Happy New Year!

Never did make it back here to share our trip to Utah. It was a lot of fun, I got to know Beth's family better, found out about some great new beers, did some awesome skiing, and broke my ski boots that were 15 years old. I posted up my photos from the trip on my Flickr page HERE so you can live vicariously through them if you want. The weather was colder overall this year but unfortunately I still was not able to experience the true, amazing, second-to-none dry powder skiing that Utah is known for. But of course I still managed to have a great time on the slopes! I hung out with Beth's sister, her step-dad and his brother's family on the slopes almost the entire first day. It was really fun to watch them pick up skiing and get better and better each run they took. It's tough to learn to ski the older you keep and I have a lot of respect for Beth's stepdad and his brother for trying it over 50, and not getting so frustrated they gave up. I was fortunate to learn when I was young around 4th grade but I've witnessed many an adult try to learn and give up. It's tough!

After Utah we got back to town and only had 3 days to get all our stuff organized and packed for our trip to Atlanta for the Americas Mart Gift Show. We did this same show last Jan and July so thankfully most of our display was already worked out and made. Beth still had to bust out 1 of every style she makes which is a ton, easily over 120 pieces. We were in Atlanta for 6 days selling jewelry to owners of boutiques and other stores. We got back last Thurs and jumped back into work. I had some studio work lined up and Beth had whole orders to fill and retail website orders to get out.

I got all Bob Ross on Beth when she asked me to touch up the white canvases!

We've finally had some time to get organized and get Christmas totally put away, cleaned up and stored. Our downstairs is starting to look normal again and I even had time to get outside for a bike ride. I met up with my friend Graham from NMB and we rode a cold lap at Percy Warner park. I cut it to just one lap as my feet were pretty cold and I'm out of shape truthfully. I have been off the bike completely through the holidays and Monday was my first ride of the new year. We got dinner and some beers after the ride which were earned. I tried to ride just enough to justify a couple pints of the Sweet Potato Stout that was a 2 for 1 deal at the Brewhouse 100.

Oh and I got a new pair of cycling kicks from my mother in law for Christmas anxious to try them out!

I decided to make an attempt to participate in the 365 "project" on Flickr. Post 1 photo every day for a year. So far I'm off to a decent start, though not all my photos have been that interesting, or that high quality. I think it will be interesting to look back at the end of the year and see what all I thought was worth documenting. 2010 will be quite a different year for Beth and I with a baby girl on the way so this should be fun. I'm also going to try to not be too anal about it and not worry if I miss a day here or there. You can follow it if you're interested here: Chewieez 365.

Hopefully I'll also begin to keep this blog more up-to-date in 2010. I have been quite a slacker lately.

catch up

Lots going on these days. I've been blessed to go from wondering where I'd be working to wondering where I'll get some free time. Beth and I have been on the road a ton lately which has been a lot of fun and we've been fortunate to have some good shows.

I've slowly been ramping up my riding again. The weekend before last had a group of us back down in our old gravel grinding grounds of Fly, TN. Thad has a good write up of the ride complete with photos. I was hoping to bring along my camera in my feed bag, but it decided to be cranky that day and not work. The ride was exactly what I needed. I need rides like this to push me past my comfort zone and show me what I can do. The idea that if I quit, I'm a long way from my car helps me keep pedaling and show me what I really have in the tank. Not to mention that the hang time and comradery on these rides are second to none. We had some fresh blood on this ride and everyone finished with big smiles and spent legs. 63 miles were shown on my computer. Not bad for a dreary, brisk fall day and a bunch of mountain bikers.

Since then I've been in the recording studio, spent 4 days in Alabama with Freshie & Zero and this week, ridden Monty Bell with KRS-1 and MeanJoe and started tearing down wallpaper in our guest room. Busy busy. We had to miss a big Halloween party while we were in Alabama. From the pictures I've been it looks like a ton a fun was had, and most of it was probably remembered the next day. Beth and I had a party on the books for this saturday night and then we're off to the beach for a few days. It's been too long since we've taken a trip to get away from it all as a couple so we're super excited!


