THEE list of stave snares....

The drums are all in different stages from finished to glued. But the list as follows is....

Alowood Ebony

2- 5.5 x 13

Bamboo

2- 5.5 x 14

1- 5 x 14

1- 7x13

Ash

1- 8.25 x 14

1- 5.5 x 13
1- 7 x 13
2- 5.5 x 14
1- 4 x 14

Black Walnut

1- 7 x 13

1- 5.5 x 14

1- 6 x 13

1- 6.5 x 14

Red Oak

1- 7 x 13

1- 6 x 14 (Blue Stain)

Canary Wood

2- 5 x 14

Leopardwood

1- 6 x 14

Paduak

1- 5.5 x 14

Cherry

1- 5.5 x 13

1- 5.5 x 14

1- 6.5 x 14

1- 6.5 x 14 (Horizontal and Vertical Alt Grain)

Ziricote

1- 5.5 x 14

Misc.

1- 6 x 14 Black Walnut / Cherry

1- 5.5 x 14 Black Walnut / Padauk / Ash

1- 7 x 13 Bubinga / Padauk

Photography by Stacy Lastinger

to many projects in one room....

okay...let me explain. so the wall has no drywall. after the big storm, we had a large amount of water come in through a couple of places. long story short i had to remove the paneling and do some work. i just need to get some old paneling or ideally some drywall and get it hung. sounds easy enough. right...... the silver snare drum is one acquired from a trade. the shop vac is just an all round cleaning (not that you can tell) mostly from the wall project.) the bare shell on the left side also has another smaller shell in it. that was a project that started oh....6 years ago. never wanted to spend the money to get it where it needed to be. there they will sit. i still hope some day. the three red drums are the new kit that replaced the old kit. the new kit is from Jan 1966 replacing the old kit from Feb 1993. the cymbal on the ground is from a sale that fell through so it was on the rack on the left but i had to get a chair out so i had to move it. yeah it looks bad. i need a warehouse. thank goodness the Gretsch kit is at Jeff's!!!!

Some pics of the new kit....

Still running. i ran 3.25 Friday and 6.0 on Saturday. 10k in 2 weeks in Ft. Wayne and i am really looking forward to that. obviously i want to improve my time from Chicago. we'll see how that goes. this race was described as "scenic" which to me means "hilly". i have these next 2 weeks to get all ready.

Gotta run.

August miles ran.....

52.2 miles run in August!!!!!!!! I am starting to prep for my next race. October 26 in Ft. Wayne. the River City Rat Race. 10k. might need to finally break down and buy some new shoes. i like my asics but i really have a thing for theses


I'm sure there are other things that i should be writing but i can't think of much. i sold (well it's in the process) of getting of my first drum set. my parents bought it for me for my 16th birthday. i used that kit so much. i gigged on it. stripped it down to then wrap it in velvet (oh yes) and made tons of improvements to it. i sold it to a friend who's son is learning to play so i feel that it will get another life. still eyeing a second kit to have. Vintage stuff is so cool but addictive.

Thats all i got for now. off to check Facebook

have i fallen for a new girl????

i think so.... DAMN YOU FACEBOOK!!!!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1332740150

Wow....it has been a REALLY long time since i've posted!!!

...and yet, i don't have much to say. hmmm. well i guess the big thing that i have coming up is the Human Race 10k in Chicago. Pretty excited about it really. They have a realy cool video. still can't quite tell if this is the first year. i keep seeing stuff saying that it is but the video looks as if it isn't. Not that it matters. 6.2 miles in Chicago is pretty cool either way.

http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/

I did finally get the John Mayer DVD. Very Good. okay, thats covered. next topic...

Georgia football is getting close. Most polls have them in that horrible #1 position. your pretty much doomed to start #1. thats okay. should be a good year.

The new house is going well. Mom has painted like crazy and we are getting settled in well.

i think thats all i have in me today. Later all

My first 10k!!!

Here are some overdue pictures that Stacy Lastinger took at our Forth of July party down at my sister and Aunt's house's.

I also finished my first 10k. it's no record breaker but i didn't care. 6.2 miles part road, part trail with hills that i never imagined! i had a good time. Four of us guy's went togoether. we are in the process of looking for another one in September.

