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wizardmickey
05-22-2007, 01:24 AM
... or, what I did this weekend!
As many times as I have flown back and forth across this great country of ours (to California, Minneapolis, Tennesee, Texas, Florida and here) this was the first time I had done so completely by myself. As brave as I usually am, I admit to feeling a bit freakish about it for some reason (mostly about the return flight from Houston), and almost worked myself up into a panic attack when catching my return flight. But all went well & I am home fine!
Shot over to Houston to meet up with Christy. First stop straight from the airport was to the Guitar Center. 100's of cool axes, but none of the models I wanted. Did pick up a few new straps as I was tired of having to use the same strap for every guitar. From there we went out to the Woodlands (Texas' version of Beverly Hills) to eat at a fancy place, then to the retreat center out in the woods and the cabin she's been staying in for the last 3 weeks.
Day 2 we hit the Houston Museum of Science & History: Awesome stuff!! Ate at a Brazillian rest. called Fogo de Chao and found another Guitar Center; test drove a few axes & almost "settled" for one, but then realized that settling just for the sake of having a new guitar was a bad idea. I did however buy the new "Brian May Red Special Digitech foot pedal", which let's me emulate 14 different tones that he made popular and are highly recognizable... I sound better already!
Day 3 we went to the Galleria just to hit up the Disney Store! Bought a buncha shirts & some other stuff. Ate at the Kona Grill there, explored the grounds of the retreat center we were staying at (which has a full scale replica of the Alamo on the grounds!), took a nap, and then flew home.
Monday was a long day at work... the full 8 hours plus stayed 2 extra for a special party for patients who participated in our Talent Show (they were all winners!) Ran home during lunch to meet with a contractor about the leaky roof, and he recommends more than just a quick patch job (now to wait and see how much the insurance company will approve). Then tested out my new pedal for about 2 hours before meeting up with a bunch of you on VMK, then off to bed.
Tomorrow is my busiest day of every week (every week); full day of back to back patient groups and then practice afterwards until about 9:30 or 10. Friday is usually our other practice day, but the drummer called me to see if I'd be willing to "practice at a party & get paid for it"... are you kidding? Get paid to practice in front of a small crowd? Why not?!?! We'll probably pack up from there so we can be ready for the Memorial Day show out at the hospital on the 28th, so life is just a tad busy right now!! And how was everybody else's weekend while I was away?

Jeremy
05-22-2007, 02:04 AM
cool!:thumbsup:
You where in my neck of the woods. lol
I live just 60 miles out of the woodlands
That is where i go shopping at.

and the Houston musem my brother once
worked there and they still have his work
out on display.

I am glad you had a good time here.

Patricia
05-22-2007, 03:51 PM
Sigh, your life is much more exciting than mine. I had a three day weekend and did yard work all three days.



:mow: :dighole:

JPL
05-22-2007, 03:59 PM
I had a three day weekend and did yard work all three days.



:mow: :dighole:

This sounds like a grand adventure to me Patti with power tools:hide2:

Patricia
05-22-2007, 04:06 PM
Heh, I did use a gas powered lawn edger, or should I say it used me. I just hung on for dear life and it dragged me around. When I returned it the guy in the rental place congratulated me. :thumbsup:

It was kind of fun, you can rev it like a chain saw and freak out your neighbors.

mickeytinkerbellprincess
05-22-2007, 06:47 PM
Heh, I did use a gas powered lawn edger, or should I say it used me. I just hung on for dear life and it dragged me around. When I returned it the guy in the rental place congratulated me. :thumbsup:

It was kind of fun, you can rev it like a chain saw and freak out your neighbors.

