about eating at was? Was it just the Pei Wei? Seems like I mentioned another place or something. I dunno. I'm brain-fried.]
12. Getting a decent spot in line because we’d gotten to town early. FAIL factor: 1.0, but only because it was raining.
13. Forgetting my Moo cards and having to go back in the car, to find out that where we were standing by the building was leeward [read: I got pretty wet]. FAIL factor: 2.5, ameliorated to 2.0 by gentle, playful mocking when I talked about not going back out to the car when were clearly going to be in line another half-hour.
14. Choosing dress shoes to wear yesterday, not realizing that there would be lotsa standing. FAIL factor: 9.0.
15. Heading to the back of the room in front of the soundboard to record while sitting on the floor, because I was not gonna survive standing for three-plus hours in those shoes and be capable of driving home later. FAIL factor: 6.5.
16. Suffering all my technical problems with mics while sitting by the soundboard. FAIL factor: 8.0.
17. Bailing on the OR set after a few songs because I was way too hot and just not feeling well at all. FAIL factor: 7.0.
18. The sound guy at Cannery Ballroom sucked. FAIL factor: 11.0.
19. Text message sent from me to Amy early in tNP’s set, explaining that I was in the car. FAIL factor: 0.5. Only reason this registers is because I could’ve sent it a half-hour or more earlier and probably saved them some frustration. [To be fair, they probably would've wanted to see if tNP's set was going to sound any better. It didn't, of course.]
20. The drive home, where we talked about concert experiences and listened to Andrew Bird and M. Ward. FAIL factor: 0.0.

And see, at the end of the night, it was still quite enjoyable for me. Despite the rampant failure of the night, I got to spend an evening with a couple of my good friends, something that doesn’t happen all that much now that we’ve gotten away from being “young adults” and are now just “adults”.

I Tweeted last night that the night had been a failure, which got John to respond, “[W]ould you rather voyage on the S.S. Failboat with friends or take a trip on the S.S. Success by yourself?” I’ll take the former every time, and here’s why: despite the fact that it was a terrible night, it’s gonna be a great memory. I’ve had awesome concert experiences solo, but at the end of the night, I had no one to share them with.

As I mentioned, we talked about concert experiences, and Amy mentioned seeing Damien Rice at Workplay a couple years ago. I know someone who went to that show, too, and was similarly blown away. Amy’s response:

I kinda just wanted someone to talk to after that to make sure that what I experienced had really happened.

That’s an understandable reaction. Ultimately for me, live music is a shared experience, and it’s altogether sweeter when shared with friends. [Wanting to preserve those memories is why I have become a concert taper and take lots of photos at shows.] My favorite concert experience that I didn’t mention in our discussions last night was seeing Caedmon’s Call on tour at Liberty University [!] right after Derek left the band: I gave Cliff a bottle of cognac before the show as a way-inside joke [!! Cognac on campus at LU!!!], then watched the show with a bunch of friends who’d all traveled from across the eastern half of the country to attend. Me, I left Huntsville at 0700 on a Saturday morning with my friend Ross [who'd left Tuscaloosa around 0430 to get to Huntsville] and drove to southern Virginia for that show.

The band got us on-the-floor seats, and we stood right in front of center stage during the show. I took photos of both the band and our group, and I remember the photos of my friends more than the band. I also remember Jeff Miller watching us during the show, just shaking his head and laughing as he played the bass. That night, I hung out with about 15 or 20 friends from The Rumor Forum and slept on the hard floor of a new acquaintance’s apartment, then driving back home to Alabama on Sunday in time for UMYF that night. 1100 miles in under 36 hours. Wouldn’t trade that memory for the world.

Somehow, I expect that I’ll remember last night almost as fondly.

That was fun, but I really don’t want to do it again anytime soon. But like Bryan said in a forum post yesterday: if that’s the last Caedmon’s Call show I ever see, I can die a happy man.

[Yes, I recorded it. Yes, I'm releasing it. This is just a busy week.]

“Oh, hey, I’m gonna be late on the 25th.”

“What is that?”

“Monday, the week we ship [the hardware job we're shipping on Friday that week].”

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be a big deal. Where ya gonna be?”

“Well … I’ll start the morning in Philadelphia, and I’ll be in Nashville by 0815 and here by 1030 or so.”

And the fun thing is that my boss didn’t even bat an eyelash. He … well, he knows I’m insane.

