the lighter side of things

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Marley Love Kendall

Okay, so I tried to do this last night and it didnt work for whatever reason or another. So...instead of completley re-writing this entire thing with commentary, you guys get the condensed version.

Here we go...

-went to Austin during the day to play miniature golf at a place called Peter Pan Golf
-Madison got two hole's in one...punk kid!!!
-went to Mount Bonnell park in Austin that overlooks the Cololrado River...our midwife
suggested it for the view and giving Vanessa contractions
-went to Chuys by Zilker park for a ligt dinner and a couple drinks...Vanessa later told me she
was having some pretty serious contractions at dinner
-got home atg 8:30pm
-at 9:00pm we started doing some pressure point and massage techniques our accupuncurist
taught us the other day to bring on contractions...it works by the way
-at 9:37pm we started writing down and timing contractions
-at 11:15pm we saw a good rhytym and decided to call our midwife...she listened to Vanessa
and her voice...she was able to talk through her contractions and such...our midwife suggested
a bath and half a glass of wine to relax and get a couple hours sleep
-Vanessa listened, had three sips of wine, took a bath
-she got out because she was tired and the rhythym of the contractions broke
-I helped her out of the tub and left her to get ready for bed
-I came back upstairs and she was standing there with a look on her face I had never seen
before and said "my water just broke"...the time is now 12:45am
-we called our midwife and she left her place in Austin, about 45 minutes away
-Vanessa put on her colorful, beautiful sundress and tried to get through contractions
-I tried to comfort her by rubbing down on her back and squeezing her hips
-the contractions got so intense that she decided to sit backwards on the toilet and lean against
the back of it with a pillow on top
-she became more and more vocal until the pain of the contractions were so intense she
had me call our midwife to see where she was...she was at our front door...the time is
now 1:40am
-Illysa, our midwife, is the one who would have normally instructed us when to start feeling up
the birth tub and such...she saw that baby Marley's head was already crowning...we had
no time to use the tub...we had to find a position that Vanessa was able to give birth in
-after trying a couple positions she decided to be on her hands and knees on our bed
-she had wonderful contractions that were strong and smooth that sent her into a place that was
FAR outside her body...but between contractions she was sweet and coherent, giving me
kisses while I supported her weight
-she bit my shoulder once...OUCH!
-at 2:12am Marley Love Kendall was born a healthy 7lbs. 12oz. and 19 inches long!!!
-Marley latched on to mommy's breast and fed like a champ for almost an hour and a
half straight...and then fell right asleep
-Vanessa recouped very quickly and we all layed around as a family on the bed for awhile
-as our midwife started to pack up, Vanessa began to bleed VERY badly all of a sudden...the
blood clot that is on every uterus after birth all came off at once instead of slowly in
pieces like it should have
-Illysa was great and took care of it right away...she got me to help...we cleaned her up to watch
the intensity of the bleeding...she had to have a very small shot of pitocin (what they use in
hospitals to induce labor) to give her quick, small contractions to make her uterus smaller and
control the bleeding
-after some massage techniques and oxygen, Vanessa was back on track...the time is now
almost 6:00am
-Illysa stayed til almost 8:00am to keep an eye on Vanessa and Marley

So...after all is said and done, Vanessa is doing great, Marley is doing great...we are all doing great. Marley is a night baby, just like she was in Vanessa. She is healthy, beautiful, and full of life. She is strong!! She has a hell of a kick!!

Ill really try and keep this updated a little better in the future....its just been crazy this month and last few days in particular. thanks everybody for being so understanding and loving and caring!!!

Quick side note for those who dont know...I now longer work for Cross Canadian Ragweed. I have taken my job back at Onstage Sysytems in Dallas, the production company I worked for before Ragweed. I start back there April 13th. Ill be staying at afriends house in April and at my parents after that. Vanessa is going to stay here trying to sell the house. Once Madisons school year is up Vanessa and the girls will be able to come up and stay in the DFW area. Ill be able to come home pretty frequently during May and some of June it looks like. Anyway, if anybody knows somebody that wants to buy a house in New Braunfels, send them our way...

Check back later this week...Ill try and put some more pictures up, and Marley has her first doctors appointment Friday!