:funny: :rotfl: :haha: :silly: :crazy: :D

Chescat
05-22-2007, 07:37 PM
Heh, I did use a gas powered lawn edger, or should I say it used me. I just hung on for dear life and it dragged me around. When I returned it the guy in the rental place congratulated me. :thumbsup:

It was kind of fun, you can rev it like a chain saw and freak out your neighbors.
So we can now call Patti the chainsaw gardener? :mow:

Mr. Tom Morrow
05-22-2007, 09:23 PM
Oh my you are a busy little ice aren't you.:cool:

Sounds like a great weekend Ice. I'm sure you had a tad more fun than I did. I was at work all weekend lol.
Thanks for the weekend update:thumbsup:

Chescat
05-23-2007, 03:35 PM
You do sound busy Ice, but sounded like fun :rocker:

I just wish I could get over my fear of flying. :cry: :medic:

wizardmickey
05-23-2007, 09:32 PM
I'm still envisioning the "chainsaw gardener"... and here I'm forbidden from using power tools!
Yeah, it has been a little busy, and visiting VMK & the Inside Out clan is usually my decompression time.
Found out at band practice last night that our Friday gig is actually a Graduation Party/Gift for some daughter of a friend of an aqcuantaince of our drummer (twice removed??) There'll be somewhere between 80-150 screaming/giggly fresh out of high school girls... am I really ready for this?!?!
And today for some odd reason, my back went out on me & I've had a non-stop spasm all day. Good thing I've got muscle relaxers & pain meds!

Mr. Tom Morrow
05-24-2007, 08:10 AM
There'll be somewhere between 80-150 screaming/giggly fresh out of high school girls... am I really ready for this?!?!
And today for some odd reason, my back went out on me & I've had a non-stop spasm all day.

Hmm. Just wondering did it go out right after you found out that you were playing to all those kids?;)

varcity
05-24-2007, 11:58 AM
Just don't hang out with the groupies... :mickey:

Well, in my weekend we won a basketball tournament and I studied (20 hours between monday and tuesday) for finals yesterday. Upon completion of finals, two of my VMK friends, who shall not be named, decided that since I was finally winding down from the stress, they could bug me with their boogy filled space helmets and broken red space suit magics...

Boy I missed that over the past week. :mickey:

I would much rather have been in houston trying brazilian places out and buying shoes just to have another pair. Yes, unlike you, I don't resist shoes very well :mickey:

Chescat
05-24-2007, 12:26 PM
I would much rather have been in houston trying brazilian places out and buying shoes just to have another pair. Yes, unlike you, I don't resist shoes very well :mickey:
Not more shoes Varcity. :jaw:

wizardmickey
05-24-2007, 04:35 PM
Chescat Quote:
Originally Posted by varcity
I would much rather have been in houston trying brazilian places out and buying shoes just to have another pair. Yes, unlike you, I don't resist shoes very well

Not more shoes Varcity.
My wife feels kinda the same everytime I bring up buying another guitar!

...two of my VMK friends, who shall not be named, decided that since I was finally winding down from the stress, they could bug me with their boogy filled space helmets and broken red space suit magics...
I only threatened to put on my boogie filled helmet...

Mr. Tom Morrow Quote:
Originally Posted by wizardmickey
There'll be somewhere between 80-150 screaming/giggly fresh out of high school girls... am I really ready for this?!?!
And today for some odd reason, my back went out on me & I've had a non-stop spasm all day.

Hmm. Just wondering did it go out right after you found out that you were playing to all those kids?
Well, yeah, it did go out after the fact, but not exactly sure what the correlation could be??
And on a less than happy note: The back was so bad this morning that I rolled out of bed, called in to work, downed some more muscle relaxers & pain pills & went back to sleep. My supervisor called me about 10:30 sounding rather worried because; 1) I tend not to be the sort to call a lot (and she knows of my history of back injuries going back to my big bike wreck in 1985) and 2) the 2 of us were supposed to conduct a ROPES group out on our Challenge Course Friday and she was concerned as to whether or not I'd be able to do it now. So I guess I have a decision to make; Suffer through trying to make a day of being out on the Course & then playing the graduation party, or stay home tomorrow (if my back isn't any better by the morning) and just rock & roll at night...
I think I know which way I'm leaning already. :thumbsup:

mickeytinkerbellprincess
05-24-2007, 06:42 PM
Found out at band practice last night that our Friday gig is actually a Graduation Party/Gift for some daughter of a friend of an aqcuantaince of our drummer (twice removed??)

More like your fifth cousin's friend's uncle's great grandpa on his mom's side three times removed :jaw:



There'll be somewhere between 80-150 screaming/giggly fresh out of high school girls... am I really ready for this?!?!

