It's a "Guy" Thing

Woman's Toy Cheese Day?

2011-02-10T19:41:00.000-06:00

Yes...I Paid $1.73 for Gas This Morning

2010-12-20T10:23:00.000-06:00

Not a typo!

That's Right...on December 20th, 2010 when gas prices are at $3.00 a gallon! How? I do the Fuelperks at my local grocery store. For every $50 I spend on groceries I get $.10 off a gallon of gas. I had enough accumulated to get $1.20 off per gallon.

If you're interested, go to link I have highlighted on "Fuelperks".

2010-12-20T08:32:00.000-06:00

Misplaced Items

2010-12-17T18:23:00.003-06:00

I did start another blog on an entire different subject matter and no, I'm NOT a blogaholic.

Have you noticed so many items misplaced at the grocery store from shoppers that change their mind and are too lazy to walk to the next isle and put it back? This blog is all about that.

People can take photographs with their cell phones or pocket cameras of misplaced items and email them to the blog and we will post it. Why? I think it's funny and also amazed at what people do with things they suddenly don't want.

For more info go to Misplaced Items and send a photo. Instructions are on the left side of the page.http://misplaceditems.blogspot.com/

Updated the Blog Again

2010-12-17T11:01:00.002-06:00

As you can see I have revamped the blog once again with a new design. This time I designed everything myself and I think it looks pretty awesome. But as you know from seeing this blog it will change again in appearance somewhere down the road. For now, this is what I'm going with.

First Snowfall of the Season

2010-12-05T11:31:00.000-06:00

We got the white "crap" on Saturday morning, December 4th. About 3" of light fluff that was very easy to shovel. Had my driveway done in 10 minutes. No pictures to show you all but if it was a snowstorm, they I would had taken a few.

I Said I Would Never PURCHASE a Gas Grill

2010-11-07T18:02:00.000-06:00

But if one was given to me, I'd use it.

Since my mother moved into her apartment, she gave me her gas grill. I took, I filled the LP tank and fired it up. Today I made barbecued chicken and it turned out OK. Still have a problem with flare ups and grease but I guess that's the nature of gas grilling no matter how clean it is.

I'm keeping it next to my service door of my garage so that I can grill during the winter months. If that every happens is yet to be seen.

Happy Grilling!

After 40 Years My Mother Starts a New Life

2010-10-24T17:59:00.000-05:00

We all new this day would come eventually, my mother had moved out of her home that she lived in for 40 years. My father and mother built the house in 1970 and moved in November that year. They raised us 3 kids there.

My father passed away in 2002 and my mother remained there since then. She knew that she would have to give up the yard work, grass cutting, snow shoveling and general upkeep that would be too much for her. Heck, she's 71 years old already. I'm surprised she's hung on this long. I know it's hard for her emotionally to let go, but end the long run it'll be best.

Photo Gallery

2010-10-19T19:59:00.000-05:00

I have started an online photo gallery of my work. This is a growing process at the moment as it's all taking shape.

You can check it out at....
http://guylannewehr.jalbum.net/

Stranded in Milwaukee Again Due to Car Problems

2010-10-17T09:29:00.000-05:00

Well, my procrastination on maintaining my car had put me in yet another predicament. I needed new brakes on the rear of my car but I kept waiting until I had some overtime put in at work to get the job paid for. Whenever I received extra cash, something else came up and I had to wait yet another week to get new brakes. In the meantime the brakes continued to get worse and worse, grinding away as I applied the brakes. This week I was determined to get them done.

Friday afternoon I was out to lunch, when I got back to my car to drive back to work, the brakes went all the way to the floor. "Oh no", I said. Well I said some other choice words that I just can't repeat here. I got out of my car and saw a big puddle of brake fluid on the ground. "How the hell I'm I going to drive back to work 1 mile away with no brakes?" I drove very slowly and using the hand brake to slow the car down.

I had no choice but to spend the night at work and to tackle the job in the morning. I started the next morning about 10:00am, jacked the car up and worked for about 2 hours trying to get the rusted brake drum off the car with no avail (as pictured above). I banged and cussed all that time and finally gave up. Called my nephew for advice and he decided to drive up from Burlington to Milwaukee to give me a hand.

It ended up taking the both of us to work on the car and was about 3 1/2 hours, and with parts it cost me less than $100. Which is a lot better than paying a repair shop $300 to fix it, not to mention the cost of towing it there. I wasn't about to part with that kind of cash that easily.

The brakes couldn't wait 1 more day until I got home so I can work on it in my own garage.

Guy Lannewehr Photography is NOW Back Online!

2010-10-05T22:46:00.000-05:00

I hadn't done anything with my website for 2 years and had let it expire along with the domain name. So I figure it was time to get it back up and running, pull in some photography jobs and make a bit of money.

The hardest thing is learning website development all over again with Dreamweaver. It was frustrating to say the least, but that's what I said with Photoshop 12 years ago. Look where I'm at with that.

I'll keep plugging away at it, little by little. Making tons of changes with the home page like I always do. There's always something better that I like right around the corner.

By the way, here's the link. I almost forgot....

guylannewehr.com

A Friends Wedding

2010-09-29T12:55:00.000-05:00

Courtney, Tone and Brian

During the week of September 18th, I had the great opportunity to join in the fun of festivities of my friend Brian's wedding. Not only was I a guest at this joyous event, but I was also the official photographer.

The wedding was in Lake Isabella, MI.in the central part of lower Michigan. It was a great weekend weather-wise, the whole event was outdoors by the lake.

Courtney and Brian self-portrait

I left from Watertown on Friday around 9:30am, arriving at the house that a bunch of us had rented around 5:30pm. Met up with some people, Brian and his wife-to-be, and headed over to where the rehearsal was to be. After the rehearsal we were all joined together for a fantastic dinner at one of their local hangouts. After dinner we headed back to the house for a couple of beers.

To make a long story short...it was great weekend. I got some fabulous images (700+) from the wedding that I'm still working on. I will post them online when they are all completed. The drive was long, over 800+ miles, but it was great that I bought a GPS that made the trip a bit more pleasant, not having to read maps while driving.

Their first dance

Traci's 40th Birthday Bash

2010-09-12T16:22:00.000-05:00

The birthday girl.

My younger sister, Traci, had a huge get together at her house in Kansasville, WI August 28th. She made a big to-do about turning 40 and wanted to celebrate.

Kirstin and I arrived at the party around 2:30pm on Saturday, which I was told to bring my own bottle of my favorite beverage, so I opted for Malibu. The weather was terrific, the humidity was up...just the perfect kind of weather for sitting out on the patio with family, friends and our favorite beverage.

Me in the inner tube...waiting.

After being on the patio for awhile, we all decided to do some boating on Eagle Lake, My brother-in-law Jeff got the pontoon boat out and his neighbor Jay revved up the speed boat. I was asked if I wanted to do some tubing and I couldn't wait to go, since I haven't done that like........ever. After 10 minutes of being pulled behind the boat I was eventually thrown out, took a huge tumble on the water and I was done.

About 5pm we got off the water and headed back to the house for a cookout and more alcoholic beverages. Chicken, brats, hamburgers and everything else you can think of to eat. When we finished with the cookout we all headed down to the lake again to sit on the beach with a ¼ of beer and watched the parade of boats and fireworks at 9pm. We finally wrapped up the party about 11am.

Party goers on the pontoon boat.

Kirstin and I spent the night there, was up at 9am for some hot fresh coffee on the patio. She wanted to do some more swimming before we left to go back home. We headed do to the lake around 10:45am to do some swimming. Before you know it, we were back on the boat again for more fun. We decided to make a full day of it once again since we were having so much fun. Kirstin and I finally left to head back to Watertown at 7:30pm, all sunburned and tired from the weekend.

All in all...it was a BLAST!

A Fire?

2010-09-03T20:45:00.000-05:00

Today around 4:45pm I get a call at work on my cell phone, it's my friend Niccy. She frantically left a voicemail message saying to call here back ASAP. I was worried so I returned the call within 1 minute. Niccy is moving into the duplex next door to me and asked me my address, I was thinking she was lost or something.

She said the duplex to the right of me is on fire! Said that smoke was pouring out of the windows, but could see no flames. The police and fire department had the are blocked off and no one could get through.

Turns out that the fire was contained in the basement and possibly was started by careless use of smoking...go figure.

A Day at The Fair

2010-08-15T21:47:00.001-05:00

My daughter Kirstin and I spent the day at the Wisconsin State Fair today...just her and I. We got there around 12:30pm, wasn't about to get there at 8:00am when they open the gates, that's crazy. It was the last day of the 11 day run and plus being on a Sunday with much lower humility, it was indeed packed.

This was the first time Kirstin has been at the fair that she can remember. We took her there when she was about 2 years old but obviously she doesn't remember. But we did a lot of walking in the 4½ hours that we were there and she wasn't use to all of that.

We did the SkyTran thing (or whatever it's called), had funnel cakes, drank soda (no alcohol for me). Since the State Fair was notorious for the cream puffs we never made the effort to stand in line that long for them.

All in all, it was a good with just her and I together.

Somebody Has Their Ducks All in a Row

2010-08-14T11:56:00.001-05:00

And their geese, etc. Neighboor was power washing his decoys this morning. Guess you don't want any dirty birds.

Composites With Photoshop

2010-08-13T16:45:00.001-05:00

This is an example of the fun I have with Photoshop on a daily basis. Where I am employed as a digital artist, I'm free to create composites such as this one. We do a lot of these for high school seniors and they purchase a lot of them.

Every image is either photographed on green screen or using a white background for easy separations. Once separated, they can be easily placed anywhere. For a more realistic look, a drop shadow was placed on the bottom so that the subjects are not "floating". I also add a "stroke" to add some depth to the image as well.

The Sounds of Late Summer

2010-08-12T11:03:00.000-05:00

Cicada Mania

Ah, the sounds of a hot August afternoon, The sounds of late summer closing in. The sounds of school starting soon. The sounds of the Cicada.

I do love that sound and it brings back memories of a kid growing up in Milwaukee To me it always meant that school was starting soon, which we all dread. And also to me it's the end of summer fast approaching.

As I drove into work this morning I realized that there are so many of these bugs around that it's a constant buzzing sound. I don't see them all that often but when I do, they are fascinating to look at.

Awards and Other Favorites Part 2

2010-08-11T11:54:00.002-05:00

Girl on the Bridge

This image never got entered in state competion for some reason. This high school girl was very artsy and wanted some images of her in a very serious moment. We had done a series of images at Tivoli Island on the east side of Watertown. I think this image was created around 2000-2002, not exactly sure. As you can see, this is a copy made with a digtial camera and the quality is less than ideal.

More Fun With Photoshop

2010-08-09T15:34:00.000-05:00

Here are some more samples of what we are doing for high school seniors using Photoshop. This high school girl has a fascination with the Beatles and wanted to me incorporated into some famous band photos. This turned out great and she loved them!

Awards and Other Favorites Part 1

2010-08-09T11:27:00.001-05:00

I will occasionally be posting some older photographs that I have taken, some new and some old.

This was during my days of owning my own portrait studio in Watertown (J. Little Photograph. The Lannewehr Photography and Imaging after that). Yes, I did own this studio from 1994 until 2002.

This image was of a high school senior I photographed back in 1997 I believe. It was photographed in a local alley in Watertown behind some local businesses.

I had entered this image in state competition the following year and received a nice red ribbon for Excellence. Our affiliate program is Wisconsin Professional Photographer's Association, which I was happy to be a member of for many years. Since I'm not heavily involved as much as I use to, I'm no longer a member but hopefully will in the near future.

What's This Stake in the Ground?

2010-08-06T20:40:00.004-05:00

Click to make bigger, if you care to.