Indeed, I am: after two hockey games that weekend, I’ll drive to Nashville Sunday morning, hop a plane to PHL, land, get a rental, drive almost to Trenton, New Jersey, watch Caedmon’s Call in concert [and hang out with Bryan and Mark, which is reason enough to go in and of itself], chill with the band after the show, then mosey back down to PHL and fly home first thing Monday morning.

Won’t be the first time I’ve grabbed a little shuteye at an airport before winging my way back home and then to the office.

Yeah, I’m insane. But this is how I roll. [And I have new camera equipment to roll with! My Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 showed up yesterday, and my EF 85mm f/1.8 USM arrived today. My mics show up, well, whenever Sound Professionals gets off their duffs and ships it to me.] And yes, I’ll have more equipment than other baggage.

Yes, folks … we’re 13-19-3 and in the NCAA’s. It gets better when you learn that UAH is 5-0-1 in their last six games. Yeah, we were 8-19-2 not that long ago. Just a horribly long start to the season, I guess.

Of course, I’m on my way to the regionals to broadcast the games. We start off with a game against Notre Dame tomorrow at 4:05 p.m. Central; that game will be streamed on the Internet at 730UMP.com, thanks to the fine folks at WUMP. They’ve really stepped up for us—all the postseason games we play will be broadcast by them or their sister station, WVNN. Thanks a ton, guys. Zack Bennett and Thom Abraham are our heroes of the week!

Oh, did I forget to mention that my boy Mike Anderson is broadcasting with me? I think I did. This is gonna be awesome.

I type this entry from a Panera in Nashville [on 21st, in case you're curious]. I was going to dine at the lovely Fido’s a bit further south on 21st, but damn if their parking lot wasn’t completely and utterly full. [Bry, I'm right next to Satco, man. I have a hankering for some terribly greasy Mexican food that I'll regret at 2:00 a.m. Wish you were here!]

Why am I stopped? Don’t I drive all night? Well, see … I have a fantasy baseball draft tonight, and unlike, oh, Ronzilla, I’m not so lame that I’ll skip the draft despite needing to be on the road. I’ll do our draft [which usually goes under two hours], finish that up, and then get back on the road. Tonight I’m staying in Elizabethtown, KY, and I’ll get up early in the morning and finish the drive. I might yet beat the Pep Band bus to Grand Rapids.

More later. Should be a fun time.

[And yes, I'm posting because, as Mom noted in a phone call yesterday, I've been posting nothing but links lately. Yes, I'm terribly busy at work. No, I can't talk about any of it. I don't really want to talk about it, anyway. ]

Last [er, Friday] night, I drove up to Nashville to go see Sandra McCracken play a show at The Rutledge. It ended up being an interesting night: she and Drew Holcomb were the late show, so I had to go to the Mexican place next door to kill some time. [Let's not discuss how I got to the venue four hours before the show, shall we?]

I learned a lot of things, though:

1. Fiesta Mexicana, despite having a fully Hispanic staff, serves Tex-Mex and not authentic Mexican. [That, or they can't handle chile relleños well. Like my mother, I use chile relleños to judge a Mexican restaurant's value.] It’s reasonably priced, but it’s pretty meh.
2. Watching March Madness is a lot more fun when you only spent five minutes on your bracket and can’t remember that you had Illinois picked to upset Virginia Tech while you’re watching the Illini blow the upset. [Sorry, Mark.]
3. Those signs about how they tow cars in the vicinity of The Rutledge? They’re not shitting you, people. I watched them tow three cars in the 20 minutes I sat in my car after eating dinner.
4. When you load in for a pregnant singer/songwriter, she guestlists you.

Turns out that, as I sat in my car waiting for the early show to end, Sandra pulled in next to me to park. I waved, hopped out of my car, and offered to load in, knowing that she’s about six months along at this point. “I love this part of it!” she beamed. “I haven’t loaded in for about four months, other than maybe a guitar.”

I didn’t realize that this show would be with a full band—Kenny Meeks on electric, Mark Polack on bass, and Garett Buell on the drum kit—so it was doubly awesome. I got to catch up with GB on the Caedmon’s tracking, talk with Mark briefly, and share an awkward “we’ve never been introduced, but we’re still both too ‘guy’ to introduce ourselves” moment with Kenny to talk about hockey. To say nothing of how great it sounded. I was just above the sound board, so I bet my recording kicks ass. I’ll find out later today … for now, I think I ought to go to bed, as this is two nights in a row up this late, and I have to sing at both services today.

I remember trying to capture this, hoping that I got it. When I saw it import in iPhoto early Friday morning, I jumped up and let out a small whoop.

Yeah, I’m a dork.

