Weekend Wrapup

We all need to invest in a toolbelt of some sort for you. Between your phone falling in the nooks and your buger falling in the nooks you need more pockets or something.

To be fair the burger fail was purely down to me being half pissed :grin: Still can't find it. She's going to murder me if I don't have it out of there by time she gets home :cry:
 
Friday. Dealt with Mom in the hospital.

Saturday. Dealt with getting mom out of hospital. Shes home and now on a walker. Figuring out next steps. In 48 years she missed my birthday. I didnt say anything. Its a sign of her declining health.

Saturday night. Went to my birthday dinner with current GF of over 4 years. She decides to tell me she is done with me just to cap the end of a shit week.

Sunday. Practiced with the new band. Next practice will ne nothing but starting songs, ending songs to tighten up the band.

Sad thing is I sort of liked this miserable past week because it made me lose weight.
Yeah. What jelloman said. Mas mojo.
 
Friday. Dealt with Mom in the hospital.

Saturday. Dealt with getting mom out of hospital. Shes home and now on a walker. Figuring out next steps. In 48 years she missed my birthday. I didnt say anything. Its a sign of her declining health.

Saturday night. Went to my birthday dinner with current GF of over 4 years. She decides to tell me she is done with me just to cap the end of a shit week.

Sunday. Practiced with the new band. Next practice will ne nothing but starting songs, ending songs to tighten up the band.

Sad thing is I sort of liked this miserable past week because it made me lose weight.

Always look on the bright side of life.

Sounds like a bad week, here's hoping the next is better.
 
Friday. Dealt with Mom in the hospital.

Saturday. Dealt with getting mom out of hospital. Shes home and now on a walker. Figuring out next steps. In 48 years she missed my birthday. I didnt say anything. Its a sign of her declining health.

Saturday night. Went to my birthday dinner with current GF of over 4 years. She decides to tell me she is done with me just to cap the end of a shit week.

Sunday. Practiced with the new band. Next practice will ne nothing but starting songs, ending songs to tighten up the band.

Sad thing is I sort of liked this miserable past week because it made me lose weight.
Much mojo to you. Watching your parents age is not fun. The GF blowing you off on your birthday is just low class; you deserve better.
 
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Friday - worked. LOL! Then, did some more trim work for the stairs. I fabbed up some blocks to put at each side of the top of the stairs. This will allow me to cut the nosing at straight lines. The nosing transitions from the vinyl floor in the kitchen to the stairs. It also shortens the length of nosing needed and fills in a gap that would have been left between the nosing and the top newel post.

Saturday - got finish on those blocks. Tried to attend a street festival. It was a gong show. Wife snapped at me while we were trying to find the proper entrance and I nearly left her there. She wanted to go because a band that she likes was playing later on. We get in and it's basically a bunch of food trucks, a few vendors (very few), the stage, and a fuck-ton of people and no place to sit and no place to put your food or drink down. The opener was playing all of the songs that the headliner usually plays. Yay! I get to hear shit songs twice! After the opener played their encore (Freebird. It was pretty well done actually. The solos were no where near accurate but fit well enough), and I reminded everyone that it would be about 45 minutes before the next band was ready to go, my wife said Let's just go. It was all I could do to not start running for the parking lot. Somehow, this is all my fault because I think the band she wanted to see sucks. They don't suck. I just don't like the pop-song stuff they do.

Sunday - went to sort out computer issues at my sister in law's house. Came home and the bird bit me on the face. Little fucker. Then helped my daughter brush up her resume.
 
friend was in from out of town, so the weekend was spent biking around town and eating too much and drinking too much. Chicagoans who are into frou-frou fusion bullshit should check out Parachute, it's really really good (frou-frou korean fusion bullshit)
 
Look what I found!
 

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Friday. Dealt with Mom in the hospital.

Saturday. Dealt with getting mom out of hospital. Shes home and now on a walker. Figuring out next steps. In 48 years she missed my birthday. I didnt say anything. Its a sign of her declining health.

Saturday night. Went to my birthday dinner with current GF of over 4 years. She decides to tell me she is done with me just to cap the end of a shit week.