Hmm....a wooden stake with a red flag on it magically appears one day just on the property line of my rental unit. Last Tuesday there were city or railroad workers on the tracks cutting some brush down, then they came onto my property with surveying equipment.

I have this suspicion that the stakes are for where they intend to cut down the trees. Unfortunately after all is said and done, I will have a clear shot of the high speed train doing 80mph+ about 100' from my house. Hopefully I'll be long gone out of here before that happens.

Back to Using Internet Phone

2010-08-04T09:48:00.002-05:00

I'm seriously thinking about going back to Internet phone service, which I had 2 years ago. I can have unlimited everything for under $20/month with 2 lines. This small company called Phone Power, which is much like Vonage, but cheaper. The voice quality was outstanding when I had it, and I noticed that they have more features than what they had before. Right now I use a pre-paid phone and only paying $.10/minute, which is really cheap. My phone usage has gone up quite a bit the last month or two and seem to always run out of minutes unexpectedly. The other drawback with having a cell phone only is that you have to have it with you all of the time, whether your in the basement, in the garage or outside. I have a nice cordless phone system with 4 phones ready to use.

The cool thing is you can have your home phone AND cell phone ring at the same time when someone calls, so I can either be at home or in my car and never miss a call.

I also have a Google Voice number that I've had for a few years and I can tie that into it as well. If you have a Google account, or Gmail you should consider a Google Voice number.

Taking a Vacation Day

2010-08-03T08:06:00.001-05:00

I haven't had a day off from work in such a long time, and yesterday I have decided to do just that today. Not that I have been working very long hours at all, but the work load is overbearing at times because of our short handedness.

Check my calendar yesterday to see if I can pull this off and it was a go. So today I have a lot of nothing to do. Well, I may cut the grass later, layout in the sun or catch up on my finances.

I'll let you all know how it goes!!

UPDATE:
It went well and I did get some things done, such as replacing the fuel line on the lawnmower and eventually mowing the lawn. I did NOT, however, get caught up on my finances. Another day for that.

I did visit some neighbors two doors down around 7:30pm. Sat in their driveway, had a few beers and talked about anything and everything. 9:00pm the mosquitoes drove us away and I was forced to come back home. Thanks Larry and Raye for being great neighbors and filling me in on all the gossip!

You Have a Dot on Your Forehead...Use It.

2010-08-02T10:53:00.002-05:00

The mean spirited individual that I am got me to thinking about the country of India and how they would advertise on the web. I envision that it would be something like this.

That's Gotta Hurt

2010-07-28T09:52:00.010-05:00

Letisia's New Tattoo

My friend Letisia finally got her new tattoo last night at Evolution Ink in Watertown. This is going to cover up her ex husband's name on her back to overlay it with something else. It's going to end up being a two step process, step one being last night. She is going back in about 3 weeks for the finally finishing touches on it.

I did not envy her one bit because she winched in pain for about 2 hours. After she was done about 9:30pm, we walked over to the bar for a couple of drinks.

I'm still considering have one or two done this year that reflects my two passions...Music and Photography

Don't Bug Me!

2010-07-27T14:16:00.007-05:00

This summer we have had TON'S of rain. And when you have this much rain, there are massive amounts of mosquitoes. I have never seen the crop of mosquitoes as bad as they are this year. I have a fairly wooded backyard and to be able to step outside at dusk is impossible without being driven indoors. When you run inside to get away from them, you inadvertently carry a half dozen on your body indoors with you. So obviously you are busy swatting them around the house before you go to bed at night.

I made a joke today that come December when we're outside shoveling snow, we will still be swatting the little bastards off the back of our necks.

Fun with Photoshop

2010-07-26T14:24:00.007-05:00

I love playing with Photoshop and seeing what I can create. I think I look HOT in this dress, what do you think?

Man, That's Some Rainfall!

2010-07-26T14:04:00.006-05:00

About 1½' of rushing water

Exactly 24 hours later

On Thursday July 22, we were hit with an ungodly amount of rain in a very short time period. Milwaukee had as much as 8".

I left work around 5:30pm on my way home and within 10-15 minutes, streets and sides were turned into rivers and lakes. This photo was taken at 98th and Capital around 5:45pm. About 20 minutes later the radio was saying that there were cars floating in the exact intersection that I went through. When I went through it water was up to my bumper. The second photo is the same intersection exactly 24 hours later.

By the time I got to Hartland on Hwy 16, the rain had all but stopped. When I arrived in Watertown about 6:40pm it had started to storm very bad and we had a torrential rainfall. The newspaper the next day said we had received about 4.6". My basement was a little wet again, but nothing the shop vac can't handle.

Happy Birthday Kirstin

2010-07-24T13:59:00.002-05:00

My baby girls turns 14 years old today!!

In Loving Memory

2010-07-21T13:27:00.005-05:00

Ronald G. Lannewehr

Born: October 7, 1932

Died: June 28, 2010

77 years, 8 months, 22 days

Ronald Lannewehr was the oldest brother to my father. He was a very cool uncle to have. I will miss him.

Friend Back To Wisconsin

2010-07-05T09:00:00.003-05:00

My old friend, Mark Dewey and his family were visiting Wisconsin over the 4th of July weekend. They had driven from Maryland. Mark gave a quick shout saying he was in town, we managed to meet up at a party in Jefferson at the home of his niece. I haven't seen a lot of these people in over 20+ years. It was good to see them all.

Mark and I have known each other since 6th grade while both of us were growing up in Palmyra, WI

Nasty Storms Comes Blow This Way

2010-06-23T09:30:00.002-05:00

We've had some pretty interesting weather come blowing through southeast Wisconsin the past couple of days.

Monday night around 9:15pm southern Wisconsin got hit pretty hard with severe storms, torrential rainfall and an EF2 tornado that ripped through Eagle, WI, destroying a number of homes.

Wednesday morning we had some massive thunderstorms come blowing through around 2:30am and lasted at least until 4:30-5:00am. The lightning show was impressive so say the least and we had tons more rain throughout the night. I went into my basement and found a lot of standing water that came through the basement window. I have one window that faces my backyard and whenever the ground gets saturated with rain, it flows towards the house and fills up my window well and into the basement.

The weather dudes are predicting another round of storms sometime today and hopefully it won't be as bad as the past couple of day.

Father's Day 2010

2010-06-21T19:15:00.000-05:00

This year was pretty uneventful, to say the least. Not that it didn't have it's surprises, it did.

Nearly every year our entire family on my side have spend Father's Day all together...this year we didn't. Some people were out of town, some decided to spend the day at home doing yard work. I spent the day with Kirstin...just her and I.

First of all, she got me a very, very special card for me, and this is what it read...

"There was a dad who had a daughter. Swung her. Spun her. Chased her. Caught her. Hugged her. Loved her. Praised her. Taught her. Oh, what happiness he brought her! Happy Father's Day from that daughter." --Love Kirstin.

I will absolutely cherish that card forever because it came from her heart.

Anyways...her and I went to McDonald's and had lunch. After that we went over to the pool to go swimming at her apartment complex. Not many people there at all and at one point we had the whole pool to ourselves for at least ½ an hour. I also cut the grass as well, like any other Sunday afternoon

Walking Routine

2010-06-16T09:43:00.000-05:00

After a couple of years I'm back into a regular walking routine to keep in shape. This isn't real strenuous exercise but it does get your heart rate up a bit, and gets the blood flowing to all parts of your body.

My goal is to walk at least 3-4 nights a week and do a minimum of 3 miles per walk. Since I walk alone I need something to keep me occupied instead of thinking of things that have been bothering me and that's why the iPod comes in handy. I didn't have one until my daughter bought a new one for herself and gave me her iPod Nano.

I also bring a small handheld GPS unit that measures my total miles, total walking time and average miles per hour. I'd rather have this info built into the iPod or at least download an app for it, but with the Nano you can't do that. It does, however, have a built in pedometer but it only counts your steps and doesn't have a way of converting that to miles.

Not sure what I'll do this winter. My has a nice treadmill in her basement and I think she may be giving that up when she moves later this year. I don't want to pay a membership to a fitness club just to go walking.

Open Jamming

2010-06-15T13:52:00.000-05:00

Playing the open jam again after 7 months down at the Buzz Bar in Watertown, WI. It's great to play with other musicians of every type of music style and caliber. Since I really haven't played since early January, my fingers sure got a work out and walking out of there with a couple of blisters.

I will be back at it next week!

Wii and Touch

2010-06-14T09:40:00.002-05:00

For many months Kirstin has always wanted a Wii system, for some unknown reason she thought that I was going to spring for one. Sure, I'll just take $200+ dollars out of my account when I have rent to pay and food to put on the table. Also on her list is an iPod Touch. I told that she could feasibly purchase these items from her gift money she receives from her graduation party.

Yesterday we went to Walmart and she actually bought a Wii and an iPod Touch. I'm not one for playing games, not even on my laptop, but her and I (especially me) played the Wii for a couple of hours.

We are both big fans of Netflix, and the Wii has the ability to stream the Netflix instant movies right to your tv via the wi-fi built into it, so I ordered the free disk from Netflix and it should be here in a day or so.

The iPod Touch is something I'd like to get my hands on eventually, it was even on my Christmas list. After I get more unused assets sold, it's probably going to be a purchase for me. I enjoy listening to music as much as the next person, but the iPod Touch can do so much more than that. But then again, the iPad looks delicious as well.

Kirstin's Graduation Party

2010-06-13T09:37:00.001-05:00

The party has come and gone. We did lot's of planning, spent lot of money on food...and it was a great time. There were some people that I haven't seen in many years that came.

There weren't 80 people there that I was told was expected to show, but I think it was about ½ that. Nonetheless we have a lot of food, beer and soda left over.

I did take the digital camera and photographed most of the people that were there.

More photos can be viewed here Photos from the Party

Busy Weekend for Kirstin

2010-06-11T23:25:00.006-05:00

I know, another 4 months goes by without posting. Forgive me, I've been busy with other things.

Diane and I are hosting a big Graduation/Confirmation party for Kirstin on Saturday June 11. The party will be at the club house at the complex where Diane lives. We are having food catered in from Glenn's Market in Watertown. I am responsible for supplying the beer, soda, cake, chips and other small items.
This is an all out party for our beautiful daughter, and this indeed is a huge step for her as she goes from grade school into high school this fall.

Our guest list has about 80 people in attendance, but I don't believe that many will actually show up. I'll eventually take a rough head count of those who are there just to get a rough idea.

Hopefully someone will have a camera to take pictures since my camera is not working at the moment. We will have photos posted of the party soon after.

January Frost

2010-02-01T21:33:00.003-06:00

A couple of weeks ago we had a very heavy fog that froze on a Sunday morning. Every tree had a thick white coating of frost that was absolutley beutiful.

I decided to take my camera out and take a drive around the Watertown area. Nearly gone for over 2 hours and racked up 65 miles, I ended up taking about 85 pictures that morning. Here is one of those images which happens to be my favorite.

I Think It May Be Time To Start Posting Again

2010-01-31T10:56:00.002-06:00

And once again I let my blogging slide for over ½ year, but I'm not really sure on the number of people that are reading my posts.

Kirstin's Birthday Weekend

2009-07-27T12:48:00.002-05:00

Because of Kirstin turning 13 this past weekend, we through her a big "teenage" party at my sister Traci's house. We had a huge cookout about 1:00pm on Saturday with brats and burgers and plenty of alcoholic beverages for the adults.

The weather was great until about 4:00pm when a quick rain shower came through and drove us all into the house. After 30 minutes is cleared up, the sun came back out and we were all back outside. It was time for the boat ride.

Traci and Jeff have a good sized pontoon boat and their neighbors have a speed boat, so we all went out on the lake for about 2 hours to enjoy the water, sunshine and some beer.

Later that evening a bunch of us had a huge bonfire across the road from the house, down by the lake. I stayed out until about 12:30pm. We spent the night and left around noon to head home.