I’m still having a hard time fully grasping that I drove three-and-a-half hours round-trip for what amounted to be a forty-minute set. It honestly doesn’t faze me, though; it was good music, I got to see a bunch of people I don’t often get to see [including Caedmon's Call's Cliff Young, whom I never see outside of CC shows], I got a good recording [other than this cut that I induced that I'll self-flagellate over for another week or more], and a good bunch of photos that I liked.

It’s not like I was going to do anything cool on a Thursday night anyway.

All my photos from Thursday are available in a slideshow on Flickr.

Afterwards, we started making the drive back, having decided to do so late on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, my right ear started to bother me yesterday—another blasted ear infection. I figured that I could make it until I got home—which I would do today [on Friday], a day early, because we’re only seven hours from west Tennessee—but after a couple hours of sleep, it’s obvious to me that I won’t make it that far without serious complications. My right ear canal is, unfortunately, swollen shut by this moment [0130 EST]. Unfortunately, both aren’t closed, so I can still hear the chorus of snoring Morris men in the room.

I’ve looked up a doc-in-a-box in Beavercreek, and I’ll be waiting on them to open at 0800. Joy, joy, joy.

We’re going to drive down to the Dayton area tomorrow afternoon and hopefully see some old friends tomorrow night. I think we could use some friendly faces that aren’t so tired and grieving. Yes, these friends will grieve with us—look how you’ve all grieved with me—but a burden shared is a burden made a tiny bit lighter, and Lord knows that this is a very heavy burden.

Until tomorrow.

I’m about to shut my folks’ machine down and hit the couch—Another night on a couch!? cries my back; Shut up, you! cries my brain—and get ready to drive in the morning. I want to leave at 0600, because even though Google Maps’ routing me through Indianapolis [hi, Rick] does save me an hour, I don’t know what we’ll need to do when we get to the area, and I want us to be there to help Judy [Cindy's mother] and the rest of the family do whatever’s needed.

Prayers for safe travel would be appreciated. I’m refusing to let either my father or my brother drive any.

I’ve got a little present for you guys that’ll show up later tonight. After that, it’ll probably get quiet here for a while, as I’m not guaranteed to have much access to the Internet. And that’s fine … unplugging is great.

To you and yours, a Merry Christmas.

For the curious, here’s the setlist:

• Fever
• Born
• All I Ever Get for Christmas Is Blue
• Darlin’ (Christmas Is Coming)
• I Don’t Wanna Waste Your Time
• Nothing Is Innocent Now
• The Trumpet Child
• “Trashy little song” — the only one of the new songs never titled by K or L during introductions in the set. Not sure if it’s because they don’t have a title they like yet or what.
• North Pole Man—the song itself is sultry. Hearing Karin sing it live? Well, now we know why it was so damn hot in the balcony.
• Goodbye, Charles
• Snow Angel—I dare you to listen to this one, paying attention to the lyrics, and not be moved.
• Silent Night (crowd singing). Fun to do, and as you’d expect, an OtR crowd can sing.
• Trouble
• Band Intros
• Jack’s Valentine (Mickey Graham drum solo, Jake Bradley bass solo). Man, Graham can pound the skins.
• Baby, It’s Cold Outside (cover)

-Encore-

• If a Song Could Be President. Admittedly, it’s a novelty and a gimmick song, but it’s funny at least the first time you hear it.
• Drunkard’s Prayer

Thanks again to the Over the Rhine folks for making the awesome music that they do.

Ohmigosh.

I must say, yesterday was the easiest 8+-hour work day of the last three-and-a-half months.

[We don't mess around. Another option was putting me on a plane to deliver it in person; I'd carry the proposal on and check any baggage; the proposal is more important than any clothes I might lose, y'know?]

But really … I will get paid [time and mileage] to … drive my brand new car 500 miles. Said car is not supposed to be driven aggressively for the first 1,000 miles so as to allow time for the engine to wear normally before you drop the hammer with the turbocharger and hit 6,000 RPM in second gear getting up to speed on the on-ramp. [I mean, I won't speed, but I'll get up to speed quickly.]

Oh, break my heart. You want to pay me to drive the car that I’ve not had the time or energy to drive much since two weekends ago? Oh, okay. You have to twist my arm really, really hard …

On Sunday, I’ve got church stuff, and after that’s done, I’m heading to Nashville to see MPJ and Sandra play at The Rutledge and also catch up with Joe Bassett. I rather doubt that any of my local people [that is, Rick or Jonathan] would want to go to a Sunday night show, but I’ll take riders if they want to come along.

