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.

Jazzy goodness

What up! i called Jeff yesterday to try to figure out what is happening with the new band. Andre, Jeff and i got together once about a month ago now i guess and had a very good first practice. we were heading in the direction of doing a Blue's band and things clicked very well for a first time meeting. i think that everyone was a little nervous. Jeff and I hoping not to scare away Andre because he is so good and we are.....well anyways, i was also a little hesitant because i have young kids and i knew that Jacob was upstairs at Jeff's sleeping so i was a little gun shy just to go crazy drumming. either way he woke up but i guess it was expected. so the reason for my call yesterday was to see if we could all get together Sunday and have a jam. Turns out that Andre had other things going so we are hoping for the weekend after that. i am good so we just need to get confirmation from the other 2. Jeff and i saw that jazz band a week ago and we got talking about our struggles with finding a lead man, so when i called Andre after work, to find out his schedule, he was all for doing a jazz trio until something came up. nice thing is that we won't need a singer to count on. Andre is a disturbingly good bass man. Jeff has crazy good Jazz sax skills and i have really big feet. i know that doesn't have anything to do with anything, but i wanted to fit in. so our intention is.......Not forget the blues. i still think that it is more marketable, however, in the meantime, try to get out playing doing a jazz trio. what better way to network yourself than someone else come up to you and want to join in with you. Jeff and i were talking and it sounds like Andre has a ton of great recording equipment so that is another nice advantage that we could get a press kit or at least demo CD together at no cost. Jeff also has a bundle of items for recording so we are covered in many situations there. Gotta run. see ya later.

My evening with the Grand Master

Hello. happy Tuesday. as previously posted, last night i had my first real studio experience. it is a project that is funded and created by Brian Fisher. Brian was the guitarist transformed into bass player in my last functioning band, known for a short time as (man i hate this name....)Fourplay (yes i know there was a Grammy award winning contemporary jazz band with this same name. Seriously i tried telling them this but no one cared. oh well) so shortly after that broke up Brian and i continued talking randomly to keep touch and hope another band opportunity came along. well talking with Brian one day he said that he had written some material and wanted to record it and wanted to have me play drums on it. it was a paying session so i was thrilled. my first paying musical performance in a while. when Jeff and i were in More Than Song we had one that we never got paid for but before that is was a long dry spell. Blank Slate was the real cash cow. sad but true. so after 2 reschedules, we met last night at Grand Master Studios in South Bend on Miami to "lay down" some tracks (that's cool lingo)

i got there about 5:30 and in the pouring rain started to unload in this dark decrepit alley. it took a good 8 trips to get it all inside this dim lit studio but i got it. no help. drummers. why would anyone want to play these. you never get help and you always have a ton of crap. and it heavy. i should also tell you that i had to park at the bottom of a hill and i had a broken leg but i think that you would figure me out so never mind.

i met Chris, the owner, engineer, musician himself. very nice guy. he was very easy to work with. Brian has dealt with him before so it was not like nobody knew anyone. i got my gear all opened up and started setting up. Chris came around and hooked up mics and we talked gear while we were all getting ready. this again was not my first experience recording, but my first in a real studio and with an engineer who knew how he wanted to hook up mics.

Kick drum, AKG D112

Tom 1, AKG C418

Tom 2, Sennheiser 421

Snares, 2 Shure SM 57's

Overheads, 2 Shure SM 81's

While i did that Brian set up in the same room his amp and a mic stand for a "scratch vocal" that is a guide for what he is singing but they will then rerecord his singing which is good because it was shaky after practicing the night before. After spending 20 minutes working on problem with Brian's Fender amp and some seriously wicked buzzing we got it to a reasonable level and kenw that the sound would get covered in the ambient noise of the drums so we moved on to "dialing in" the drums. this is a LONG and BORING process. Long. Boring. End of story. Chris says okay. start with the kick drum. so you start hitting it. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM............ about 7 or 8 minutes later he says okay, "tom 1" so you start that. BOOM, BOOM, Boom........ and you go around the kit to Tom 2, snare, cymbals. then to do patterns just the 2 toms back and forth and then drums all together. then it happens....FULL KIT. after all that, then we went back and dampened stuff and took out the overtones, but after a good 45 minutes, we were ready to go. So i look and it's 8:30. Three hours and not one note has been recorded. I knew then that we were going to be there a while.

Honestly, during the recordings there isn't much to tell. Most of the songs went pretty well. we had six total. 4 that we had done a fair amount of work on in practices and 2 that he sprung on me the night before. i had 2 snare that i was using so we did 3 of the original songs and 1 new one, then i switched snares and did the last 2. we did most of the songs in 2 takes and then went back and re did a couple sections and "punchedethem in" in place of other sections. each song Brian and i would play the song first time just getting familiar with each song and then Chris would set the click track as we were playing so when we were done, then we would take our first cut at the song. sometimes we would have to start up again to get the click fixed up again. One song we had to retake the whole thing cause it seemed slow after we listened back. Brian has one song that has some 3/4 measures in a 4/4 song so that was fun listening to a click that didn't match up with your mental counting. it wa probably the best one we did.

Pro Tools is a very neat program. after every song when we thought that we were fairly well finished we would go back into the booth and listen. We were really only worried about drums last night, not vocals or guitar so that was nice so i could focus on what Brian wanted. We would listen and Brian would want something or and extra hit or beat somewhere and Chris would just copy and paste a note in that spot. Chris was very good with the program. i was surprised to see he was using a Windows machine and not an Apple PowerBook or something. Apple is the more popular option but either way, it worked and worked well. He had a very nice Soundcraft mixing console and plenty of other fancy rack processors. i think that the board was a TS12.

So at about 11:30 i started tearing down and got paid. i headed home and crawled into bed at 12:27. Up at 5:50 and here i am at work. all in all, i had a good time great experience and i really would like to do it more on someone else's dollar. i look forward to hearing the final outcome. Later.