More photos can be found here

Making Pizza on the Grille

2009-07-18T11:14:00.012-05:00

I have always wanted to do this and I've heard from others that it turns out great. I went to Papa Murphy's in Watertown after work and ordered a large pizza with nearly everything on it. This was a thick pizza, about 1½" thick at least.

The trick with a charcoal grille is to use the indirect method. Make two piles of charcoal on each side of the grille leaving the middle open. This the same method I use for grilling chicken, except that I had a drip pan in the middle. I'm not a fan of gas grilles and I will probably never buy one.
Using a sufficient amount of lighter fluid for each pile. Light. To all of you inexperienced charcoal users...DON'T add more lighter fluid when the flame goes out after 5-10 minutes. The charcoal is going. After 20-30 minutes the coals will ash over and are red hot and ready for grilling.
This fine specimen was a large fresh pizza from Papa Murphy's with a lot of junk on it. You tell them that you are going to grille and they give you an aluminum grille pan for free.
The cooking took way longer than I anticipated, I had a tough time getting the grille to 400-450 degrees as the instructions suggested. It was around 300 degrees until I removed the ash catcher on the bottom to let more air flow. After I removed it, grille got up to 400+ degrees. All in all, it took about an hour. But sooner if I removed the ash catcher.

All in all, it was great and I'll do it again.

Back Into Another Music Project...Again

2009-06-24T20:51:00.006-05:00

Now this is a funny story, kind of.

Not this past weekend but the weekend before one of my female friends, Katie, sent me an email to say that she was going to see a band in Lake Mills and wanted some company, so I met her there because her husband was out of town. This band that was playing there is called "The Itch". I've heard of the name before and the more I processed that name through my head the more that name sounded familiar.

Anyways, I was introduced to the female lead singer, George (short for Georgine). Katie told her that I play bass and George asked if I wanted to come up and play later. I said sure.

Anyways, I get up there to play one song that I choose which ended up being an easy 3 note song, nothing fancy or anything to show off my talent. I mean, that's not why I went up there and played. They asked me, I didn't ask them.

That following Tuesday I get an email from one of the guitar players introducing himself, which we didn't really talk at all at the show. He thanked me for coming up and playing, and mentioned that they were looking for a bass player again and asked if I would be interested. Without much thought I said "Yes".

Getting back to this band name. I remember the winter of 2007 they had sent me and email saying they were looking for a bass player at that time, but not being ready to get back into it as of yet, I did turn it down.

I drove up to Grafton after work yesterday for a jam session/shoot the bull over beer session. I played about a dozen songs that I knew, some of them I hadn't played in many years but it was still pretty much locked in my head yet.

Long story short (well, it's long already), I'm the new bass player for this band. The current bass player is staying on to about September 1st, then after that I take over. There's a lot of tunes that I have to learn between now and then but the songs are what I like to play and what I listened to for years.

I'll keep you all updated on the band progress but in the mean time, here's the link to the band website...which really needs a make over.

People and Their Non Use of Seat Belts

2009-06-16T11:25:00.003-05:00

This topic really bothers me a lot and it's one easy, simple thing in life that can save your life in a car crash. I don't know why people won't wear freaking seat belts. I hear stories every day about roll over accidents and people being killed because they were ejected from the vehicle. If you've ever seen any video of someone being thrown from a vehicle, it's not pretty.

Most stories are of younger people, like teenagers or people in their early 20's that don't wear them. Don't they every teach this shit in driver's ed class? Or is this another case of teenagers not liking being told what to do.

There is a story yesterday about this family from Madison going on a trip out west and had this terrible accident in Iowa. A 15 year old was driving the family van and she had her learner's permit and somehow she got the van onto the shoulder and over corrected the van and ended up rolling it over a few times. No one in the van had seat belts on except the 15 year girl that was driving. Everyone was ejected from the van except for her, and unfortunately both parents were killed. There were 2 other children that were ejected as well and were seriously hurt. If I was letting my 15 year old daughter who had just got her learner's permit, the very first thing would be that everyone buckle up. They teach you that in class and that's why this 15 year old had her's on.

I have this married couple as friends and they never wear them. They told me that they had 2 friends of theirs that were wearing them in a car crash, one was hurt and the other one was killed. So they came to this stupid conclusion that the odds are automatically 50/50. What kind of reasoning is that? You judge your statistics on just 2 cases?

Hear in Milwaukee where I work I see a lot of African-American families that never wear them. It's usually the mother driving very recklessly, going 15-20mph over the speed limit babbling on a cell phone (which they love doing) and a cigarette in the other hand. Of course none of the young children in the car were restrained. In fact, most of them are bouncing up and down on the seats. I've seen where some of the kids were actually sitting on top of the door frame, hanging most of their body outside the car...while driving down the road at 40mph! I think these parents are so wrapped up in their lives that they don't care much about anyone else.

Sometimes I get the urge to say to them "Cute kids you have, I bet you really love them? But not enough to be concerned about their safty." I can say shit to people as much as I want but it won't make a bit of differance.

There's so many people in life that don't care about anyone but themselves, and that pisses me off. My boss is like that and I have friends that are like that. If they don't want to wear a seat belt, that's their business. But my god, at least make your kids wear one until they're old enough to make that decision on their own.

Finally...Warm Weather!

2009-06-15T12:40:00.004-05:00

It's now the middle of June and temperatures are in the upper 70's to lower 80's. We've had a very cool May and early June with temps in the 50's and 60's mostly and down in the 40's at night. Not what I consider "hanging out in the backyard" weather. Let's hope it stays that way for the rest of the year.

Kirstin has been a bit obsessed with swimming again this year, she can't get enough of it. The apartment complex where her and my ex wife live has an in ground pool. It's a medium sized, kidney shaped pool that's also heated. Yesterday when we were both swimming the water felt like it was in the mid 80's. It was warm, but still refreshing.

I do believe she will be there again this afternoon with the neighbors that live directly below here. She knows not to ever go there by herself. I'm sure I'll be back over there many times this year.

Small Gig

2009-06-13T11:36:00.004-05:00

Last night at The Buzz Bar, aka, RJ Water's Pub, a couple of us musician friends through together a small band to perform for a friends birthday party. It was nothing big, we had myself on bass, Chris Selke on guitar/vocals, John Harrison on lead guitar/vocals and this drummer that John knew.

It really wasn't an organized gig, calling out audibles and just merely winging it. The drummer didn't know a lot of our material but he did ok for the most part.

I guess it must have been extremely loud on stage because my ears are definitely ringing today. But I made a few bucks and had free beer.

Who Needs Cable TV or Satillite?

2009-06-12T11:57:00.004-05:00

Certainly not me.

It's been about 5 years since I've been without these luxuries, well I call them luxuries while other call them necessities. At first I really missed it and didn't know what I was going to do without my Discovery Channel, TLC and whatnot. But now with broadband, wireless, HighDef, Hulu (which I'm a huge fan of), and all of the networks rebroadcasting their shows and movies online, I don't see a need for cable or satellite whatsoever. Also with Netflix offering their instant play feature, life is great...in the entrainment part of it.

I did buy this new laptop with a crystal clear 17" screen and also a 23" LCD monitor last month and I've been doing a lot of tv viewing and movie watching on both of these.

Hopefully by the end of this year I can pop for large 52" LCD for the living room and a smaller 37"-42" for my bedroom. I would also like to put together a media center computer to record all of my programing and store all of my movies on there. At the moment I have a computer in the basement that has a tv tuner card that I can DVR shows in high-def and watch them on my laptop upstairs, which is way cool. But I want a permanent and dedicated computer for that next to my big screen.

Man, I LOVE technology.

Camping Trip

2009-06-05T15:26:00.006-05:00

My sister Lisa planned to get married again (after 20 years) out in Wyalusing State Park in Praire du Chien on May 30th. This was going to be a camping trip/wedding combination. A bunch of us reserved 5 or 6 campsites and had a total of 11 of camping with the remainder of some friends and family staying at hotels. I, myself, wasn't wanting to camp at first but I decided to do it...and I'm glad I did.

Kirstin and I left Watertown on Friday May 29th by 12:15pm to western Wisconsin, and being about a 3 hour drive we figured we'd get out there around 3:30pm or so after a lunch stop.

Our campsite was right next to my sister Traci and her family, and my sister Lisa was camped on the other side of them. The tent went up not quite without a hitch because I don't have detailed instruction on sitting it up and forgot how it went up the last time I used it 2 years ago. This time I took photos for next time.

We all had a community cook out later in the day and by evening we all sat around the campfire drinking beer and telling stories. By 9:30pm we had turned in for the evening. It was kind of early I thought but had no choice.

By the next morning it was raining lightly and a bit cool and windy. About an hour or two later it stopped raining but remained quite cool and windy.

At 11:15am we all trucked up to the pavillion and set up a cooler, food and got the huge grille going for my sister's wedding. It was a very casual wedding and we all just wore shorts, non of really dressed up execpt for my sister and brother-in-law to be. Everything was pretty much over by 2pm and we all trucked back to our campsites to crash. Hey, you suck and few beers down in the sun, then you stop drinking and you get very tired. We all kind of laid down and took a nap.

Got another campfire going, drank more beer and made Smores. By 10:30pm we all retired to bed again.

Next moring we all went out for breakfast (I was dying for bacon, eggs and waffles since I hadn't had that in about a year or so). After breakfast we got back to our campsites and started taking our tents down. I finally pulled out about 1:30pm to head back. Kirstin and I pulled into the driveway at exactly 4:10pm without making any stops along the way.

All in all is was blast, they weather could've been warmer and less windy. But we were on top of a 600' bluff by the way so it does get windy up there. We plan on another huge camping trip sometime this summer.

No Part Time Job This Time Around

2009-06-03T10:09:00.002-05:00

I was scheduled to work as a part-time photographer in Watertown at night to help bring in some extra cash for me. Well, things didn't work out as planned. One small thing got in the way and that was the "non-compete" contract.

Non-competes are mostly for the employer to prevent the employee from competing against the business they are working for and stealing potential work and customers away from them. They usually have some sort of stipulation on distance and time periods from the date of hire and/or when an employee leaves the company.

At this stage in my life I feel that I should be able to go out and make some decent money based on the 20+ years I have in photography. I don't want to be tied down to a part-time job and sit home on weekends not being able to photograph a wedding or some kind of corporate event.

So, based on that I refused to sign it and the company refused to hire me...which is fine. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I made a promise to myself that I would never sign another non-compete with a company that prevents me from doing what I do best. I would sign one IF I was hired full-time and making good money where I wouldn't need to go out and shoot stuff for extra money.

I will be doing some product designing for this company and maybe photographing some special events, but I will be doing it on a contracted basis as a separate company, as Guy Lannewehr Photography. They will be paying my rates for what I charge for my services.

In the mean time I will have to find some alternative way to keep up on the bills. I don't have extravagant expenses...I just don't make enough money to keep up on everyday expense.

My New Laptop

2009-05-15T17:00:00.006-05:00

I've talked about it, now here it is!

HP - Pavilion dv7-1285dx

Intel® Centrino® 2 processor
6GB DDR2 memory
17" high-definition display
500GB hard drive
Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n)
Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Built-in webcam with microphone

My other Compaq Presario is about 6 years old, the power jack is broken so it's tough to get it to charge. The fan is super noisy as well and annoying. It was so loud that I can hear it downstairs in my living room when it was up in my bedroom. If I get the jack fixed, my daughter gets it.

Wireless is nice that I can sit out in my backyard and surf if I want. The big screen allows me to do my Photoshop and I can just plug in my Wacom tablet.

I can watch tv shows I've recorded with the other system in the basement and enjoy them on the laptop. 2 years ago I purchased a tv tuner card and can record high def shows and burn them to a dvd.