Sunday. Practiced with the new band. Next practice will ne nothing but starting songs, ending songs to tighten up the band.

Sad thing is I sort of liked this miserable past week because it made me lose weight.

Sorry 12pack, just read this after rambling on about my burger.

Mojo to your mum. That's a hard one to witness. As for the gf - fuck her if she's going to bail on you at a time like this on your birthday.
 
Thanks for all the Mojo guys.

Is what it is. I can only control what I can. Cant control others or always understand their actions. Going through some past ugly issues made me grow up where in the past I would have floundered.


Not much really gets under my skin like it use to. Im still smiling and upbeat and will focus my energy with my work, mayorship, kids and guitar. Its all good.:thu:
 
Friday. Dealt with Mom in the hospital.

Saturday. Dealt with getting mom out of hospital. Shes home and now on a walker. Figuring out next steps. In 48 years she missed my birthday. I didnt say anything. Its a sign of her declining health.

Saturday night. Went to my birthday dinner with current GF of over 4 years. She decides to tell me she is done with me just to cap the end of a shit week.

Sunday. Practiced with the new band. Next practice will ne nothing but starting songs, ending songs to tighten up the band.

Sad thing is I sort of liked this miserable past week because it made me lose weight.

Ugh. Sorry, man.
 
This is a bit more of a "week wrap-up" because I spent the whole weekend and most of the week leading up to it at Summer NAMM in Nashville! One of my oldest friends has started a guitar company and while we went last year to source parts, this year we were exhibiting. The last few weeks have been a big push and there were lots of ups and down along the way, including us almost pulling out of the trip last minute due to a major hardware failure at the shop.

Wed: Got up at 5:embarrassed:0, because we wanted to hit the road by 6:30. We got about a two hour late start after loading up the car and realizing we left a few things we needed back at the shop, so we had to take a trip back across town to grab them. Ride down was fine; I rode with my friend and his dad (who is also involved with the company) and we talked strategy and plans for the weekend. Once we got to the convention center we had to load in our gear and set up our booth, which was unfortunately semi-obstructed by a pillar, reducing out actual useable area. We managed to talk to one of the coordinators at the show and arrange a bit of spillover to the other side of the pillar. From there we started doing some last minute set-up work and restrings. Got out around 6, went to the motel to check in, then drove back to the city for some BBQ. Went to bed after that.

Thurs: First day of our first ever exhibiting NAMM show. We got there earlier for the big NAMM breakfast and opening conference, then booked it to our booth. We had some issues with our rig (Bias on the iPad) but finally got it set-up... but no one was stopping by to play. For the most part people just jammed in their booths and we tried to attract people to just stop and look... if you've never been to NAMM before it's hard to describe the sensory overload you experience there. One of our artists - Dylan - who lives in Nashville but was from our hometown came by and he brought in his guitar and rig and played for most of the day, letting us mingle and meet people more. We knew we weren't going to have a lot of time to check out gear for ourselves, but I managed to snag a short break to head over to one booth to try this guy's new signature guitar and chat with him a bit:

19961420_10103984510555778_4954431698880081902_n.jpg


Mid-day our head luthier was finally able to make it down and he did some more set-up work, as the instruments weren't very happy from the long hot drive right into a low-humidity room that was really chilly. Got to talk to @dougk for a bit, as he had a few instruments in the NAMM Showcase and he was kind enough to stop by our booth for a few minutes and see what we brought with us, as well as talk us through our "first show jitters." After the show we grabbed dinner at a Golden Corral that we'd been to on a previous trip and is somehow not just good for a buffet, but just GOOD. If our local Golden Corral tasted like that I'd consider eating there.

Friday: Back to the booth and one of our other artists - Nick - drove down from Cinci to trade off manning the booth with Dylan. Our luthier's wife was coming down too... she's helped out in the shop several times and isn't just a "booth girl"... she knows a lot about the instruments and is happy to be down there and push us to succeed. Nick has a deal with Levy's straps and he spent some time over there with his sig guitar and after that he had a great interview with Brad Tolinski (former editor of Guitar World) where he talked quite a bit about his signature model. Brad was a really nice guy and at the end of the interview he posed for a photo with the whole (participating) Waits Instruments crew:

19959447_10155301378370937_1239565197158645895_n.jpg


Also got to have a chat with this guy and talked to him about stopping by our booth - John Bohlinger of Premier Guitar.