(on a side note: I've been enjoying using the new http://draft.blogger.com interface. Handles images much better than the default blogger interface and it has a re-sizable window... what a concept!)

Where has free time gone?

I feel like I've gone from wondering what to do with my time to wondering where my time is going. Work has been plentiful lately and Beth and I have been out of town on numerous trips for Freshie & Zero. It's been a month since I put a post up...wow it's flown by.

I haven't gotten back on the cycling train yet but I've made a few meager attempts. I got out to Monty Bell last week for a solo ride. I was leery that the trail would be a sloppy mess with the wet month that Sept was but I was surprised yet again by the resilience of that trail. It was definitely wet, but there was no mud to be seen. My bike wasn't even dirty minus a little bit of wet crushed leaves and trail debris.


I had the entire trail to myself which was quite peaceful. I took it easy since I don't have the fitness I am accustomed to and stopped to take photos. It takes creativity (and a good camera timer) to get self portraits on a solo bike ride. I was using Beth's old Canon which only has a 10 sec timer so it made it that much more difficult, and fun.


We've been to Chicago and Memphis for craft shows this past month and Beth did a show down in Murfreesboro between them. All three shows were a success which is a great morale boost coming off the miserable shows we did in the Spring. We're both pretty worn out those from the cycle of: make a ton of jewelry, travel/setup/sell it, come home and make a ton more, travel/setup/sell it then come home and make more. Beth has also had some big wholesale orders to fill for stores around the country. Lots to do for sure!

Here is a bit of a picture dump from our last two shows:

Chicago Renegade Craft Show (Chicago is so fun!)

Some samples of the healthy cuisine we're treated to on the road.

This is what happens when it rains from 5am-5pm at an outdoor craft show


And I'll end with a new beer discovery. Theakston Old Peculier

New times call for new skills

When opportunity knocks what do you do? I hope that I can recognize it and open the door.

Beth has come up with a great idea for a Freshie & Zero promotion but it involves a little bit of sewing. Not hand sewing but some simple sewing on a machine. First thought: Can we send this to my Mom? (she's a great seamstress!) Logistics are hard though since she lives 12 hrs away in Virginia. So what's a budding entrepreneur like Beth to do? Buy a sewing machine.

With time on my hands and a sewing machine on the dining room table, I jumped right in to the instruction manual. Started off easy enough, put thread here, pull through here and put on a spool. Wait where does this spool go. Ok, Read some more.... got it, I think. After a bunch of back and forth between the machine and the manual I had some scraps to practice on and I was off.


We've had some table skirts for our show display that unfortunately shrank in the wash a while back & have needed to be re-hemmed really bad. Like many to-dos, we've always managed to put it on the back burner each month. Well, this was my first project Beth gave me. Thankfully it was a simple task and after a little practicing I was ready to tackle it.

Fast forward a few hours to Beth posting up a photo of me on her Facebook sewing and the comments from women start coming in. Turns out I'm quite sexy for running a sewing machine. Who knew. Guess I can stop showing my chest hair and put the gold chains away. I've found the new way to impress the ladies. heh

We're in Atlanta now for the Summer Shade Festival and got all of our stuff setup in our booth this afternoon. It was a proud moment when I got to put the table skirts on and they fit great and all the velcro matched up perfectly. Sewing, not the manliest thing for a guy to know how to do, but it seems quite useful and the ladies love it. I've already fixed a bathing suit that I have where the velcro fly was coming unsewn.

Handling

We're back from San Francisco and had a great trip. The craft show was good with a surprising turn out. Unfortunately there were a lot of window shoppers and not many people committing their money. We still enjoyed our stay though. The GoCar tour was a lot of fun. Sure we looked like dorks, but we put a smile on the face of everyone we drove by! We explored Fishermans Wharf, the beach front area near where the craft show was, The Golden Gate bridge, then up and into the Golden Gate park and through some of the famous parts of town like Haight-Ashbury and saw the Painted Ladys. We were both cooked after a couple hours though since the handbrakes were quite hard to use on the buggy and the little lawnmower engine was quite loud. It took us places we never would of gone though even if we had rented a car and the audio tour was great.