This laptop should keep me going for another 4 years. After that....maybe a Mac!

Wayman Tisdale, basketball star and musician, dies

2009-05-15T14:36:00.003-05:00

I have always admired this guy's bass playing abilities. Another CNN news story that caught my eye today.

(CNN) -- Wayman Tisdale, who became a successful jazz guitarist after retiring from pro basketball, died Friday morning following a two-year battle with cancer, his agent said.

Tisdale, 44, died in a Tulsa, Oklahoma, hospital, where his wife took him when he had trouble breathing early Friday, agent Scott Pang said.

(Read more...)

Roadkill cook-off, Spam Jam lure bold foodies

2009-05-14T16:57:00.005-05:00

(I saw this story on CNN today)

Thousands of people converge on the small town of Marlinton, West Virginia, each fall for a feast whose main ingredients were unlucky enough to crawl, slither or lurk too close to a speeding car.

Read more...

Not Feeling The Best Lately

2009-05-14T07:24:00.001-05:00

The past week I had this "blah" feeling....run down, tired, my neck is a bit sore. I also had this queezy bloated feeling in my stomach.

Yesterday I took the day off from work just to get some more sleep. After I dropped Kirstin off for school I came back home and went back to bed until 11:00am. I didn't sleep all that much but more nodded off on occasion while listening to the radio. Finally decided to get up at that time and make some breakfast. After that I just hung around in my basement in a t-shirt and sweatpants and not bothered to shower at all. All I really did was do my finances on my computer. Really didn't want to lay on the couch and watch tv because without cable or satellite, there's nothing on in the daytime to watch anyways. Kirstin and I did manage to make some cookies last night. Well, I did all of it while she ate them.

Today I feel a bit better and have to go back to work. There's not really a whole lot to do at work, which makes the day go that much slower. There some small orders to get done and maybe put together a couple of samples for our wall.

I suppose I should pack my lunch and get ready for work!

Date With My Daughter

2009-05-08T23:57:00.004-05:00

Spent some quality time with Kirstin tonight, we had a great time.

Picked her up at 7:15pm and we went to Walmart, had to get the Mother's Day cards for my mother and hers. She also wanted to by her a small flower arrangement so she picked one out. Also purchased a vase and a bottle of water to keep them fresh in the car for a while.
Trucked over to Culver's in Johnson Creek to grab a dinner before our movie.
Went to go see Monster's vs. Alien's at 9:00pm. Great movie, loved the special effects. The manager of the theater yelled at me because I kicked in empty seat in front of me (there was no one in there but Kirstin and me). I felt like a teenager be yelled at by an adult.
Movie done at 10:45pm, I took her home back to her mother's apartment, and I came home.

Wedding Was Great, I Had a Terrible Time!

2009-05-04T10:25:00.003-05:00

I got lost going down there, my daughter was whinny at times, didn't get to eat any lunch before church (I get ornery if I don't) and I had drinks spilled on me a few times.

All in all, it was a great time. My 2½ nephew was the ring bearer and did a wonderful job (see photo that I lifted from someone else). It's not often I get invited to a wedding as a guest.

Of course it was my job to spy on the photographer and see how he does his thing. The guy was a bit younger than me and shoots strictly film. He did a fine job did a lot of candids. Can't wait to see all of the images, but won't be able to see any online because IT'S FILM! I'll post some of my stuff within the week.

The IRS Paid Me Today!

2009-05-01T14:02:00.002-05:00

I logged onto my bank account this morning, and imagine my surprise that my refund check was there. It's a sizable amount, more than I have ever received for a refund ever. Now I'm reluctant to dip into it and spend some of it.

I do owe a bunch to the state for my taxes on my old business that I'm paying off with monthly installments. Usually the case is that if you get a refund from the state or IRS, it automatically goes to any agency that you owe...you don't see a dime of it.

There are numerous things I need to do with the money, such as get caught up on ALL of my bills. After they are paid it will leave a whole bunch left over. I need a new laptop for sure and also a 23" LCD monitor for my graphics system in the basement. My daughter wants a Wii...but I may wait on that. I surely don't want to go hog wild on spending like it's my last day on earth.

My luck would be that I start spending it and the state will now want it and start dipping into my account for it. For the time being, I'm just going to leave it...I think.

Gave Her an "A" for Effort

2009-04-29T19:45:00.004-05:00

Kirstin decided to help out on Sunday around the house so she cleaned the windows and the mirrors. I didn't check to see what she used, I assumed it was Windex. Turned out to be some sort of orange cleaner for counter tops. No wonder everything was all streaky.

So tonight I had to redo everything. She apologized and I gave her a big hug and told it was fine that she helped.

Busy Weekend Ahead

2009-04-29T11:51:00.003-05:00

This weekend I have a wedding to attend as a guest in Illinois. My nephew is getting married on Saturday and it's going to be a blast. It's not often that I attend weddings as a guest because I'm usually behind the camera. I will have my camera in my hand taking some awesome shots throughout the day and evening. But I need to be careful not to step on the toes of the other photographer or get in his/her way. Certainly I wouldn't have anyone else in my way when I'm the photographer, I do respect others.

My daughter Kirstin is kind of in the wedding, but not officially. She has been recruited to hand out programs at the church, which she gladly accepted the offer.

But on Friday I plan on being home getting things ready and doing some odds and ends around the house such as cleaning and last minute laundry. I'm in need of a haircut as well and I want to look "cute" for the wedding...LOL!

Kirstin will be leaving for a 2 day camp this coming Monday and Tuesday through her school. The entire 7th grade class will be going to Camp Phillip in Wautoma. This will be her first camp excursion away from home and away from family members. She's excited to go but she'll miss the comforts of home. The kids are not allowed to bring cell phone, iPods, Nintendo DS stuff....nothing like that. I have to make sure to go through her suitcase so she doesn't sneak any of that stuff along.

I'll will post of photos here of the events over the weekend but more likely I will have most of them on my website.

Why Do People Do This While Driving?

2009-04-28T16:31:00.003-05:00

I'm on the highway or freeway and I come up behind a car. The car is doing maybe 65mph or so and I'm doing a little bit faster, so I signal and move to the left to pass. No sooner than I get along side the car that they decide to step on it and take off. I can't get back over behind the car because more cars are on my right and a line of cars just got behind me, which makes me the slow car.

It just happened the other day, I got along side of it and I said to myself "Now...go faster, don't let me pass you", and they did. It's like they read my mind.

This seems to happen about 7 out of 10 times and it really pisses me off. Nothing I can't stand more than drivers who can't seem to maintain a constant speed.

If this is YOU, I want to talk to you. Leave your comments below...lol!

Landed a Part Time Job

2009-04-27T15:34:00.003-05:00

I talked about taking on a part time job at night for a long time because I need money to stay afloat financially. So I was debating what I should do for this job. Should I work at Menard's, which might be kind of fun? Do I work at Pick 'n Save? How many hours do I want? What's a fair wage? All of these things go through my head.

So, there's this photographer in Watertown (Juhl Photography) that I've been thinking of working for. A couple of years ago Stephanie Juhl, the owner, took a couple of my photography classes that I was teaching. About a month ago I sent her in email telling her that I'm interested in working for her on a part time basis for around 15 hours a week or so. It's ironic because she was in the process of hiring someone part time to releave the work load on her so she can concentrate on marketing the business.

To make a long story short (mine are never short) I'll be starting in early May doing photography and Photoshop. My hours will be about 2 hours per night and around 5 hours on Saturdays. Along with my full time job in Milwaukee, this is going to kill me working 55 hours a week. Plus it takes a bit of quality time away from my daughter at night, she'll have to stay at her mother's house a bit longer until I get home around 9:15-9:30pm. There certainly won't be time to go out and hang with friends, but I don't do much of that anyways.

We'll see how the summer goes, hopefully I can be hired on full time as director of photography and not have to drive to Milwaukee anymore. This is also her plans!

The Adventures of Next Door, Part 2

2009-01-31T15:33:00.003-06:00

Earlier this week, the "wife-beater" is back and things are as nothing has ever happened. It does not surprise me that she let him back in, she loves him for crying out loud. What's a girl to do when all alone? She's rather have a cowardly piece of shit wail on her whenever he wants than to sit and watch tv at night alone.

I don't believe "Jeff" is working at the moment, or for the last several weeks in fact so they are living on one income...Shelly's. But they won't get rid of the 2 dogs that cost them over $200 a month each of them to feed (what Jeff told me last summer), or get rid of the $300 XBox 360 he bought a few months ago. And more often than not his 16 year old step brother stays with them, so that's yet another mouth they have to feed in addition to their 2 kids. Or stop buying case after case of Bud Light they suck down every night. They just don't have a clue how life works.

The landlord told me that he's waiting for the police report to be completed before he starts any eviction proceedings. He told me they are still behind in rent but that's reason enough to toss them out, he don't need any more reasons than that.

I'm giving my landlord an ultimatum, either they're gone by March 1st (or sooner), or I'm gone. I don't want to move because I love the place and it has a killer backyard with woods and apple trees, and it's quite...and sunny in places with some shade. Great for barbeque and listening to the ball game.

Violent Unwinding

2009-01-29T20:47:00.004-06:00

So here it was 8:30pm last night, I was doing some stuff on my laptop while sitting in my living room and my daughter was in the shower.

Suddenly I hear this tremendous loud crash that sounded like it came from the kitchen. I ran in there thinking all of my cabinets came crashing down to the floor, that's how loud it was. But it wasn't that.

I ran upstairs thinking my daughter fell in the shower, wasn't that. I ran into the basement, nothing out of the ordinary down there. Hurried down into the basement, nothing going on there. Went outside and walked around the house, nothing unusual. Went into garage, nothing fell off the wall. I was really scratching my head at this point.

I'm like "What the hell was that f!@#$ing noise?" I just figured it came from next door since I didn't see anything in my house that could have made that sound. It sure sounded just like a whole shelf of pots and pans let loose unto the floor, it actually shook my chair a little bit.

This morning as I was getting ready to leave for work, and when I hit the garage door opener I couldn't get the garage door open. I hit the button like 3 times and the door would open about 2", then close. I got out of my car and looked up at the garage door and saw this cable lying loose.

"Hmm, that's strange". As I looked closely at the huge, tightly wound tendsion spring...it was broken in 3 places. "Ah ha, THAT was the loud noise I heard." These springs are so huge and tightly wound that I've heard stories of people getting killed when one of these things let loose.

So I tried to pull the rope that separated the chain thingy from the door and it wouldn't budge. I took my tools and took the bracket off the door so I can get open. I tried lifting it but being made out of solid wood I couldn't lift it more than 3" off the floor. And if I ever did get it open, then what do I do with it?

I called my landlord and he came over and helped me get the door open so I could get to work. Kirstin and I were about 20 minutes late this morning.

Then my car F!@# up at work and it's still sitting there in Milwaukee, but that's another story for later.

The Adventures of "Next Door"

2009-01-24T14:52:00.002-06:00

This story is linked to the "Dog" situation next door that I had posted a couple of times, but this is much better. It all came to an ultimate climax last night.

About 10:15pm last night I was lying on my couch dozing when I heard this huge kaBAMB from next door. Well it scared the hell out of me and it sounded like someone slammed a 16lb. bowling ball on the floor. I was like "Now what the hell is going on?"

Then I heard yelling from "Jeff" and I'm "Oh great, here it goes again!" The yelling gets louder and louder and this time I got my ear up against the wall trying to figure out what's going on. Suddenly I hear this muffled scream coming from "Shelly" and him saying something like "Do you want more of that you F!@#ing bitch? Huh? Do you?" And more muffled screaming like she's trying to protect herself.

I called 911 at 10:45pm and reported what was going on and within like 5 minutes there were 2 cop cars outside. The police were banging on their door but no one was answering. This was going on for about 10 minutes. "Watertown Police Department!!" One cop at the front door and one at the back door.