Things have changed

Everything. okay, it's been a while since i posted so i must back up. We sold our house. it sold in 31 days. then i took a while to get to closing but we sold. we made more on it than we expected. either way we closed. we Bought a house. we closed the day after we closed on the house we sold. We painted. EVERYTHING. My mother painted. EVERYTHING ELSE. so yeah, lots of paint was involved in the buying of this house. we have more to come. Layla has done fairly well with the switch but Marley has struggled a bit. Thursday then the family went down for our annual Forth of July visit to Noblesville. Layla was a fish. the girl that doesn't normally like to be wet / cold / splashed and all the stuff that goes with it, we couldn't keep her out of the pool or at least asking all the time. the only other thing that held her over was going on boat rides. she had fun. I got away on Friday for a bit and ran (drove) over to Rob's and I got to work on some snare shells. we cut edges on 4 Bamboo shells and glued up 2 of them. then we had the big party at my Aunt Paula's. Saturday Elizabeth and I went back to Rob and Stacy's house and the four of us went to the John Mayer concert that evening. Good show. i am guessing that i liked it better than the others but i think everyone had a good time. i will not say that it was the most impressive concert that i have ever been to but i still really enjoyed it. Once again i am listening to the Raconteurs live shows again. i found one that i was able to download (podcast) through NPR. sounds like another slick show. i would really like to see them sometime. they have pics posted of this show at the 9:30 Club in D.C. the guy that took the pics is pretty friggin good. he goes by Kingpinphoto.



Then to top it all off, on Thursday morning Elizabeth fell down the new steps carring to much laundry and has a second degree sprain of the left ankle. AND she didn't finish the laundry. GEEZ! So mom and dad to the rescue again. THANK YOU (AGAIN)

Happy Birthday Peetie!!!!

If you want to know how old she is, YOU ask her. I love you honey. (and no, none of these cakes are her's. sad isn't it!)

JUst an F.Y.I.

i just got on the Brian Ficher MySpace page and saw that he has uploaded 2 songs that we did in the studio. i see that on the 13th of June he will be adding more. That's all i got for now. His link is over on the side or here

First post in a while.

Sorry for not posting more. things have been busy with all the housing stuff going on. We have finally started packing. that is a pain in the butt. i see why we were avoiding it. the garage is fairly well packed. I spent about 6 hours aver at the house on 15 getting paint stripped and mom stopped by and started painting. amazing how much better it looks so quickly and easily. it has been nice to meet the guy selling (Jason). seems like a good fellow. he seemed okay with us getting into the house the week after he gets moved out and right before we close to let us paint a couple rooms. that would be sweet. we'll see. so at this point we are moving on the 28th!!!!

my new musical drug is the Raconteurs. Jack White of the White Stripes is the lead guy but shares a lot of duties with another guy in the band. Good stuff.

okay. that's it for now.

It all seems to happening at once.

I really don't have time for a post right now. Marley and her cousin Cade turned 1 on the same day that cousin Evan turned 5. Layla turned four 5 days later. We are in the final stages of getting our house sold and the new house bought. just waiting on the appraisal of ours and a final okay for the counters on the new. Closings should be June 27. Moving should be mostly on the 29th (yes i know that's a Sunday) Work had been crazy busy. Kendra and the boys were up this last weekend for all the kids parties so Layla was in heaven to finally have "her Nicky" around. It was good to see every one and i look forward to getting to go south for the July 4th weekend. We need a vacation because this house stuff is ridiculous and drawn out. Well i think that's all i have on short notice. this weekend is the Sunburst race. i am again doing the 5k. last year i strolled in at a lengthy 34 minutes. i think that i can beat that but who knows. i don't feel that i am running as long but i am running faster. i think that makes sense. we'll see. Elizabeth is doing the 5k walk with her sister. Go team. Okay, back to work.

Happy Anniversary to us!!!

Hello all. Today is my lovely bride, Elizabeth's and my 7 year anniversary. 7 years. 7 years with no itch. i like her pretty well. i think that i will take the 7 year contract extension. Our little family seems to be growing up to fast. Marley turns 1 on Thursday and then our baby Layla turns a whopping 4 next Tuesday. how is this all possible. that means that i will have been in my job purchasing for 4 years now. unbelievable how fast time comes and goes after you have kids.