We survived a 1 1/2hr flight delay leaving San Fran which made us have to run from gate D6 to gate C12 in the Salt Lake City airport. We just knew there was no way our bags would make it given we only made it by 5 minutes. We also didn't realize until we checked into the airport on our way to San Fran that Northwest airlines is now owned by Delta.... ugh, our nemisis! (Delta = Delivering Everyone Late Through Altanta) To my utter surprise though out bags did make it! It was truly a miracle. On our return trip our big 50 lb bag wasn't searched like it was on the way to San Fran. On the way there they searched it, and of course, repacked it completely differently than I had it packed and things broke. I guess they weren't used to seeing a bag full of carny crafter's display supplies.

Beth has been hard at work the past couple days wipping out wholesale orders. I've been putting in a lot of hours designing and managing her Facebook fan page and Twitter acct. I set up a cool landing page for non-Facebook fans that better shows off her work. Check it out here: Freshie & Zero Fan Page If you like the tweeting with the twitters around the cyber watercooler, here's our Twitter page: http://www.twitter.com/freshieandzero

I finally got back out on the bike a little last night. It had been a couple weeks and I could tell. It was a good thing the roads were pretty dead cus I was using a lot of them. It was such a nice night though and I had the itch for some Yazoo beer and some catching up with friends time. Beth ended up going out and meeting with her Ladypreneurs group and made some great new connections. It was a win win evening, though poor Zero had the spend it our in our (awesome) backyard. I'm sure he was pissed.

Here are the lot of photos from our San Francisco trip.
(click any of them to go to my Flickr page)




Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

time won't let up

It's funny how things progress. You think you know what will happen for the next month, even week, but life has a way of moving at it's own pace, whether that's lightening fast or dsl slow. I always have lots I want to say and put up in this blog, but then I have trouble with the follow through. I get sucked into other, more engaging online activities like facebook/twitter/research etc and then lose the creative surge of energy to update the blog. I also haven't been cycling much lately which leads to not many updates, but I think this will be changing soon. Life has been giving me lots of lemons here in Nashville for a while, but lately it's changed to pears. I'm still not sure what to do with these pears but I hope to document the journey here.

Beth and I are currently in San Francisco, staying at the historic Hotel Vertigo where they filmed the Alfred Hitchcock movie. We just wrapped up the Renegade Craft Fair which was our first show on the west coast. It is my first trip to the left coast as well. We haven't had much time to explore during the day but we've found a few nice cafe's for breakfast and coffee (we're addicts, yes) and of course some fun pubs to unwind in the evenings. We've enjoyed some local Anchor brewing beer and many other Californian beers. Last night we explored the Mission area and ate and drank at The Monk's Kettle. It's a self-professed gastropub and the menu and beer selection didn't disappoint one bit. Upscale pub food, as it was described on their site, completely under-estimates the level of food. Unfortunately the walk from the 49 bus stop down 16th street was not so enjoyable. Wow, we definitely found a seedy area by accident.

We have all day tomorrow to explore the city. We don't have any set plans other than to rent the tour buggy which has a GPS guided tour. Should be a blast if I can get a hang of the motorcycle controls, wonder if it will be front brake on the right or left. We've had a very nice view of the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz from the festival pavilion but we're hoping to get a closer look in the buggy.


I've been a busy bee lately emmersing myself in everything social media and learning ways to promote independent, small businesses online. I've setup Beth's jewelry company, Freshie & Zero with a Facebook Fan Page and also a Twitter Acct. If you're interested, follow us, I promise you'll get a much more up-to-date account of our travels and business experiences. I'm hoping that this may become something I can offer to other indie style businesses in the future. I've already talked with one company about it and need to continue brainstorming and follow up. It's all about follow through in life right?

So, hey look, insomnia can lead to productivity! Here are a few pics of our trip so far. I'll most likely wait until my return trip to upload the lot of them to Flickr.