Another officer came to my door and asked me a bunch of questions, which I was happy to give a statement. I can still here the cops next door yelling at the people next door to open up, but they wouldn't answer. I'm assuming by now the cops think that something tragic has happened.

By this time there are now 6 cop cars in front of my house with more cops surrounding the building, more banging on the door and the 2 dogs barking loudly. "Watertown Police Department, open the door or we are going to break it down!" Whoa, this is some serious shit going on.

The cops finally gain entry into the house and arrested "Jeff". The previous officer came back to my place and we talked some more. He told me that "Jeff" was under arrest and it was a good thing I called because the female showed signs of abuse.

By the time it was all over with, Jeff was gone, the 2 dogs were gone and the last cop left shortly after midnight.

As I write this, "Jeff" is still no where to be seen and I don't if he's still in the slammer or what. The dogs seem to be gone for now as well. That's a slight relief.

I was really concerned for "Shelly's" safety and I did the right thing. I have no use for any low life pieces of shit like him who hits a women...or even raises a hand to her. I hope she has the decency to throw his ass out because you know that if he's back, he'll give her this song and dance about never doing it again...and he will. He's an angry dude that has a big temper and doesn't know how to control his anger. It's very possible that I could've saved her life, not knowing what would have happened to her if I just looked the other way. What my neighbors do is their own damn business but when he starts hitting her, then it becomes my business.

This morning at 9am I called my landlord on his cell phone to fill him in on what has happened. He was in Florida at the moment and couldn't do anything right now. He was really upset and told me that we WILL get them evicted. Said that they are still behind in rent, won't get rid of the 2 dogs their not suppose to have, and this incident was the last straw. I just hope that he goes through with it and is a man of his word. I don't want this asshole living next door to me and my daughter.

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end. I will keep you all posted!

Being Sick During My Birthday

2009-01-23T14:58:00.002-06:00

Being sick is not fun no matter when it is, but it's more of a drag when you have a birthday.

My 2 sisters, mother and a whole bunch of other people were planning to take me out to Appleby's or some place like that this Saturday. I've been in my duplex for almost 9 months and all but one of them have never made to trip up to visit me. I think they all have this preconceived idea that Watertown is like just a bit south of the North Pole.

I started with this nasty sore throat on Tuesday and I knew I was about to get hit with something. By yesterday it was a full blown head cold. Today I'm a lot worse...sneezing, coughing, nose blowing, headache, watery eyes and fighting to keep awake.

I called bunch of the family this morning and told them to forget about making the trip up because all I'm going to be doing this weekend is sleeping. They didn't sound overly disappointed one bit, probably figuring they're off the hook for driving up here.

One of my sister's said "We'll plan some other weekend." If they don't it's no big deal I guess, I'm not one for entertaining guests anyways. Maybe I was the one that was "off the hook".

Now excuse while I blow my nose.

The Last Open Jam...For A While

2009-01-22T09:41:00.004-06:00

This Saturday night I will be playing the open jam again, like I did the all the past Saturday's this month except last week. This will be the last one for quite awhile and I don't know when the next one is scheduled for. If history is correct I won't see one again until sometime this fall.

Does playing this jams make me want to get back into playing in a band again? Yes and No, mostly no though. Like I've said in the past, it's all fun until I think of the bullshit that goes with it and the desire is gone.

So once again all my gear goes back into storage and I probably won't touch it again until the next time. I get closer and closer to making that decision to get rid of about 80% of the gear that I have and don't use. There's a lot of money tied up in equipment that I should recover some of my costs.

If I make that decision this what I would dump...

My 5 string bass (keep the other 2 that I have)
My main amp and cabinet (just keep my practice amp)
My whole rack system including the $1100 in-ear monitor system I bought and only used one year (that was a waste of money).

Right now I'm not desperate to sell it, but one day I'll get a bug up my ass and it'll all be on Ebay at the spur of the moment.

Surviving the Cold

2009-01-16T09:58:00.002-06:00

It ain't all that difficult, really. I've been through a lot worse in the past.

I remember one year living in Whitewater during the college days, I shared a 2 bedroom apartment with 2 other friends from high school. One of my roommates had guests up from Chicago for the weekend. That weekend temperatures where around -26 at night and very strong winds at about 40-45mph. They said wind chill was around -80.

Our guests couldn't leave to go home because no one's car started, we were all pretty much stranded in the apartment. The boiler for the building couldn't keep up with the demand for heat and everyone had to resort to their electric ovens to get a little warmth. We would have been screwed if we all had gas ovens, we'd all be dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.

1994 I was living in a duplex with my wife at the time in Watertown and I worked for the portrait studio in Watertown that I had eventually purchased. The dude I was working for took a vacation with his family down to South Carolina and I was in charge of operating the studio for that week.

One morning we had an actual air temperature of -31 without wind chill and since my wife's car wouldn't start she used my car, which was in the garage. I had to get to work and since I lived only a mile away, so I decided to walk! Hey, I was dressed in layers and I was plenty warm. Other people thought I was nuts.

I was the only one there the entire day because other employee's cars didn't start either, plus we had absolutely no customers that day. The sales room that was located in the front of the building which faced the west, the temperature in that room was 45 degrees the whole day. I had 2 space heaters cranked in there but it was still ice cold and you could see your breath.

So as these few days of cold January weather prevails, I just snuggle up on the couch with a cup of hot coffee or something and have an electric blanket on. It's not all that cold in my house since I keep the thermostat at 67 in the evening and 62 when I'm sleeping. Sometimes when my furnace kicks on and off continuously, I see nothing but dollar signs and I just cringe. When that happens then I turn the thermostat down to 65 and that helps. My windows and door are pretty good for keeping the cold and wind out.

This morning my outdoor thermometer said -19 at 6:30am and the garage thermometer said +8. I had no problem getting the car started.

I long for the day that I can sit out by the garage in the morning with the warm sun beating down on me. The days of and ice cold beer and grilling brats with temps in the mid '80's is far away. It'll go pretty fast.

The Boss's "State of the Business" Address

2009-01-04T11:02:00.003-06:00

This past Friday our boss wanted to talk to everyone concerning our past year "sales" for 2008. It wasn't good, which doesn't surprise me one bit. We are down in this category and down in that area. Since we really don't do many weddings any more we've been trying to step it up a bit in other areas without much luck.

In my opinion, we are just too damn expensive for what we offer and for the area that we are located in, we are losing business because of it. I don't know if the boss knows that or just doesn't care. We lost a couple of big corporate jobs to other photographers that just simply underbid us. That's not hard to do and everyone these days wants a deal in this economy.

He told us that there may be some layoffs this spring until things pick up. I'm not too worried about, not for being on the bottom of the "totem pole" when it comes to seniority and pay, but for what I do. One guy said he'll take the time off if needed, and one other guy doesn't do much of anything anyways, so I think they would get it before I would.

But he also said that there will be no overtime whatsoever and no "paid" vacations given out in the first quarter. We can take the time off if need, we just won't get paid for it even thought we have it coming.

We'll see what the 1st quarter brings us...or doesn't.

My Christmas

2008-12-26T10:59:00.002-06:00

It was good...not great, but good.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 23rd. None of us at the studio were expecting any Christmas bonus at all this year, but just our boss left for the day he handed out Christmas cards. Low and behold, a sizable bonus (same as previous months). Yippie, now I can actually go out and buy gifts this year.

I decided to leave an hour early from work (4:30pm) so I can start on some of my shopping. First stop was Menard's in Pewaukee. Bought a gift card for one of my sisters and bought myself a new coffee pot. My was crap and was always leaking.

Went home after that to grab a bite to eat before I headed out to Walmart in Watertown. Got there about 8:30pm, picked a few more gifts and made it back home around 9:45pm.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 24th. I had planned on putting in a few hours of work to make up for some lost time, but when I woke up at 6am it was snowing steadily outside and I just really didn't want to put up with driving to Milwaukee in it once again. I called my boss at 8:00am and told him I wasn't coming in. I was the only one going to be there anyways so it didnt' matter.

I made another trip back to Walmart and decided to get my daughter a new cellphone. Then back home to wrap gifts.

Kirstin had to sing in church at 4:30pm so I got there at 4:00 to find a seat (it was already packed when I got there). After we both got out of church at 6:00pm, we high-tailded it back to my house so Kirstin and get some overnight clothes to together.

We left Watertown at 6:15pm to pick up my mother at her house in Palmyra and got there at 7:00pm. Threw some Christmas shit in the back of the car and it was onward to Kansasville. If you don't know where this is, it's about 6 miles east of Burlington on Hwy 11. We got there just a bit after 8:00pm to have food, beer and exchange gifts with everyone. Plus smoke a couple of cigars out in the garage with one of my brother-in-laws and a nephew (I like a good cigar once in a while, so I'm really not considered a smoker). Ended up leaving when everyone else did by 11:00pm go head back to my mother's house.

THURSDAY DECEMBER 25th. Kirstin and were to spend the night at my mother's, and we did. We stayed for Christmas dinner and headed back to Watertown by 4:15pm. I dropped Kirstin off at her mother's house and I was back at my house by 5:15pm. Unloaded the car, changed into my lounging around the house outfit and just watch television until 10:30pm, then I went to bed.

That's about as excited as it gets, folks!

As for New Years Eve, I have no plans again for going out. It just really doesn't interest me for to partake in New Year celebrations. I'll stay home, have a beer or two, watch some televison and usually in bed before midnight.

I'm Really Tired of All This Snow!

2008-12-24T10:43:00.003-06:00

Who isn't except the children? Ah, the children...snowmen, snow angels, snowball fights. Even my 12 year old said she doesn't like the snow.

I remember 8 years ago we had a lot of snow in December, about 60" I think it was. It snowed like 2"-4" nearly every other day and I had no place to put it when shoveling. I believe we are on track for another record snowfall for this month.

When I moved into my duplex this past May my brother-in-law gave me an older 2 stage 20" Sears Crafstman snow blower (as shown) that he said he couldn't get running. I dont' know why I didn't spend time this fall working on it. Lazy I guess would be the correct answer. So there it sits in the corner of my garage just waiting for me to get it running.

Where I work in Milwaukee we have this long driveway that is open on both ends to the streets, and the property has 3 driveway aprons from the street. We have a large Yard Master 24" 2 stage to tackle it, but many times even that is too small.

This past Friday when we got the 12" it broke down. Both drive belts snapped but luckily it was towards the end of the clearing of snow.

So we took it in the other day for repair and they said about 3 weeks to get it back! Well, we can't wait 3 weeks without a snow blower. The boss let us go shopping for another one in the mean time and we picked up a smaller 20" 2 stage to get us through until we get the other one fixed. That dinky little cute thing was $800!

The property at the studio sits on a triangle of land and the sidewalks in front of the studio and behind come together in a "v" shape at the end of the road. It makes for a very long sidewalk to keep clear of snow. Plus the 3 driveway aprons. We are always fighting with the snow plows to keep these open for employee and customer parking. Usually the plows come through in the middle of the night so when we get to work by 9am the next morning, nobody can get into the driveway. And if you don't work on it right away it ends up turning to solid ice and you need a couple of sticks of dynamite to blast it way.

Right now I'm dreaming of sitting at the edge of my garage in 85 degree weather with an ice cold beer and grilling brats. That'll come soon enough.

Kirstin's Trip to Georgia

2008-12-01T10:24:00.002-06:00

Kirstin and her mother (and her mother's boyfriend) drove down to Georgia last week Saturday to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. This is Kirstin's first time being out of the state of Wisconsin and she was very excited for the long road trip.

Their first stop was to see the arch in St. Louis and stay for a couple hours. After that they drove straight through to Marietta, GA.