Friday night we awoke to Layla screaming because she had just gotten sick in bed. it is scary for a kid but she did well with it. it must have been a fluke bug because she had no signs the next day. she took it easy on Saturday but nothing ever came of it again. Marley held strong.

Sunday i went up to St. Charles, Illinois with my friend Doug to the Chicago Drum Show. met a lot of people, saw a ton of amazing kits and snares and cymbals. Played some really nice stuff. it is disturbing the prices some of the stuff goes for. My favorite thing that i saw up there was a company by the name of Joyful Noise Drum Company. Classy people, and amazing product. something like this 4x14 brass snare goes in the neighborhood of $1,300. Gulp. But it is amazing. Doug made some purchases. He bought hardware to sell Robbie competition snare drum. Robbie stripped it down to sell off the shell and Doug had offers if it was complete so Doug finished that up and he also stole a Drum Foundry snare. 5.5x14, 8 ply, die cast, puresounds. it had a tag on it for $299 and Doug offered it for $210. they took the deal so he will take that home, pull off the good hoops and sell it for $350 or so. All in all, it was a good day.

Today our house on Maple Row gets its home inspection and then on Thursday, the new house on 15 gets its home inspection. after that the sold signs should go up. We close on both houses on or before June 27.

I think that is all i have for now. see ya later.

The girls

SOLD!!!!!

On Saturday we found out that we sold our house. These are the people that looked at the house for the first time on Tuesday and bid on Thursday night. we got the bid Friday and by Saturday we finalized the counter offers. we ended up getting it for $1,600 MORE than we were asking for it due to them wanting help in down payments. Tonight we go for our second showing at the house that E and i both like the best. wish us luck. Congrats to Lisa and Jesse Jones on their new son, Miles and good luck to Craig and Stacy McDowell who are at the hospital and Stacy (i don't think Craig) is in labor. More to come. Bye.

Maestro............

Well I'm sure that their are garage saler's out there that live for "the hunt" it's a pretty rare day when i go garage sailing yet i suppose if it was the right time, and the girls were going to tolerate it and blah blah blah i would go more. Elizabeth always comes home with great deals. i bet you could raise a kid and never buy 1 piece of clothing or one toy from a department store, but strictly from garage sales. the prices are normally a mere percent of what you pay and if you know the right people you can get things that you aren't sure if they have even been used yet for next to nothing. However still, i just typically don't go to them. this last weekend we HAD a garage sale at E.'s dad's. very profitable for every one. i had borrowed saw horses and some monster doors from work and drove them over. so then on Tuesday, Trevor comes and asks me if i know where they are at. Hmmm, oops. yep. at E's dad's. well of course his family is having a garage sale and needs the tables. so i told him that i would take him over to pick it all up after our Order Reading Meeting. so at 3 i tell Curt that i am going with Trevor to get all the stuff and i get a "WELL DON'T LET IT TAKE ALL DAY!!!!" which in "Curt" means... "oh that would be just fine, do you need gas money or a hug before you go. have a great day!" so we go get everything and Trevor hops out of the truck. well he forgot to grab the key out of the truck so i snag it and wait for him to say "oops, i forgot the key!" well he does as i am walking into the breeze way. I laugh and enter the room of crap. Wowza!!! they got stuff to sell. Coasters, books, clothes, guitar amp.....................................GUITAR AMP!?!?!?! i am intrigued! so i go over to it and on the front it says "Maestro". no idea. never heard of it. i take a look at its back and see it is a Vintage Jensen original speaker 4 x 8" combo. no idea. tube amp, cool. then on the top of it i see "Gibson Products" well when we get done i talk to Sheri to see if she knows if that is for sale. it is! sweet. So Dorothy comes in Wednesday and says she has no idea if it works but thinks that it did when Bob stopped using it. she says "Would you pay $25?" i told her yeah, probably. later in the day, Trevor brings it into my office. and says he was instructed to drop it off. GREAT. on the top i find the small text saying the model number. GA-45 RV. so i Google it. what i find is that in 2006, the low end price on this is $950 and the high end price is $1,200. i payed $25. I am the coolest kid i know. i took it home last night and plugged it in. it works. the pots are dirty so when you dial a knob it sounds real crusty. still, it is cool as can be. not a bad sound but it really could use some money to be put into it if you were going to actually use it on a regular basis. i have know idea what i will be doing with it.

i got my pricing from this site here

Very exciting....