Monday, October 20, 2008

a jar of broken molasses...what?!

two months on the road and only four days at home throughout those two months have left me brain dead. i feel drained. tired. worn. i feel like the jar of molasses that broke on our bus floor a few days ago. randy,our drummer, opened a cabinet and out fell a jar of pure molasses. ever seen a jar of molasses fall and break? its a lot different than other glass breaking. it hits the tile floor with a "THUD" ! the glass sticks to the molasses, doesnt go far at all...the molasses slooooooooowly takes the shape of where ever it happend to land...it took no energy to fall. it just fell with gravity, broke, and slowly oozed and conformed to whatever spot it happened to land in...thats how i feel....like a broken jar of molasses oozing and conforming to the most comfortable spot i can find.

anyway, i'll do real update later this week...

Sunday, September 14, 2008

is, uh, today a week day...?

so its been a long few weeks since i have last got on here to fill in the rest of the world as to what has been going on in my world. im sure you have all been holding your breath.

i have been to ...

denver, co
hays, ks
fort worth, tx
fort madison, wi
saint louis, mo
newkirk, ok
council bluffs, ia
peoria, il
columbia, mo
little rock, ar
austin, tx
harker heights, tx

...all since i have been on here last. our touring schedule has been pretty full lately and we are on two days off in the middle of about a four or five week run. we have quite a few southeast shows. you know, just in time for hurricane season. we have three or four mississippi shows, a couple louisiana shows, a show in houston, maybe. that hurricane ike really made a mess of things down there. jeremy, the bass player in the band, lives in montgomery, tx just outside houston. his wife sent pictures showing huge trees snapped in half, debris strung throughout the property. here in new braunfels, we got a tiny bit of rain and just a little wind. no big deal.

anyway, on to whats been happening. our booking agency, the people that determines our schedule of when and where we are going to do shows, needs to invest in a map. the last few runs we have had, we have had to leave texas a day ahead of time to get where we are going. there is nothing more mind numbing than sitting in a bus for thirty-six hours. twice. in two weeks. then there is the constant puzzling question of why we will play a show in "state-x" , then go to "state-y", then go right back to "state-x". what gives? with gas mileage for us working out to roughly a dollar a mile, bouncing back and forth between states like that has to be a serious waste of money...

after being in a bus that long, getting a few shows under our belts, and being away from home for awhile, you get a little restless. then things like this start happening...

well, what can i say you only live once. for those of you who dont know me, or havent seen me in a long time, i'm the skinny kid that walks on first, the bigger guy that walks on second is our road manager, bert. im far from, in todays words, pu$$y whipped, by any means...but i did feel better knowing i called my wife first to see if she would kick my ass for doing that. she wasnt thrilled about it at first, but with the mention of a little cash for the birthday-suit walk, she wasnt so against it. long story short, we opened up for our pal dierks bentley at red rocks, co. i used to work for him as his lighting designer. cody, our lead singer and guitar player, has been friends with him for quite a few years now. the guys in the band and crew have been friends with him just as long...the reason i specifically mention cody, is that it was his mischevious side that started this whole thing!! i mean, it didnt take a lot of arm twisting, but it was quite nerve racking before we walked on stage...during the walk it was an adrenaline overload...and afterwards, well i felt like i could have taken on the world!!!

well, we did a few more shows, some big, some small.

our show in council bluffs, ia we opened up for gary allan. thats always a pretty good time. garys guys are pretty easy going and straight forward. lots of people, decent weather. we had the next day off there in town. for those of you who arent huge geography buffs, omaha, ne is on the other side of the river from council bluffs. on our day off a few of us went and played golf right across the street from our hotel.

when i say WE went golfing, i mean THEY golfed and I played caddy. im not much of a golfer. ive only really played putt putt. grady, the rhythym and acoustic guitar player, turned out to be the best golfer that day. it was grady, the rhythym player; coit, our merchandise guy; bert, our road manager; brian our production manager / monitor tech; and myself. i had a blast just being outdoors, doing something we dont normally get to do. it was a nice cool, brisk day with plenty of afternoon sunshine after a rainy morning...perfect golf weather.

its nice to change up your routine every now and then. had this conversation with my brother in law the other day. sometimes i get the feeling that i need to make sure im taking the time to do the things that make me tick in the first place. i got into what i do for my love of art and music. music is obviously an art, more aural than visual. i appreciate things that appeal to two or more senses at a time. thats why i like live music so much. the obvious reason of hearing good music, then there is feeling good music too. i love when the low end of the sound spectrum thumps in your abdomen. you feel the music. i love the visual accents that lighting adds to the emotion behind the song you are hearing. the use of colors, angles, timing, transistion. anyway, back to what i was saying about not thinking about work so much...right...

