Heading to Burning Man

It feels just a bit surreal as we pulled away from the house this morning. A full year of planning, searching for costumes everywhere we went from Tempe, to Taipei. Always on your mind…. "That hat would look great on the playa covered in dust" This past week, was the major push. 140 gallons of water, enough food to feed a small army, 100 pounds of propane, 400 otter pops, the list goes on and on. 

It is 92 degrees, and we are heading through the desert towards Las Vegas, locked and loaded. Last year when we left Phoenix for Black Rock CIty it was about 118 degrees. This is nicer for sure.

Our first stop will be the Red Rock Resort. It is there, we will meet up with Eric and Audra. Tomorrow morning, we will leave early and drive the 8 hours to Reno. 

Once we land in Reno, Mike should roll in about the same time, and that will be the crew.

It is very exciting, albeit a little surreal. My stomach hurts, but I am pretty sure that is because i haven't eaten anything since yesterday around 5:00 pm. Or maybe it's the nerves….. nah… I am hungry.

We stopped at a place called Ike's in Wickenburg, and had a great lunch.

Back on the road, everything was rolling quite smoothly and then the whole rig started swaying back and forth as we rolled down the highway. Allen was driving and pulled off the highway pretty quickly.  When we got out of the truck we could smell rubber burning, and sure enough, we had a flat tire on the truck. We unhooked the camper and pulled the truck further off the road so we could change the tire safely. 25 minutes later, we were back on the road and heading to Vegas again.

It's amazing how much easier life is when you have cool technology. I hopped on the iPad and found a Discount Tire store near the hotel we were heading to, and found their phone number, They had the tire that we needed in stock and we plugged the address into the GPS. We got there and they were slamming busy. It was Friday afternoon and they squeezed us in. We got rolling again with four brand new Michelins and headed straight to Costco. We bought a shopping cart load full of supplies and then went to the hotel to meet Eric and Audra. 

We all hopped in taxis and went to a Sushi place with the crew from the show Eric was supplying gear for. It was a fun way to end a day that turned out to be a bit stressful.

Saturday morning, we got rolling around 8:30 am and with an additional 200 lbs of supplies on the back of the camper, it was running a bit odd and drifting back and forth. After about 50 miles, we pulled over and shifted the load around and transferred a decent amount of weight to the front of the camper. This made a considerable difference and we pressed on. 

We had great weather all day and didn't have any rain on our drive. It took about 10 hours to get from Las Vegas to Reno and it felt really good to pull into the RV park. We hooked up the camper to power and water, and did a little bit of organizing before the four of us went to the casino buffet restaurant for a good dinner. 

Mike Steighner had flown into Sacramento from West Palm Beach Florida and then rented a car and drove to Reno. We finished our dinner and Mike called to tell me he was just driving into the parking lot of the hotel. Once, we hooked up with Mike, I started working on the water system for the camper. 

The water gauges that show the capacities of the fresh, black, and gray water for the camper aren't always very accurate, and the black water tank even though we had opened the release valve was still showing 2/3 full. 

I connected a fresh water source to the Sani-flush connection, and filled the black tank. Once it was full, I pulled the release valve and much to my dismay, not a lot of water came out. 

This could be a real problem. Tomorrow we are heading out to the middle of no where, and it seems as though we have a clogged black water tank. Allen came over, and after talking about it a bit, he got under the camper and started pushing on the tank from underneath. The tank is pretty ply-able, and that seemed to help a bit. We used the sani-flush again and refilled the tank. After going through this process a few times, we were able to clear the clog, and empty the tank. The gauges showed an empty tanks, and the last time we flushed the tank, it emptied quickly, so problem solved. 

All in all, better to deal with this at the RV park where we had a dump station and water supply, than out in the desert in the middle of nowhere, with neither a water supply or dump station.

Allen, Mike and I relaxed for a little while outside. The temp was gorgeous, probably a cool 73, and no humidity to speak of.

We chatted for a while, and about midnight decided to call it a night.

Tomorrow morning, we will get Dry Ice and Regular Ice, and then head 90 miles north to Black Rock City.

Landing in India

The flight to New Delhi was actually not too bad. I slept a lot, and watched movies. The seat I was in in business class was a lay-flat seat. It was pretty comfortable and the flight did not feel like 13 hours.
When we got off the plane and headed towards Passport control, the airport decor was really cool.




I got my bags and breezed through customs without stopping. As we walked out of the airport, there is a distinct smell that makes you think somewhere there are a bunch of buildings on fire. The air is hazy as well. The hotel sent a car to pick us up and about 10 minutes later, we were ushered into the Raddison Blu hotel lobby. Rick and I checked in and Rob and Joy came out to meet us. I dumped my luggage off in the hotel room which was really nice.


We all went to the bar and had a drink and finally called it a night just around 12:30 am or so.
It was nice to decompress a little, but it was important to get some sleep because we were going to leave the hotel around 6:00 am to head to the train station in Delhi for our trip to Agra.
I slept off and on for a few hours and finally woke up wide awake around 4:30 am. I got up and got ready to head out.
We grabbed a couple of muffins and a few bottles of water and jumped in a taxi and headed out into the city around 6:00 am to find the train station.

DISCLAIMER
I am going to leave out many details in the next part of the story, because a lot of the things we saw next were really nasty. Someday, buy me a drink and I will tell you about them, but for print... suffice it to say, that there was a lot of humanity out here, being human and doing human things that most of us do behind closed doors in what we take for granted called a bathroom. Watch your step is a very important thing to remember here.

We landed at the train station and found our train track. We were there about 30 minutes before the train left. Standing on the train platform, you looked around and realized very clearly that this was not touristy. You were in the thick of it now.


The smells... pretty rough...
Our train finally pulled in and we all started pushing our way through the crowd to get to our car.
We had reserved seats in the chair car and finally made it there.
The train was pretty dirty, and had an interesting smell. It took off, and as we started to roll out of the station, I saw some movement by my feet and caught a glimpse of a mouse scurrying around.
Kinda freaked me out, but I had to just put it out of my mind.
I remember reading a book as a kid about a mouse that had a tiny motorcycle and how interesting this cute little mouse was in the book. Seeing the mouse on the train was not like that. I just kept thinking that I hoped there was not enough space between my shoes and jeans so that he could have a chance to run up there. Cuz that would be bad.
Looking out the window of the train was very depressing. The poverty and masses of people living in huts made of branches and whatever they could find to shelter themselves was really overwhelming.
I thought to myself, "Once we get outside the city, it will get better"
I was wrong... it didn't.
For the next 3 hours, it was about the same. The area's along the railway looked like what you would expect to see in a movie about navy seals on a mission through a war torn city.
Only this was no movie, and the places weren't war torn.
We finally got to Agra, and got off the train. I had eaten a granola bar that I swiped from the hotel in Delhi, and was feeling pretty hungry, but also scared to eat anything. Rick went to the Pre-paid Taxi stand and fought his way through about 20 people towards the booth. I went up behind him to see if he needed any help and there were about 10-15 men shouting at each other. I assume they were all fighting to try and get the fare. Rick finally emerged and had successfully wrangled two taxis for us and we were off to the hotel.
This was our taxi driver, Mr Bomb. Yup... that's right.. Mr Bomb.