I can see the headline now.. "FAMOUS ICE AND HIS BAND ATTACKED BY OVER-CRAZY HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS!" :funny: :haha: :rotfl:

wizardmickey
05-24-2007, 07:09 PM
And the Doll said...
More like your fifth cousin's friend's uncle's great grandpa on his mom's side three times removed
This would be funny, if in fact so many people in the South weren't related to someone in this fashion (thankfully I am safe since I am not origonally from here!)
Then she said again...
I can see the headline now.. "FAMOUS ICE AND HIS BAND ATTACKED BY OVER-CRAZY HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS!"
We could hire you to run interference for us! "Guard Cat's" anyone? Anyone?

wizardmickey
05-27-2007, 01:30 AM
Well, good and bad came from doing this weekend gig:
We had some "technical issues" each time we turned on the robo-cams (fancy laser lights) that caused the entire breaker system we were running through to throw! This happened twice, so we finally shut off the robo-cams (until someone ran a seperate extension from the house out to our light rig, then it was problem solved!) We also fried an entire channel on the PA (it happened to be the channel the main speakers were running off of) so we spun the monitors around for a few songs, went to adjust the effects level to the monitors since we were singing dry & discovered that we could simply move the mains over to the working channel instead of running through the monitors (sound confusing?) As for the crowd; I guess the girl who was graduating & that the party had been thrown for may not have been one of the popular kids, because only about 10 or 15 of her friends showed up. There were also maybe another 50 adults, so it was still a decent crowd. As well as getting our fee for the night, they passed the hat around to add to our fee (since we ended up playing from 7pm until midnight!) Lady Ice video taped as much as she could (even with our lights once it got dark outside it was impossible to see us on camera) and I'm transfering it to DVD ASAP.
The parents of the girl called our drummer today to thank us again and ask if we could play at their daughters wedding; he negotiated a 2 hour show for a somewhat obscene amount of money... not that I'm gonna complain!
Monday, we rock the Crazy House!

mickeytinkerbellprincess
05-27-2007, 03:01 PM
The parents of the girl called our drummer today to thank us again and ask if we could play at their daughters wedding.

Wow a wedding too? :bride::groom: Yay for :rocker:Ice and the :drummer:! Let's hope even more crazy celebraters don't send you to the :ambal: :P

terri.m
05-28-2007, 09:41 AM
A wedding now?? Very cool ice! Hope you back is better soon too!:cool:

wizardmickey
05-28-2007, 10:02 PM
...and I hope my back gets better soon! It was feeling better until yesterday when we started work on tearing down our porch outside the guest house...
And my bosses were also very concerned about my back when I showed up for our Memorial Day Show today. To paraphrase: "Even though it caused problems last week, we'd rather you stayed home so you could rest up for today!" They had a lot riding on us today, and it appears we delivered. Close to 200 patients plus 20 staff & outpatients also packed the hall & danced and had a blast!
Oh yeah... I keep having these nightmare visions of Adam Sandler in "The Wedding Singer"...

terri.m
05-29-2007, 12:44 AM
I can just see you all dressed up

- give me time to realize my crime -

:D

mickeytinkerbellprincess
05-29-2007, 12:55 AM
Close to 200 patients plus 20 staff & outpatients also packed the hall & danced and had a blast!

Congrats! :party: :cheers: and :pixie: for your back!

wizardmickey
05-29-2007, 01:00 AM
Ty Ty Ty verra much! For the congrats & the well wishes for me back...
Our dept's secretary is kinda urging me to go see a chiropractor... haven't been to one in ages (went for 2 years after my big motorcycle wreck) so it might be an option???
Also, will be sorting thru all of our footage from practice & last few shows & might have that THANK YOU GIFT for those who helped choose the name before the 4th of July (at least!)

RaspberryRed
05-30-2007, 06:59 PM
Sounds like all of you had a grand ol' time.
Wish I could say the same about my weekend.
I had to attempt to entertain a roomful of squealing six year olds, as my parent's quote, "that's what big sisters are for". Hard to argue with that. Not to mention my younger sister believes I was put on this planet to play with her. Did seven homework assignments in math, went to tutor a bunch of second graders, and caught up on my latest book. I did have time to squeeze VMK in there a couple of times, but it was a typical boring weekend. Luckily, I only have five days left of school. Woop Woop =]