September 2006
Saturday, Sept 30
Spent this past week on a TV shoot/field recording for the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism. If I go next year, I absolutely will have superior mic pre's; the ones on the Edinol recorder are only useful for basic, on-the-fly material. I also will have a laptop, for pre-editing the recorded material while I stand by for hours, ready for the next round.
The Grand Prize Highlight of the trip: exiting the hotel parking lot at 6:30 CST with several spare hours, only minutes from the Smokies. I chose the Cucumber Gap-Goshen Prong trail out of Elkmont, and walked over six miles up. I'd thought maybe I could actually get all the way up to the Appalachian Trail, but stopped at a sign saying that it was four and a half miles to go. I still had to hike out, so I turned around. My city-soft right heel is a bit ripped up, but is not an issue. The Goshen Prong trail is quite spectacular (sorry, no camera), and I will be returning to do a loop trip.
Thursday, Sept 21
I'm still here.
Anybody who's interested, please pardon me for not posting any photos of the money pit.
--EDIT: photos below (underwhelming)
I got to a point where my remaining shards of enthusiasm were overtaken by somewhat frantic attempts at keeping up with the now rapid progress. It's the homestretch detail stage, and I am out of my element.
At my electrician's suggestion, I took all the recessed light ring trims and the air grills to be powdercoated to match the room's hardware. I took them to PTS, adjacent to R n B Motorcycles, at the back corner of the old City Cemetery.
I have an appointment tomorrow with some New York Italian to look at granite remnants for a countertop. (Also across from the City Cemetery; is this an omen? I do have ancestors buried there...)
I couldn't find a faucet fixture anywhere in Nashville that I liked and didn't cost a stupid fortune (I now officially despise Home Depot's Expo center and every fucking useless shithead that works there, and Lowe's is not far behind), so I ended up getting what I wanted at a good price from Faucet Direct dot com.
Had to find a bar refrigerator. Resigning to convenience, I went to a nearby independently owned place serving the southwest Nashville area - read: Belle Meade and otherwise. I figured a difference of fifty or a hundred bucks, no problem, I'll get one now and keep moving. The saleswoman had more important things to do, and foul breath. An eighteen-inch model was over eight hundred dollars, the twenty-five inch was over eleven-hundred. I said thanks (for letting me bother you, bitch) and left. This was A-1 Appliance at the 70-100 split. Don't go there unless you believe the staff will be intimidated by your socio-economic brute force. Went to (b)Lowe's and found a good sized, nice looking Frigidaire for $170. So there.
I'm talking back and forth with a company in Pennsylvania about a cell phone amplifier/repeater, a must-have for the studio. I've bought a Yagi antenna to go with the repeater; it's a big, unsightly wedge-shaped directional device that requires precise positioning on the roof like a satellite dish antenna. I have to test it today so I can send it back if it doesn't do the trick. And let me just say here that I could have bought a couple of standard-issue microphones for what this fucking rig is costing.
And folks, I will be a very happy man on the day I can stop writing payroll checks at the end of each week.
More later, maybe cheerful. The place is starting to look and sound pretty cool.
--Edit:
The final dumpster. A thirty-yard one, I filled it all myself. Took three hours, slow-ass norteamericano.
Marco Lima, expert with fabric.
Soon to have cherry wood trim and recessed light trims.
Multiple thick glass panels are a week away.
Curly cherry will be high glossed.
My sweet old dusty construction dog.
happy happy
Friday, Sept 1
Happy September.
After three or four weeks of mid-nineties kickass humid summer, the smallest decrease in temperature makes me think it's nearly autumn, even though it's still full-blown summer.
But now, September is here, and that really means autumn is coming. Of course, we'll now have three weeks of that prickly, dry, why-is-it-still-so-damn-hot weather.
I am starting to believe that I will be in business at the end of this month. It will be like going back to school, a month late. Better late than never.
The Eventide is happy again. I want the thing in a RACK, in the STUDIO, not on a barstool in the bedroom.
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