Mr Bomb spoke great english, and was very endearing. He jumped right into his tour guide shpeal and by the time we got to the hotel, we agreed to pay him to take us on a 4 hour tour around the city.
First we needed food... Desperately.
I was starving. I had eaten on the plane, but nothing else except for a tiny muffin at the hotel. It had been about 18 hours or so since I had eaten anything. We went to the restaurant at the hotel and I got a club sandwich. It was good... I could have eaten about 3 of them... but at least I finally had something in my stomach.

Mr Bomb took us to the Taj Mahal and one of his employees walked us through the ticket process.. the lines at the gate and then started to give us the guided tour.  Honestly... I could barely understand his English, and more than the history of it all.. I just wanted to shoot photos.
As we came around the corner of the building and looked through the archway, You could see the Taj Mahal and it was pretty breathtaking. I feel like I kept a good balance of taking pictures and yet stopping to actually look at it. In the past I have been to famous / incredible things and spent the entire time looking through the viewfinder of the camera, rather than actually seeing what I was there to see in real life.

The Taj Mahal is really amazing. The craftsmanship is overwhelming when you think about the fact that they didn't have computers to build it.





After we had spent a couple of hours there, I was tired and really ready to be done. Mr Bomb was going to make sure we got our money's worth however, and we went to Agra Fort next. It was pretty cool, but honestly mostly lost on me because I was beat.

We finally made it back to the hotel and after a bite to eat in the bar... which for me was literally about 2 bites of some unknown thing that Rick, Rob, and Joy ordered, I called it a night and crashed.
I think I slept for around 3 or 4 hours and then started waking up every 45 minutes or so.
We all had agreed to meet at 6:30 in the lobby to go back to the Taj Mahal and shoot photos at sunrise.
As we walked out of the hotel looking for a taxi, we went by the homes of some of the locals. When I say homes, what I really mean is four to six sheets of plywood, and brush covering a couple of cots. People squatting on the ground under these shelters, cooking their morning breakfast and whatever else they were doing. I did however see one of these places that actually had a little television set inside it.
It was very bizarre.
A Tuk Tuk pulled up and we all jumped on and told him to take us to the Taj I think the 10 minute ride was about 50 Rupees ($1.02 USD)

After a hell raising ride through the morning sights, he dumped us off at a street and pointed his filthy finger down the road and said "TajMahal"
We looked at each other and wondered if this was going to get us there or not.
As we walked down the street, there were dogs all over the place. Let me re-state that... There are dogs all over the place everywhere here. It is a bit unsettling, because you really don't want to get bit by one of these dogs. While in America, they would all make nice pets.... here, they are everywhere and it is frightening.
We got through the gates at the Taj and rushed in to catch some photos before all the crowds arrived.
The morning sunrise cast some really pretty light on it. It was very peaceful.
After shooting for a while, we decided that we had captured everything we were going to capture. We went back to the hotel after another fun Tuk Tuk ride and went to the restaurant to get some breakfast.
I had some beans and rice and a small omelet. It was good, but not a huge meal. It was time to grab our goods and head to the lobby to catch our ride back to Delhi. The train ride was 3 hours, and Mr Bomb had told us it was going to take about 4 hours in the car.
I assumed that once we got out of Agra, there would be a freeway or two back to Delhi.
I was wrong.
For the next four hours, we drove like mad through village after village, dodging cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, bicycles, men, women, children, dogs, sheep, goats, camels, an occasional monkey or two, and even an elephant.
Driving in India, I realized one thing....
When there are no rules... there is only one rule... don't hit anything.
Our driver was very good. We drove using the whole road. For four hours, he basically, passed everything that was in front of us, and he passed them where ever there was a hole. There were many times when we were literally on the other side of the road in oncoming traffic, with cars and motorcycles flying by us, head-on... on both sides.
Mr Bomb had said it best. When driving in India, you need three things. A good horn, good brakes, and good luck.

We arrived in Delhi, almost 5 hours later, and basically grabbed our luggage and headed to the airport.
Our plane was delayed about 30 minutes, and just like that, we said good bye to Delhi, and landed in Mumbai.
It is much warmer here in Mumbai, and we got to the hotel, I took a quick shower and met Rob, Joy and Priti at the hotel Bar. Priti is Indian, and has been to India quite a bit. She has a friend here who's name is Renna. Rick joined us and we ended up going to the hotel restaurant for dinner. By the time we ordered our food it was midnight. I had a good Italian meal, and then thankfully went to bed. The food was very good, and not having eaten anything but a granola bar, a sandwich, and an omelet since I landed in India, it was good to finally have a meal.
Sleep was good till about 4:00 am, and then the jet lag kicked in and I was wide awake. I ended up dozing for another hour and a half or so, but that was all I was going to get today.
Breakfast at about 8:30 am and then we headed to the meeting rooms to start our job at about 9:00 am.

Heading to India

The sky is getting dark outside the plane and the sun is setting with a deep orange glow on the horizon. Wow… I should have said that in a James Earl Jones voice….

It is 7:00 am in Phoenix, and I have been traveling for 24 hours now. I got home from the LA Hilton Show around 11:00 pm Saturday night. I unpacked my small suitcase, re-packed a larger one, and then finally got to sleep around 1:00 am. 

The alarm went off around 6:00 am and I was out the door by 7:00 am.

The flight from Phoenix to Newark was un-eventful, and I landed in New Jersey around 4:00 pm. I hadn't eaten really all day, so a couple of slices of east coast pizza were in order.

I exchanged some US dollars for Indian Rupees and now have a wallet stuffed full of 500 Rupee bills.

Around 6:00 pm Rick showed up at the airport and we went to a little tapas/wine place and got some more food. 

After that we headed to the gate and got on the plane. Rick was supposed to fly in economy, and boarded that way to his seat. However, eventually, he got the upgrade and was moved to Business Class before we took off. 

