So I'm just back from that show with the English company... The schedule never really did materialize... That really didn't effect me too much, because quite honestly, the production company was so irate with the scenic company that we could do no wrong as the lighting company... Not one to miss an opportunity to develop a new client under favorable conditions, I launched right in to stirring up their rage against the scenic company... Now, really, it was well deserved rage as the scenic company not only did a deplorable job, but they charged almost double what my really high safe guess would be as to what I would have bid the show at... Did I mention that it took them days to install a set that my normal crew would put in in either 1 day, or an overnight call?... Oh, and that they had 12-15 people working there every day to what I would have done with 8-10?... Yea... I made damn sure that company is never going to hear a British accent again... That call will come to us... How am I so sure?... Well they sent home the client's podiums with us... That doesn't seem like a huge deal, but that's the foot in the door we need... This should be the beginning of a long, and mutually profitable relationship...
Later last week we were contacted about doing a show in Maryland for an English production company... This is for one of their big clients from what I can tell from their website... The client is no small corperation, and I would love to have a piece of the action when they do a US show from here on out... The production company apparently takes great pride in their shows, which I can compleatly respect as that is how we run our business, so this match seems perfect in my book... The only hitch I've had so far is getting any solid answers out of them regarding the schedule... I mean the basics really... Like when do we load in the show?... I know the day, and I'll have the crew there and ready, but what hour do we go in?... This is important...
I'm hoping this is just a small bump in the road to a healthy professional relationship... I suspect it will be if what I have heard and seen is accurate...
So my truck has been in the shop for over 3 weeks now... That's above and beyond the 2 weeks it was in the shop for just 7 weeks ago... Today they called to say it was finally done... My partner and I were over there to pick it up almost before the phone had hit the cradle... They didn't really charge much for all that time, mostly just parts since they were the fault of some of the issues while it was in for the first 2 weeks... I drove happily away...
Until I hit the highway that is... When I couldn't get the truck up above 55 in the mile between exits, I turned around, brought it back and dropped it off again... I thought they were going to cry...
So now the score stands at this...
All New Brakes, Drums, Rotors, Master Cylinder, 2 Tires (different Shop)- $2600
Initial Diagnosis and new air filter (different shop) - $250
New Injection Pump, Replacement Radiator Hose - $2100
New Computer, Rebuilt Alternator, Repaired Circuit-board - $1100
Next bill - ?... But not pleasant...
There isn't much more that can be done for a diesel engine really... The last really expensive item is the turbo, apart from the engine block itself... That accounts for a big portion of the power... I fear that is my future...
Had I known 2 months ago that it would all add up like this, I'd have to have considered putting all this cash down on something else... Its that damnable 20/20 foresight I'm lacking... The hindsight seems just peachy...
They say it takes a village to raise a child... Apparently it primarily takes the taxes of those of us without children, and the reproductive organs of those who chose to have them...
People who have kids get some decent tax breaks... Now I understand that to an extent on the federal level since they need more of their money to feed, cloth, and generally maintain the kids... Beyond that, they pay similar taxes as far as I know...
People who don't have kids pay our full share to the feds, state, and local tax authority... Now, again, I don't mind paying my share to the feds, and even the state... The local taxes, AKA property tax, I have an issue with... 60% of my property taxes go to the board of ed in my town... I pay almost $6000 for my little house... That's $3600 out of my pocket to educate someone else's kids... It is my goal in life to not have children... I do not feel I should have to invest in the education of the kids of people who have chosen to have them... That cash would help one hell of a lot for those of us that don't have kids... Where is the logic in this system?... People who have kids, generate a bigger load for the local government to pay for, and yet they are paying less total taxes... I generate no additional load to any level of government and yet, I get no tax breaks as a result...
My solution?... Apart from not paying the %60 they want from me, which will never happen, I want something back... I want the kids of the people that choose to reproduce to pay me back the $3600 I spend on them every year... How?... Well lets start with mowing my lawn for free... Then they can rake, and bag the leaves and acorns I have to contend with for nothing... I'm even thinking I should be able to get my car washed occasionally out of this deal before my credit runs out...
Think I'm being cruel?... I'm outa line?... Ya know what?... I'll bet not a single person without the desire to procreate thinks I'm wrong... The people that will hunt me down and burn me for this will all have kids, or want to have kids...
Excuse me while I improve the outer defences...
Yea, another gripe about the railings... You're sick of it, but I'll get past this soon I hope...
