Dave Easterly’s Bravo Sierra Blog

Last Day In Alabama

July 25, 2006 on 8:00 am | In General, Personal |
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Well, it’s time to leave for the airport. My son Robert is in the shower, my suitcase is packed, and my flight leaves in 3 hours. It has been an incredible visit and I’m very happy about the time I’ve had to re-connect with my son. I also got to see much of the rest of my family – my three brothers in Virginia and their families (although I didn’t get to see the newest addition to that part of the family – baby brother Shannon’s lovely wife Vickie), my dad’s brother Jeff in Tennessee and Matthew, one of my other brothers from Dad’s side of the family. Mom and Grandmother have been wonderful and I hope that Robert will begin to spend some time with them after I’m gone. As I write this, I’m struggling to keep back the tears because I don’t want to leave Robert again but he says he’s happy here and I have to take his word for it. Plus I have SO much to look forward to when I get back… I’ll be picking up Kash from his summer visitation with his mother next month. The band has gigs all through August. The wedding (!!! Love you, Carrie !!!) is in September. I have loads of work waiting on me which will keep my busy and thoroughly occupied for quite a while… It’s just all incomplete without Robert.

On a side note, I got to eat at Pal’s (http://www.palsweb.com) while I was up in Tennessee and Virginia AND I got Krystal burgers a couple of times. I just didn’t get time for real Southern BBQ.

Back in the South for a while…

July 21, 2006 on 12:55 am | In General |
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I’m back in Alabama visiting family this week and it has been SUCH a wonderful first couple of days so far… I’m spending a lot of time with my 12 year old son, Robert. We’re having a blast just watching movies and talking and stuff. It has been way too long since I’ve been able to spend time with Robert so I’m extremely happy to catch up with him.

Here’s a good way to tell you’re in the deeeep South:

I’m also getting to spend time with my Mom and my Grandmother, which I’m extremely happy about. They have been feeding Robert and me like royalty, of course.

On Sunday Robert and I are going to the Atlanta Aquarium – the largest in the world! So there’s still a lot to look forward to in the few days I have left. It’s just going to be really, REALLY hard to leave… I start to get all verklemt just thinking about it so when I actually have to say “Goodbye” I know it’s going to be… Well… ‘Nuff said.

(Insert Witty Post Title Here… Or Don’t. Doesn’t Really Matter…)

July 11, 2006 on 2:53 am | In General |
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LOTS and LOTS of stuff going on now. Here’s a quick sample of what’s coming up:

Carrie and I are getting married! We have to get rings, invitations need to be made and sent out, get the license, get someone to officiate (I’m lookin’ at you, Mr. D. D. of SocialGeeks.com fame…), food and decorating needs to be taken care of, and a million other little details. And it needs to happen by September 2nd.. Yeah… That soon…

On top of this, I’m not only drummer for the band but as the biggest geek in the band I was drafted for the role of webmaster as well for www.lovecrymes.com. Don’t judge the current site too harshly yet – it’s just a “placeholder” until I can do something properly — in PHP. But on top of that I’ve also had to create a MySpace account because the bands other members are all on there. MySpace is like Geocities back in the day – a den of dumassedness and web ineptitude with only a few rare gems of value to be found amongst the mountains of shite… But I’ll be DAMNED if Doug Pinnick and Ty Tabor of King’s X aren’t the coolest AND nicest guys in the world!

I’m travelling back to the Southeast again next week, too. I’m going to visit my son Robert (WOOOHOO! Can’t wait to see him again!!) as well as my Grandmother, Mom and Mike. I get back on the 26th, have band practice on the 27th, and a gig on the 28th so I have to keep my chops up while I’m out of town. Thank goodness for practice pads! I am SO happy about getting to spend a few days with Robert, though…

Saturday is an all day noon-until-8:00 band practice to get tight before our 7-28 gig. Then on Sunday we’re having a few friends over to have a cookout. I’m looking forward to cooking for everyone!

Work is the same-old, same-old – I find it amazing that the left hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing there… Staying relatively busy there, naturally… I can’t wait to spend a WHOLE WEEK away from it all!

I’m not sleeping well. I’m worrying about all the stuff that’s going on, all the stuff that needs to get done, where the money to pay for everything is going to come from, and when we’re going to find time to do everything while still working full-time to pay for the house and all those other necessities. I have friends and relatives I _need_ to call and stay in touch with but by the time I’m done working on various things it’s often too late to call. Not everyone bothers to read their email and some don’t even HAVE email… I’m concerned about my Grandmother’s health as well as Carrie’s, and I just feel… STRESSED. I thought buying the house was stressful… I’m beginning to realize that was next to nothing… In late September I will have been off cigarettes for a whole year… If the stress doesn’t kill me.

It’ll all pan out, though… We’ll MAKE it.

Just a Quick Update…

July 3, 2006 on 9:58 pm | In General |
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We had band practice on Saturday AND Sunday. Sunday was also Carrie’s Mom’s birthday so Carrie went to Boise the night before to hang out with her mother.  Since Carrie was out of town, we turned Sunday into an all-day practice and we had a blast.  We got a LOT accomplished. We went through an 8 song set uninterrupted, Brandon and Pete started teaching me another of the bands songs – a meaty funk jam called “Canned Jam” – and we worked up a new number with Pete switching to drums, me playing a bass line I wrote about a million years ago and Brandon not only singing but RAPPING!  Fun stuff, indeed!

In other news, I rearranged my drum kit today but I don’t like the way it feels so I’ll switch back tomorrow.  I did make one more permanent change, though.  If anyone else has ever bothered to look at my drum kit photos you’ll notice I have 3 pedals on the left side of my snare – (from L to R) a Roland KD7 kick trigger for electronic stuff, my Pearl hi-hat pedal, and the left side of my Tama Iron Cobra double bass pedal.  Well, the legs from my hi-hat stand are in the way of getting a full range of motion on the other two pedals so I took it upon myself to remedy the situation.  I really can’t afford to spend another $100+ bucks for a two-legged or legless hi-hat stand so I modded the el cheapo Pearl stand I’ve been using that came with my set of Rhythm Travellers.  Using a 1/4″ drill bit I removed the rivets that hold the top and bottom of each of the two offending legs, leaving only one leg still attached.  I then used an ordinary rack clamp to stabilize the stand attaching it to a tube from the rack and… BLAM! It worked perfectly for access to ALL the pedals.  I’ll take pictures tomorrow-ish when I rearrange the kit back to it’s previous configuration.  The cool part is that with just 4 rivets I can restore the stand back to normal operation.