The Good Life

This was one of those weekends where you sit back and wonder, how did I get such a perfect life?

The right job, the beautiful woman beside me, a breeze cooling the afternoon sunlight from my face, and somewhere out in the yard the soft sound of children playing. That's when it hits you—things couldn't be better. Gives you pause to consider.

What a perfect weekend.

Started out Friday when I got home around noon after a good day's work and rode my John Deere out across the estate. They give you a cool “Owner's Edition” hat to wear while you mow. And I do, waving to other neighbors riding theirs. Short even has a nice Deere jacket. Not sure how he scored that, but he's a farmer, so he probably knows (or is) someone who paid 200K for it. I hear they offer your choice of a tractor or combine with the purchase...

Wayne and Barb visited for several hours that night. We ordered one of the World's Greatest Pizza's from Filippo's. It was fun. The kids watched Benji in the other room and the four of us had a good time catching up.

Then it was Tent Time.

Earlier I had set up the tent after mowing. Wow is that thing huge. I can stand up straight and stretch out over my head. And the floor plan is spacious. There's enough room in there to make you think you should owe someone rent.

Seriously. Installing a kitchenette should be a breeze.

Still don't believe me? Check this out. .. we can pitch an additional tent inside and not even notice it being there, just fit it over in the corner, or the East Wing as I call it. Aw yeah. So that's where the boys sleep—the tent inside The Tent. Lisa and I get the main living quarters. Dining / breakfast to our left. Of course that is after watching sunrise from the comfortable porch. Also, I was mistaken about the two entrances.

There are three.

This way if a bear AND a wolf are trying to enter two of them, you can escape unscathed out the third and still have time for cornflakes.

Sleeping out there that night was fabulous. It was cool to hear Luke awe at the stars during our walk across the yard, flashlights waving. We are definitely doing this more often, and maybe not limited to the backyard either. It's time, and there are some fine places around here to camp.

Then Saturday, Steve was down and we the day rehearsing our songs, hanging out at my place, and otherwise having a kick-back time.

What a phenomenal player, Steve, bassist for Elevenfold. Dude has some chops, and they really made a difference to the tunes. Keith created some crazy feel to his tight rhythms and they both kept playing off one another, like the Rhythm should, honing the hits until it was just... indescribable. You have to hear it. I kind of felt inadequate there for a moment, but once we started, thought nothing of it. Because we rock.

So much so that Steve said next time he's bringing his bass stack. The little amp in Keith's basement OD'd after awhile and was really distorting. Plus some of the lower frequencies were getting lost. (When you detune a five string's Low B to a Low G, it gets bassy.) Good news is that we've scheduled more practices.

Thinking back, it was kind of crazy what he showed up with. It's like he had heard in his head what I heard for the bass lines in mine. We all just seem to musically connect in ways we necessarily don't quite understand, but embrace and move on. Like we're meant for it. Certainly makes playing together all the easier. And fun.

And now it's Sunday.

What beautiful spring weather. You couldn't have a better day to just sit back, have a drink and enjoy. It's simply been unbelievable. Just makes you wonder.

Camping for Nine

So yesterday was my birthday. A year older to something. I got some cool presents. Blockbuster & Starbucks giftcards, assorted b-day cards (John, the squirrel was a nice touch), and something fantastic from Lisa and the boys.

I got a tent.

But not just any tent.

They got me an eight-man tent. This baby is cool. Not only for its size and comfortability... it comes equipped with a screened-in-porch. "What's that? A tent with a porch?" you say.

Aw!

Yeah!

A screened-in-porch!

How cool is that? A tent with a porch! We can unfold lawn-chairs and sit there under the moonlight, completely bug free, in the comfort of our own TENT. And if it wasn't actually freezing outside, I'd tell you how it went.

The great thing about it is that the porch isn't included as part of the "sleeping space". It's an actual zippered porch capable of being isolated from the main tent if desired. Just zip and forget. It also doubles as an entrance/exit, or you can use the main entrance (I just used "main" and "entrance" while describing a tent), which is a nice safety feature. There's not just one-way-out in an emergency. Say, like, accidentally rousing everyone just to heed the call of nature.

I've heard the forecast looks good for next weekend, so it won't be long before we test it out. Besides, that affords me some time to acquire additional camping amenities, like... wait, what amenities? I have a tent with a screened-in-porch!

Good Fridays

Usually I only work half-days on Friday. Every Friday. And honestly, it's as great as it sounds. Today though, I got the day off (the plant takes care of their own, I've found). Slept in, strolled around the house in whatever felt comfortable, played some GIJoe and have had an otherwise incredibly great morning.

Yesterday however, was a little crazy. I arrived just before my morning meeting, only to notice a strange smoke exiting the powerhouse stack. So I drove around for a better look. Mostly what's exiting the stack is white steam. It's an EPA reg (they like to do that...make regs...and I'm okay with that, the ducks I hunt tend to fly in the air, so the less pollution the better). This time though, the steam looked dusty.

After my meeting however, it seemed things had returned to normal, and Tucker said it could be that the PH lost a boiler or they were just cleaning the stack. (The stack, BTW, is a brick giant about 200 ft. high.) Not long after that, production began cutting rates at the PH's request... they had in fact lost a boiler. Then, couldn't have been ten minutes later, the power browned without warning. Now, in a chemical plant, this is a Bad Thing. Kind of like driving through the country at night and having the check engine gauge suddenly light up. I glanced out my office window, which is over ten feet long and five feet high (yes my office is pretty big), and noticed the stack again. It looked murky, and about the time I thought uh-oh, the power died. Completely.

This was bad, because it meant the PH lost both boilers. They have five, only running two at a time to conserve energy. I found out they lost the first from a cracked tube in the boiler, then the high voltage switchgear in the CIPS substation experienced an arc-flash and grounded, exploding a high-voltage fuse before the gear had been rerouted. It was kind of a holes-in-the-cheese-lining-up thing. Then, I spent the next 6 to 7 hours in my office with (literally) nothing to do except just sit there. Which they paid me for, of course, don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining (anymore). You don't often get paid to just sit there. So I figured I better do something productive.

I began designing our band logo (you had to know, somehow, someway, it was coming back to rock-n-roll). And what's crazy is that I made one. A classic design. See, I've been seeing a lot of shots in alleys, by buildings, on mountains... and there's been a flurry of groups using "action shots". Actually Keith made one we're going to upload on the webpage, but for billing, we needed something good. Something simple, yet cool. And oh did I get it. Pictographs of us four beneath an awesome name font I accidentally discovered. We're getting them printed on t-shirts with the intent to sell.

All to say, it's been pretty good: yesterday I got paid for sitting in a chair and designing our band logo. Then today I got paid to stay home. Not too shabby.