So I dropped the speaker in the post in the wonderful world of AutoCAD... I live and die by that program, because quite honestly, we don't have a lot of space in the shop, and we sure don't have time to experiment on the shop floor until we get it right... So I draw everything first... So when I dropped the speaker in to the post in CAD, I noticed that the post was too small... I noticed it was too small because unlike the designer, I drew the speaker cord connection sticking out the back of the speaker where it will be in reality... So I made the post bigger in CAD, and reported the situation to the designer, and the technical producer... The designer doesn't care about sound in the posts, but its his set, and the technical producer seems married to the idea of sound in the posts... Whatever...
At any rate, the posts would look terrible if they are big enough to hold the speaker properly... So there are a few options... Kill the speaker in the post idea... Get smaller speakers... Get a right angle connection for the cord... Basic, sensible ideas, no?... And yet, it was the fourth unforeseen option that I am stuck with at the moment... That would be the righteous denial of problem option... That option involves building the post the designed size, and taking the speaker cord connection apart so the wires are just hanging there with no support...
So I will build the prototypes, and they will love them, and I will have to build 75 posts that are going to cause issues once I get to Florida... The sound department will end up chasing bad connections endlessly as the railing get leaned on, and the decking flexes under the speaker... It will most likely become so annoying that they will simply take the speakers out of the posts, and sit them on the floor under the railings, ignoring their proper placement in the posts... I can only dream it sucks so much for the technical producer and the sound department since they are the ones driving this insanity...
So having nothing to do with anything really... There is this guy in the union here, who is a friend of my partner... One thing led to another and my partner's wife tore in to him regarding the union idea... I wish I had been there to actually here his response, but apparently, according to him the union movement in the United States is responsible for keeping the US from being communist...
I swear I am not making this up...
So I've been doing this for some time now... Not blogging, but building scenery... While I consider myself to be very good at what I do, I don't claim to be flawless, and I can always learn something... Where I tend to become more curmudgeonly is with projects that I can see the future of... Not like crystal ball future seeing, but because I've been down that road previously... Experience talking if you will... This is of course all pointing back to these bloody railings I'm trying to design and manufacture... We finally got the designer and producer down to our office yesterday... We sat and talked about the finishes and what speakers and microphones are needed and where they would go... That's all well and good, but then there is that bit about neither of them having a clue as to how to attach the railings to the posts... Well that's my realm anyway, but to achieve the look they desire, I'm delving in to the world of black magic... Unfortunately my subscription to "Voodoo Quarterly", and "Ignoring Physics" have expired... That leaves me with practical reality, and that's just not cutting it... I can come up with a system that is very safe, but looks a bit too ugly, or I can come up with elegant that not only costs an outrageous amount, but is too time intense and structurally suspect... Yes there are a couple other ideas in my head, but they're failing in other ways...
The main problem is that I can see the end of this road, and it involves the ugly ass railings they had last year... It involves me wasting an incalculable number of hours of work, and sleep solving the problems, only to get murdered on the budget...
Have I mentioned how much I hate railings?
I was trying to come up with something to write about tonight... While I had a meeting regarding a rather large show, sent out a bid on a new client, and wrapped up unpacking from the last week, nothing really jumped out at me... I was thinking about a boring as hell wrap up of the day...
It was 8:07pm... It is pitch black outside...
The neighbor's dogs exploded in a fit of barking... Now they're nutty dogs and bark a lot, but you can tell when they really are barking about something real... Next thing I know, my door bell rings... Now, I know if my doorbell rings and I don't know someone is coming, and its after postal/ups hours, I don't want to talk to them... So I didn't bother to turn on the outdoor light, let the annoyance stand their in the dark... I also didn't turn on any of the inside lights, which were all off since I was in the basement... Didn't want to give anyone a decent view of me or the hammer I had behind my back...
Some do-gooder wanted to talk about human rights... You have to be kidding me... I'm on the Do Not Call List, so they can't get me that way anymore... Now they're going to start ringing my door bell?... Fuck them... What I need are the automatic turret guns from Aliens on both front corners of my property... Anyone stands in front of my door after hours gets cut in half... Good luck hippy...
So we rented 4 good size scissor lifts for the benefit event we've been dealing with... When they came, one was dead, and the other 3 struggled through the first day... Naturally we were pissed, and called the rental company... So we plugged them in to charge overnight, and figured we'd be ok the next day...
Well the next day the lifts started dieing about 4 hours in to the day... Call the company, and they send a tech out the next day... He checks out everything, and the lifts are fine, so his judgement is we're doing something wrong... Now I've run scissors and other types of electric lifts for years... I know how to plug the damn things in, but I went over with him exactly what we plugged them in to, and how long they charged, and that no we were not tripping any breakers...