Yes, that is a guy playing the piano, that he pedaled to the show.

whirlwinds

Just got back from the Renegade Holiday show in chilly Chicago. 1 more successful craft show in the bag for Freshie and Zero. We braved the frigid temps, icy roads and dangerous guitine elevators to mingle with the hip indie crafters and finish our xmas shopping. We both had a great time (as usual for Chicago) and even though it was only 8 degrees yesterday when we headed to the show, we managed to stay relatively warm and dry all day. Dry was a great thing if you remember our last trip to Chicago and the last Renegade show where it rained non-stop from Friday to Sunday and almost flooded the streets of Chicago.

I came home to a couple boxes of bike parts. Hmm by my mental count, I believe I have all the parts needed to make a 29er single speed. Oh wait, not quite yet... I still need a frame!! what the! Oh yea, it's still sitting on FedEx waiting to be picked up! I tried to get it friday before I left town. After seeing it labeled as "on the truck for delivery", even though I'd called and asked for it to be left for me to pickup, I headed over to our old condo to wait on the FedEx man. After waiting (and cleaning) for about an hour and a half, FedEx came.... and went, without stopping!! What the!! So I check the tracking info again.... oh now it says, "at FedEx location, waiting on customer pickup." what!?!? So it appears they put it on the truck, then took it back off 1:45 min later... bad timing on my part. So the frame had to sit at FedEx for the weekend. I hope they were nice to it!

I'm crashing after forcing my body to stay awake and alert for the past 8 hours on the road... I'll leave you with another shot of future bike parts.... minus the smug grin this time.

dog days of summer still sticking around

Man it's hot... no humid, yes, humid and hot.


I attempted a ride on Labor Day with a fun group up at Lake Barkley but it didn't go so well. After sitting outside for 12+ hours in Atlanta on Saturday and Sunday, I wasn't too prepared for the exertion and humidity I faced on the trail Monday. Stupid me wasn't hydrated and hadn't been on the bike but a couple times in the past month. Oh well, the trail was great. The swimming afterwards was a very welcomed addition to the trip. We were worried the lake would be the only good thing about driving up to Barkley, but the trail was a lot of fun. It has a little bit of all the trails around here wrapped into a 10 mile loop. I'm sure it will be a lot more fun when I am in better physical shape. I learned that lesson at AEDC last year. I hated that place after one trip, but went back this year and really enjoyed it.

if this man asks you if you want to swim.... run the other way!


I have a lot of work to do if I want to enter Swank 65 this year. A lot of work and a lot of things going on in my life the next few months. We're getting closer to closing on our first house. We have some renovations placed before we even move in. Then there will be the fun process of moving (anyone wanna help for free Yazoo?) We also have craft shows the next two weekends and then a few more in Oct and Nov. I know I can 'make it work' if I really dedicate myself. But it sure seems daunting thinking about how to fit in some decent ride time and also trying to fit in finding some work to pay for this new house.

I've signed off on the drawing/geometry of my new Quiring frame. I have been over-thinking all aspect of course, but I think I'm content with the current design. I need to start collecting the new parts I'll need. Once I have a firm-ish date to expect my frame, I'll need to rebuild my wheels with 29er rims. At that point I will of course have to start telling everyone how much better my bike is and how I can't believe anyone would still ride small wheeled bikes. I need to continue my 29er research so I sound as authoritative as possible when I belittle everyone elses bikes. :)

On the bike product front I received my Swiftwick shipment last week, hand delivered by Mr. Swiftwick himself. I finally got myself some Olefin Zero 'no show' socks. I wore them all weekend at our outdoor craftshow (as did Beth) and then got to try them on the trail at Lake Barkley. For this hot weather, I really like the low cut of the zero style sock. While not a true 'no show' they stay up on your heels better than any sock and don't bunch up around your toes. I doused them in sweat during our super humid Barkley ride and they still stayed put. I'm not sure if I truely was 5% faster on that ride though... hard to tell during all the panting and stops to clear my head and lungs. Beth loves her zero and one olefin socks. I'm still waiting on a pair of one olefins to try that are on back-order. (guess they are quite popular) It's crazy to have a professional sock maker on the race team with you, but man is it nice when they make a superior product.