Of course, I have to hit the ground running back on Monday. But I’m ready to cut loose a little and get out of town. My little car hasn’t left Madison County yet!

Woke up, went to hit Pancake Pantry with Andy O. Can’t raise Andy on the phone. [No big.] See the Sunday-morning-level line outside, decide to bolt. Hit Cracker Barrel at, amusingly, the exit right by Osenga’s house. Fuel up on Southern breakfast, hit the road.

Now, the truck had been a little hard to start the last couple of days, and I was also hearing some belt squeal—but only very, very intermittently and for very short periods. No worries, really.

Around mile marker 30 on I-65 southbound, any additional current draw—such as running my wipers—drops off the XM Radio. My brain starts to think, “Alternator issues,” as I’d just had those back in August. I say to Bryan, “Okay, we’re going to take a detour on our way down. We have plenty of time, and I want to get this checked out.” He agrees, as we do have lots of time.

11:58. We past Exit 22 at Pulaski, TN. My battery light comes on. “Alternator issues, I say.” I crest the ridge past the exit. I glance at my temperature gauge. Holy shit! I hit the heater and crack my window, slowing the vehicle. It continues to spike, I pull onto the shoulder. I shut down the engine, come to a stop, and … GOOSH! Steam. Not knowing that it’s only steam, I tell Bryan to grab everything valuable and throw it in the bed of the truck, and we do. After a minute or two, it’s clearly coolant containment loss. :sigh:

I call my insurance company to have them get me a wrecker. The wrecker comes after a half-hour wait, and we get to his shop. Hearing my symptoms, the mechanic checks … no alternator belt. It clearly broke off without us noticing, which caused all the issues. How is this related to the coolant? The same belt also turns the water pump. No circ, no activce cooling, and … BLAMMO. Mechanic fixes belt, thinking that this is the only issue, and it’s just and overflow or something. [Given how it spouted steam, I thought that perhaps a hose let go.] After more work, he finds the culprit … a crack in the radiator, one that has clearly grown significantly as it has cooled. Bryan has photos.

So, when it was the belt, I thought I was home free … I’d get it fixed, take the bill to the people who just did that work 60 days ago, and demand an explanation and compensation. I’ll still be doing that, but …

New tires.
New battery.
New alternator.
New radiator.

This truck is wearing out.

I’m fixing the truck to improve its resale value [a running truck beats a non-running truck], and … I expect to not drive it more than 7-10 days longer.

The radiator wasn’t in stock in Pulaski, so the truck is there, and we rented a car and came on to Birmingham. We’re now in Cullman, having driven most of the way home so that we can have it easy in the morning. I’ll drive Bry to the airport, head in to the office, do a few things, then head back to Pulaski and settle up on the truck and get it back to Huntsville [and the rental back in under 24 hours].

:sigh: Good show, though.

The afternoon was spent with the lovely Katy Bowser, where I shot some photos that she might end up using on her site. Good times.

After that, Bry and I met up with Casella again at Bongo Java East and shot the breeze over some coffee. I would love to encapsulate that conversation, but it was so wide-ranging that I’d never attempt it. Afterwards, Jer played some of his new disc, which is gonna own. Seriously. This is not the music that you expect from Casella.

We’ve driven around a while, but now we’ve landed at a Nashville spot for a beer with Mr. Webb. Enjoying the wireless and the company, although Derek just busted me for blogging instead of talking. [But to be fair, it was him and Bry talking until Erica called.] Crazy day, and the night is still young!

Okay, time to get moving this morning…

So I think I’m going to take a quick shower, throw my stuff together, and see if I can make it in to the 0900 teleconference that I had been given permission to skip this morning.

Now we’ll see how quickly I wake up … I should be far more tired than I am right now, what with the 5 hours’ sleep of last night combined with the 4 hours’ driving yesterday and more than that today, but … well, I almost drove home in frustration. [Why not? Well, if you've ever driven US 72 between Chattanooga and Huntsville, you know that it's pretty ... rural. On an interstate corridor, I'd have regular opportunities to pull over for caffeine or hotelspace, but not on that road.]

Okay, must go to bed.

I only want to go where my wheels roll … and Tuesday they carry me to Nashville and then Wednesday on to Hotlanta to see the Bruins play the Thrashers—it’s the only time they come down there this year, and well … I’d go another time if they came, given that this week is busy. [Hey Dougal?! Are you going with me or am I calling in the relief goalie? ]

Now I know I made a mistake, lining up all this travel at once. Ah well. I’m still under 30.