so i guess its time for an update! 

lets see whats going on..

firstly,
today is the one year anniversary of Megan and I's first date! 
wooo! 
its been an awesome first year and i dont think i could be happier
lookin forward to more! 

october has been madness!   lots of travelling!  
we went to:
San Francisco (1st weekend of october)
Perry Sound (2nd weekend of october)
Owen Sound (4th weekend of october)

going to try and stay local for a bit, but i think there's also a trip to montreal coming up on the 13th! 
we'll see what happens for that ;)

In other life fronts, work has been going much better once I went out to cali to meet everybody.  I wasn't feeling much of a personal connection, and now I do and its definitely improved.   

the band stuff is going.. OK.. we honestly haven't been practicing much lately.. I think a lot of life stuff has gotten in the way and unfortunately its taken a back-burner..  Hopefully with the upcoming winter months we can refocus, get our new songs finished off and work on another show! 

condo life is going well.  i re-financed my mortgage to get rid of some debt thats been piling high, and in doing so I'm paying over $800 less a month and i'm no longer.. living pay check to pay check.  I also used some of the re-finance money to buy myself a new fancy TV.  Her name is Loretta, and she is 46" in 1080P glory! 

She also reads movies from usb thumbdrives/external hard drives, hooks up to my network (and reads files off of that) and talks to youtube/facebook/etc

Considering I was supposed to buy one 2 years ago when i moved into this place.. its been nice to finally make that purchase.  Sloot helped me mount it on the wall and it looks quite slick!   I had some people over Halloween night to watch some zombie movies and the premiere of the Walking Dead!   Good times were had by all!  I was having some audio-synch issues, but I think I fixed that by making the TV the source of all the audio - Since it can't really be out of synch with itself, it seems to have fixed the other issues

In other news, I started the gym mid september (pretty much when I got back from cali the first time).  A new local gym - www.marshallshouse.com/  opened up and honestly, its the best gym i've ever been to. 

everybody gets a training plan when they start off.  and the idea is you keep going until you can do 7 sets.   i'm on 6/7 on day 1 and 5/7 on day 2.  I'm pretty excited to see what he has in store for me for the next round!  I've never been worked this hard at a gym in my life and i love it.  Its almost like having a personal trainer, but not.  

In other fitness news, Megan and I also started a dodgeball team.  It's a blast and a mega-work out!  haha we haven't won a game yet, but we all have a lot of fun, and its good to run around a gym once a week ;)

I think this is about it for me.. and its 1230 so i should brush my teeth and get to bed!   








 

 so we are in need of players for Dodgeball this fall

anybody interested?  its through the OSSC

we played kickball this season and it was an absolute blast! 

this cracks me the hell up! 

 So i'm really thinking i need to start biking more often
OC transpo is constantly late
and I'm in no position to get a car these days

I currently have a bike in storage at the wonderful Nick & Tara's house
Its a decent bike - i bought it when i was 16, but everything still works awesome 
its a bit heavy.. and a bit bulky as its more of a trail bike than a city bike

the problem is my condo is TINY - i don't have any room to store a bike in here or on my balcony 

So - my question to you, dear LJ friends is this


1) should i suck it up, find a secure-ish place outside to lock up my current bike 
(considering i live in the sketch part of hintonburg)

2) should i buy a beater bike that i don't care about, still lock it up outside but if it gets stolen, who cares?

3) should i get a fold-able/collapsible bike that i can fit in my apartment?
i'm thinking something like this - www.giant-bicycles.com/en-CA/bikes/model/halfway.black/6454/41902/

look how small that folds down! - 

Catch a sneak peek of The Unavowed song 'Death is the last enemy' on the Hybrid 4 MMA highlite reel!

So i haven't posted since January.. I know, my bad. 

I just haven't really felt the need to.  believe it or not I was rather depressed about the job situation.  there was either nothing out there, or I wasn't qualified to do it, or it was call center work ($13/hour, 24/7 shifts, telemarketing)

but enough of that! 

On to the positives of my life. 
1) things with my ladyfriend Megan are going awesome
she's a great girl, and i think we go well together.  

2) band stuff is going awesome.  We have our EP release show on April 18th at the rainbow, probably going to be on the radio on April 12th ish
to pimp out our EP and the show

3) pending background check, after 8 months, i have a freakin job! 
I'll be doing the same job that Nick is currently doing, but they made sure to address my concerns that I had (career path stuff mostly)

I got the phone call Monday night and it pretty much blew me away.  I don't like to talk a lot of details here but i was about $2000 away from having to sell my condo, and possibly moving out of ottawa.  And while this job will be an adjustment (working from home, 24/7 on call), It feels like after 8 months I can finally start to live my life again.  

In other good news, i'm going to be an uncle!  my bro and his gf are expecting a kid June-ish.  They just bought a huge house together in hudson so i'm hoping to go visit sometime this summer! 

Finally - I did a 2 day consulting gig in Kingston on monday and tuesday.  Talking to the sales guys who booked the call it was supposed to be technical training on an installed environment.  When i talked to the actual customer though, it was pretty much me teaching his guys how to install & maintain a connect server, and show them how to implement SSL

So I was a bit stressed going in, considering SSL&connect has always been a bitch, and I've never had to consult before. 