19956945_10203459159435138_6502505728014245231_o.jpg


Following a long day at the show, we went back to the motel to grab some dinner (awesome BBQ joint right next to the motel), then went to an after party at Sputnik Sound where I got to see some old friends that @jaxn slim introduced me several years back, plus some other people I had met at the show. It was an awesome night and really helped invigorate us for the last day of the show.

Saturday: We were late getting to the show because out motel fucked up checkout info, plus a massive rainstorm reduced highway speeds to a crawl. Our goal of the day was to get as many dealers and players as possible to come check us out, so we took shifts wandering the floor and manning the booth. I know I had some really great conversations with some dealers and other exhibitors and we're in talks to collaborate on some new items with a booth or two... you'll have to wait for Anaheim to see those though. :wink: My other goal of the day was to get John and Premier Guitar over to our booth and right before the end of the show I got it to happen!

20106544_10203463355940048_6400872719085989152_n.jpg


John was super gracious and head great things to say about our guitars, particularly the Seifert 001E that he was holding in that picture. As a matter of fact, he liked it enough to lead off with Waits Instruments as one of the editors picks at Premier's Guitar Day 3 recap!!! :eek::love: It was pretty mind-blowing to have a guy that I've frequently watched review gear and interview some of my favorite musicians have such great things to say about the instruments we're building and it definitely left us feeling like we closed the show on a high note. We broke down the booth and headed back home, although Nick, Jesse, and Courtney stayed for one more day.

Sunday: Took it super easy. Ashlee let me sleep in, then I went out to mow the yard and spend some time with her. She had to leave for St. Louis for a few days, so her parents took her to the airport and I got to relax and watch the new Game of Thrones.

It was a hectic whirlwind of a weekend and it was pretty emotional at times... we had to grow a thick skin sometimes, but as a shop we bonded and are starting to see our efforts rewarded and are really excited for whatever will come next.
 
Mojo 12Pack. We are going through something similar with Dad. He needs to move to assisted living and while he agrees he says not just now...it's been that way for a while but his memory has been poor since the skiing accident 15 years ago and it's getting harder and harder for him to do anything (like cooking cleaning etc). It doesn't help that I'm 3000 miles away either.

@Tig I used lights rather than socks for improved visibility :)

Not much this weekend. The weather turned hot on Saturday so I wasn't able to do much yard work. Didn't do the evening dog walk until 7:45 when it was finally cool enough to go.
Got up early on Sunday to ride. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be so I went 43 miles and I was fast for me, fastest I think I've done that particular route. Maybe I was going faster to beat the inevitable heat which came in the afternoon. We cracked the century mark so the evening walk was even later. It's supposed to be cooler this week though.
 
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This is a bit more of a "week wrap-up" because I spent the whole weekend and most of the week leading up to it at Summer NAMM in Nashville! One of my oldest friends has started a guitar company and while we went last year to source parts, this year we were exhibiting. The last few weeks have been a big push and there were lots of ups and down along the way, including us almost pulling out of the trip last minute due to a major hardware failure at the shop.

Wed: Got up at 5:embarrassed:0, because we wanted to hit the road by 6:30. We got about a two hour late start after loading up the car and realizing we left a few things we needed back at the shop, so we had to take a trip back across town to grab them. Ride down was fine; I rode with my friend and his dad (who is also involved with the company) and we talked strategy and plans for the weekend. Once we got to the convention center we had to load in our gear and set up our booth, which was unfortunately semi-obstructed by a pillar, reducing out actual useable area. We managed to talk to one of the coordinators at the show and arrange a bit of spillover to the other side of the pillar. From there we started doing some last minute set-up work and restrings. Got out around 6, went to the motel to check in, then drove back to the city for some BBQ. Went to bed after that.

