Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

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It took me a while to figure out what those things were. I saw them everywhere in Europe and rarely in the US. Unlike the US which uses concrete on most sidewalks in major cities, asphalt is more common over here. What I found most intriguing about the kickstand dents is that each on represents a human coming to work or home on a single hot day. You can almost tell how long a person has worked or lived somewhere by the number of dents, how hot the days were and if they they got a new motorcycle or scooter. Also it it seems that each person has a preferred spot to park as specific dent designs tend to cluster. Based on the somewhat isolated location of this particular dent cluster, I would hypothesize that all these dents represent the parking pattern of a single human/motorcycle combination occurring over perhaps a one or two year period.

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And speaking of pictures, here is a picture I have been meaning to post. As you may know, roadie Nick the Fly is not out with us this tour leg as he had some family business to attend to, nothing bad, all good but he needed to hang with his peeps for some special occasions. So roadie Lee is filling in as FOH sound tech pirate and since roadie Lee is from New Orleans, he has some instinctual pirate skills which he demonstrated with this clever invention

At first glance you may just see a fierce sword yielding pirate but upon deeper analysis you also may notice that attached to the sword is our long range digital thermometer gun. With this useful setup you can see me preparing to act in a pirate-like manner while simultaneously measuring the room temperatures. Several times during each show I take an average temperature reading of the upper level and lower level of the venue and then PIN message the info to roadie Bill. He then instruct the venue humans whether to warm or cool the room. This Swordometer is truly a genius invention by roadie Lee! Maybe we should send a letter to the thermometer company and suggest they add the Swordometer to their offerings.

Oh, and check out the Fresno style watch and cool pirate belt buckle! Both were special gifts from my friends Chris and Daniella. who own the company amazingbeltbuckles.com . What you do not see is the other pirate belt buckle they gave me. I would love to show it to ya as it said "Dead Men Tale No Tales" and it was incredibly piratey, had a zippo lighter behind it and a bottle opener as well. Where is it you ponder? That is the same thing I am pondering. It seems to have escaped the confines of me bag. Arrrgh!

Switzerland is famous for chocolate, Alps, watches and clinging on to what may be the most money in the world in secret Swiss bank accounts. I guess that when you have that much money, it is not uncommon for things to get a bit expensive though logic could justify the opposite. Switzerland has expensive wired which just increases the enjoyment of finding a good deal here. This watch was near irresistible and though they would not let me touch it or photo it, they did let me take a pic of a pic.If all goes well, I hope to stop by and pick up a few of these tomorrow

Now if you do the currency conversion from Swiss Franc to a US dollar it really makes it steal at just around $ 300,000 dollars. Plus, speaking of necessities

So what did we do? Well, "Hey roadies, who wants to go out and drink a bunch of $ 10 beers?" So off to the bar and we get a taste of Swiss humor from the house band

That is some really funny stuff, time piece humor always cracks me up!

The pondering purchasing a watch,

Dave Rat