It is 12.5 hours ahead of Phoenix time when I land in New Delhi. So, the plan is to get some sleep and then tomorrow morning we have a 7:00 am train down to Agra. 

I think the train ride is about 2-3 hours, and we will sight see around Agra, and maybe see the TaJ Mahal at sunset. Hopefully, I will get some internet access, and be able to upload some photos.

Tired but hanging tough

I got to LAX around 11:30 am and went directly to the counter to see if I could get on the 2:15 flight to Orlando. The woman at the counter was pretty nice as she told me that all the early flights were sold out.

Ugh... So, I was at the airport 11 hours before my scheduled flight. 

To make a very long story short. I hung out in the airport terminal until my flight left, and landed in Orlando this morning at about 6:30 am. Fortunately the hotel had a room for me and I checked in and jumped into bed for about an hour and a half. We loaded in and worked till about 7:30 tonight. Then we had some dinner at the hotel bar, and I am now going to get some sleep. 

Basically, Yesterday my schedule was 6:30 am yesterday morning till 7:30 pm tonight with about an hour of sleep on the plane, and an hour and a half this morning at the hotel.

Surprisingly enough, I did pretty well all day. Now however, I am going to pass out. 

Good Night.

The Long Stretch

Last Thursday I flew to Burbank and caught a $65.00 cab ride to The Langham Hotel in Pasadena.

It used to be the Ritz Carlton of Pasadena, so I can't complain about the accommodations.

We loaded into the ballroom at 8:00 am and it went very well. The gear for the show came out of Phoenix, and it is being provided by my good friend. The setup was good, we had everything we needed and didn't have to sit around and wait the vendor to run back to the shop to bring back the stuff that they forgot, like we did in Tampa about 2 weeks ago.

This is a pretty long show, 5 days of show, plus rehearsals. While we did start the week out with rehearsals, there were no more rehearsals after the first show day. 

On Sunday morning we had opening sessions.

And then after some change overs for break outs, the client went to the hotel bar area, where they were having a private superbowl party. 

So, being professional AV Techs, we streamed the superbowl to the ballroom system and then raided the client's bar for food and drinks, and 5 of us watched the superbowl on a 10' x 30' High Def Screen with a JBL Pro Sound system including 18" subwoofers.

Monday Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty chaotic. The client didn't give us any info on the show, and so every day... every session, it was a guessing game as to what was going to happen next.

While there wasn't a lot of long hours or late nights, it was pretty stressful work because we didn't know what was going on. So, I am feeling a little beat up from it all.

Today is the last day of the show, and it is supposed to end around 9:30 or so. I have a flight at 10:45  pm tonight and I am supposed to land in Orlando tomorrow morning at 6:20 am and go right to the hotel to start a load in for another show.

I am going to try and fly standby on a 2:15 flight which gets me into Orlando at midnight, so at least I will get a couple of hours of sleep in a real bed. Wish me luck!

The show in Orlando should be pretty straightforward.  I get to work with some old friends, so I am looking forward to that. It is a quick turn-around show and I will be hopping on the last flight out of Orlando to Phoenix. I land at 11:00 pm and go straight to the hotel where I will load in the following morning. The show there is from Sunday to Thursday, so another good long show.
Hopefully at some point, I will get to swing by this house in Phoenix that I call home, and maybe do some laundry.

The Audio guy's personal Tech Kit

I have been working on a show this past week with a couple of good Audio tech's and curiosity got the best of me about what they carry in their tech kits.

For those of you that aren't in the business, What I am referring to as a "Tech Kit" is all of the gadgets that you would bring to a show to help you do your job, basically the way you want to do it. 

The company you are working for brings the main equipment, but there are always things to bring to make your life better. A good example would be a good pair of headphones. The company might bring a set of cheap headphones in their audio work box, but as the A-1 or A-2, you are going to want to have your own good set. 

Tech kit's develop over many years in the business. Young guys in the business start out carrying a messenger bag or a backpack. And that works just fine for a while. Right up until you start bringing smaller pieces of equipment with you, that just don't fit well in a messenger bag. The process then becomes, you carry a messenger bag and throw those other things in your suitcase. Eventually you will be walking through an airport and see one of your colleagues rolling a Pelican 1510 or a Pelican 1560 through baggage claim. You might ask them, "what's in the case?" and when they tell you it is just my tech kit, you realize that the backpack you are carrying that is about to rip your shoulders off, just might not be the most efficient way to do this anymore. 

You will go and buy yourself a Pelican, SKB, or Storm Case and empty your backpack into it. Then and only then, you realize that you don't have enough stuff to really justify the size of the case you bought. 

So, you start adding stuff to it. This process goes on for months if not years. Eventually you hone down your tech kit to the right case, with the right tools and gadgets. Then you see someone else's tech kit and they have something supercool and probably expensive in it, and you want it in yours too. 

So, the more of this story is, that with time and experience comes a pretty cool tech kit, that never seems to be completed, but is always pushing itself closer to the mark of being what you really need on a show.

With that, I thought I would post what I am carrying in my tech kit. For a while now, I have had my tech kit in a SKB iSeries case because it was just a little bit bigger than the case I really wanted to have it in. Last night however, I figured out a way to put it in the Pelican 1510 that I wanted to have it in, and I will see how that works out for me. The SKB and Pelican 1510 are essentially the same case, the only difference is that the SKB case doesn't have a handle on the top of it, just the side. This is a huge fail and while you might not think it is a problem, this one little handle really makes a huge difference in the ergonomics of using this case. 

Inside the case, I have the padded divider bottom and the lid organizer and:

2 Marantz PMD 660 Audio Recorders
Cables for Recorders (The cables, adapters, and power supplies for the recorders are in a little pouch)
2 Dsan Laptop Sound port DI's
Pelican 2360 LED Flashlight
Gerber Diesel Multiplier (this isn't my favorite tool, but I liked it cuz it was black)
Nite Ize Pock-its Belt case for flashlight and tools
1 Leica Disto A2
1 Shure Mic Bag with Sharpies, C-Wrench, Pencil Screwdriver, Blue LED Flashlight Spare Gerber Multi-Tool (Gerber Method)
1 Shure Mic Bag with 10' 1/8" stereo to Mono 1/4" plug cable
1 Shure Mic Bag with DBX Reference Mic, Clip, and USB cable for Digi-design USB interface
1 DigiDesign Mbox 2
1 Pair of Sony MDR-7506 Headphones
1 Whirlwind Q-box
1 USB Passive Hub
1 Display port - VGA Adapter
1 Micro VGA Test Generator 

1 Box of Breath mints
1 Organizer of Misc Audio adapters
1 Back up Flashlight (Pelican 1900)

2011 so far.....

