Moving lights

It's getting busy at work just as expected as the month of August winds to a close. We had a production booked where additional lighting was added on Friday evening and confirmed on Saturday morning causing a Saturday shop call to pull the gear and I had to come in to get paperwork sorted. On my growing list of things TO DO was to get custom road cases built for the new Mac 350 moving heads. We are the first in the area to invest in these LED powered moving lights so we don't have the option to call a case company and ask what is on file. Being that Saturday was my only off-day for the week and I was at work I figured I'd do my best to do a little of work and play. I'll take one of the lights to the case company via the motorcycle and then I'll get to talk face to face with the designer and we'll work things out for the design without the use of email and phone calls.

I called Jack up at Tour Duty case company in Delaware and asked if I could possibly drop off a light today at his shop if he happened to be near his shop. He said he was at work too, and that it would be no problem. I finished up my paperwork and called the wife to tell her my brilliant plan for the day. Told her she could come with me or do things on her own but I needed to get this done and not put it off another day. She said she was in, so I packed up my light with case foam that we have in stock for the 1.5 hour journey North. It's a Saturday, there won't be any traffic.



We get on the road and everything is smooth until we hit Delaware. There was major traffic and as our speed slowed from highway to crawl the reality of the heat set in. Miserable is a good way to describe a fully loaded motorcycle with a passenger, in the heat, in heavy traffic. After sitting in stop and go for a while we made it to our location and meet up with Jack. We talked for about five minutes about the best way to build the case with the plan B of using the case in the future for more standard gear if the market just doesn't like these fancy LED lights. We are having the cases built from the shell of double 1-ton motor cases so we can retrofit the case easily if the manufacturer puts out the version II model that is twice as bright and 3" wider in three months. High End System has had a habit of doing that sort of thing, and I'm sure Martin would do the same thing given a willing market.



My one goal of getting some work done was accomplished, but the play for the day part wasn't exactly complete because the slow burn of Delaware beach traffic wasn't satisfying. I asked Jack where we should have lunch in the area since we are in a different town and he directed us to the Dutch Market that was close by. We rode over to the market and parked by a bunch of Harley Davidsons, one of which had zebra stripes to complement the chrome touches. The market was more like the "Dundalk Dutch market" - if you get the joke good, if you don't I can't explain it here. Anyhow, we walked around and had chocolate covered bacon as a treat which was really tasty, then a hot dog in a soft pretzel dough and then a slice of pizza. And, no I didn't go to the gym on Saturday.



On the ride back home I pulled over on the side of 95 in a shaded spot so I could stop burning my clutch for a little while and to have a drink. No sooner did I pull off the road to have a drink of water than the traffic starts to move at a reasonable pace. Five minute break and we're back in the mix. The rest of the trip was uneventful except for honking my horn at a teenage driver next to me who was text messaging while driving at 65 mph. She snapped her head up and then looked at me with a WTF glare then honked her horn back in protest. This detail was satisfying.

President / CEO / Truck Driver

We did lighting for Mixfest last night and a few of the bands were Hanson, Backstreet Boys, and Train. It was a festival show with several bands, sound check, band gear, and tour buses. Lighting and audio production loaded in the day before to allow for several bands to sound check without lighting getting in the way on the stage. The day went incredibly smooth and the show started on time with all of the bands starting their sets on time. The load out was slow for lighting because it was a lot of lighting gear, but I have nothing to complain about because Showtime Sound had two 26' trucks vs. our single truck. Lighting looked really good and the audio was thumping which was necessary to overpower the screaming crowd - it was LOUD in the 99% sold out venue.

One of the benefits of being a company owner is the glory of being the truck driver. I had the distinguished honor of driving last night. Normally driving from Baltimore to our warehouse by BWI is a fairly simple task... not so last night. I was tired from a long day *out* of the office. I drove the normal route with minimal traffic after midnight on a Sunday night. I was moving right along and realized BWI, brakes, brakes, brakes. Um, I can't drive this to baggage pickup, the airport police don't like that sort of thing I'm sure. I've never seen a 26' box truck at the airport drop off or pickup, just short buses. Quick, think, what to do. Authorized Vehicles only, go to the security person and explain the error and request the method to not get police attention.