John Mayer is putting out a CD / DVD on July 1. this looks good. i really like Danny Clinch also. he did the Foo Fighters acoustic DVD and the Pearl Jam DVD. these are my 3 favorites. the Killers need to sign him for a movie and i would officially begin to stalk him. i also see that JM is doing a summer tour and will be in Noblesville on July 5 (Saturday) THIS is intriguing. Oh, honey!!!!!!

To catch everyone up...

Over the weekend, E and i went to a few more open houses. we got to go in a house that was on our list of "we kind of want to see it but not a HAVE TO SEE it house". it was NOT good. it is on the main drag in Pinecrest. we will not be buying it. we did have another showing on Friday. i picked up the girls and we met for dinner at Between the Buns. we happened to run into E.'s dad and sister and her family. it was cute. big happy family. then Saturday was the big Garage Sale. we got rid of a ton of stuff and made pretty good money. that night we met at E's sisters again and did pizza from Antonio's. good times. As far as the results of the showing. we are told that it went very well but that the couple is just starting to look. that same realtor said that she has another client that has been on vacation that she thinks would really like the place so that i a plus. also a guy that Elizabeth works with has a friend who he thinks would be interested. it would be great if he didn't have a realtor and we sent him to Micki. that would cut our commision to her even more. so it feels like things are still moving well. Yahoo....

Last night E and i went up (finally) to see Jami Kamp. she has been in the hospital for 19 days now. all for a tummy ache, which led to gall bladder removal leading to pancreitis. she has a feeding tube and got to eat yesterday for the first time.......DIET JELLO. blah. pass. no thanks. She seems to be hanging in there. it is a little absurd that it took us 18 days to get up there but with home showings and all the other stuff going on, i was glad that we at least finally made it up. Jeff's parents and Jami's mom were all up there. Jeff arrived a bit later because he had a final to take.

Today was our in office health checks. you get to do it for free. just a rough evaluation of your health. i, being a normal male, need these since i don't see a doctor regularly. last year wasn't horrid but they had to take my blood pressure twice and it was still bad. shortly after that i had to go in for a cold or something and it was fine so it must have been that day. well the results are in....

TOTAL CHOLESTEROL (<200...161

HDL (GOOD) CHOLESTEROL (>40...28

LDL (BAD) CHOLESTEROL (<130...117

TRIGLYCERIDES (<150...81

RATIO (<4.1...5.8

GLUCOSE (SUGAR) (<110...102

BLOOD PRESSURE (120/80 OR LESS...112/64

BODY MASS INDEX (18.5-24.9...28.6

BODY FAT (19% OR LESS...22%

So the verdict is in. I'm not dying, but I'm chubby. I tipped the scales at a hefty 231 clothed and reached 6'-3" on the height meter. Her only recommendation was that i should take 1,000 to 2,000 of fish oil a day. Fish oil. Crazy. If i am alergic to shell fish, is this going to kill me? i don't know...i forgot to ask. hmmmm......

HERE WE GO ST. JOE!!! HERE WE GO!!!

Yesterday we got word that on Friday evening we had another showing at our house. it is tonight at 6. Elizabeth happened to run into our neighbors and he mentioned St. Joesph. when i got home, i ate and then went out to mow. when i got to the front yard, Mark stopped me and handed me a small 3" tall St. Joseph. so we did our research. rumor has it that you are to bury him in the backyard, upside down, facing the house and this will bring you a buyer to your residence. then upon selling the home, you are to dig him up (try to remember where you buried him) and place him in a very visible location. THIS IS ALL CRAZY, however, what do we have to lose. So upon finishing my lawn, i went to the back yard, i put him in a zip lock bag (snack size) which was recommended to me by our neighbor, and dug up a spot where i stuck him in the ground upside down, facing the house. Mark said that his mother had luck with it and did ceramics and porcelain's and said that she started making them. she gave one to Mark's sister and it was successful for her and he had luck with one also. he seems to have taken the lot of St. Josephs so he gave us a porcelain one. Why the heck not. Today the house will be in the Homes and Land book so lets hope it works.