I have decided to move to the Phoenix area. After I got back from the east coast from getting stranded there during the holidays, I started packing up my belongings. I put a trailer hitch on the Jeep and rented a small trailer. then I drove a load of stuff down to Arizona and started working. I have about 16 days of show this month not counting shop time, so that is a really positive thing.

This past week was spent in the shop with a couple of hundred feet of 1" steel tube cutting, welding and grinding away. Jonny and I had to build three foot by three foot cube frames. Once they were built and all the welds had been ground smooth, we sent them off to be powder coated. 

Jonny and I cut 20 pieces of plywood and painted them white. and then when the cubes got back from powder coating, we had to cut and attach wood strips to the insides of the cubes. We cut white spandex into strips, and wrapped the cubes with the spandex and stapled them onto the wood strips. 

The final product ended up being ten 3' x 3' cubes wrapped in spandex and we will put a LED light fixture in the bottom of it and light it from the inside with different colors.

It was a lot of work and we finished it up just in time to get them loaded on the truck and headed out to Palm Desert.

Saturday Morning, Audra took me to the airport at 5:00 am. I was going to park there, but she told me no and while I was completely willing to park my jeep there, I was pretty happy when she wouldn't take no for an answer!

My flight was on Delta and it left at 7:00 am and I landed in Atlanta around 12:00 noon or so.

I got my bag and took a taxi to the hotel and started setting up the show. 

One of my old friends from the Seattle days is the Director of Operations at this hotel and it was really cool to see him. He came down at the end of our setup day and brought a bottle of The Macallan 25 year old Scotch. That was a wonderful treat, and was very generous.

 There was a huge party at the hotel last night where 2500 people came in drinking and dancing till about 2:00 am. This translates into probably 1000 of those people  staying in the hotel and stumbling back to their rooms talking too loudly... banging on the wrong doors and screaming at each other down the length of the hallway at 2:30 in the morning. Needless to say pretty much all of us on the crew didn't get much sleep last night.

Fortunately the show didn't start until 2:00 pm today and while I am still feeling sleepy, it will end soon enough. Tomorrow is day two of the show and will most likely end around 3:00 pm. We will strike the show and then I am scheduled to get on a plane at 9:45 pm. 

I will land in Phoenix at midnight and then at 8:00 am on Tuesday morning, I will drive to Palm Desert and join a show that is in progress for the rest of the week.

America's Favorite Past Time

The show is in the truck and as Jonny said it in his Facebook post. Peace out Florida!
Yesterday the general session ended at 9:30 am and it was game on. We had about 20 people working to pack up all the equipment plus whatever Mike had on his lighting crew. So, you can imagine the energy in the air as all these people scurried around like a small army.
Once the stage was cleared, the lighting truss came down and the set was unbolted.
It was a pretty fast strike, and just about everything was pretty much in it's case around noon.
We pushed the gear that was ready down to the truck and they started loading it. The 11 breakout rooms were still going and finally they ended, so a crew of guys went on to strike them. Meanwhile our AV sub rental vendors showed up, so we had to rush and get all of their equipment ready to go. When the break out rooms were struck and the equipment started rolling into the ballroom, I started sorting it and putting it back where it belonged. Front of House cables in this case... PCS Microphones in that case...  wait.. where did that EQ case go? ""Will someone go get it off the elevator, it wasn't supposed to go until it was full."
It was good work though. I have no doubt that as the show gets unpacked at the shop in Phoenix, there will be a lot of cables that didn't make it exactly where they were supposed to go.
We finally had sent everything down to the truck that was ready to go, and now we had to wait for the two last rooms to finish. About 6:15 they broke and in about 40 minutes we had struck them and were rolling the equipment to the truck. When we closed the doors on the truck in Phoenix, Eric said that he thought this truck was the most packed truck he had ever sent out. When we loaded it this time, we disassembled some scaffolding and tightened it up even more. This was because we wanted to get 22 more cases on the truck. All of the projectors that were rented out of Houston had been shipped out to Orlando at a big expense. So, if we could pack the truck tighter and get the Projectors on the tail, Jonny could stop in Houston and save some money. It was very difficult to figure out how to put the last pieces of this puzzle together. It was like we had 10 feet of truck left, and 12 feet of equipment to put in there.
We finally got it to all fit, and closed the doors to the truck.
A few of us staggered over to Blue Zoo to meet a few of the guys for a drink, and that was nice, but all of a sudden my body said "Stop sitting here and get some food and then go directly to bed" Fortunately I had the common sense to listen to it. Evan, Allen, Jonny and I went over to "The Fountain" restaurant, and I got a bowl of chicken noodle soup. While I hadn't really eaten much all day, I was so tired, I just didn't feel like I could eat much of anything. The soup was good, and at the end of that, I went back over to Blue Zoo to say goodbye to the guys.
I went back to my room and packed, and then fell into bed exhausted around 11:00 pm. I set my alarm for 4:00 am and then called the front desk for two wake up calls.
This morning, Jay, Eric, Allen and I shared a van ride to the airport and got on a plane headed for Phoenix. I feel right asleep once I got on the plane, and have no recollection of us pulling away from the gate or taking off. I woke up about two hours into the flight.... Flying coach is no fun. US Airways isn't horrible, but when I fly United, most of the time I get the upgrade to First Class. Even when I don't get the upgrade, there is Economy Plus Seating which gives you an extra 5 inches of leg room and it just doesn't feel so crowded.
On the positive side, US Airways has Wifi available on the plane. I am currently writing this little story at 35,000 feet or somewhere way up here.
In a few hours, Allen and I land in Phoenix. We will relax at Eric and Audra's today and tomorrow hop in the Jeep and drive back to Folsom. It has been a solid month since either of us have been home, and I am really looking forward to being able to get home.

There was really something special about this show. First of all, I have to say thank you to Rick for having me on it. We basically just rocked out the AV for America's Favorite Past time.  It is pretty cool when you get the chance to be involved in something as big and as cool as this is.
Rick has over time put together a very cool team of people. When we first see each other, we greet each other with big hugs and it is always really good to see each other. Not many people would say in their lives that they were really excited to see their coworkers. Even our clients comment on this. Our MLB client mentioned that she thought it was pretty cool that we all hugged each other.
I also want to say a special thank you to Eric for bringing Allen and I down to Phoenix and giving us a months worth of work, putting us up at his house and feeding us Chili Cheese Coney hot dogs with  Jalapeno peppers at 9:00 am in the morning for breakfast. It has been a great month full of laughs and hard honest work. Lastly, thank you to Audra Gilbert. Eric's wife Audra is amazing. She takes amazing care of us throughout all of this madness. Home cooked meals, rides to the airport... Rides from the airport. Audra is a wonderful host and she and Eric have become close friends.