She had a wonderful time and became very close to her cousins that she only see's about once every 2 years or so. To say the least, it was a long rough "good bye" between Kirstin and her cousins. I guess there were lot's of tears.

Kirstin arrived back at my place on Saturday evening around 5:45pm. It was great to see her and I really missed her a lot. Lot's of hugs and kisses.

But after she got settled in for a couple of hours, she came downstairs from her bedroom and she was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said she wanted to stay in Georgia because she had such a great time and missed her cousins. She said she felt guilty for leaving them and making them cry so much. I just told her that this is all normal and she'll be fine after a day or so...and she was.

Yesterday I took her to see the movie Bolt. It's a good Disney animated feature starring Miley Cyrus, and she loved it. I liked it too.

But all in all, I'm glad to have my baby back home safe with me.

I Really, Really Dislike This!!

2008-11-24T13:32:00.003-06:00

Taking from my garage on Monday November 24th at 7:45am...before I shoveled!

I'll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours.

2008-11-23T13:39:00.009-06:00

Some people wanted to see what my network area looks like, so I took a photo and uploaded it. Most of this is stored in the basement off the laundry room. So here's the break down...

A: File server running Linux Mandrake 10.0 that stores backups, documents, and media such as music and photos. (Pentium II 300Mhz system).
B: Linksys 8 port switch. This is where all the computers and such are plug into.
C: Linksys Router: The firewall and "brains" to the whole system.
D: Cable modem. The link to the outside world (Internet)
E: Telephone "voip box" where my normal home phones plugs into.
F: Network "mess" of hundreds of feet of cabling that run throughout the house.

What you don't see...

There's a Linksys wireless access point on the first floor that handles the wireless duties of my laptop, PDA and my daughter's Nintendo DS. It's on the first floor because it's a central location between the 2nd floor and basement
A UPS backup system that's has a dead battery so it's not in use. This to keep a constant 120 volts to the system for about 15-20 minutes in case of power failure.
500Gb external drive that also doesn't work. I'm in the process of ripping out the hard drives to use elsewhere.
My main Windows system for doing photo work with Photoshop is in the next room behind the nextwork. Also my flat bed scanner and color printer are located there as well.
An "experimental" computer that's running Linux Puppy.

What I plan on installing in the future...

A Windows Media Center that is used as a DVR for TV viewing and storage of recorded media. This will be on the first floor next to the television and home stereo.
Replacing the Linux file server with a newer machine that can handle more RAM and a newer Linux operating system.

Ok, now show me yours!

Is This Life in the Bizarro World?

2008-11-22T10:08:00.002-06:00

Gas at $1.78 a gallon? That's what I paid when I filled up my gas tank this morning...$1.78!

It just seems like yesterday we were paying $4.20 a gallon for this "liquid gold" that we all depend on. My monthly budget on gas was at $300, now it's around $130. What to do with all that extra money? Piss it away on other bills, of course.

But all good things must come to an end I expect it to go back up after the holidays and we will be paying from $4.50 - $5.00 a gallon by next summer, so don't get use to this. I'm usually right...usually.

Neighbor's Moving Out?

2008-11-17T13:09:00.002-06:00

Directly next to me in the same building? Hardly.

It's my neighbor Jim next door, to the left of me. Sad to see him leave, always been a good guy to chat with on the weekends. He does have a temper and is quite the hot head. I remember this past summer he and his wife Renee were both thrown in jail one afternoon because of a heated argument with some slapping and scratching going on. But that's another story.

My daughter Kirstin and become good friends with the two girls that live next door, Becca and Katie and she is saddened that they are going. Not sure who's she's going to ride bikes with in the summer. In fact, they are the two girls in the Halloween picture earlier in this blog.

But Jim has quite the collection of cars on the property as well. He has an original 1970 Mustang in the garage that I've seen him drive maybe 3 times the past 6 months. There's is also a 1984 white Mustang rag top parked on the street that he doesn't drive. A 1984 gray Mustang in the driveway that doesn't run at all. He also has a black pickup truck that he has to park in the front yard along with his wife's SUV because there's no room. For two drivers in that family there are 5 vehicles.

I sure hope the landlord of that building is selective on who moves in. You know me, I don't get along with dogs or people that own dogs. If someone comes in with a persistent barking dog that's out of control...I'll be out by May 1st when my lease is up. I guarantee it!! I moved out of Milwaukee surrounded by hip hop music, blaring car horns and the occasional gun fire. I'll take that over barking dogs any day.

As for the dog next door to me that ain't suppose to be there....it's still there. The landlord told me again last Saturday that they now have to get rid of it. Yeah, right...that'll be the day.

New Phone Service Installed

2008-11-09T13:08:00.005-06:00

I mentioned about taking the leap into a voip based telephone service and after doing my homework, I made my choice. There's this small start up company called Phone Power, and it's much like a Vonage voip system. You sign up, pick a phone number according to your city and state, they send you a box you hook up your network/Internet connection along with your phone, and you're on your way.

Everything pretty much went without a hitch and I did some test phone calls to my family. To say the least I'm pretty impressed with the quality. Me nor anyone I've talked to could tell that I wasn't calling from a typical land line phone and actually via the Internet. So, for only $15/month for 500 outgoing minutes, I can talk to anyone in the US. What's really cool is that I have it set up to ring both my home phone AND my cell phone whenever anyone calls. They only need to remember the one number, unless they need to send me a text message.

Onto my next purchase: A cheap cell phone. Again I did my homework and decided to go with Net10. This is strictly a pre-paid service. It's only $.10 a minute anytime, anywhere and for as little I talk on the phone, it was perfect. Text messages are only $.05 each. When I signed up they give you 300 minutes to use right away. Granted the phone itself is a cheap piece of plastic, but who cares? It's not my main phone.

I did some calculations and I was paying $60/month for 550 minutes with Sprint, so that's like $.11 a minute. Text messaging with Sprint and all of the other large providers are now at $.20 each. I was tired of being forced into a 2 year contract everytime I changed my plan or wanted to upgrade my phone. I was with Sprint for over 5½ years, and US Cellular for a few years prior to that.

We'll give them a try for several months and see how it goes. If I don't like them, I can switch and try someone differant.

Engagement Photo Session

2008-11-02T20:00:00.007-06:00

This past Saturday my nephew Ross and his beautiful fiance, Kelly, gave me the opportunity to photograph their engagement session.

We headed off to Lake Geneva that afternoon and did some photos on the beach and also down at the pier. By all count I had taken over 235 images and have it narrowed down to roughly 107. It's a lot but I photographed a lot as well. We did nearly 2 hours worth of photography with gorgeous weather on top of it.

I have a few images posted here.

Trick or Treat - 2008

2008-10-27T09:43:00.007-05:00

SATURDAY - Kirstin and I took a drive over to Ebert's Greenhouse, just west of Ixonia to pick out some pumpkins to carve. Two large pumpkins set me back about $13.00, ouch!

When we got home I had Kirstin get on the Internet to find some cool stencils to download so we can do something creative this year. Do you know how hard it is to do some intricate carvings with just a steak knife? Ain't going to happen. I did manage to carve out "Trick or Treat" (without the word "or") with great difficulty. The other pumpkin just got the generic Jack O' Lantern face (as you can see in the lower left of the photo).

It's been a tradition in our family to bake the seeds with salt, and that's what I did. Mmmmm....good!

(l-r) Becca, Katie and Kirstin)

SUNDAY - Trick or Treating in Watertown from 1pm - 4pm. It was windy as hell, but Kirstin and her friends ventured out anyways. We bought 3 bags of candy Saturday afternoon but after eating a bunch of it that night I decided it jog over to Pick and Save and pick up 2 more bags. Within those 3 hours of Trick or Treating I think we had a total of 6 kids show up at the house, so now I have all of this candy left over. I did throw a few bars into my lunch today.

Days Go By So Slow, Yet So Fast

2008-10-21T12:38:00.002-05:00

As I write this I can't believe that October is almost over! What the hell happened to the summer? We have something like 8 weeks until Christmas, blink twice and it'll be here and gone as well.

As the days are getting colder and getting darker faster, I'm actually looking forward to Christmas. It's my favorite holiday. Within the next couple of weeks, XM satellite radio will be starting their Christmas music marathon pretty soon and that will really put me in the mood.

Yes, I'm a subscriber to satellite radio...have been the past 3½ years and love it. Some people say "I will never pay for something like radio that I can get free over the air!" And these are the same people who have cable TV. Go figure.

So as these days just whiz by, it's dragging ever so slowing at work. We have considerably slowed way down and there's not that much work to do. I'll take 1 or 2 projects and stretch them out the entire day. Retouch a photo, check my email. Do more retouching, check the news or Myspace and Facebook accounts. Transfer some files to the server, check stuff to buy on Ebay or Craigslist. Sitting on my ass all day long makes me tired when I get home at night, it really does.

The job hunting is not going so well either as I had menitioned in previous posts. I was hoping to land a differant job by this fall to help pay for the high heating costs this winter but...

I better get back to work and do more surfing!

Dog Gone-It...Part 2

2008-10-11T10:38:00.003-05:00

Well....it's back!

I don't know why this black lab is back again today, I thought the landlord told the tenants to get rid of it last week Sunday. Either it was all a dream and he pretended to tell him or the tenant is standing his ground with a "F!@#$ You, I'll Do What I Want" thing. I'm guessing it's the latter because that's the kind of asshole he is.

As I write this the dog is outside tied up and barking constantly and no one is paying it any attention. It's going to piss me off again and hopefully all of the other neighbors. Their other dog, which is that chocolate lab I mentioned, I don't hear a "peep" it.

Discontinuing Cell Phone Service?

2008-10-06T09:30:00.002-05:00

Well, not exactly.

I'm seriously thinking about dropping my Sprint account and going with a pre-paid plan with another provider. Right now I'm doing some comparison shopping to see what the best plan, provider and cell signal I can get.

I've had Sprint for 5½ years and their service (not customer service) is great...in the Milwaukee area that is. Not great where I live or further west, or north or down by my sister's place, or by my mother's house. So that's one of the reasons for changing.

Also, I don't talk on the phone all that much. Right now I'm paying $95/month for a family plan that has my daughter on it as well. That includes 550 minutes shared between the two of us, each of us also has 300 text message a month at $5.00 each, plus I have the Internet access with email and other stuff at an additional $15 a month. So yeah, it's around $95 a month for all of that.

The past couple of months I've been analyizing my bills and between my daughter and myself we've been using about 98 minutes one month, 38 minutes the next, 127 minutes another month. So you can see how little both of us use it.

This is my decsion for dropping it and going to pre-paid. The drawback is that I will end up with a whole new number, and I won't have text messing either...which is no big deal to me.

I'm also thinking about jumping on the VOIP bandwagon. You know, the Vonage thing. I can get a home phone with all the bells and whistles with 500 minutes for only $15/month. I would give out only my Vonage number and it can also ring my cell phone if I don't pick up. That way I won't miss a call...if anyone should happen to call me.

Conclusion...I can get a pre-paid cell phone AND a home phone for a lot less than what I'm paying now with a family plan through Sprint.

Dog Gone-It!

2008-10-06T09:01:00.002-05:00

I've blogged in the past about my neighbors annoying dogs, the dogs from hell as I have said.

Last week Friday, we're talking about 10 days or so ago, I stepped out into the back yard and I see a black lab tied up along with the next door neighbors chocolate lab. The owner was out there and I asked who's dog that was. He said that it was on loan for a week or so. I really don't know what the means so I just shrugged my shoulders and walked back into the house.

The next day his wife was outside and I asked the same question and she said that they are "training" the dog for a friend for a week." I don't know if training involves tying it up in the backyard to let it bark, but that's what it does.

For one thing they can't have another dog, whether they're watching it for someone or whatever the case maybe. If I can't have a pet, neither can they. But they do have that other lab and they are grandfather-claused in or something.