work to me isnt so much work...its just that the time between actually programming and running shows. coming up with all the ideas and actually executing these ideas, turning them into visual compliments to the music...thats not work...thats my canvas, my opportunity to share with the audience some visual representation of what the music is conveying. the work comes in getting it all set up, torn down, making hundreds of phone calls and emails to get things taken care of in advance....boooo.

i need to get back into my more traditional artistic side. my painting. my drawing. my photography. its all so time consuming and costly. but like my brother in law, miles, said ,"work doesnt make me, work makes me the money i need to do the things i want to do". okay, that may not be verbatim, but you get the idea, right? i take a sketch pad on the road with me and try and use it whenever i can. i got my new digital camera. just a point and shoot sony. i shouldnt say just a point and shoot. its a damn good camera, but you know me, always looking for the professional version of things. i would love to have this particular model of digital SLR that an amazing photographer friend uses. check this out.

pretty amazing guy. small world though. my brother in law i mentioned above was friends with this guy before i met him. i met carl through the band. he comes out to shoot the guys whenever we have a big or special show we want documeneted. after knowing both carl and miles for about a year, we all discovered that we already were a part of a small circle of people. pretty small world. wich takes me to my next bit of rambling.

being a small world....getting older....thinking less about yourself and more about your children...things like that, make you think about whats going on in the world and how it affects you and the people you love and care about. getting older has even made me care about people i dont know...cant say i saw that coming! it is a small world. that being said, it makes me wonder...if it really is a small world like everybody says, everybody doing a little bit really could go a long way. my two things that i have been very intersted in lately are not necessarily two things that will change the world, well maybe one...but it just makes me wonder why people cant get past their selfishness and work together. open your minds and your heads. think about what your actions or lack of action may be doing to our world. from a sociological point, a physical point, and everyting in between. all i am saying is that i see issues differently the more i research them. if people werent so easily swayed by the media and f-ing celebrities and actually took a little time to think on their own two feet, i think peoples point of views would be different. in the same breath i would like to also comment on the underhanded motives of so many of todays leaders. and by leaders i mean everyone from your local police departments to the president of our country, to the leaders of the rest of the world. children are taught from a very young age that these are the people you should look up to and model yourself after. these are supposedly the people you turn to in times of need for some guidance, security, and well being. the older i get, the more i learn, the more i read, the more i get involved, the more i realize too many of these "leaders" are solely in it for personal satisfaction and gain. they dont truly care to look into what might be best for the world or the current times, they care about their well being, their bank account, their reputation. but, those are twio subjects for a later entry.

well, its my last night at home. the girls are tucked in after a great dinner from vanessa. i think now would be a good time to get off the computer and enjoy some time with the only person in the world who knows me the way she does and still loves me despite how well she knows me!!

ill try and not make it so long between posts.

Monday, August 25, 2008

i don't know what to name this...

naming things. i find it hard to find the "right" name for something. things as small as this, all the way to our unborn child. how do you pick a name that is going to be a strong name? a name that is going to be a good name as a kid and as an adult? how do you pick a name that has all these things and still has very few ways to make fun of it?

...you stay up all night one night looking at a baby name book with some of the strangest baby names. you spend the next few days bouncing names off each other. you come up with off the wall names to make your other names sound better. you stop thinking about it awhile and it creeps into your brain again without you even realizing it. vanessa likes a few names, some i like, some i don't. i'm no help. i have no good ideas for names. soooooo, we are going nowhere fast with this name business. oh well, we have plenty of time.

so this weekend i was out doing a few shows. friday i was in helotes, tx at the john t. floore country store. saturday it was nacogdoches doing our red dirt roundup, or at least the first of our two red dirt roundup shows. the next one is in fort worth on the 31st.... rain. its always rain. we have figured it out and it has rained every day that we have had a show since june 27th. thats right, june 27th. even if we played inddoors or outdoors. outdoors is obviously a problem, but even when we have played indoors it has rained on us during load-in or load-out. wet, muddy, cold. sick of rain.

