Toddfest pix and upcoming gigs...

Go check out The Humiliators Myspace; Michelle has linked the slideshow she put together from Toddfest 06... over 90 pics that will either remind you of the good times you had that night, fill in some blank spots from that night ;) or make you insanely jealous that you couldn't be there... but take heart - The Humiliators will be joining forces with the Killer Crocs of Uganda at RedRum on Thursday, September 14... so if you missed out, or simply can't get enough rock-n-roll, come out and Support Your Local Bands (tm)!!!

... and the rock gods smiled...

ho-lee-freakin'-cats! What a weekend! The party out at Jim's place was awesome, and not only because it didn't rain this year - lots of folks were there, and our set went really well! There was some guy in the pool that was headbangin' like mad - rock on, dude! :) It was freakin' hot out there - good thing the pool was handy, but after the show I was soaked and whipped... big thanks to Jim and Joyce for having us out and keeping us fed and watered ;) After a few bottles of water and a double-and-a-half of Glenfiddich, I felt much better, so I got into the truck and headed home... made it home and got in bed by 0130 - 18 hours to ToddFest. Around ten-ish, I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb... wait, stop. ;) The girls left for lunch and shopping, I grabbed a late lunch after doing a bit of laundry and then tried to chill for a few hours until it was time to leave... easier said than done, though... I wasn't so much nervous as ready to get started!

I went early to get a good parking space, and found one right in front of the fence for easy loading... Another huge shout out and lots of love to Vince and the gang at The Velvet Spade - except I don't think it's The Velvet Spade anymore, just never asked what the new name is gonna be; whatever it is, those guys rock! You have to go check this place out - it is definitely one of my favorite watering holes in town! So, after clear skies the night before, it had been raining off and on throughout the day so it looked like we were gonna have to play inside (very crowded), but in the end we decided to play outside and the rock gods smiled! No rain, lots and lots of people, and more than enough rock to go around!

First up was The Killer Crocs of Uganda with a killer set, then an interlude with Fire K8 on the rooftop, and Miss Maulie vamping her way across the stage... w00t! :) Then The Humiliators took the stage, and let me tell you - I was nervous... but I knew if I could hit those first notes it'd be cool from there on. I have to say, we freakin' rocked! All the work and practice paid off in full last night, and it was freakin' awesome! After another sizzling interlude with Fire K8 and Miss Maulie (I'll never look at martini's the same way again :) ), Austin's Loudest Band, Steamroller, took the stage... all I can say is, holee cats... those guys are awesome! The crowd was right up on the stage, there was random moshing going on, it was loud and we were loving it! They took us right up to the stroke of 0200, when it was over and everyone had to load up and leave... of course you never just leave ;) so it was about 0315 before I finally got the truck pointed north... and, after spending 40 minutes in the line at Whataburger (apparently they only staff two people max at that time) I crashed out about 0440. Big props again to the guys at the Velvet Spade, Killer Crocs, Steamroller, my homies in The Humiliators, Miss Maulie, Fire K8, and a big Happy Birthday to Todd, the whole reason for ToddFest in the first place, and to his wife Michelle for doing such an awesome job organizing such a big event... we really packed the Spade!

So now, it looks like we are going to work on a couple of new originals, and maybe get a gig or two in the coming months... keep an eye on our site for more info!

counting down to party time...

Holy cats, only 4 days left till the Big Party Weekend! We have been rehearsing like mad for the last week, with only one more scheduled before the weekend... it is gonna be *awesome*! It's gonna be tough to make it to Friday at the office :) good thing I took Friday off - it'll make the week that much shorter!

