Long time, no update
I know it's been forever since I've updated, but this job has consumed my life. Prep week was overwhelming but productive. There was so much to get together and organized, especially when you're doing 12 jobs on the tour (SM, road manager, company manager, crew chief). Rehearsals went surprisingly smoothly, though the days were long and tiring. I'd get home around 7/7:30 at night, eat something, hang out with eric and crash out. We left Tempe last Thursday morning and drove to Santa Fe, NM. Friday morning we went into the downtown area after we chacked out and walked around. It's so awesome. The architecture is like you'd think about in that stereotypical old southern town-the sandstone looking buildings with rounded edges, kind of a mix of light sand coloured and pink; really pretty. We walked through this historical cathedral in the center of the plaza that was gorgeous. There were all these little vendors selling there wares-belts, ceramics, jewelery-a lot of it handmade. And I got to pet a real life Irish Wolfhound. Got a picture of him too. Santa Fe was also where Gina (the actress) came up with the idea that since we don't have side windows in the van for whoever's sitting in the backseat, we should decorate the inside of the van with cheesy colourful magnets from everywhere we stay.
From there we headed up to Ogallala, Nebraska, stopping in Denver for dinner where I had Mongolian barbeque for the first time. It was really fun and quite tasty. We got into Ogallala pretty late and just went to bed.
Saturday we left Ogallala and drove to Lincoln, Nebraska where we stopped for lunch. I had a really yummy jambalaya pasta at this local sports bar we went to. From there, we drove up to Hampton and checked into a really cute AmericInn and learned that smalltown America shuts down at 10 or earlier. We had to go on a serious hunt for food at 10:30 and the only thing open was a Subway. SO WEIRD!!!!
Sunday we got up and had thus far the best free breakfast. They had little cheese stuffed omelettes, biscuits & gravy of course, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, a waffle iron, apples & bananas, and of course the standard cereal, toast, bagels. Then it was time for load-in for our first show, and it was a technical nightmare. My mixer for my speakers wouldn't work and we couldn't get the sound to go through the house system and of course, being a little middle school auditorium, the lady I was working with isn't actually a trained technician-she's just someone who's paid to make things work the best they can. So we eventually switched out my mixer for one she had and through some ghetto adapting got a second set of speakers hooked up to my setup and used that pointed out to the audience. Lighting was a complete nightmare, but only because there weren't many instruments, they were crappy as was their position, and we were out of time. Aside from that the shows went pretty well (we had two), and afterwards we loaded out and went back to the hotel to change before going to meet one of the librarians who brought us in and her husband for dinner.
Monday morning we got to sleep in. HALLELUJAH!!!!!! Then we went and walked around the main street (it really is a 1 stop-light town), looking in the cute little shops. And of course boutiques have way too much cute neat things so i ended up spending $22 on a pair of the world's softest socks (they're called snuggle socks-GREAT with PJ's ;-)), a magnet for the van that says something about following your dreams (i thought it appropriate), and a Tyler candle company vanilla oak candle. Then we headed up the highway to Decorah, IA where we loaded in at a real venue with real technicians. (In fact for the DMB fans, we did our show on the same stage that his album Live at Luther was recorded on.) Unfortunately, the sound issue persisted and i had a bit of a hard time articulating our lighting needs, but we got through it and went over to the hotel. We went into town for dinner to this little sports bar called T-Bocks where Marcos had a peanut butter burger (which was supposedly really good) and I had a bison burger for the first time. They had the best fries I've had in ages and I FINALLY got a beer, first one since sometime before we left AZ. It was the best tasting blue moon ever! lol.
This morning Marcos and I got up before the sun (honestly-I have a picture of the sunrise to prove it!), and drove down the road to a gym that we got free access to while staying at the hotel. So I finally got to workout thank god since I've gained two pounds since being on the road :-( I'm really worried about this weight thing. I'm really trying to make wise food choices but I'm constantly stressed and tired and I really wanted to loose weight while I'm out but now i'm afraid it's going to take all my energy just to not gain. :-( This next month is going to be really really long. We have two days off, when we're not doing shows, loading in or driving somewhere-oct. 14 and 28. How do I always find the jobs that abuse me???
But sidebar over-we got up and went to the gym then rushed back to the hotel, packed up, checked out of the hotel, and headed back over to Luther to get ready for our first show. The guys there were so awesome-they had coffee, muffins, fruit, M&M cookie bars, cookies, yogurt and a mini-fridge full of water and juice and pop, all just for the 3 of us! The show went fairly well and then they took us over to the caf for lunch where they had surprisingly yummy food incl this awesome moroccan chicken. YUM!! Then we hurried back to the theatre to get ready for show #2 which also went well. Unfortunately, by the time the show was over it was raining!! luckily we were able to back the van up under an overhang and not get too wet doing the load-out. After we thanked and said goodbye to the guys that helped us, we ran over to the bookstore and got a Luther College magnet for the van, then headed out to Ames, where I'm at right now.