At any rate, he left confused, and we were left pissed... The next day, I didn't go in as I had to move my girlfriend to a new apartment... My partner called while I was driving down there... He had discovered the problem... The facility guys were shutting off the power to the entire building some time after we left for the day, and kicking it on shortly before we got there in the morning... The lifts were getting about an hour of charge time every night rather than the 8 they require... I'm surprised and impressed that the lifts were giving us as much service as they did...
Who saw that coming...
So we had a 4 person crew in at the benefit today... 4 plus me actually... They did lighting in the morning, and I set up the stage by my self... No big deal really... What annoys me today, is that I could pack up my tools, and not bring a crew in tomorrow, and the event would go over just fine, and the beautiful people that attend these things would never know the difference... Instead, we are running a 6 person crew, plus my partner, to go in and do notes that nobody but the production personnel will know about...
Its a shame that the client doesn't know enough to say that we're fine... I mean its good for me since we make a little money on the labor, but really, I'd rather the money just stayed with the charity at this point...
What ever...
Ok... So What the hell is with Kansas?... I can understand the debate that goes on over teaching intelligent design vs evolution... I don't think it has much merit, but I can see how people might push it... What I have an impossible time with is the Kansas Board of Ed redefining Science... Apparently science now no longer needs to look for "natural explanations" for anything... So now, if you live in Kansas, it would be ok for someone to tell you, you are sick, because there is a small unhappy dwarf living in your abdomen... Or, that you didn't crash your car because you were driving badly, but because a giant ethereal hand appeared and pushed your car in to the mini-van full of kids...
What The Fuck!!!
You can convince me of the supernatural when you can show me some hard proof... Possibilities exist for everything... But they're just that, possibilities... They're not science... They're not logical... You want to discuss the supernatural, take a religious studies class, or some fruity philosophy class... Don't try to water down science with what can not be proven... The Theory of Evolution is in fact a Theory, and not a law... It was never explained as a law to me, it was always a Theory... I accept it as a Theory... The idea of someone/something creating everything is pretty bloody well clear as a religious idea...
Every time I hear from anyone in the intelligent design realm, they are spending their time attacking the theory of evolution, rather than trying to actually support their idea...
I am so terribly glad I decided I don't want kids... There is no way in hell I would let them go to a school system that let this shit fly...
The rental company managed to forget to pack the power disconnect boxes that interface the chain hoist controllers to the rather copious amounts of power at the wall... I mean come on, its not like I had to have all the truss hanging today right?...
Several phone calls and some hours later, the issue was solved... Many thanks to the Cat Power guy that made me an adapter so I could at least run a few hoists at a time to get me by...
Tomorrow is really going to suck in ways that I can't imagine... And let me say, I have a hell of an imagination...
So we're doing this benefit job... Its been something of a headache until today... Today it became a migraine...
The producer called today to ask if I thought we should add a fourth scissor lift... I thought that strange since we were only providing 2 to begin with and I thought we might perhaps go to the three level before finding ourselves at four... Somehow the third somehow slipped his mind... Whatever... Partner called and made that happen...
The electrician emailed everyone today trying to find out who the rigger is... Producer emails back (we're getting CC'd on everything)that we are the rigging company... Funny, I would have thought I might have been consulted on say, the structural questions, and just exactly what kind of gear they should have for us if I was the rigger... Apparently this was a punt type answer from the producer since he thought the electrician was responsible for that aspect... Nice that I found out today at noon so I had a whole 5 hours left during the business day to make the arrangements... Thankfully the rental guy will be in tomorrow too... (there's no way in hell I have enough gear in my little shop to handle this gig for rigging)
After I got the rigging order out to the rental shop, the email pinged again... Files from the sound company and their rigging requirements... Rework the rental order, and I managed to get it out about 4:45...
While the sound rigging issue was being dealt with, my partner and I looked at the quantity of gear coming in, and the crew size we were providing and the two didn't add up... 6 guys can not unload two full 53' trucks, without a loading dock (aka use a ramp for everything) and then manage to hang almost 500' of truss and associated rigging in one eight hour day... We'd loose probably 3 to the trucks alone, assuming nobody got killed on the ramp, and nobody blew out their back unstacking motor cases... So my partner arranged for a forklift... Annoyingly its a different division of the same company we got the scissor lifts from, and it has to be written up separately...
So we finally got out of the shop around 6:15... I went to have a beer and some dinner... Sat down and my glasses fell apart... Like I have time to deal with that...
