What A Great Day We Had

Yesterday we spent the day cleaning out our shed. We actually started this job while the kids were on Christmas break but actually got around to finishing the job yesterday. While cleaning the shed, my mom, found some old financial records from back in the mid 90's and decided it was time to get rid of them. She asked me if I could burn them... I said sure.

There were several old bricks in the shed that I used to build a barrier around the roughly 3 ft. across fire pit I dug. For safety reasons I had a water hose standing by, a shovel, and the pile of dirt, to throw on the fire, from where I had dug out the pit. Once I got the fire going I started burning mom's papers. Well, one thing led to another and by late afternoon we all has smores running down our chins and arms. That situation then turned into me going to the store to get hotdogs to roast over the open flame. Plus I was getting to burn off some old, dead limbs that had been accumulating in my yard. Not a bad deal. Get some work done and have a great time with the family.

That is until the fire department showed up. Some nosy neighbor called the fire department on us. The guys showed up and were very cool. They saw what we were doing and basically said have a nice evening. That as long as we were cooking... we were fine. Well, mister nosy neighbor didn't think that was good enough and called the fire boys 2 more times. Complained that there was too much in my back yard that could burn and he wanted "that" fire out now!

The fire boys showed up again, irritated, not at me, but at whomever called them. Again they were very cool but told me to hose it out. The thing is, there wasn't even a flame by this time. It was just about burned out.

What really gets me is it's not like we were being irresponsible with the fire. It burned for 8 hours and was never un-attended. It was in the middle of my back yard away from anything that could catch fire. Even the fireman said there was nothing that could catch fire. This was just some jerk imposing his will on me. This persons apparent entitlement to not let me do what I was doing in my own back yard. He could do what he wanted but I couldn't?!

The fireman told me to go to Walmart and get one of those free standing fireplaces, put it in my backyard and start the biggest fire I could. He said the fire would be in an approved fire container and there would be nothing Captain Complainer could do about it. Guess what I'm going to do!

Down to Earth T-Shirt Designs

Let me know if anyone has a preference.

#1

Last night I went over to James Pergollati's house (he's the singer in Down to Earth) because he and I were going to be interviewed, live on the air, by DJ Hardcore Jeff of JAAP Radio. They are and independent, internet based radio station and are syndicated in some other markets around the country.

At 9 pm last night we called in to the radio station and were interviewed. The interview went great. Basic questions like how did the band start? How did you start playing music/guitar? Who are your influences? What are your goals? Etc. etc. etc. Somewhere in the middle of all the questions the DJ let a little piece of news slip that neither James nor I were aware of. We did, obviously, know the station had been playing our song, 20 Shades of Grey, in heavy rotation. We also have been posting bulletins on My Space asking folks to call the station to request us.

What we didn't know, until DJ Jeff told us, was that 20 Shades is currently the number one requested song on JAAP Radio!

I'm going to let that sink in a bit.....

Down to Earth.... my band.... the one that I play guitar for.... has the #1 most requested song on JAAP Radio.

Now I know this is a small independent station. I know this is a relatively small market even if it is a syndicated station. I know that this doesn't really mean that much in the big picture of things. I know this is only one step of many. Doesn't matter! Think about it like this... this is only one station, syndicated in 4 or 5 other markets. If the song, as well as any proceeding songs, does well, other stations are likely to pick up the song(s). The more markets the song gets to the better the chance of it doing well. Obviously, things could go the other way and tank completely. For now, with one song doing so well I'm looking to the positive. The band just needs to keep working hard and keep doing what we are doing.

One cool thing is that with a song--and more to come--on the air... the band gets royalty checks every quarter. The more markets we can get into... the bigger the checks. It's just a small start for now. Hey, this band is only 6 months old. Not bad!

Ciao,
Mark.

Out With The Old, In With The New

That seems to be the theme of 2008. At least around our house so far. The other day my wife and kids took down the Christmas decorations and got rid of a lot of stuff. Probably not enough stuff for my taste, but a lot of stuff never the less. Today the boys are working in our big shed getting rid of some old oak logs that we collected a couple of years ago when Florida was getting hit by so many hurricanes. The plan was to use them in our fire place. Did I mention that we live in Florida? Hey, two nights ago it got down to 27 degrees at my house! Of course tomorrow it will be in the 70's... but that's Florida for you.

Back to the story... we are getting rid of a lot of stuff. Trimming the fat so to speak. And yes, I really need to trim the fat off of my gut too! But right now we're just dealing with the house. Or rather the stuff that's in the house. It has to happen every so often. That's what spring cleaning was invented for. We just happen to be a little bit ahead of spring and this is a good thing. Just sitting back and taking inventory of what to keep, what to let go... it feels kind of like a nice warm shower. You feel nice and fresh when it's over.

I've got to go now and help the boys load up the quasi fire wood into our van so we can go dump it. I guess I should have waited to take my shower this morning... oh well.

Till next time...
Mark.