I'm still rocking the Ernesto Hippy Lube on both bikes as well. I'm still on the first application but don't see signs of needing to reapply. I still have the benefits of a super quite drivetrain so I'm in no hurry to mess with it. My Prolink has now been relegated to lubing the stantions on my Reba fork and not much else. Thanks to Thad for cluing us into the power lube and to Ernesto for making a great product!

Got a light work schedule this week so I'm hoping to get out on the bike this afternoon for a little time at Hammy and get a ride into the Tap Room thurs with J5. I'm all out of wack with my riding schedule so hopefully I can reign it back in.

been busy, real busy

yep, I know, it's been forever since I put up a post here... life got busy again and it remaining busy. I haven't even had time to ride my bike but once since my last post about my fit at Harpeth.

Work has been slow this summer. Heck, it's been slow the past 2 years, but it's summer and it's always slow in the summer. This makes this summer slower... fun. I've been trying to make the best of the time I have free from commitments. I think I was doing a pretty good job. I was rdiing a lot, spending a lot of time with Beth, getting things done around the house and helping Beth with Freshie & Zero. When I had some work, I also tried to make the best of it and make sure I was giving 110%. The quirk of freelance work being that each gig can be thought of as a job interview which I think is good. It keeps you honest, and keeps you working hard and hopefully not getting too complacent.

Fast forward through July and to the first week in August and between a couple days of work and a trip to Virginia for a craft show, I had no free time that week. The trip was a lot of fun as my brother lives where the craft show was, the Roanoke/Blacksburg, VA area, so we were able to visit with him and his growing family. My parents took the opportunity to come and visit also so it was a mini Lawrence reunion for the weekend. Sales wise the show could of gone better but we debuted a lot of new displays and booth setup stuff which all worked very well and looks great. We've officially stepped up the Freshie and Zero booth to the next level of professionalizum.

(our new track lighting setup, canvas displays and mesh sidewalls... yea we're big time now!!)

I started right into a session starting on the Monday after we got back from the craft show. I was starting what turned out to be a marathon 3 day session of Gospel music. I was the head engineer on overdubs and editing though which was a lot of fun and more responsibility. It was a lot of work and long days, like 11am-4am, but equally rewards and as it was frustrating. So this session ended very early Thurs morning and I slipped in a small project I needed to take care of later in the morning on Thurs and tried to recover the rest of the day with a nap.

Beth's parents took us all out for a belated birthday dinner celebration for Beth's 30th bday Thurs night and then I started right back into more session work Friday. Three days of assisting on some mix sessions for Blake Shelton and we are now up to date. Tomorrow I start back working with the Gospel clients again for the next three or four days so I'm trying to get my body ready for the late night sessions.

Truly feast or famine. This work couldn't come at a better time though as I could use some extra money to help fund my new bike purchase, and also Beth and I are starting to house hunt so more money for that will always be much appreciated. I'm hoping to have a slightly more relaxed schedule this week and fit in a few rides. Hope to make it out to the tap room since I missed last week. I have a big order of super hero socks to pick up from Sharpie also that I'm super excited about. Finally going to be able to try the olefin material and also the hip no-show cut! I'll report back soon I'm sure so stay tuned. Hope I haven't bored everyone too much lately.... it's life, my life at least. :)

I snapped this shot while at the craft show in Va. Is this bike locked? I don't think so. I couldn't help but find some humor in it. Luckily the guy was in a small town. He didn't even lock his daughters bike up at all.





I helped record a campfire performance out on a farm in Leipers Fork a couple weeks ago. Fun stuff, but HOT with no A/C!











Gotta love a trip to Peter's Sushi in Brentwood. They having opened in their new, larger location (right next door to the old place). YUM!!

NYC adventure

Well we're back from the big apple and getting rested up. Luckily I have a couple days to recoup before I start work. Where to start?? We went up a couple days before the Renegade craft show to visit with a college friend of mine and see the city.