I slowly approached the secured gate thinking, it's 1:00 in the morning in a plain white box truck, nothing suspicious about this, no reason for alarm. Either this happens all the time, or it's really not a big deal. After explaining that I'm not lost, just tired the guy said - just drive "downstairs" around the airport. Don't drive upstairs!

Okay, I backed down the secured gate ramp and drove toward the airport arrivals. OH NO - clearance 13'-0". The truck is new, how tall is it? If I rip the roof off of the new company truck the second day we own it I'll never hear the end of it AND it would be quite expensive. Drive really slow, that makes you shorter. I guess I was 12'-something because I didn't scrape. So, you can drive an unmarked box truck through Arrivals without the police taking note - seems like a security problem but I'm happy to not get questioned.

I got back to the shop and was questioned as to where I was for the last 30 minutes. Oh, just driving the truck around the airport to check things out on a Sunday night. Maybe I should retire the truck driver job description?

ratified contract

We got a ratified contract on the sale of our house today. The house inspection is scheduled for this Sunday. I'll be working the Backstreet show on Sunday so I'll get a text message reporting on what the inspector is putting on his report. The list of pain in the ass things I'll have to repair, or pay for before the closing will break up my day nicely. But, the buyers have been very straight forward and professional so they might be less interested in nit picking and focus on just closing which is my hope. On Saturday I will go to Lowes to buy GFI receptacles for the three bathrooms in our 11-year old house that don't have them. That will be one less thing on the inspector's report.

Today at work we picked up our new Freightliner 26' box truck. When I say new, I mean new to us, it has 120k miles on the odometer, but as I'm told that is low mileage for a diesel truck. We went through the expense of having large aluminum lift gate installed, as well as the addition of two more rows of E-rail making a total of four rows. The frustration of rental trucks over the last two years caused me to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to get a large and safe lift gate, and additional E-track so securing the loads won't require so much planning and effort. We still have to take the truck back to the dealer on Monday to put it in to get the box painted. They will have it for at least 4-days for this simple process.

I didn't have a camera with me today, but if I did I would have taken a photo of the gaff tape US DOT number that I have currently on both cab doors. The posting of a DOT number is required on all big trucks (yup, that is how the law reads, it says "big") and they don't care how it's on there, it just needs to be readable from a specific distance (20'?).

backstreet boys

Tonight was my grandmother's birthday cake event. While we where there we were talking about well water and she said that their system is filtered. It was mentioned that salt is used in the systems generally to soften the water and her response was, "I don't want to drink all those chemicals." "What about all the Diet Coke you drink," I said. "Well, I'll drink some chemicals if they're in Diet Coke." yeah, okay.

My short work day:
The 10:00 real estate meeting turned into the 10:30 meeting because there was rain. This isn't the first meeting where an agent has run late, but it's only thousands of dollars in commissions so why is it so important to be timely? I say that but I really like the agents we are working with and think they are doing a pro job, but the fees do get under my skin.

I ended up getting to work today a few minutes after noon which wasn't a big deal today as it was a very calm day. The weekend is busy with an event, but the prep for the event is mostly taking place on Thursday and Friday. Since we are now putting in an offer for a house there was a second meeting for more paper signing. That meeting was set for 4:30 today, so my work hours today were noon to four. Not my most efficient work day, but probably the shortest in a long time.

Our agent asked if we remembered to bring a checkbook to write the contract deposit and I said yes. We put our offer together so it can be sent to the seller's agent as soon as we have a ratified contract in hand. When it came time to write the check I was all ready to write the $1000. check (like we saw earlier this morning), and she was like, umm it's a $4500 check. Nope, not ready to write that check right now. Give me a day or two to transfer some money and move things around, choke. When we started this process 50+ days ago she did let us know that it's a 1% deposit generally, but I wasn't paying attention. (for those at home doing the quick math the price offering is 450k, it's just the offer, it only get's more expensive).