Major League Work

I am working on a show in Orlando for Major League Baseball. While it is a nice change from all the Pharma work that I normally do, it is a massive show and that means a massive amount of work.

For the last three weeks, I have been working in Phoenix at my friend Eric's shop prepping gear, doing little shows here and there in the Phoenix area, and getting the shop ready to make this show happen. About 1400 feet of 1' x 2' steel was purchased in 20' and 24' lengths, and three of us made an assembly line. I measured and cut the steel, Jonny welded it into frames that were 10' x 4' and 8' x 4' with 2' blocks in the center. Once they were cut and welded, Allen ground all the welds smooth. 

Then we had to drill holes in strategic places to connect the pieces to each other, and build carts for all of it to ride in. Once all of that was done, which took about 3 straight days, we had to build a podium to match and a table.

We set up some lighting truss out in the parking lot and flew a couple of test pieces of the set to make sure that it was all going to work.

 All of the steel went to a powder coating company, and a couple of days later, we picked it up and continued to to build on the set. We had to rip pieces of wood into 1" wide strips and attach them all around each set piece and inside the podium. In the midst of all of this construction, emails are flying through cyberspace changing the big picture plan all around us. Equipment was being purchased. Gear was being rented like mad. Eric, Jonny, Allen and I were pulling the show, labeling equipment, packing stuff in cases, and getting all of this madness ready to be loaded onto a 53' semi truck. While Allen and I were building stuff at one of the shops, about 200 feet away, Eric and Jonny loaded the tractor trailer. The load was packed floor to ceiling, front to back, and there really wasn't a bit of room left in the truck when we closed the doors. 

We had a nice BBQ at Eric and Audra's house with some good friends, and then Jonny left around 5:00 am in the truck and drove for the next 4 days across the country to Orlando. Allen, Eric and I all flew to Florida, and on Friday morning, at 7:00 am, the truck doors were opened and the set was rolled into the ballroom and assembly was started. we worked for about 2 hours on the set and got a good jump on getting it together when the rest of the crew arrived, and we all started to unload the rest of the truck. This seemed like it took forever and was a tremendous amount of work because there was so much equipment in the truck. The push from the truck to the elevator and from the elevator to the ballroom was pretty long, so everyone was pretty tired by the time everything was offloaded.

We divided into teams and everyone worked very hard putting all of the pieces of this huge show together. We had about 40 people working like ants moving equipment around and unpacking cases. It is always exciting to see how a truckload of boxes comes to life and through the talent of many diverse technicians, it grows into something so large, you would never believe that it came out of road cases.

Through out the day, the lighting, audio, video all flew up in the air on lighting trusses, as well as our creation, the set.

Once, the entire set was hung from the lighting truss, long sheets of vinyl were stapled to the frames and stretched tight.

When it all finally was put together, and lights were focused, video projectors were aligned, the set came alive.

Photo: Courtesy of Mike Steighner

While it would seem like that is entirely enough work for anyone to do, the main ballroom is only a portion of this project.

The following day we started on the break out rooms. We have 11 rooms with full audio, and video systems that have to be put together. We spent the entire day scurrying around with a ton of gear and about 16 people setting up these 11 rooms.

The setup day we worked about 13 hours, day 2 was about the same, and today we finished up the breakout rooms and had rehearsals going all day and most of the evening. Today was about 13 hours as well. Evan and I ran around the entire day from room to room and floor to floor troubleshooting problems, delivering cables and equipment to technicians and fielding questions from clients. I am pretty exhausted and tomorrow will start the first official day of meetings for this show.

It is a great feeling to work with a world class crew and be able to be a part of something so enormous.

More to come......

Scottsdale, AZ

The alarm went off and it was very difficult to get out of bed. I finally did and finished packing, hopped in the car with Allen and back to the airport. No problems with my flights and Eric picked us up at the airport. We went to the hotel in Scottsdale and picked up Larry and went to a great place and had a fabulous dinner with Eric and Audra.
On Sunday morning, we loaded into the ballroom around 9:00 am and pretty much set the ballroom and breakout rooms by around 3:00 pm. It was great working with the crew and everything went very smoothly. It helps when you have good people and good gear.


A drink and an appetizer with Larry, Dan Kathy and Allen at the hotel bar, and I went back to the room to get a good nights rest.
This morning, Allen and I got up and drove off property for an Egg McMuffin and then back for a 9:00 am start. All morning we have had very low key rehearsals and everyone seems happy with the support we are giving them.
We will have a quick lunch soon and then back to the ballroom for a 2:00 pm start.

Prague and then Home

Austin and I landed in Prague and there were a couple of drivers there to pick us up.

I got to the hotel and Rick was standing there in the lobby waiting for me. It was great to see him. I checked in and dumped my luggage in the room and joined Rick, Miles, Priti and Elaine for breakfast. Evan and Tom had gotten delayed coming out of Moscow and missed their flights in London. After we got done eating, I went up to the meeting room and joined Andrea and Stephan who were already starting to setup the equipment. After working for most of the afternoon I was about 90% done and at a stand-still till the room was finished being set by the hotel. I was really dragging by then, and decided to go and take a nap so that I could have some energy for dinner.

When I came back down to the room a couple of hours later, Evan was there and was already half finished with the work that I had left to do. That was a nice surprise. We finished up and met down in the hotel bar for a drink before dinner. I could see that no one was in a real rush to go eat, and finally Rick, Tom and I bailed from the group to go get some food. 

We walked to the historic square which was pretty close to the hotel. Tom hadn't been to Prague before but has traveled extensively and I am sure he was tired of Rick and I telling him how cool everything was. We strolled around and found a little Czech place to eat and had a nice quiet dinner. Afterwards, we walked over to the Charles Bridge and walked across to take in the views. It was really nice and not crowded at all. I was feeling great because of my little afternoon nap, but didn't want to push it, so we went back to the hotel and I got a good nights rest. 

Call was at 7:00 am and the show started at 8:30 am. It was a short day and ended around 12:30. we grabbed some lunch and then went to help Andrea and Stephan strike the gear and load it into the truck. By this time, we were all pretty tired and after a farewell drink with Andrea, I went back to my room for another nap. 