we did find out the our "safety net" house on Southfield went off the market. the people that were selling it got moved to Texas mid February have now decided to rent it out. i don't see this is a bad thing because unless they have someone in mind, i think that we could still contact them and maybe make an offer. renting isn't all it's cracked up to be. Bronson used to rent and it was nightmare-ish. who knows. can't get to attached to these properties until we sell ours.

this Saturday we have the big garage sale in E.'s dads subdivision. let make some bucks! we got plenty to choose from. we hope that goes well.

Also i talked to Jeff this morning. Jamie is still in the hospital. sounds like she may be in for a bit longer. she has good days but then she will drop down a notch. the feeding tube is causing problems, but they are saying that she can go home when they see 2 or so good days and she wants to go home because she's ready, not because shes tired of the hospital.

Have a good weekend. lets hope St. Joe does the trick.

B.

Oh my has it been a while.......

Welcome back for your newest installment the thing's going's on. Well since our house went up for sale on the market we had 2 showings right off the bat.it went up Thursday, made it to the Internet Friday and then had a showing Monday and Tuesday. Monday's showing we never heard a thing about. not that we are looking for feed back, not that it hurts, but we never heard ANYTHING. our neighbors said that it was a younger couple and we did find out that they have been looking in our area. who knows. the second showing, it was just the husband of the family and i guess he really liked it. GREAT so he was bringing his wife back out because she was gone or something. we then we heard later the she liked a house that is about better (even though she never stepped foot in ours) you start taking things personally and you shouldn't but it's hard not to. so you turn bitter. Sunday our house was in the paper and this Friday, in the homes and land magazines, we'll be listed.

Last Tuesday, the same day we had our second showing, Marley got tubes put in. aside from being a little upset when she woke up and a couple rough nights, things seem to be fine. not much to report there. She's stinkin' cute. i guess i can report that. Consider this report done.

Bands....geez! i need to fire my whole band but everyone is in the hospital. i think it was about a week ago Jeff sent out a e-mail saying that Jamie (his wife) was having stomach issues...long story short, She is still in the hospital and at least the length of this week. it is a series of one thing seems to lead to another. this is from Jeff

Last night my wife had severe stomach pains and we went to the E.R. at Elkhart. They gave her meds and it seemed to help. Most likely it was a Gall Bladder attack. Today around noon she ended up having the same pains. Again we went to the E.R. Tonight she had surgery to remove her Gall Bladder and it seems things have gone well. Thanks for the prayers from the people who knew what was going on. For the others please pray for continued healing. Big thanks to all who helped out with Jacob and just were there for support.

Next

It is Saturday night and Jami is not any better. We are still at Elkhart General Hospital. They are going to run some more test tonight to see why she is not recovering. Please keep her in your prayers.

Next

Jami has been diagnosed with pancreitis and has been transferred to critical care. This is mostly so they can monitor her better. Tomorrow they will do a CT Scan to see the severity of the problem.

Next

Sunday Night Update:

Jami has improved very little today. She had a CT Scan this morning. They haven't told is much about that, except for it did show a little fluid that they wanted to keep an eye on. Late afternoon today they put in a PIC Line. Some of you may remember she had one of these when she was so sick with being pregnant with Jacob. This basically is like a direct IV line. This will allow them to draw blood labs without them having to "poke" her every time. She is still not allowed to eat or drink.....actually not even allowed to smell food, as this could cause interruption of the healing process of her pancreatitis. She is supposed to have more lab work done tomorrow morning, hopefully this will show that her critical numbers are going down. As for me I did go to my sisters for lunch today, so I could hang out with Jacob a little bit. Him and I took about an hour and a half nap. I am again staying at the hospital tonight, I am working on homework for school, they have given Jami some sleeping meds tonight as she has been very restless. I will be going to work tomorrow (although I don't know for how long). Jami's mom will be with her for most of the day. Again thanks for the prayers!!!