My friend Brandt showed us around and took us to this awesome Cuban place called Café Habana for lunch. I had the spicy corn and an amazing Sincronizada Toluca filled with black beans, sun dried tomatos, avocado and chorizo. Beth and I wandered around after lunch and did some shopping. "Some wandering" turned into about 15 miles of walking by the time we made our way back to Brandt's apartment in Park Slope. Brandt and Rachel were both working late so Beth and I were on our own for dinner. We found an awesome sushi place called Monster Sushi which had some great decor behind the bar. It was nice to find an affordable and fresh tasting sushi bar in NYC.

Friday Beth and I ventured to Coney Island on our own and had fun riding the rides and eating hotdogs. We hit up the MOMA museum for their 'free friday' promotion. They had some great exhibits but we were exhausted after about an hour and a half in the museum. We headed back to clean up and take Brandt and Rachel out for dinner. We tried to go to a little Italian place they recommended but couldn't get in so we went to a great Thai place down the street called Song. Amazing food and very affordable prices, another gem in NYC.

The show started saturday so we were up early and on our way to Williamsburg by 8:30am. After waiting outside for a bit we were let in and started setting up as fast as we could. The show started at 11am sharp and people were waiting to come in. Unfortunately we weren't quite ready for the customers yet but most of our product was out and many vendors were still far from setup. The temperature was rising quickly but the show was getting crowded and sales were steady. Our friend Amy was in town helping us sell and we were catching up since we hadn't seen her in a few months. Brandt and Rachel came by the show as well and did some shopping and hanging.

The weather forecasts were changing hourly the days before the show, but seemed to settle by saturday. Well, the clouds rolled in around 4ish and the temperature dropped a good 10 degrees. It was nice for 30 minutes or so but then the bottom just dropped out and it poured for 45 minutes. Some brave shoppers stuck around and shopped, but most people left by 6pm. The rain let up enough for us to get packed up before it poured again. Brandt planned ahead this time and got us on the list for a great Italian pizza place called Lucali so we all pilled into Rachels car and drove through the flood to dinner. This place was yet another phenomenal eatery. True Italian style pizza, no menu, just enough dough for the night and when the ingredients were gone, no more pizzas. No sign out front and no liquor license, yet the place still consistently has a 3 hr wait during the 4 hours they are open each day. We brought some wine and ordered two pizzas and had a lovely dinner.

(the bar at Monster Sushi)

Day 2 of the show went well with decent weather. Thankfully it was cooler and the rain stayed away for most of the day only coming in little spurts. Sales were steady and overall we had a great show. It wasn't the mad house, selling spree that Renegade Chicago was, but it was in the top 5 shows we've done. After the show we were treated to homemade tacos and guacamole at Brandt's which were tasty. We ate and drank and hung into the evening before I finally called it a night and tried to get some quality sleep for the drive home.

After driving in NYC traffic for an hour, we finally made it to New Jersey and made our way down 78 to Pennsylvania and onto Roanoke VA to stay with my brother and sister-in-law. I was so glad we decided to split up our return drive as I was not feeling up to 15 hours in the car again. It was lovely visiting with my brother's family and then we were up early again Tuesday to start the last leg of our journey home to Nashville.

I got back in town just in time to roll to the WBN/Clif Bar sponsored viewing of the new movie Seasons by the Collective at the Belcourt Theatre. I could up on email and such and then jumped on the bike and met J5 and T.roy at T.roy's crib and then we all, plus T.roy's better half, road to the Belcourt to catch the show and hang with other crazy cyclists. The movie was great as was meeting the Clif Bar crew and checking out their cool bio-diesel bus. After received some cool swag we headed off to the Brewhouse for cajon dinner and a beer then rolled back to T.roy's to call it a night. This was a perfect ride after being off the bike for a week.


Back to the grind here starting tomorrow. I have work the rest of the week and into the weekend. Then have a tracking session on Monday in Cool Springs. Today is my 30th bday. I think I'll just slip that in here at the end and let that be it. Low key bday this year. I've spent the day with Beth which has been lovely. We had lunch at her parents house and then did some shoe shopping at the new Merrill store down the street. I've received a great mtn biking instructional book and a new pair of Pearl Izumi attack shorts courtesy of my Mom and Dad. Not sure how I feel yet about being 30. Just another year I guess.