It was really hard to get up from this nap, but I did, and we all met in the lobby to head to dinner at our favorite restaurant in Prague called "Cartouche"

It is a medieval restaurant in the basement of an old building and there are rough cut timber tables, brick walls, a huge wood fired oven where your food gets cooked, and about 80 percent of the restaurant is lit by candle light. They keep replacing the candles and never disturb the wax, so there is this beautiful mound of wax that has dripped off each candle placement. It is such a great restaurant and the food is outstanding. We all got huge platters of meat for entrees. Rick and I shared the medieval meet platter and ate until we were sick. At the end of the meal, I had this amazing desert of cheesecake and vanilla ice cream over warm strawberries with hardened caramel on top. It was just ridiculously good, and at the end of the meal we had a great conversation about a plan to replace some equipment that we needed.

We walked around the square and did a little shopping while Evan and Tom snapped some photos. I had decided that I needed to be back at the hotel by 11:00 pm because I had a very early departure from the hotel in the morning. We all met back at the hotel for a drink and I got to say goodbye to Miles and Priti as well as the rest of the boys. I went up to my room about midnight and packed my luggage. I had developed a pretty painful headache in the last 15 minute and was glad to be able to get into bed.

The alarm went off at 3:15 am and I was pretty confused as to what that annoying sound was. At the same time the phone started ringing and I got up to try and make it all stop. Then the clouds started lifting and I realized what was happening, shut the phone off.. took the wake up call, and then got ready to go. My driver was waiting for me and gave me a quick trip to the airport. At 4:00 in the morning, it only took about 15 minutes to get there, and I checked in and got a quick bite to eat. 

The flight to Frankfurt was pretty quick… it only took an hour and fifteen minutes or so, and then I had about a 5 hour lay over. I went to the Lufthansa club, and got a couple of free cokes, and then wandered the terminal a bit. I plopped down somewhere and watched the movie Avatar to kill some time. Just before I boarded the flight from Frankfurt to Washington DC, I went and got a little Pizza and wolfed it down. The food on the plane wasn't going to be that good, and I figured if I could just get on board and get to sleep, it would be the best thing I could do.

I was successful and woke up with only about an hour left on the flight, and I felt pretty refreshed. When I got off the plane and went towards Customs and Immigration, it was really crowded and as I turned the corner, I could see I was towards the back of the line behind what was about 1000 people. The Customs staff were doing a very poor job of getting people where they needed to go and kept saying that the line was moving pretty quickly. They only had six Immigration officers in the booths and long story short… it took almost 2 hours to get through. I had plenty of time though, so it was nice to not have to stress. My flight to Sacramento left on time, and I landed, got my bags took the shuttle to the economy parking lot and got home around 11:30 pm. 28 hours and 41 minutes since I left the hotel in Prague, I threw my clothes from this trip in the laundry and went to bed because I have a 2:00 pm flight tomorrow to Phoenix for another show. And this is Life In The Corporate Theater.

The show in Moscow

The good news was the group that was in our room finished early so we got access to the room at about 5:00 pm. Evan called Maria our AV contact and she told us that the crew was not going to be able to get there before 7:00 pm. We asked her if we could start setting up without them, and we were told no.
In the mean time, one of the Doctors who was supposed to be the trainer for the meeting first thing in the morning, called in to inform everyone that the Airport in Tel Aviv had gone on strike, and that he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get on a flight. So, we had to work out a solution using Skype to video conference him in and still get his presentation to the attendees.
We went to a computer store and picked up some speakers and a web cam and did a test with skype. It all worked just fine. Even though we were struggling with the AV Equipment side of things, the one thing that was really good in Moscow was the bandwith at the hotel. There was 15MB Download and 17 MB Upload. So it was a really fast connection and skype looked great!

We waited around till 7:00 pm and checked in with Maria. The crew was stuck in traffic. Big surprise....
8:00 pm rolled around and no sign of the crew. Evan told Maria, we were going to start setting up without them, and to please get the hotel to unlock the room with the equipment.
She agreed, and about 30 minutes later, we finally started getting some equipment.
Just after 9:00 pm, over two hours late, the crew started showing up. The setup went pretty well though. All of the changes that we had asked for had been made, and we ended up with close to the right tools to do the job. We finished about 11:00 pm and said good night to the crew.

The next morning, everything went well... the show started at 1:00 pm and finished about 45 minutes early.
I went back to my room and took a 30 minute nap. It was really hard to get out of bed to meet the guys for a little photo excursion, but how often are you in Moscow Russia right?

We walked down to Red Square and started getting ready to shoot some photos. I immediately got stopped by the Russian Police for using a tripod in Red Square. Apparently you have to have a permit to use a tripod there. So we walked on and shot out of our hands.



After about 45 minutes of shooting and walking down to the river past the Kremlin, we were all starving and went back to a cafe in Red Square.
After we got a bite to eat, it was dark and as we walked through Red Square, there was a guy shooting photos with a tripod, so we decided to take a chance and get a shot.
I walked out to the middle of the square and extended the legs of my tripod, put the camera up on it and was just about to take my first shot, when I heard vehicles reving up and turned around to see the cops...two of them in two different police cars racing in my direction from each side of the square.
I quickly and as discreetly as I could, popped the camera off the tripod and started heading for the exit, doing my best to make it look like I was just holding the tripod and not using it to shoot photos.
Evan had rushed over and we both thought it best to double time it into the crowd and try to get lost. The cops drove past us and went over and started yelling at the other guy we had seen with his tripod.
My heart was racing a bit, and I think I dodged a bullet.

Evan and I jumped in a cab and went back to TGI Fridays for a drink, and then an early bedtime because we all had early car service to the airport.

Let the Games Begin

I met Austin in the lobby and we took off for a bite to eat and to explore a little. I hadn't eaten anything since dinner on the plane the night before which wasn't that good, so the first restaurant we stumbled upon was TGI Fridays and we both agreed that a cultural experience was not as important as ensuring a solid meal that would help get us refreshed. Lunch was good and we wandered down to Red Square absorbing the culture and shooting some photos. I didn't shoot too much and haven't had time to process what I did shoot.

 As we came into Red Square, the view of the Cathedral was blocked by a huge grandstand that was being torn down and I was very disappointed. I am hoping that it will all be taken down by tomorrow evening and I can get a clear shot of Red Square with the cathedral in it. Here is a shot of me in front of the Cathedral though.