View of the front of the house from the street

Then we'll get to go through the negotiations back and forth, more time away from work. Fortunately the timing of these meetings is working out since it's August and it's slow. When we are planning to move will be a different story, it will be mayhem at work. In the meantime IF everything goes as planned and there are no hitches EVERYONE is getting paid for inspections and docs:

Septic Test
Well Test
Home Inspection
Radon Test
HOA Documents for buyers ($225 and it was a pdf download!!!!)

My upcoming work:
Since I've been light on comments and recently found out there are actual readers I'll throw in this tidbit to get some comments. We're providing concert lighting for Hanson and The Backstreet Boys this Sunday at Pier Six in Baltimore. Did you just read that, The Backstreet Boys, for real. When checking the web to get the link above I found out they have a Backstreet Boys cruise that is sold out. Did you get your tickets for the cruise?

first offer

Today we got an acceptable offer on the sale of our house. There is a meeting set for the morning with our Realtor to go over the details of the 40 page contract. Everything sounds good from what I'm hearing, but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet. I know two couples that have put in official offers via contract and flaked out on the purchase due to their own bad projections in one case and irresponsible banking behavior in the other case. I'm being realistically cautious, but I'm happy that we got a real offer none the less.

Moving on to another subject now. I've been doing some Summer reading and need to note the books I have completed in this here blog:

Road Show by Neil Peart (the drummer from rock band Rush)
No Angel by Jay Dobyns (motorcycle, undercover cop, Hells Angels)
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk (yes, I did have to look up how to spell the last name. It's the guy who wrote Fight Club)

I'm looking for my next book but have not settled on it yet. Actually it was just decided that it will be Cat's Eye by Margret Atwood as this book is an in stock item in the house and I recall liking The Hand Maid's Tale and Oryx and Crake.

In stage lighting news I put in a purchase order today for Mac 350s. As far as I know they are the first LED profile fixtures on the market. We have needed a lower rental cost fixture replacement for our sold off Studio Spot 250s and 575s. In this case I'm glad that I waited for the LED fixtures to finally hit the market. I've been out of the "250" rental market for about two years waiting for this to happen. Since the Mac 350s are built on the SmartMac platform they will be inherently stable. We have had SmartMacs at a club install for over a year in a brutal environment and they have held up fairly well. Now we can do an all LED moving light show with Mac 350s and GLP Impressions and everything can be powered off of one or two circuits of 120 volts current, that's pretty cool.

Five years in eight months

I purchased my current motorcycle at the start of the riding season this year. I was fortunate to pick it up used for about half of the current new cost with 8,200 miles and brand new tires. It is a 2005, BMW R1200 GS. I wanted to do longer rides and the small Ducati 695 sport bike design I was riding wasn't comfortable for me. The Ducati was a great beginner bike to learn on, but it wasn't for me, so I sold it to get the more comfortable and larger BMW this year.

This past Saturday I ran into a friend of a friend (Andy) at a cookout who always ends up talking about his Honda 919 and how it's fast and so on. I pointed out that I always hear about this bike, but I've yet to ever see him riding it. This phenomenon of motorcycle ownership without actual use was further exemplified with a quick tour of the showroom of a local used bike dealer. Last week I was helping my Uncle and Nephew pick out a used bike as their beginner bike and saw a mint condition sport bike with less than 400 miles! A few bikes later I saw two more perfect condition bikes with less than 1,000 miles on the odometer. You'd think these motorcycles were home fitness equipment.

I am by no means an accomplished long distance rider, but I have ridden 620 miles in a single day, and have recently tinkered with the idea of completing an Iron Butt - SaddleSore 1000 event. I would very much like to see the country and even Canada by motorcycle. Riding to Ohio this Summer for work was a great trip, but it's rare that I can ride a motorcycle to an event, let alone an out of state event.