(my 2 purchases at the show. A hip bag made from old inner tubes and a small camera bag for my messenger bag. Both made by Vaya)










Beth showing off our awesome Coney Island hotdogs



















The big ferris wheel at Coney Island, with swinging middle cars














the monsoon that struck the show saturday evening













statue of Robin Williams, I mean Theodore Roosevelt outside the Natural History Museum.







As usual you can view all my pics on my Flickr page HERE.




Late addition...... new pic of the yummy cuban style corn.... Does this look more appetizing Thad?!?

I didn't work today, but I feel especially accomplished!! I was finally able to get my Sprint account setup the way I wanted. I'm sure this doesn't sound like a big task, but it took about 10 customer service calls where I probably spoke with 15 different people. I won't go into all the details but I basically have my new phone working on my old phone number with a very nice plan. The power of persistence and patience is amazing!

So much has happened this past week it's hard to know where to start. I'll work to keep giving the short version.

Last tuesday I did a tracking session at a new (to me) studio at Sony Tree. I hadn't done a tracking date in a month so I was a little rusty but the guys on the session were a lot of fun and made the day really enjoyable. The studio just got a new (to them) console installed and there are still some bugs to work out. We were able to work around it all, but it would of been a pain if we were working there for more than 1 day. I really do enjoy tracking though. I wasn't the engineer on this session but tracking is still so rewarding to me. You get a great sense of accomplishment that you don't always get from mixing. At the end of the day you can look and see the fruits of your hard work. With mixing you're always second guessing yourself and the clients has little changes, and many times continues to have little changes until they learn to let go. Tracking is a more final process. You come in, setup, record music, and then you're done. You've helped create something that didn't exist at the beginning of the day.

On thurs afternoon Thad and I headed down to MOAB to hang and I started building my "dream bike" aka the crosscheck, or aka "the spot filler". I admit I was underprepared, but I also didn't know what to expect. Brian (at MOAB) and I worked through some different builds and then hit some internet trouble. Thankfully about 1/2 an hour later Thad was able to rescue us and fix their laptop. I'm happy with most of the build. Now that I've had a few days to ponder it more there are a few changes I'd like to make and I still haven't decided on a wheelset. I'm thinking of sticking with a pretty standard 105 group but can't pick wheels. I know so little about road components that it's hard to know what things cost. Even without wheels, I'm pretty close to the top of my budget so I'm trying to get some affordable, durable, non-tank wheels. So far the ideas are 105 hub/Delgado CX rim, XT hub/Delgado rim, or something cheap like the Mavis Aksium. I'm not sure what a 105/xt with delgado wheel will cost so I need to get back to MOAB and work some more and ask some more questions. I'd like to order this by the end of the week if I can... then my spot won't be void for much longer.

Beth and I traveled to Decatur, GA this weekend for a craft show. It went well and we were able to have dinner at a place we both love there called the Brick Store Pub. They have great fish and chips and amazing beer. They have some great microbrews from across the US. They had the Great Divide Hibernation ale again so I was in heaven! There are few beers that I enjoy as much as this one. I mean its a hoppy, dark, strong ale with a 8.2% alcohol content, what's not to love.

Grant posted a great update to DSG 2.0 on NMB and has really got me pumped. I keep forgetting about DSG and that I have a team set up. I wasn't able to go last year because of my wedding so I am super psyched for this year. Our team needs to get our butts in gear and get registered!


