Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Good morning world of coldness

Blizzards are both cold and windy. Furthermore, they tend to heap a big pile of inconvenience onto this contraption called life. While slippery is an asset for some things, when blankets of snow form a slippery layer between car tires and the earth on which they travel, the likelihood of a less than optimum outcome is considerably increased. Being that our roadie lives are spent a midst a traveling road show, it is safe to say that we are not overly thrilled that this blizzard has decided to showcase it's capabilities in the same city and time that we are attempting to rock. The treacherous blizzard attempts to unrockify us but to no avail as we will persevere sally forth and onward ho.

**** Electric Inside ****

Something so magnetically wonderful about the going inside where the electrons flow. Ooooh, she is electric inside! and in we go as a piece of gear has found the desire for some special attention. This time it is the CD burner that records the reference CD's off the Pro Tools rig. These are the disks that on any particular day a band member will request a recording of the show to hear a certain jam or approve something for a Euro "B" side or numerous other things that inspire a listen from their side. It stopped working yesterday but too late try and fix for the gig. Also and of course, JF wants a copy of the yesterday's gig, Arrrrgh!! No major deal as we can re-copy it off the Protools recording but, it is just too funny how the day it stops working is one of the not so common show-listen requests. So, this little guy has been a die hard workhorse and in a world where CD recorders on the road often have an average life span of less than a year, this 5 year old unit is/was amazing. It wont read CD's was the initial problem and then I tried the "8 inch drop" method of mechanical realignment only to find that the CD tray became fully jammed and loose things have now appeared inside. Further attempts at the drop method proved equally frivolous. Apart she comes, and Roadie Lee has her in pieces for me to gander.

and in that boxy box is where the issue lives. I forgot to photo the full glory of all the guts involved but it turns out the the problem was the lasery spining thing decided that it was going mobile.

The lose bits were screws and after some figuring, fiddling and only a small hand full of spare parts, hurray she is all fixed up!!! Plus, it was the special day for repairs as I got to fix JF's and Chad's iPod's as well! One had a faulty hold switch and the other was locked up so I took them both apart, reseated the wire to the hold switch and pulled the battery and then did a system reset to fix the locked unit. Three for three, today is a good day!!

**** Bye Bye for now, Electric Inside ****

Hello old school transportation method. How glad am I that the tour bus has superceded this as a way to get around.

Lets see, figure 4 roadies per coach and we have 60 crew so we would need 15 or so of these, no back lounge, no coffee machine, no bunks, wow so glad I was not doing a major rock tour in the mid 1800's!! Those roadies had it rough.

**** Scott the Lampi's Comic ****

**** End Scott the Lampi's Comic ****

Hey, wait a minute, Scotty you just wait till I tell the rest of the story!!

Dave Rat