helotes wasn't too bad. it rained for awhile in the afternoon. we got through all the soundchecks and setting up without having to go out of our wayy to stay dry. the first act, a girl named stephanie briggs and her husband matt, took the stage. good show. they play with us quite a bit when in the texas area. next was micky and the motorcars. they are out in support of their new album, naive. set change goes off without a hitch. then we start. we have been joking on the bus that we should play drought relief shows. i put in my two cents and said we should go play in california and put out the wildfires. we would be heros! you guessed it...it rained. fortunately it wasn't enough for us to have to stop the show, but people got pretty wet. thirty or forty minutes of rain is enough to continue our streak. well, load out was dry and quick. we had a relaxing night and headed to nacogdoches.

with a relatively early load in, nine in the morning, we started our day. our long day. with a production company that didn't care, and a hot, muggy, slow day...it was a looong day. the local production company who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, sucked. the lighting guy, and i use that term very loosely, had no clue. he made his little assistant do everything. hell, his assistant knew more than he did. anyways, the sound guys didn't check on brian or mccoy, our sound guys. the lighting guys didn't check on me. its pretty much a standard that if the touring tech doesn't specifically ask you to stay by him during the show that you at least check in during the show three or four times. i'm kind of ranting, i know....so yeah, the production company sucked. it started raining about thirty minutes before the end of randy rogers show. the lightining was too close to be standing on a stage made of metal, with a bunch of copper wires laying around. i have to give the city of nacogdoches some respect. they had the sense to evacuate the park. sent every body away. after about thirty minutes of waiting out the rain and lightining, they opened the gates back up and the masses came running in. we put on a show, people had a great night, the guys played a great show.

sunday was our breast cancer benefit show in san marcos, tx. my wizz-ardry was not needed that night, but i have heard nothing but good about that night. you can check out some pictures of the show and learn more about the benefit at www.myspace.com/rdr3day . vanessa and twenty or so more girls are going to san diego to do a three day, sixty mile walk for the susan g. komen foundation. it's all for research and treatment of breast cancer. my girl will be twenty-three weeks along by then. that's right, i have a badass for a wife. a little over half way through the nine months of carrying our child, she will walk twenty miles every day, for three days. go donate some money or something! what are you doing sitting there reading this boring blog?! go donate! theeeeeen come back and finish reading this.

...good to see you came back.

since i wasn't needed at the benefit show, i took advantage of being right down the road from home and spent the evening with my girls. madison was excited about having her first day of first grade the next morning. we spent the evening having a sit down dinner. mimi was in town, so she was staying at our house. it was quite the to-do.

eventhough madison had her real "first day of school" last year when she started kindergarten, it still seemed just as special. she seems really excited this year about learning and knowing cool things. i think she is really going to like this year of school. we took her to school today and picked her up, but tomorrow she starts riding the bus. her idea! she thinks it will be great. tomorrow's the big experiment!!! we met her teacher last thursday at open school night. her name is Miss Vandelden. don't worry, she let's the kids call her Miss V. madison seems to really like her already. here are some pictures of this morning before we took her to school.

mimi went and ate lunch with madison. after that, mimi came back to the house, picked up makenna, and headed back to the farm. i think madison is already enjoying having a little alone time with me and vanessa. right now she's sitting on the couch right next to me, eating her macaroni and cheese with bits of fried spam, watching a little television "just like mommy and daddy do".

well, it has been a hell of a summer and things finally feel like they are falling into place as far as having our little family back on somewhat of a schedule. madison being in school, vanessa being pregnant...i think things are going to slow down for a while around here. i'm gone the whole month of september, so that will give the girls time to adjust to being back home and in the swing of things.

there it is. the last three or four days of my point of view from the road and home with our little family...

one week at home. i'll probably post something again towards the end of the week unless something comes up before then....

oh yeah, and as far as boy names, wich do you guys like better.....willard phoenix cash kendall or willard silas kendall?