- Jeff

Next

The result are in:

Jami has the better of the two types of pancreatitis. There is good blood flow in the pancreas. There is a large amount of fluid around the pancrease called a pseudo cyst. This cyst may be pushing on the stomach causing her nausea. For the next 6 weeks Dr. Karageantis wants to watch the cyst and see how much of the cyst the body will absorb itself. After 6 six weeks there are two ways to try and drain the remaining fluid. One choice would be laparoscopic and the other is endoscope. At this time I do not know the differences in the two procedures. Jami’s blood work is improving. She is still not allowed to eat, drink, or smell food allowing the panaceas to completely rest. This may be for the next 5 days. Possibly tomorrow she will be able to have ice chips to help with her thirst. Jami will not be moving out of the critical care area of the hospital yet because she is still classified as critically ill.

Thank-you for your continued prayer support through her illness, we appreciate your strength for which we have needed to rely on. Our God has provided peace for the family as we strive to help Jami with her needs.

And last e-mail...

Wednesday Night Update:

Jami is slowly showing signs of improvement. Her heart rate has come back to almost normal. Her enzymes are returning to normal. She might be moving off of critical care tonight. She still has a long way to go. She has finally started to get some much needed sleep and less pain meds. There is no time frame yet as to when she might be able to come home. I have went home the last two nights to get some sleep. They are still watching the cyst area to see if it has gone down any. We also do not know whether any follow up surgeries will be necessary. It may be six weeks before we know if any surgery will be needed. It still may be two or three days before she can have food or drink. Again thanks for the prayers.

So then after all this ruckus, he sees Andre getting wheeling around in a gown on a wheel chair. Jeff said that he had gone in for a physical and that he had some heart rhythms that were off tempo (i have no idea) So i think that i can plan on taking a little time off band stuff for a while. i have seen the next drum product that i have interest in. i know that i have a lot of drum stuff but this is the kind of thing that i could eliminate some stands and product. it is an ingenious idea by Gibraltar Hardware. there are 2 versions, with all the hardware or complete and add nothing. the wise decision is to get the full piece and then sell the 3 stands that it would replace.

Thanks for reading. Tonight i think that we look at 2 more houses. we have 3 on the "Like List" and plenty that you could turn around just about as soon as you step foot in them. If nothing else, it has been a good experience to figure out what all is involved in selling a home. it's also nice that we are cleaning out like crazy for a garage sale this coming weekend. COME ON BIG BUCKS!!!! see ya, B.

All the newest stuff going on.

Well we have decided to try to sell the house. We have officially grown bigger than what the house can hold. we also know that this is the most we will ever have. Every month Marley grows out of something that we can now get rid of in a garage sale. We have over a year before Layla would enter kindergarten but we figure we might as well start now. Micki Olson will be selling our house for us. She came over to the house last Wednesday but we wanted to figure some things out first so she comes over again tomorrow. We figure now is the time to buy, so if it's good for us, it's good for someone else. if nothing happens we won't be disappointed. we would like to get back into the Concord district but again, if nothing happens, so be it, the girls will be in Memorials district. we have been looking for houses now for a couple weeks. we aren't' asking for anything major. just something small and quaint like the house above. i bet that's 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. probably not over 1400 sq. ft. it must have a 2 car garage and a little area for the girls to play outside. well see what comes up. Micki brought over 4 houses that sold in the same Bungalow style as ours in the our neighborhood in that last 6 months. the longest one was 161 days. others were 31 days and like 62. one was 0 so that must have been predetermined or just plain wrong. it's kind of fun but we'll see what happens.

Robbie has finished our first snare drum stave shell. Robbie has done all the work really. He has really impressed me with this jig. i know that he was given the idea by another guy but to finish it out can be very challenging.

Above is in the jig to get its outside turned smooth. the router sits on top and you spin the shell to smooth it out.

This above is after the outside is smoothed and preparing for the inside to get turned

This is the shell after the inside has been turned also. We would still need to put on bearing edges and a snare bed but you get the idea. this was again our (his) first one that we did in Red Oak. We already have a stash of Black Walnut, Ash, Red Oak, Ebony, Leopardwood, Cherry and a couple others. we hope to make millions.