As of today I have 13,186 miles on the bike and that is approximately how many total miles I have on all bikes to date. I have a goal of 16,500 miles by Christmas card time so I can send a card with a photo of the odometer reading to the original owner (Steward Manning) showing that I doubled the mileage on the bike in 8 months - what took him 5 years to clock.

Plane

This evening I rode the motorcycle, knowing it was most likely going to rain. While I rode down Dorsey road I was rewarded for my choice as I accelerated to drive right under a plane landing at BWI. The plane was about 125' overhead I'd estimate. Every now and then you can time the incoming planes and drive directly under their path and it's pretty amazing. It's the justification for having a convertible (which I don't) or driving a motorcycle when you just know it's going to rain before you get back home. If you care to check out the location and try it yourself it's the Thomas A. Dixon Jr. Aircraft Observation Area and park on Dorsey road. Since I currently live and work near BWI off of Dorsey road I have had the chance to view the undersides of the planes more often that most, I guess there is something I'm going to miss when we move our home this Summer/Fall.

Sorry no photo, can't really drive and snap a pic.

When I left to come back home I did get rained on, but it was light. The mild rain seemed to cool things down a great deal so that was a welcome trade.

On the market

Our house is on the market, and has been for about 45-days. In preparation for the sale we paid for new carpet throughout the house, and paid for paint in about a third of the house. Some would say that "they painted and re-carpeted the house", this statement is not true, I just paid professionals to do the tasks as painting is not a skill I'm efficient with. After said payments the house looks fantastic and is staged well for sale and I have to say it looks better than most of the houses I've viewed. I suspect the sale of our house is all about the bottom line and a lot less about the new carpet smell and fluffed pillows.

It has been frustrating from day one. The first part that we (and everyone else) went through is the agent contracts where you realize how much money is coming off the top in commissions. Six percent is a lot of money when it's coming out of your funds! However, I'm not aware of a reliable way around paying the agents so we're playing by their rules and rates. Perhaps CraigsList could be the answer?

The plus side of the situation is that we are selling our house because we want to. We are not selling because of getting laid off, or because of home equity loans for large TV screens in every room and chrome rims for the Hummer. Nope, we're doing this because we want to step up to a property with trees and a long driveway and maybe even some privacy.

I can't imagine what the situation would be like if we had to sell on a time deadline due to a job out of town, or a lack of cash flow, or to pay for iPhone monthly service. I guess we have got it easy - we're in the black and even if we drop the price by $50k, we're still in the black. Could be worse I guess.



*notice the cat door

digital memories

As I try to recall when things happened at the company that are important to me I always have to refer back to the company website. When did we buy the forklift?

I did not design the site, nor do I know code too well, but I do updates and photo uploading and the such. I've very happy to have a company website to update because I've yet been able to keep up a steady blog entry, and Facebook certainly isn't suitable. Today (August) I made the bold entry to note that we've been replacing 19-pin connectors on most of the multi cable. It's a very dull announcement that really doesn't even belong in this blog, but it has been an expensive event that in two years from now I'll have to refer back to the site to remember that it wasn't last week when I spent all that money on the maintenance.

I've had trouble keeping up with blog entries because I (perhaps) made the mistake of making this sort of a company blog, and less of my personal blog. I guess I could start a new blog without the company tilt, problem is the company and work is such a big part of my life. I don't know.

My digital memory for today notes that I reached 13,000 miles on the BMW R1200GS this evening while driving to the gym. Speaking of the gym I took a long break this Summer and now have made another attempt to get back into the swing of things and have started going again. Making a note that I started going to the gym again would get repetitive if it was noted on a time line so I'm not going to make something about nothing just yet. Last night the wife and I went out for some beers after the gym (net gain). Tonight there were no beers or junk food after the gym visit, so that's good.