good times with the killer crocs

Todd and I went to check out the Killer Crocs Of Uganda at the Red Eyed Fly last night - great show, guys! Todd has known those guys for a long time, and I was definitely looking forward to seeing them onstage, since we will both be at Toddfest on 22 July; it was a blast! Afterwards we hung out and BS'd... got to meet and greet everyone, so that was really cool... I'm really stoked about the show - there's gonna be an assload of rock unloaded at The Velvet Spade! Speaking of The Velvet Spade, we drifted over there after the show at the REF to see what was cooking and get another look at the venue... while we were there we also caught a bit of Topaz - these guys are awesome! Funk rock at its best - driving bass, solid drums, crybaby action on the guitars and a sax to round it all out... good stuff, Maynard! Another good thing to see was that somehow they found a way to cram six (yes, six) guys on the teeny indoor stage... which bodes well, if it keeps raining in July... so either way, we are good to go. Jeff S. is back in town but will be leaving to be with his family and will be back next week - keep him in your thoughts.

swordchucks win. every time.

things have gotten quite interesting; we had an impromptu gig scheduled for 12 July that has since been cancelled; which is a good thing since our drummer is dealing with a family emergency (hang in there, man!)... at least they are offering to give us some other dates! I have been working my fingers off, getting ready for the Big Party Weekend; work has been, well, work :P Keep your eye out at the humiliators site for more info on upcoming gigs!

for more info about swordchucks, click here!

ARRL FD 2006 SK CL DE NZ5G *

Chris (KK7SM) and I went to Canyon Lake this year for Field Day... it was much nicer than trying to sleep at roadside parks! For one thing, no drunk college kids pulling up at 0300 and tossing beer bottles out of the car... plus, we could put up a real campsite rather than sleeping in the truck!

Our plan was to have everything ready well ahead of FD weekend, including all the cables needed to run RTTY/PSK and the CW keyer; However, thanks to Fed/UPS, plus some not-so-clear diagrams and other factors, we ended up with non-functional cables, putting RTTY/PSK on the back burner... so we made the call to go almost totally CW this year - I think we made 6 phone contacts, and then we bailed and ran CW for the rest of the time that we operated. It was rather warm and humid, so we were taking frequent breaks, and we ended up calling it a day much earlier than last year... even so, we came only 4 points short of our score last year! I'm sure that if we had known that, we would have stayed on for 3 more CW contacts... oh well. We were able to copy the CW and RTTY Field Day bulletins; receiving was not the issue, it was the transmit side that was jacked up. And, as a sign of being at the bottom of the sunspot cycle, we almost exclusively operated on 20 meters... we made a couple of contacts on either 10m or 15m, but 20m was where it was all happening - to paraphrase the commercial, "Hooray, 20m!"

We are already plotting for next year; I think we are going to switch from 1C (mobile) to 1B (battery power), so that we can use better antennas... some of the battery-powered guys we ran into almost blew our speaker out, and you know that they weren't running 1500w on battery power (unless they were operating from the U505)! However it works out, though, we will definetly have a good time doing it - Field Day has gotten better every year! We had awesome chow on Friday night (thick steaks with beans and garlic potatoes) and Saturday morning (Beef sausages, scrambled eggs), and lots of good camp coffee... too bad it wasn't about ten degrees (F) cooler... that's what we get for having Field Day in June though - would it be so hard to have it in March?? :)

* If none of this made any sense, go to the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) website and find out more about Amateur Radio - or just ask that guy/gal with the funny tag and all the antennas on their vehicle :)

Ghana 2 USA 1 - Our Cup Run Is Over :(

Italy did their part in defeating the Czech Republic (ITA 2 CZE 0), but we couldn't hold up our end of the bargain - it is full time, and that means that we are finished in World Cup play. Unfortunately, I was unable to watch or listen to the game, so I had to follow the BBC live updates on the BBC Sport website; there were a number of interesting observations made, and it seems like we may have gotten the wrong end of a number of questionable calls; particularly the penalty kick at 49' (4 min stoppage?? wow). However, our side still had a number of chances to score that were squandered, so you can't say we didn't have the opportunity to advance... and it is good to see Ghana advance, especially the way they are playing right now. It would have been really nice to see us go forward though; every four years the state of football in the US improves dramatically... the more we play world-class opponents the better we will become (and keep the NBA/MLB/NFL/NHL mindset away, especially with regards to television coverage). I was also glad to see the US side finally show up and play two good matches, after the utterly dismal effort in the opener vs. the Czech Republic. The only thing left for the US to do now is to be classy and not incessantly whine about the refs, the calls etc., and just enjoy the rest of the Cup.

one down, one to go....

