Broken Back Pine Mountain.

Well, I finally got to use "Loopy" as a mood....because I'm currently taking Vicodin. Al and I did a pre-wire job on a house in Pine Mountain on Sunday. We made quick work of it, and made some pocket money as well. During the job my back decided to quit me, which happens every once in a while. I've sort of gotten used to working through it. Generally given a couple days it fixes itself. That isn't happening this time.

I was pretty much crippled last night, and was worse this morning. It's never been this bad. Well, one of my favorite clients just so happens to be a world class spine man, so I contacted him to get a referral to someone that could check it out. John was headed into surgery at the time, but had his secretary call in a prescription of some Vicodin and steroids, then set me up an appointment for Wednesday morning...with him. I don't often "call in" favors from my customers, but he insisted. If there can be a good part in all this, it is the fact that I personally know about half of the guys that work at Hughston Clinic, and they are all at the top of their game. I don't remember which doc I did work for first, but now I've got a majority of them in my client list. It's kind of nice to have them working for me when I needed it.

I'm currently hanging out at the house, unable to do much. Today was the first time I've used a day of sick leave since I started working for this company 6 years ago, so I don't feel to bad about that. That's what's happening here....sounds like fun, right?

Lathe 2 project pictures for dad.

Here is the latest project from Lathe II. Again, this started out as round stock, the handle aluminum, and the head brass. The only thing not done on the lathe was drilling out the hammer head for threads....that was done on a Bridgeport mill. These projects are made so you do just about every type of lathe operation by the time you finish the class. That's why it has a hollow capped handle.....there really isn't a use for that feature, but I learned how to cut internal threads on it. Anyhow, I'm pretty proud of this one so I thought dad should see it.

Room project finished.

I took a bit of vacation for the concert road trip and decided to milk it through the weekend so I had some time to finish up the trim work in the office.

At this point I can call this project finished. All that's left are a couple of electonic purchases. The oak trim really made a huge difference in the way the entire room looks. Thank goodness I had a "go to" guy when it came to this part because this trim would have easily cost as much as the floor if I'd have went out and bought it. Instead I bought an oak board and sent it with Al, and when it came back to me I had some very nice looking trim work. All I had left to do was cut, fit, and finish it. I'm very happy with the room we ended up with.

Another concert review.

 

I'm quite a happy camper at the moment.

 

As most who read this know, I listen to a rather odd mix of different music. You may say eclectic. For about the past two years, the band Disturbed has been at the top of my list when it comes to metal. Some would argue that Disturbed is even a bit beyond metal, but whatever you call it, I like it.

Well, my favorite radio show on XM, Opie and Anthony, just happen to have Jagermeister as an advertiser...the same company that is sponsoring the current Disturbed tour. I was about to buy tickets for the Atlanta show when I had the revelation of firing off an email to the O&A producer about scoring some free ones. Imagine my surprise when he replied within 10 minutes and ask which show I wanted to attend!  I was set to go to the Pensacola show and pick up my tickets at the will call window.....

At this point I should mention that Deb is not what one would call a big fan of this type of music. Hmmm, it just so happens that our favorite lawyer couple in Montgomery have clashing musical tastes as well. Joy has been known to cue up some rather head bangin' tunes from time to time, While Bill's tastes are a bit closer to Debs.  Ok then, Joy and I headed south!

Because our tickets were coming through Jager, I was told that they wouldn't be available until an hour before showtime. I had no idea what kind of seats we would get, and had no way of finding out.....really no matter anyway, either of us would have been happy to sit behind the stage just to be present. BUT, when I hand over my ID to get the tickets the lady asks "who are your tickets from?" I tell her and she disappears for a bit. My stomach is in a knot. When she returns the first thing I see is the neck strap used for credentials....then next thing she plops down is the VIP card to attach to the strap. Even at this point neither Joy nor I knew just how good we were going to have it.

We were ushered toward an elevator, but didn't really know why. The attendant ask if we were going to the 2nd floor. I had no idea why she would ask that and told her so. "You ARE going to the VIP party, right?" (Oh Lord)

We get to the party room and had a couple free drinks. "You DO want to go to the meet and great, right?" (Heart attack at this point)  <~~~ Yep, we met the band!

You are going to the seats that are right beside the stage, but out of the slam dancers area, right? (DAMN RIGHT I AM) <~~~as you can tell, at this point I'm getting quite used to being "an important person".

Now I realize this is getting to be a damn long entry, so I'll go short version from here on.

THANKS OPIE AND ANTHONY SHOW (especially SteveC), THANKS JAGERMEISTER...AND MOSTLY, THANKS JOY FOR BEING A GREAT CONCERT DATE! (Oh, damn...I better thank Deb and Bill for letting us even attempt something like this without any sort of divorce proceedings to follow!)

THIS FRIGGIN' YEAR IS KICKING ASS SO FAR. I've wrote that before, and so far haven't jinxed it, so I'm not scared to put it here again.

More room pictures.

Ok, I'm sure everyone has figured out that school is back in, thus the lack of update. Here are some more pictures of the room project. It is finally starting to wind down. I picked up my trim this morning, and should have it all installed and stained by this weekend. My buddy all routed all the trim pieces for me out of an oak board. I've got to get Deb an LCD monitor, and a LCD television for the wall. We are really liking it so far and have already started using it, even though it isn't finished quite yet. That's all for now.