Lets just say I freakin rocked it.  they were super impressed with how fast we got it up and the guys I was teaching understood the concepts and what to do when things went bad. 

I also made more money in those 2 days than i would in a month of pogey (EI). 

so its kind of good to know that if need be - i would make a good consultant?

anyway i'm done writing this.. happy st. paddy's day everybody!!!

if you wanna come celebrate with me, we are meeting at the dirty oak for 530pm (and either trying to get inside, or trying to find a pub with room in it)

So i have two sets of double pedals for drumming I have a pair of $250 gibraltar pedals, kind of like these:
I use these mostly for my Roland TD3 electronic kit.. for practice at home My main pedals are a special edition chrome pair of Iron Cobra's dual chain drive, super responsive and very durable they look like this:

i bought these things used, paid $250 for them and i think new they generally go for $500 So on tuesday I was working on the drum parts mentioned in yesterdays post and i was able to follow the bass drum parts almost exactly.. I'm trying to work on this at home and i'm not having any luck at all. totally unresponsive pedals.. and i think back.. what was different.. oh crap I was using my main pedals! goes to show i guess that even though money != skill, sometimes certain standards need to be kept now i have to go downtown to the rehearsal space and get my real pedals.. booooo

So i'm trying to learn a cover song for an upcoming project and the main part of the song is getting me i can break it down by hands vs. feet and i get it perfect when i try and bring them together i either try and play my feet too fast OR i make my hands match my feet neither works in this song Its pretty simple on paper:

Count

1

e

&

a

2

e

&

a

3

e

&

a

4

e

&

a

1

e

&

a

2

e

&

a

3

e

&

a

4

e

&

a

Crash

X

R

L

R

Snare

L

L

HiHat

R

R

R

R

R

R

Bass Drum

R

L

R

L

R

L

R

L

R

L

R

L

R

L

R

L

I think whats getting me is that 1/16th note pause between the two double bass rolls The rest of the song is pretty easy.. 16th note rolls for the faster parts and yeah.. nothing complicated just this one part thats getting me! Anyway, now that i wrote it out, i should have an easier time of it.. just wanted to make a post that doesn't concern job related woes.

fun times!

drumming stuff continues to go well.. though i've taken my v-drums out of my place to make room for a 'workspace' because i feel more productive working at my table than working on my couch

i think i've settled on the 1up2down setup
though i like shaking things up every 6 months or so

I've also started to work into lighter sticks.. i started off with really heavy ones as they have wicked bounce and i like playing heavy,
i'm finding my hands get really tired after a long jam
so i went from a Vater 'Rock' to a Vater 'Pro Rock' and now i'm experimenting with Vic Virths extreme 5A (like a 5a but about an inch longer)
i wish Vater had a longer 5A as i find their sticks last longer
I was considering getting a bell for my kit and replacing it ith my ride (since the only part on my ride that i touch is the bell)
but everything sounds too.. bell like and not enough ping

BWP continues to do well.
we are being a bit selective on what shows we book.. though P & C still mostly want to do brutal death and black metal, i'd much rather do the sludge, doom and southern stuff
i think there's a big crowd for that stuff in ottawa.. the only problem is to find a booking agent who deals in that kind of music
We had a pretty good crowd out for the zoroaster show and i think that proves there is a market for that stuff in ottawa
and the best part we wouldn't even have to do it AA because that crowd is much older

shit look at how many times Preistess comes to town and fills up mavericks.. if that doesn't show it i don't know what does.

In my fish tank, I only have 1 tinfoil barb left.
I kept waking up to them not having any faces. I think what happens is that when Cichlids try and establish territory in a tank they lock lips and pull against eachother.. looks like they are kissing
since tinfoil barbs faces aren't meant for that.. maybe they just aren't fast enough to pull away and off comes their face

pretty eh?
haha
I dont know what i'm going to do though as they make awesome 'dither' fish

In condo life, things have been annoying.

the cartridge in my kitchen faucet broke, and trying to fix it i think somehow caused an issue in my shutoff valves
I replaced the cartridge but somewhere along the lines this caused a slow leak in the wall of the apartment downstairs
so i had to get a plumber in to replace the shutoffs
and i have to pay for the repairs for the unit downstairs
oh and my faucet is still broken (though it no longer leaks)

when it rains, it pours eh?

So the only other thing thats going on is it appears my dating situation has drastically improved.. haha just when i can't afford it


So things i'm excited for:
recording with my band in january
finding a job
seeing friends whenever i can


things i'm not so excited for:
christmas
paying for my plumbing disaster

So I'm pretty pumped for tonight's show.  I've been a huge fan of Goathorn... Like ever since they came out.  Unfortunately they broke up,
but
One of the bands tonight is made up of 2/3 of GoatHorn

Anyway - if any of you can make it, it'd be awesome

I'm guessing we'll be on 730ish

FRIDAY OCTOBER 9th 2009

Hellacaust - from Halifax www.myspace.com/hellacaust
Aggressor - www.myspace.com/aggressivemusic
Flying Fortress - Brandon Wars and Steelrider formely of GOAT HORN www.myspace.com/flyingfortresstunes
The Unavowed- www.myspace.com/theunavowed

Doors are at 7pm and entrance is $10 ALL AGES

( click for poster!Collapse )