Yesterday they had both dogs tied up in the backyard while the landlord and another guy were up on the roof (he's replacing my entire roof). The "loaner" dog constantly barked for an hour straight without the owners doing anything about it. The owners finally brought both dogs inside and they left to go somewhere for about 1½ hours. The "loaner" constantly barked for that 1½ as well. My walls are a bit thin and the dog was pretty loud from inside the house...and I was getting pissed.

The landlord came down off the roof and I can tell he was pissed as well and I told him "See what I have to put up with living next door to them". They are a young couple and "Jeff" gets all huffy when you tell him what to do. He needs some growing up to do.

When they came back the landlord went over there and told him to get rid of the dog...TODAY! So of course he got all "huffy" as predicted and put the black lab into the truck and returned it to wherever he got the damn thing from. The landlord told me that "Jeff" got all pissed and now he thinks that I was the one doing all the complaining. At least the landlord has first hand experience on what was going on and took care of it.

Jeff has a chocolate lab that rarely barks and I, nor anyone else, has a problem with it. It's a good dog. You leave him alone in the house and it doesn't cause any problems.

We'll see in the coming weeks if "Jeff" tries to retaliate in some way by blasting his stereo or something thinking it was my fault that he was told to get rid of the dog.

UWM Student Found Murdered In Dodge County

2008-10-05T10:44:00.003-05:00

I was watching the news on tv last night and saw this story, it's on all the news channels. It's about this UWM student in Milwaukee that was found murdered in Watertown and his body was found in a shallow grave behind some storage units out in the woods.

It turns out that the storage units are the ones I store my stuff in the past 2 years. One of the suspects in the murder is the son of the owner of the units, who's name is Todd.

Here's the news story as long as the link remains active.

Murder Story

Freaky-Assed Hair Do

2008-10-03T11:25:00.006-05:00

I thought I'd seen them all. This high school senior recently came through our studio last week and I was blown away by what she thinks looks cool. Trust me, it's not a hat!

It actually should be called a "hair-don't".

First Frost of the Season

2008-10-03T07:31:00.003-05:00

Damn it's cold already for October!

My thermometer as I write this at 7:30am shows 37 degrees outside, and I had to turn the heat on again this morning to drive out the chill in the air.

I peered out my window just a while ago and the neighbor was scraping frost off his windshield before leaving for work. At least I won't be doing any scraping as I'm just about the only person in this cultisac that actually uses their garage for a car instead of storage of junk.

I'm just not ready for this stuff so soon. But...it is October.

Back On Board with Internet at Home

2008-09-24T14:34:00.002-05:00

After a few months without Internet at home, I finally caved in and had it installed yesterday. I succumbed to Charter for my provider and to say the least, I'm not a big fan of anything cable. I don't like their cable TV service and I don't like their Internet service either.

I tried AT&T DSL in May when I moved in, but the service was way too slow (1.5mb/sec). Plus my moving expenses at that time didn't allow me for any extra goodies, so it was disconnect. Two weeks ago I contacted AT&T to get it restored again and pay what I owe them from before...forget it. Their customer service is pretty much non-existent and never did get it restored.

With Charter they offer an introductory rate of $19.95/month for the first six months. Then it jumps up to $56/month after that. BUT...if you don't have it bundled with anything else, i.e. cable or something else, then it's another $10 on top of that. After the trial period ends next March, it's going to cost me $66/month for their slowest speed that they offer.

After the technician left yesterday afternoon, I spent a good hour or so getting the modem tied in with my router, network and my wireless...which I finally did.

I have 3 computers in my house with Internet access...

My Windows Vista computer (my main system), located in the basement
My Linux Ubuntu system, also in the basement (you don't know about Linux?)
My HP laptop, which is in my bedroom and running off the wireless.

Sometime in the near future I'm going to buy an inexpensive laptop for my daughter so she doesn't have to use my slow laptop or go into the cold basement to use it. I will also buy a nice laptop for myself, the HP I have now is about 4 years old and has a broken power jack...but that's another blog from last.

Turning Down Band Offers

2008-09-19T11:10:00.005-05:00

I never thought it would come down to this but lately I have been turning down some good opportunities to hook up with some really good bands playing bass.

First of all it all started the past 2 years when I was working on getting other projects off the ground that never took off. I joined a couple of newly formed bands that fell apart after a couple of months (nature of the business).

A couple of months ago I was offered to try out for the band Pink Houses, and I turned it down. Why? They are a Mellencamp tribute band I do like John Mellencamp, I really do. But to play it all night long without any variety, I just couldn't do it. The band plays gigs, clubs and festivals a lot...almost every weekend and the money is could too. Plus they are all talented musicians. Was this a wrong decision on my part? I don't know.

This past week I was offered to try out for Liquid Crush. Again, I turned it down. I like their set list and I know a lot of their songs so it would have been in easy fit. But I would have to reherse in Menemonee Falls or some place like that. That's a long ass drive at $4/gallon.

Here's the real reason:

There is so much drama and bullshit in every band, I just don't know if I can handle it anymore. Truly, I love playing and I've been doing it for years. I guess the older I get the less patience I have for shit like that. It's like "Dude, this is only a band. I'm not married to you guys."

Also, the longer I'm away from it, the less I miss it. My last project was with the Buzz Toyz about 2½ years ago. Sure I missed it terribly the first year but that slowly wears off after a while. It's like anything else, the longer you are away from it the less you miss it.

It's a lot of hard work for very little money too. There's 2 hours of set up time, 3 hours of playing and sweating your balls off, and 1 hour of tear down and load out. Not fun when it's -12 degrees outside and you have an hour drive back home and your dead tired. All for what..........$100 a man per night? Ehhh, I don't think so.

My concentration is going towards my photography, where I can make decent money if I keep at it. I've been doing it since high school and I'm not about to stop.

I'm going to try to get back into teaching again, which I did a couple of years ago. I held a couple of mini seminars in Watertown for upcoming young photographers and I really loved it. I have the patience and the money was good too.

There needs to be more big changes for me within the next couple of months if I need to survive, and music isn't one of them. Sure, I'll do an occasional open jam to keep my "chops" up and fill in a couple of shows here and there. But photography is where it's at, baby!

Butterfly Kisses

2008-09-19T11:10:00.002-05:00

Having a daughter is the most precious thing any man can have, truly a gift from God. Years ago this song called "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle, I think is his name, came out. It's about this man who watches his daughter grow up from being a cute little girl to a beautiful young women who gets marries. He still reminisces about when he puts her to bed every night and she does these little butterfly kisses on his cheek.

The first time I heard it I was in my car going to a wedding and I actually had to pull over to the side of the road because I was crying! This song will bring the biggest men down to their knees.

I told my daughter of this song recently and I played it for her. She sat there listening to the lyrics and watching me cry once again. I looked at her and she turned her head away the rest of the song and it was because she was crying as well.

After the song was finished we both hugged and I told her how much I love her and don't want her to grow up anymore. She said "Daddy, I will always be your little girl!"

I just know that one day she will be gone and married...and that's tough to handle right now.

Open Jam

2008-09-10T12:25:00.005-05:00

Once again we had another open jam at RJ Water's in Watertown that I was asked to fill in on Saturday September 6th. This seems one of my few opportunities to get up and play, which has been few and far between the past couple of years.

There weren't a lot of other "jammers" that came by to play. Maybe it's because we don't have many jams going on throughout the year. It's been about 1 jam every couple of months. I've been trying to convince the sponsors to hold them around once a month or so and maybe we would have a much better turnout.

Reduced My Debt Load

2008-08-20T11:30:00.002-05:00

My goal for getting completely out of debt has recently taken a huge step. I no longer owe any money on my mortgage, property taxes or my home equity loan. But, the price was huge and the price was BIG!

As in my previous posts stated, my house that was up for sale for 4 years finally went to foreclosure a couple of weeks ago and the debt load is now gone. Not the way I wanted it to turn out but it's done and over with, nonetheless

"Dude, did you eat all of my chocolate covered peanuts?"

2008-06-25T14:59:00.002-05:00

"Not me", I said. Well, I did but I didn't want to admit it.

Jim, who sits next to me, has this huge bag of chocolate covered peanuts on his desk. It's about 18" from me, so I sampled a couple. Took a few more, and then some more....then a bit more. I just took one more while writing this and now there's maybe 8 left.

I'll blame it on Ray at the other end of the desk!

The Sign Comes Down

2008-06-22T10:19:00.004-05:00

The "For Sale" sign on my house finally came down this weekend after nearly 4 years on the market. Good, you asked? Nope!

After all of these years trying to get this house sold and countless accepted offers, it is being foreclosed on by the bank. It's something that I thought would never happen. How hard is to to sell a house, even with the market as crappy as it's been?

The breaking point came around August last year when we had yet another offer, it was very low but we had to take it to get it sold. All I wanted was to get the mortgage and the property taxes paid. I didn't care one way or another if I made any money, that wasn't my goal. The buyer wanted to turn it into a 2 family duplex, like it was back in the 1970's (you've heard me tell this story countless times). He had to present his plans to the city to have it rezoned, and after it was rezoned then everything was a "go". That was the only obstacle in the way, and the city approved the zoning from business back to residence. Great, we're finally on our way of getting it sold after all of these years.

Since we had a buyer, Diane and Kirstin moved out a week before Christmas. I've been out of the house since July 2005 (that's another story).

We had a tentative closing date set and it was pushed back a couple of times for one reason or another, because of loose ends on the buyers end mostly and a couple on my end as well. 2 days before closing, the bank wouldn't approve the buyer's loan....WTF! How the hell can this happen? Now what do we do?

Our bank said they would work on helping the buyer with his loan. Great, we can rest assured that this will go through and we can get on with what we need to do. A week later we were told that our bank would NOT help him out either. So we were right back to square one, no buyer in site...right back to the very beginning like 3½ years ago.

This news was so devastating that when I found out, I broke down and cried uncontrollably for 2 hours straight until I actually threw up. I've never let loose like that ever, not even when my Father passed.

Since we have not made any mortgage payments on the property for several months, the bank has now proceeded with the foreclosure. I cannot afford to pay rent on my duplex AND my house at the same time, and neither can Diane. I went over to the house last week to check on the basement siltation because all of the rain, and the bank had all of the locks changed. How they got in there in the first place is beyond because because the realitor didn't let them in.

What angers me is that we have done everything possible and all of the correct things to sell. We have accepted every reasonable offer, just to get it sold. I believe we had 2-3 accepted offers with the first real estate agent, and about 8 (give or take a couple) with the second agent. The number accepted offers that I stated is NOT an exaggeration whatsoever. Every singe one of these offers have fallen through mainly because of problems on the buyers end. Either its because of financing that hasn't gone through or the buyer wanted unreasonable contingency's that we couldn't meet.

I even looked into trying to auction off the property myself by contacting a number of companies that specialize in this Anything to avoid foreclosure. They all wanted anywhere from 2% - 5% of upfront fees for marketing purposes, money I don't have or cannot obtain. Even if I was able to come up with these fees, that's no guarantee that it would be sold. If that would be the case I would be out more money and still stuck with the house.

So not only do I have a bankruptcy on my credit rating that's going to hang there for 10 years, I will also have a foreclosure. A foreclosure is more detrimental to your credit rating than a bankruptcy...I now have both.

My insurance rates have gone way up because they taken in account your credit rating, more so than your actual driving record to establish your rates. Insurance companies cannot fathom that an individual with such bad credit can be such a great driver. Well, I'm living proof of that. My last infraction was about 25 years ago.

I had a hell of time trying to find a place to live when I moved back to Watertown because most landlords do a credit check. You have bad credit, good luck trying to find a place to live. Fortunately I found a place that didn't do credit checks.

I'm also in the process of searching for new employment and a lot of employers also look at your credit rating before they think about hiring you.