Austin and I were started to get weary so we stopped at a cafe on the Square and ordered a Spaten.
We hung out there for a an hour or so and then Miles, Priti and Elaine joined us. Eventually, we headed back to the hotel and Elaine and Austin both broke away from us. We stopped back at TGI Fridays for a drink and to see if the football game was on. They didn't get any stations that showed American football, but we hung out anyway and waited for Tom and Evan to arrive. Once they got there, we stayed until the place closed and I finally got back to the hotel at about 1:00 am.
I am pretty shocked that I didn't pass out before then, considering that it had been about 36 hours since I left my house in Folsom and only got about 2 hours of sleep on the plane. I slept like a baby, and woke up around 7:00 am. The bed here at the Marriott is great and it was really hard to consider leaving it.

Evan and I met out AV Vendor, Maria in the lobby and talked about the upcoming workday. We were supposed to start our setup at 9:00 am.  Maria told us that the truck was stuck in traffic and that it was going to be 10 minutes late. In Russia, 10 minutes means a half hour or greater. A couple of things you learn working over here are: Everything is going to be late... Something is going to be wrong and no amount of preparation is going to change that... and lastly.... it is what it is... you can get all worked up about something but most likely, the only thing that getting worked up is going to affect, is your mental health.
So, The truck was later than we were expecting.... We have all day to setup and the meeting doesn't start until 8:30 am tomorrow. Not a big deal.
Maria got a phone call that the gear had showed up, and we went up to the ballroom to get things started.
When we got there, we found that the room was not even close to set up, and that one of the airwalls was still closed. Our setup is supposed to be round tables for 80 people and the room was set up classroom style. Evan went to a meeting with the hotel to ask them to get the room setup as soon as possible, and about 15 minutes later, he came back in and told us that we were screwed. The reason that the room is set the way it is, is for an event that runs until 7:00 pm tonight, and there is no changing that.
We immediately decided to have the AV Vendor show us all of the equipment so that we wouldn't have any surprises as 7:00 pm.

To start off, we requested a 16 channel mixer, with a minimum of 10 XLR inputs. They provided a 12 channel mixer with 8 XLR Inputs. We requested a minimum of 4 channels of graphic equalizers, and they provided 1 channel. We asked about the wireless microphones, and fortunately, the 5 microphones we requested were there, all thrown kinda loosely in a case. They informed us that they had  "Madonna" mics and we asked if they had regular Lavalier mics. They said they did, but that the "Madonna" mics worked much better. We told them that we understood that, but that the presenters would never wear a Madonna style headset mic. It turns out that the Lav mics are omni directional, and I am going to have to struggle against feed back for sure.
Next they showed us the video switcher, and while it was a lot closer to being right than the DJ Mixer that they gave us in St Petersburg, it was only a two channel input switcher and we need four channels.
We asked about cables for everything and while they may have brought enough for what they thought we would need, it was clear that they underestimated what we really needed and we had to make a quick inventory on paper of what we wanted.

I decided that while they were shaking their heads yes, and telling us that they would get us the equipment that we wanted, I wanted to make sure that there was no room for interpretation. I grabbed a pen and a pad and drew a diagram of the entire sound system and labeled everything so that everyone was clear. Tom drew a diagram of the video system and I went over both drawings with the vendor.
By the way.... most of the technicians don't speak any english and the ones that do are pretty limited. You have to keep this in mind because, while they will shake their head and acknowledge that they understand what you are saying, they may not be getting it at all.

We went over all the elements of the show and I think we are about 90% confident that they now understand what we want. We are about 40% confident that they will provide it, but we are 100% confident that we can piece together a show and keep our client happy. The only thing left is that we asked many times if they had drape to setup in between the screens so we could put some lights on it and make it look good. Each time we were told that it was difficult to find, and they had to get it from St Petersburg. Before we sent the crew off until 7:00 pm Evan and I decided that we should see the drape and also see the support system that they were planning on using to hang it.
It was only then that we found out that all they were intending on providing were drape skirts for underneath each screen. We were trying to explain that while we wanted the screen skirts, we also wanted thirty feet of pipe and drape for in between the screens. This resulted in a lot of back and forth in Russian and you could tell this was going to be a problem. Maria finally told us that they were making calls and trying to locate the drape. With that, Evan asked her to interpret for him to the crew and he was very gracious. He told them that he was sorry for the confusion, and thanked them for being willing to work with us to accomplish this show. For the record, Rick sent them pretty clear specifications about what we needed, however it was a good move on Evan's part, because none of these guys were involved with the planning process and we need them to be on our side. After Evan finished, one of the techs said something back to Maria in Russian, and she interpreted it for us. His statement was simply, "It happens" and everyone chuckled a little. It was a sign that at least everyone there understood that this is all part of the business and this is what we are all here for.

I am now going to take a nap, and then grab a bite to eat before we start our setup 10 hours later than we were supposed to. The only scary thing is that we don't know if they are going to be able to get us all the gear, and that if something is really messed up, there probably won't be enough time to do anything about it. Other than that... everything is just great!

Touch down in Moscow

About 17 hours later I am checked into my hotel room in Moscow. United Business Class was lovely. I didn't sleep that much buy having a fully reclining seat made a huge difference. I went through passport control and they stamped my passport without ever saying a word to me. That is the perfect situation if you ask me. I retrieved my suitcase from baggage claim and went through customs. They made me put all my bags through the X-ray machine and the customs dude kept talking at me in Russian. He went over to my luggage after it went through and said a couple of things and then realizing I had no idea what he was talking about, he finally just looked at me and said... "Ok" and I was on my way.

The airport reception area was packed and I was looking for someone holding a sign that said Johnson and Johnson. I found to young people with the sign, and introduced myself to Igor and Nadia. We waited for about 20 minutes for one other person who was supposedly on my flight. Austin our Audience Response Technician showed up and it turns out he was on the same flight as I was. I have never met him so we exchanged introductions and followed Igor and Nadia to a tiny little Nissan car. After we jammed our luggage into the car and squeezed in, we were off for about an hour ride to the center of Moscow where our hotel is. 

We passed the Kremlin, which was cool to see. It is about a mile away, and then got dumped off at our hotel. 

All in all, it was about as painless an experience as you could hope for. The hotel is very nice, and a hot shower was quote possibly the best thing in the world. In about 45 minutes or so Austin and I are going to meet in the lobby and wander a bit looking for something to eat.

It was nice to have a direct flight from Washington DC to Moscow. Evan and Tom are flying through London Heathrow and won't be arriving till about 8:30 pm tonight. 

Thats all for now.