Thurs: First day of our first ever exhibiting NAMM show. We got there earlier for the big NAMM breakfast and opening conference, then booked it to our booth. We had some issues with our rig (Bias on the iPad) but finally got it set-up... but no one was stopping by to play. For the most part people just jammed in their booths and we tried to attract people to just stop and look... if you've never been to NAMM before it's hard to describe the sensory overload you experience there. One of our artists - Dylan - who lives in Nashville but was from our hometown came by and he brought in his guitar and rig and played for most of the day, letting us mingle and meet people more. We knew we weren't going to have a lot of time to check out gear for ourselves, but I managed to snag a short break to head over to one booth to try this guy's new signature guitar and chat with him a bit:

19961420_10103984510555778_4954431698880081902_n.jpg


Mid-day our head luthier was finally able to make it down and he did some more set-up work, as the instruments weren't very happy from the long hot drive right into a low-humidity room that was really chilly. Got to talk to @dougk for a bit, as he had a few instruments in the NAMM Showcase and he was kind enough to stop by our booth for a few minutes and see what we brought with us, as well as talk us through our "first show jitters." After the show we grabbed dinner at a Golden Corral that we'd been to on a previous trip and is somehow not just good for a buffet, but just GOOD. If our local Golden Corral tasted like that I'd consider eating there.

Friday: Back to the booth and one of our other artists - Nick - drove down from Cinci to trade off manning the booth with Dylan. Our luthier's wife was coming down too... she's helped out in the shop several times and isn't just a "booth girl"... she knows a lot about the instruments and is happy to be down there and push us to succeed. Nick has a deal with Levy's straps and he spent some time over there with his sig guitar and after that he had a great interview with Brad Tolinski (former editor of Guitar World) where he talked quite a bit about his signature model. Brad was a really nice guy and at the end of the interview he posed for a photo with the whole (participating) Waits Instruments crew:

19959447_10155301378370937_1239565197158645895_n.jpg


Also got to have a chat with this guy and talked to him about stopping by our booth - John Bohlinger of Premier Guitar.

19956945_10203459159435138_6502505728014245231_o.jpg


Following a long day at the show, we went back to the motel to grab some dinner (awesome BBQ joint right next to the motel), then went to an after party at Sputnik Sound where I got to see some old friends that @jaxn slim introduced me several years back, plus some other people I had met at the show. It was an awesome night and really helped invigorate us for the last day of the show.

Saturday: We were late getting to the show because out motel fucked up checkout info, plus a massive rainstorm reduced highway speeds to a crawl. Our goal of the day was to get as many dealers and players as possible to come check us out, so we took shifts wandering the floor and manning the booth. I know I had some really great conversations with some dealers and other exhibitors and we're in talks to collaborate on some new items with a booth or two... you'll have to wait for Anaheim to see those though. :wink: My other goal of the day was to get John and Premier Guitar over to our booth and right before the end of the show I got it to happen!

20106544_10203463355940048_6400872719085989152_n.jpg


John was super gracious and head great things to say about our guitars, particularly the Seifert 001E that he was holding in that picture. As a matter of fact, he liked it enough to lead off with Waits Instruments as one of the editors picks at Premier's Guitar Day 3 recap!!! :eek::love: It was pretty mind-blowing to have a guy that I've frequently watched review gear and interview some of my favorite musicians have such great things to say about the instruments we're building and it definitely left us feeling like we closed the show on a high note. We broke down the booth and headed back home, although Nick, Jesse, and Courtney stayed for one more day.

Sunday: Took it super easy. Ashlee let me sleep in, then I went out to mow the yard and spend some time with her. She had to leave for St. Louis for a few days, so her parents took her to the airport and I got to relax and watch the new Game of Thrones.

It was a hectic whirlwind of a weekend and it was pretty emotional at times... we had to grow a thick skin sometimes, but as a shop we bonded and are starting to see our efforts rewarded and are really excited for whatever will come next.

Damn, sounds like you had a killer week. i can't wait to see more of those guitars and hear what you are doing with them.
 
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