In America your whole life is based on your credit, which is really unfair. Especially the things that have happened to me.

How did I get into this situation in the first place? I made the mistake of buying into a company that I had no business of purchasing. I couldn't generate enough cash flow to get over and above my static expenses. You have to pay your taxes, your mortgage, your employees, your phone bill, your heat, your vendors. It came to a point where I had 12 bills to pay and only had enough to pay, say, 7 of them. Who do you let slide? I choose to let the taxes slide (which a lot of people do) and hope that the following month would be better that we could double up on it, but it never did. Eventually your back taxes just snowballs with the ridiculous interest, late fees AND penalties. They hit you 3 times. If they say you owe them, lets say $1000, it's really like only about 1/2 to 1/3 of that because of their exaggerated fees. And there's no way you can get out of paying the fees or having them reduced. When it comes to their money, they are F@#&ing RUTHLESS.

Diane and I decided to file a Chapter 13 about 2½ years ago. This allowed us to stay in the house and keep all of our assets while we made payment arrangements with all of our creditors and get those taxes reduced. It was a tough time, we were having over $1000 a month combined taken out of our paychecks to satisfy our debts. At the same time we became separated and she demanded child support, and that cost me another $375 out of my paycheck a month. So total I was having over $850 a month deducted from my paycheck, on top of the crappy wage I was making. There was nothing left for me. That's why I lived in a small room in Milwaukee above where I work for the past 3 years rent free. I was stuck there!

We really needed to reduce the price of our house to get it to move and the only way we could do that was to make a drastic move and convert our Chapter 13 into a Chapter 7. Our lawyer suggested to stop making mortgage payments because at that time we had a buyer for the house anyways. Plus this would give us a little bit of cash flow until closing to pay off a few other debts.

As you can see, the whole thing backfired and I'm at where I am now. I have the worst credit rating anyone could possibly have. I feel that I'm being punished severely time and time again for things that basically were not my fault....and this is the thanks I get. Every time I attempt to climb out of the hole, someone would push me back down again. Yeah, I could have closed my business sooner but whoever thinks of that? We all think that we can pull out of it and things will be better. I ended up losing my wife, my business and my house, a fucked up credit rating and I'm in worse financial situation before all of this had started.

In conclusion with all that I had experience in trying to sell my house, I will NEVER, EVER own another piece of property again. I'm happy just paying rent. If I don't like the place or the neighbors piss me off, I can just move out.

A River Runs Through It

2008-06-16T15:38:00.003-05:00

This is the wayside located just east of Ixonia, WI on Hwy 16. Great evidence of the massive amounts of rain we received in June, just over 10" within 12 days or so. The wayside has a tendency of flooding, but never like this.

It had finally receded from all of the snow we got this winter, and now it's worse than ever from the rain. It seems like this wayside is closed more often than it is open.

Do You Think We've Had Enough Rain?

2008-06-08T12:08:00.005-05:00

It's nice to have rain to make things grow such as grass, flowers and trees. We don't need things growing like mold, water depths and the mosquito population (oh no, I don't want to think about the mosquito problem we're going to have this summer.

The past few days we've had more than our share of wet, stormy weather and these pictures show it. I took these right after one of our heaviest downpours on Saturday. The road at the end of the block flooded out and the kids made a huge pool out of it. I was tempted to join them, and the water was pretty warm.

About 5 minutes after these photos, a car came down the road at a pretty fast clip and thought he could fly right through it. He got about 3/4 of the way through and his car stalled, there he sat. What a dumb ass!

Secret to Not Getting Sick

2008-06-06T10:55:00.003-05:00

Well, I don't know if it's really a secret, but I do take multi-vitamins every day.

I have always gotten at least 1 to 3 really nasty head colds a year. You know the kind, you just feel like shit for a few days. Once in a great while I would get the flu as well, but not often.

About 2 years ago I started taking Centrum A to Zinc Multi-Vitamins from the advice of a friend who swears by them. Ever since then I haven't had any colds or flu. I deal with a lot clients on a week to week basis, who've many of them were sick and I'm always shaking their hand. Most of our staff at the studio have had many nasty head colds too, and I have escaped unscathed. Not even as so much as a sniffle.

I attribute that to those vitamins.

Dogs From Hell

2008-05-30T19:58:00.002-05:00

I don't think a lot of people know this about me, but I have an extremely low tolerance when it comes to barking dogs. To me it's like fingernails on a blackboard. I don't hate them, I just would never own one.

My neighbors that are in the opposite end of me in the duplex have a chocolate lab. Basically a good dog, doesn't bark all that much. There are times when he wants in, or wants attention, needs water (there's never a bowl of water out there for him) or is wrapped around a tree, the neighbors at times completely are oblivious to his needs. The dog will bark, whine, yelp, etc. for at least ½ or more. I don't mind a few minutes of it but when it's completely ignored, then I get pissed.

I don't want to go over there every time this goes on and become the "pain in the ass neighbor who just moved in".

This evening as I write this, the neighbors invited other people in the cultisac to come over for a few drinks in the back yard...and bring their dogs a well. One dog is trying the hump another one has a "red rocket" just watching, another dog is yelping because that's what it does most of the time. And no one is paying attention to this crap. I think there's a total of 4 dogs out in the backyard. It looks and sounds like the humane society.

I shut my doors and headed for the basement to do laundry.

All Settled In

2008-05-30T19:12:00.002-05:00

It didn't take me all that long to get my stuff unpacked from my move last month. Geeze, has it been that long already? As of now, it still seems all rather new yet...like I'm house-sitting for someone else.

The biggest challenge is getting my computer gear and networking all up and running. I have a laptop with wireless that I run up in my bedroom on the second floor. I still need to run networking cable up there as well for my daughter's room. But I'm still undecided if I want to let her have her own computer or stick it down in the living room. I don't have room though for a computer in my living room, that's the problem. My main system is downstairs in the basement but I've been less than motivated to go down there at night when it's only 60 degrees and bare basement floors. It will be great though in the summer.

Kirstin has made many friends here in the neighborhood. She at least has some girls her own age she can go bike riding with. She really loves the place, but I think it's really because she gets to spend more time with her Daddy.

I'm really enjoying the garage, though. It's nice to be able to work on my car whenever I need to. I had the opportunity to change my oil on Memorial Day and didn't need to worry about taking it to a quick oil change place and paying $25-$30. With the amount of driving that I'm doing I have to change my oil every 6-7 weeks or so.

And my basement....I'm loving that too!! It's wonderful that I have my own washer/dryer to do laundry whenever I want. It was such a pain in the ass to haul my clothes with 3 laundry baskets into my car and down to the laundry mat. Haul everything into the building, sort all of my clothes and to find out that the change machine was out of quarters!! Then grab all the clothes and load them back into my car and go find another laundry mat. Especially in the middle of January when it's -10 degrees outside.

My biggest beef right now is driving into Milwaukee and back everyday for this crappy paying job. Round trip it's about 91 miles. That's equates to about $12/day in gas, that's around $250/month. As you can see, I need to find something a lot closer. If not, at least something that pays a decent living wage so that I can afford the fuel.

How do I know I have a crappy paying job? When my 69 year old mother makes more money than I do, then it's classified as a crappy paying job!

When I have enough ambition I'll take some snapshots of my "pad" and post them here.

Moving Back To Watertown

2008-04-16T11:31:00.002-05:00

This was a long time coming, but I'm coming back home finally.

I spent nearly 3 years living in a small 14x16 room above where I work in Milwaukee. This was suppose to be only for a couple of weeks or a couple of months at the very most, but it didn't turn out that way. The good side was that I wasn't paying any rent or utilities, and I was getting my Internet for free as well. Those days are now over.

After searching apartments and duplexes in Watertown for almost 3 weeks, I found something that I can call home. I've always wanted to live in a side-by-side duplex with an attached garage, a basement and 2 large bedrooms upstairs...and that's exactly what I got! Plus it has all of the appliances and 1½ bathrooms as a bonus.

The duplex is located on the west end of Watertown on a quite cultisac. The only drawback is that the railroad tracks are practically right in the backyard, but the trains that come through there do not blow their horns unless of an emergency. After a while you end up getting use to I guess like anything else.

My daughter will be living with me from Sunday night through Thursday night so that I can get her to school at a reasonable time in the morning. I will have Friday and Saturday nights to myself to do the things that I want to do. It's going to be nice to be able to pull into my garage with a load of groceries and not have to worry about walking 25' in the rain and up a flight of stairs. I can also get back to changing my own oil in the garage too. And to be able to sit in my garage on a warm summer night, drinking beer and grilling brats as I'm watching a thunderstorm roll in.

The next goal is to land another job that pays decent wages with some kind of health insurance attached to it. Plus the commute back and forth to Milwaukee is going to kill me with the gas prices pushing $4/gallon. In the meantime I will be playing more band gigs and trying to scrape up more photography side jobs to help pay for stuff. Since I have only 1 small income coming into the household and no one to share expenses with, things are going to be extremely tight for awhile.

Moving day is going to be May 2nd and 3rd.

I'll keep you all posted and try to post more often than once every couple of months.

--Cheers (or Seinfeld)

Shot the Moon!

2008-02-20T22:02:00.004-06:00

I had to take advantage of the total eclipse, so I stood outside in +4 degree weather for 45 minutes to get a few shots of the moon. This is one of the better ones and it's at the beginning of the cycle, noticing the sliver of light on the right.

Even though I had the camera on a tripod I still had some camera shake due to the mirror flipping up and down during exposure. Towards the end of the series of exposures I had done a couple of them with a larger f/stop and shorter exposure time.

For all you techno folks...

Taken with a 300mm lens, f/16 @ 2½ seconds, ISO 400...

My Car Died Unexpectedly

2008-02-17T11:28:00.003-06:00

Yup, that's the news.

I was having problems with it a couple weeks ago, it was running very rough at idle, misfiring and it was difficult to keep running. Plus it was sucking a lot of gas and you could smell the unburned gas from the exhaust.

Took it into my local mechanic in town and they put it up on the scoop and determined that it was misfiring (duh, I just said that) and was ready to stall (no kidding?). They did, however, tell me that there is a recall on the igniton control module that the symptoms my car was showing points to this problem. Well, I had this module replaced at the local Saturn dealer 2 years ago.

The following week the problem gets worse and I called the Saturn dealer to take it in for a complete diagnosis. The morning of the appointment I attempted to start the car, which it did start. But it ran very "chuggingly" and died after about 1-2 seconds. I tried to start the car again, but this time the engine turned over very easily and sounded strange, like I never heard it before. Sounded more like a sewing machine spinning when I turned the key. I'm like "this ain't good at all." There's no compression.

It was determined that my timing chain broke, which is a major thing. With this being a "zero tolerance" engine, it's more than likely that the pistons and valves slammed into each other and bent all the valves up...which made the engine "junk". The timing chain ready to break or has jumped a couple of teeth on the gears puts the engine way out of time, and that was the symtoms. Who knew?

Called a handful of garages and they said that it's not worth fixing, $2000-$3000. Used engines are about $1200 without labor to put it in and only have about a 90 day warrentee. I found out that this is a problem with Saturns between 2000-2003 with the timing chain snapping unexpectedly, trashing the engine. And yet there's no recall for this problem.

In my mind it's not worth spending all this money to try to fix it and/or replace the engine on a car that's 8 years old. So, I've decided to sell it as is and use that money to put towards something else (not a Saturn).

In the meantime, I have no car. Can't get to the bank, can't get to the laundry mat (attempting to wash clothes in the bath tub). The grocery store is 4 blocks away which isn't all that bad but it's a long walk when it's cold.

Tomorrow (weather permitting) I will clean the car out and take some photographs of it so I can posted up on Autotrader.com or Ebay.com and see what I can get out of it . $2500 is what I'm hoping for.