Here are the photos from our weekend adventure. (sorry there aren't many this time)

Spending money

I finally pulled the trigger on a new laptop. I'm going to be moving out of 2003 and into 2007! My 1g Ti Powerbook is getting replaced with a Dual 2.2g Macbook. It's really amazing where things have come and how cheap it all is. $1299 for a dual 2.2g laptop that can hold 4g of ram. I maxed out the ram through Other World Computing for a measly $137!! Take that Apple! Can you believe Apple charges $850 for 4g of ram?! $850!!!!! It's as though Apple is saying "We don't want to bother with putting more ram in your system, so we'll just price ourselves out of that service." oh well... I don't mind doing it myself and saving $713. Next on the shopping list is a LCD widescreen monitor. I've been shopping around a ton lately but I think I'll wait until ater Xmas to make a purchase. I imagine prices will drop some more by then.

Last night was another night of polo. The overall mood was different and everyone put more emphasis on style and technique. Sharpe coached us from the sidelines and gave tips. My first team (Thad, Neal and Dan H.) worked a lot on teamwork and spacing around the court. We concentrated on hanging onto the ball and control and passing and tried less slapping and big clears. Unfortunately Thad had a brake incident and had to retire his bike. Everyone decided to call it then and make it an early night. We only played three games this go around but they were all fun. I managed to stay upright a lot better and use my mallet more for balance. I even scored three times which is a personal best by far! I'm generally lucky to get 1 score per night.

This past weekend was our return trip to Austin, TX for the Stitch show. This trip Beth and I revisited a few areas of town like South Congress. We weren't as pro-active to do the sight-seeing activities as we were last year so it was a much more relaxed trip overall. The Stitch organizers planned a pre-party the night before which was fun. We didn't know many people and I didn't know anyone, but after about half an hour we had made some friends and had some good conversation. Keg beer was supplied as well as free water from some company I can't even remember. Obviously I partook more of the keg than the water. The show was in the Austin Convention Center this year. We had fears of crazy, unorganized load-ins but it all went very smoothly. We were setup in no time and then Beth had a chance to browse the other vendor's booths which she never had time for last year. The show was a definite success but overall I don't think they will host it in the Convention center again next year. The room was a bit too large and much brighter than last year. It was hard to feel the some vibe as last year. We sold more than last year which was Beth's goal for the show so I'm sure we will be making the trip again next year. You can view photos of our trip on Beth's flickr site.

Random things I learned while in Austin: Shiner bock tastes better with a lime, we never figure out how to get anywhere until we are about to leave town, I still don't think service roads are a good way to get on and off the interstate, hotel internet service always sucks and is slow, just about every city we travel to seems to have a lot more casual cyclists
than you ever see in Nashville.

Returning to Nashville

Well we are back from yet another weekend selling necklaces and earrings to the starving masses. This past weekend we were in Hoover, AL at the Moss Rock Festival. Hoover is approx 10 miles south of Birmingham and roughly 3 hours from Nashvegas. The show was great in all the ways it could be. The weather was perfect, the public was very interested in buying jewelry, the load-in/load-out was smooth (for us), our hotel rocked and we only had to drive 3 hours to get there. Sales wise it was our second best show ever (under the supremely successful Renegade show in Chicago). The organizers of the show even invited us to a party after the show saturday night where there was catering and free beer and wine! Beth and I enjoyed some chicken & dumplings and I passed off the car keys and enjoyed several glasses of wine.
Pictures of the show can be found here: Freshie and Zero At The Moss Rock Festival

I had a session fall through for this monday so it looks like I have some free time during the week. I am still working on this jazz record with the woman from Florida but we are in the home stretch. As I mentioned earlier she came back to Nashville to re-sing some songs. I remixed all the songs and these new vocals have taken them to a new level. I've got a final (hopefully) set of tweaks to do tomorrow AM and then just need to print some hi-def versions for Mastering. She has booked Independent Mastering to master the album on Monday. I am excited to hear how it turns out! This is really the first full length album I've mixed all on my own so I am anxious to finish it and hear it after it's mastered.

I'm hoping to get out this week and ride some dirt. It's been a very long time and I'm not sure I remember how to do it. I will be rocking the Soma all week whether I want to or not. Last week, I noticed an unfortunate crack in the faceplace of my Thomson stem. Thad got me in touch with the right people at Thomson and they are taking care of me. This means though that one of my bikes is handlebarless and would be quite hard to ride so SS it is!