Thursday, August 21, 2008

hearts pounding

well, hearts were pounding as me, vanessa, and illysa (our midwife) listened for the baby's heart this morning. and sure enough, after hearing vanessa's rumbling stomach, we heard a heartbeat. it was amazing. illysa said it was between 170 and 180 beats per minute. just like it should be. it means that the baby is responding to its enviornment, bouncing around, making itself comfortable. it gets me more and more anxious as we have these appointments. we have a sonogram on october 22nd. we get a c.d. with our sonogram with a few pictures and maybe a video i think. i may have just made that up in my head, but it would be pretty cool!

speaking of cool. i got an iPhone today. very. cool. internet, g.p.s, camera, video, and all kinds of cool as hell stuff to play with. its even got a game that is just popping bubbles on fake bubble wrap.

anyways, i've got a couple shows to go do starting tomorrow. one in helotes, tx and one in nacogdoches, tx. well, i will get back to doing some updating sometime monday or tuesday. two shows and a daughters first day of first grade over the next few days ought to leave me with a few things to talk about.

i'm sure you will all be holding your breath until then.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

time off

so i'm sitting here pretty frustrated. it seems there is never really time off. even being home from the road, there are emails and phone calls. unpacking trailers to sort out gear, fix things. you get the idea. well, this week off is no different. this is day number two of me working on my console, a Flying Pig Systems Wholehog IPC .

yesterday it was replacing a battery that keeps all the internal computer settings when the console is turned off. not a terribly hard job. its just that digging around in a console, even to do a simple procedure, can be a lot like surgery. it doesnt matter that the process is simple, there is always the chance something could go wrong. and what happens when something CAN go wrong? it does. just after replacing this simple battery...

so my whole console stops working. i can get to my cues and such, but it wont play them. sparing you guys the boring details, i have been on the phone with Mitch Peebles at High End, the company that supports my console. after about an hour on the phone going through every possible scenario we could think of, he tells me to save what i can and reload the software. start from scratch. there is a possibility that my show has become corrupt. how, we havent figured out, but, we will find out soon. as i sit here writing this my console is getting a fresh load of new software. pretty nerve racking. if something doesnt come together right, i could lose everything and have to start over with all my programming. pretty lame considering we have a few pretty big shows coming up.

Nacogdoches Red Dirt Round Up
opening for Dierks in Red Rocks, CO
Fort Worth Red Dirt Round Up
opening for Gary Allan in Council Bluff, IA

anyways, it would be nice to not have to start over. here's to hoping!

well, the homefront is pretty much the same. as most of you know, vanessa and i are expecting. march 22nd is the due date. same as my dad's birthday and cody's dad's birthday. i'm hoping for a boy. i need a little more testosterone in the house while i'm out on the road. estrogen seems to permeate everything in this house. if it's a girl that will mean three girls all seven and under. that means when madison turns thirteen, there will be at least one if not two, teenage girls in the house for the next seven years. i can hear my hair turning gray and falling out. i'm excited no matter the outcome. it will have a little bit of me and a little bit of vanessa. hopefully it will take on each of our more shining qualities rather than the more stubborn sides that both vanessa and i have.

the girls are doing good. they seem happy to be back home from a long summer. happy to be in their own beds. happy to have their toys. happy to have mommy and daddy in the same place for more than a day or two. just happy. they seem really excited about the new baby. makenna asks to lay on the baby. she lays her head on vanessa's belly and rubs it while she lays there. madison asks if the baby got enough to eat whenever vanessa has a meal. they sure are cute.

well, its back to my console. it has finished reloading the software and things are still looking pretty weird. sounds like a trip to austin (where High End is located) is in the near future.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

getting started...

so, i was thinking yesterday about something my wife had suggested a while back. she asked if i had thought about starting some sort of blog or website where our family and friends could see what i am up to and where i am...that sort of thing. i guess if i was always getting asked where she was and what she was doing, i would suggest the same thing! i had tried the myspace thing for a while and didnt like it, so, i thought i'd give this a try.

so long story short, i'm going to be using this blog to let family and friends in the loop of controlled chaos that is a balance of living on the road with a rock band and being a full time dad and husband. i thought leaving it open to anybody that stumbles upon this blog, or seeks it out for whatever reason, might be interesting. people are always asking about my job and what i do. even those people who know what i do and understand my job are curious about how to balance two very opposite ends of the spectrum in life. i'll also be putting up quite a bit of stuff about my lighting and what i come across out on the road. a little something for all the other lighting guys and girls. it might also be like a little road trip for those who can't hit the road and get out as much as they would like.

well, as you can see, i am still trying to set this all up. i'll try and add something new every few days. i'm a little out of my element on this. i'm sure i'lll be getting lots of help from my wife, vanessa.