To top off the day, I heard from the shop where my truck is... Blown computer, blown circuit board, screwed up charging system... They haven't even looked in to the lack of power yet since it might be a computer issue... By the time this is all done, I will have been able to have put a nice down payment on something completely new...
I'd say I can't wait for the week to end, but that's when the shows start, so its a very sharp double edged sword...
Is it July yet?...
Scooped up another almost 200 pounds of acorns today... Just the section of lawn in the back to go... That should be the bulk of the Acorns, the lawn should be mostly maple leaves from my rear neighbor. The giant tomato plants are coming out tomorrow as well... I should be able to give the dirt a good turning over the weekend some time, and then the yard should be ready for winter mostly... I'd like to get some winterizer down on the lawn, but I just don't know if I'm going to manage to find the time in the next two weeks...
My house has no trees on the property... However, it doesn't look like one of those horrible new places where there are no trees... Just past my property lines on both sides are oak trees that are a minimum of 60 years old... They reach out and shape my place almost completely, and it makes for a gorgeous effect in the spring and summer...
Then there's the fall... Oak trees drop acorns, not to mention leaves... You can imagine how many acorns huge old trees like these drop... If you're not around oaks much, you probably don't know that everything seemed to come together for the oaks this year, and they have produced record amounts of acorns... I'm not even going to mention the hammering my roof and skylight took as they kept falling for over a month...
My house is set pretty close to the road... I also have a driveway on one side of the property... That leaves probably 40 feet wide, and 11 or 12 feet deep between the house and the street.... Subtract a sidewalk from that, and you have a couple strips around 4' x 40'... That's not exactly a large front yard... So how many acorns do you suppose I could rake out of that 320 square feet today?...
10 pounds?... Please...
25 pounds?... Not even close...
50 pounds?... Keep going...
75 pounds?... Nope...
100 pounds?... Yea... 100 pounds of bloody acorns... You having a hard time visualizing that?... OK... It filled around 1.25 45-gallon garbage pails...
Yea... tomorrow I'm going to try to do the back yard, which doesn't get as many, and the driveway which is covered for 65 feet... Friday will be gutters, which I am sure are full of the damn things too...
I can see I am going to hate those wonderful trees every fall...
We're involved with a pretty sizable benefit event next week... Much of the gear, and some of the labor is being donated by various companies... We are providing some staging, lots of labor, and some heavy equipment (scissor lifts, and parking lot light towers)... This all seems fine at first glimpse... Where it gets nerve wracking is that I can't be sure that everything that is needed for my labor force to be useful is going to be provided... For example, the notes on the light plot specify a number of things that are important... They miss however some of the nuts and blots type gear like tape, tie line, zip ties, truss wrenches, etc... No big deal really if I could find out who is responsible for that sort of stuff on this event... I tracked down half the answer over the last two days, only to be posed with another mystery person to track down to find the balance of the answer...
Part of me is thinking that we're all professionals, and those very basic things shouldn't have to be listed in the notes... The other part of me is going nuts imagining that I'm going to show up, and there will be no wrenches to assemble the 400'+ of truss... Lots of people would just take it on faith that the gear will come in... Lots of people would simply say it isn't their responsibility to check on those details... Lots of people would sleep just fine and never think about something as mundane as tape...
I'm not lots of people...
That's why we don't tend to have many issues on site... However that doesn't help me sleep at night...
Do you recall last December and January when I was complaining bitterly about a set of railings for a big show I was working on?... No?... Allow me to refresh your mind here... I'll wait...
Ok, well that particular show is back... Its in a different location this year, but the deck is identical to last years... One would say then that the railing would be the same, and had we actually built the railing last year, then you'd be right... However, last year, the client didn't want to spend the money on the railing, and so they ended up with rental railing that made their hugely expensive event look like it was hosted in a football stadium... Needless to say, they were unhappy with that aspect last year, and vowed to do it differently...
Enter the design for this year's event... Now I was hoping that I could simply pull out all my paperwork from last year, and update material pricing, and I'd be done... Sadly, that will not be the case... While the layout will be the same as last years proposal, the rail "look" is different, and the posts now have speakers and microphones built in to them...
Yea... They wouldn't spend the money for basically simple attractive railings last year, and this year, they want completely custom units with speakers and mics built in... Folks, I can't even begin to tell you the kind of money that will cost... Now, I have a couple sneaky ideas running around my head that might just let me pull this off easily, but I'm not going to get too excited yet...
I'm just sure you'll hear more about this one down the road...