Heading to Moscow

I am embarking on a whirlwind set of shows today. The first stop is Moscow, Russia. Evan, Tom, Austin and I make up the crew for the show, and we will be joined by Miles, Priti, and Elaine.
The Russian AV Vendor hasn't given us any level of confidence as of yet, so we all board our planes today with a bit of a feeling of impending doom. I will arrive Sunday morning and we start setting up on Monday for a show on Tuesday. I will fly out Wednesday morning and meet Rick in my favorite city, Prague.
We will set up the show on Wednesday and run it on Thursday. I will fly home on Friday and land around 11:00 pm. Saturday morning I will head back to the airport and fly to Phoenix for another show. I am looking forward to being completely wrecked by then, and am just hoping that I don't get sick! On a brighter note... Even though the budgets were tight, I was able to use two system wide upgrades to fly first class and business class for all but one of my flights on this trip. This will make a huge difference in my ability to land in Russia not feeling totally wrecked. Thank goodness for airline status!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Airport Rd,Sacramento,United States

4400 miles

I got up in Santa Rosa after a pretty good nights rest and was on the road by about 8:00 am.
I filled up with Diesel right away at the Loves truck stop in Santa Rosa and really didn't make any stops until I got to Gallup, NM. I don't know what people do when they live in Gallup, cuz it is out in the middle of no where, but they have a lot of restaurants there, and I stopped at Sizzler for lunch mostly cuz they have a huge salad bar and I really couldn't bear to eat another sandwich out of a paper wrapper.
Lunch was good... I was careful not to over eat... too much. I was back on the road and heading towards Phoenix. The short term goal for the day is Flagstaff. Once you get to Flagstaff, you get to make the first turn on to a different highway in about 8 days. I was happy when I turned onto I-17 south and new I was only about 2 hours away. In the distance I could see some big storm clouds and huge bolts of lightning were flying out of them and striking the earth. I couldn't tell if the storm was before or after Phoenix, but I was hoping that I wasn't going to have to drive through it. About 30 minutes outside of Phoenix, I drove through about ten minutes of torrential rain. It was no fun, but it didn't last too long.
I arrived at Eric's shop around 4:00 pm and unloaded the van, my trip was over.

Back to Santa Rosa

I left Van Buren this morning at about 8:30, stopped for diesel and then mashed the pedal to the floor.
Today was pretty uneventful though and I drove through the rest of Arkansas, Oklahoa, Texas, and then into New Mexico. I booked a room at the Hampton Inn in Santa Rosa, NM and got here about 5:30 pm.
I have to say.. I am sooooo tired of McDonalds, Wendys, Subway, Taco Bell, and pretty much every food place that you find at the highway exits.

A long day on the road

I left Morganton, NC about 8:00 am and started heading West. I took a quick stop off the freeway at Gatlinburg Tennesee. There is a huge store called the Smoky Mountain Knife Works. I spent about 45 minutes wandering around there. They have thousands and thousands of knives for sale. There is every model from just about every manufacturer. It is pretty cool, and I picked up a couple of cool things there.

I got back on the highway and was making good time. I only stopped for fuel the rest of the day and landed in Memphis around 5:00 pm. I had planned on stopping for the night in Memphis, but decided to push on to Little Rock, Arkansas. 

When I got to Little Rock, I figured I would drive across the city and find a hotel on the other side so I wouldn't have to deal with any kind of Monday morning rush hour. I passed the Hampton Inn that I stayed at last time, but decided to keep going because it is a little bit in "The Hood"... I think Little Rock is mostly in "The Hood" 

Once I passed through Little Rock it was just after 7:00 pm and I punched in "Van Buren, Arkansas" to see how far it was. It turned out that it was just another two hours away, and I was feeling pretty good, so I kept the gas pedal down and rolled in to Van Buren around 9:30 pm.

Today's Mileage....  836 miles.  It was a long day, but I pushed a little and with the time I put in yesterday after the show ended and a little extra today, I have been able to cut a full day of driving off the trip.

And out the door I went!

The show went well.. a little hectic, but all's well that ends well.
We hired a local guy to help us with the setup and strike. Local was actually about two and a half hours away. Just before the show ended I got a call from him saying that the car had broken down, and he was 40 minutes from Cary. The show wasn't that big, so it wasn't the end of the world, but Townsend's flight was at 4:50 and it was 3:00 pm when the show ended. Townsend and I struck most of the equipment in record time, and he helped me get the biggest, heaviest case into the van, and then he got out of there at about 4:20. The airport is only about 10 minutes away from the hotel, so fortunately, he made his flight and I was appreciative that he helped as much as he did!
I then had to haul all the gear down the service hallway, around the corner and into the elevator. Then on the ground floor, around another corner and down a hallway out onto the loading dock.
It is Saturday so, thankfully, the loading dock was pretty dead, and I was able to leave the van parked in one of the bays.
I got everything loaded and then saw that my front tire was pretty flat. It was about 5:15 or so and I had to take care of it before I got rolling.
I found a gas station and put air in the tires and started heading west. I drove for about 3 hours and landed in Morganton, NC, where there just happens to be a Hampton Inn!

I have to look at the map now and plot my course for tomorrow's drive. Oh.. wait... It is I-40 West.. for the next 4 days.

Night everyone

The Trip

I got up and about on Wednesday morning and went to a 24 hour Fed Ex office joint. I was able to print, fill out and overnight more Russian Visa paperwork and then I continued to head East on I-40.
A couple hours later, I stopped in Dandridge, TN to have lunch with my friend Dan.
We had a really great time hanging out and then both of us had to get back to work. My work was driving to Winston Salem, NC.
I landed in Winston Salem, and checked into.... you guessed it... another Hampton Inn. I went to the Village Tavern for dinner, and got a good nights sleep.

This morning I got up around 5:00 am and was on the road by 5:30. I drove the last hour and a half and landed at Raleigh Durham International Airport... Well.. actually at the Waffle House by RDI and waited for Townsend to land on his flight from Jersey.
He was about 20 minutes early which was good and I picked him up and we went to the hotel.

After a quick load-in of a few pieces of the gear, we set up the office and slide review room, made the client happy and then drove out to starbucks for some breakfast.
After breakfast I went to my room and pretty much fell asleep until 12:30 pm which was a nice, unexpected treat!
We went for lunch with the client, who is super cool and after some chicken fried chicken at Cracker Barrel we went back and loaded in the rest of the gear and set up the show.

At 6:30 PM or so Townsend and I went to a sports bar called Woody's that one of my friends had recommended last time we were here, and had some chicken wings and a beer.

Tomorrow's call is 6:30 am and when the show ends at 3:00 pm we will pack it up and as hard as I am finding it to believe, I will be heading West on my way back to Phoenix. Only 2200 miles to go!