And after such a busy day, we have load-in at 6:30am for a 9am show tomorrow. Thank god we only have one show and don't have to drive anywhere! I'll try to be more diligent about updating from now on, but know that I still read all my friend's entries even if I don't update my own.
From there we headed up to Ogallala, Nebraska, stopping in Denver for dinner where I had Mongolian barbeque for the first time. It was really fun and quite tasty. We got into Ogallala pretty late and just went to bed.
Saturday we left Ogallala and drove to Lincoln, Nebraska where we stopped for lunch. I had a really yummy jambalaya pasta at this local sports bar we went to. From there, we drove up to Hampton and checked into a really cute AmericInn and learned that smalltown America shuts down at 10 or earlier. We had to go on a serious hunt for food at 10:30 and the only thing open was a Subway. SO WEIRD!!!!
Sunday we got up and had thus far the best free breakfast. They had little cheese stuffed omelettes, biscuits & gravy of course, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, a waffle iron, apples & bananas, and of course the standard cereal, toast, bagels. Then it was time for load-in for our first show, and it was a technical nightmare. My mixer for my speakers wouldn't work and we couldn't get the sound to go through the house system and of course, being a little middle school auditorium, the lady I was working with isn't actually a trained technician-she's just someone who's paid to make things work the best they can. So we eventually switched out my mixer for one she had and through some ghetto adapting got a second set of speakers hooked up to my setup and used that pointed out to the audience. Lighting was a complete nightmare, but only because there weren't many instruments, they were crappy as was their position, and we were out of time. Aside from that the shows went pretty well (we had two), and afterwards we loaded out and went back to the hotel to change before going to meet one of the librarians who brought us in and her husband for dinner.
Monday morning we got to sleep in. HALLELUJAH!!!!!! Then we went and walked around the main street (it really is a 1 stop-light town), looking in the cute little shops. And of course boutiques have way too much cute neat things so i ended up spending $22 on a pair of the world's softest socks (they're called snuggle socks-GREAT with PJ's ;-)), a magnet for the van that says something about following your dreams (i thought it appropriate), and a Tyler candle company vanilla oak candle. Then we headed up the highway to Decorah, IA where we loaded in at a real venue with real technicians. (In fact for the DMB fans, we did our show on the same stage that his album Live at Luther was recorded on.) Unfortunately, the sound issue persisted and i had a bit of a hard time articulating our lighting needs, but we got through it and went over to the hotel. We went into town for dinner to this little sports bar called T-Bocks where Marcos had a peanut butter burger (which was supposedly really good) and I had a bison burger for the first time. They had the best fries I've had in ages and I FINALLY got a beer, first one since sometime before we left AZ. It was the best tasting blue moon ever! lol.
This morning Marcos and I got up before the sun (honestly-I have a picture of the sunrise to prove it!), and drove down the road to a gym that we got free access to while staying at the hotel. So I finally got to workout thank god since I've gained two pounds since being on the road :-( I'm really worried about this weight thing. I'm really trying to make wise food choices but I'm constantly stressed and tired and I really wanted to loose weight while I'm out but now i'm afraid it's going to take all my energy just to not gain. :-( This next month is going to be really really long. We have two days off, when we're not doing shows, loading in or driving somewhere-oct. 14 and 28. How do I always find the jobs that abuse me???
But sidebar over-we got up and went to the gym then rushed back to the hotel, packed up, checked out of the hotel, and headed back over to Luther to get ready for our first show. The guys there were so awesome-they had coffee, muffins, fruit, M&M cookie bars, cookies, yogurt and a mini-fridge full of water and juice and pop, all just for the 3 of us! The show went fairly well and then they took us over to the caf for lunch where they had surprisingly yummy food incl this awesome moroccan chicken. YUM!! Then we hurried back to the theatre to get ready for show #2 which also went well. Unfortunately, by the time the show was over it was raining!! luckily we were able to back the van up under an overhang and not get too wet doing the load-out. After we thanked and said goodbye to the guys that helped us, we ran over to the bookstore and got a Luther College magnet for the van, then headed out to Ames, where I'm at right now.
And after such a busy day, we have load-in at 6:30am for a 9am show tomorrow. Thank god we only have one show and don't have to drive anywhere! I'll try to be more diligent about updating from now on, but know that I still read all my friend's entries even if I don't update my own.