Well, I'm not sure what the regulars thought, but we had a pretty good time at The Water Tank on Monday night; most of the other folks there for Open Mic Night seemed to be regulars, and the music selection ranged from C&W (Butter My Biscuit) to 70's Lite Rock (Summer Breeze) to Top 40 (Sex & Candy)... then The Humiliators took the stage! We had to modify the playlist a bit - "Left for Dead" would have gotten us tossed off the stage, I think, but we put five solid tunes out while we had the spotlight - "In Your Eyes", "Sabado", "Detroit Rock City", "Fight For Your Right (To Party)" and "Shine". I'm just glad that no beer bottles were thrown our way :) Now that that's out of the way, I think we are gonna squeeze one more gig in before the July Party Weekend - for details check out The Humiliators MySpace page.

...they call it "riding the gravy train".....

ok, so maybe we're not gonna be playing to 60,000 screaming fans, making millions of dollars, or becoming Colombia's leading export partner ;) but for The Humiliators it's a step in the right direction... We're playing an open-mic at The Water Tank (US183/McNeil); it's a good chance to work out the kinks before our back-to-back gigs in July. If you are in the Austin area, come check us out at 9ish tonite!

by the way... which one's Tommy???

one more hurdle overcome by sheer stubbornness... we finally settled on a name for the band: Tommy English and the Humiliators - like most band names, there's a story in there, but it'd take too long to tell right now... catch any of us over a beer and I'm sure you'll hear it :) you can go to www.thehumiliators.com to find out more. We go into the studio this Saturday to record some original material; you can download a demo track from the website.

wow, what a difference a day makes...

the cool front finally made it! High temperature for today is 58F, and it's only supposed to get up to 85 on Monday... football weather, just in time for the OU-TX game on Saturday! I hope that's a good omen for the Sooners, but they will need some good football to beat UT - they are really looking good this year, while OU is trying to rebuild... it will be a good game, though - they always are :) Everyone in the office is psyched, and I'm getting more razzing than usual - understandable, since it's been 5 years of Sooner domination :) the backlash, should UT win (and admittedly, they should) will be huge - but I'll still fly the flag, baby! However, should OU prevail... I'm not vindictive, mind you, but it *will* be sweet ;)

random late night thoughts

- Serial Experiments Lain is one far-out trippy awesome anime
- Brett Favre doesn't deserve the team he has this year
- I can't wait until the band starts playing again
- I wish it was as easy to make money IRL as it is online: Saturday we made 32M ISK in 5 hours on EVE Online... unreal
- Boy, the trash truck dudes aren't gonna like me in the morning - that can's gotta weigh 50 pounds :)

ok, looks like we might have some cooler weather on the way... apparently there is a weak cool front working its way towards us, and the highs are only supposed to be in the upper 80's, with a 60% chance of rain. I suppose that is what we get for living only 6.4 degrees north of the tropics, but I do sorta miss seasons :)

Well, here it is... my first post from my phone - isn't technology fun? :)

fall 2005 update

Fall is here, though it seems that the only difference between fall and summer so far is that football season is here :) it has been brutally hot, and no relief from either Katrina or Rita... although to be honest, I cannot complain about that, knowing what those folks are going through right now. It was good to hear that Aunt Lou and family are safe, although I understand they lost everything but a few items in the floods.

What the hell is going on with these idiots on the "news" channels who seem to think that standing on a seawall or beach in a 65 knot wind with 20 foot seas crashing behind them and horizontally-driven raindrops the size of junebugs constitues "journalistic drive"? What goobs... half the time you can't even tell what they are trying to say over the wind, and even if you could, it would probably be something like "as you can see, Bill, the wind is really strong here" - brilliant! :P

El Gato Felix has taken a brief siesta - we're taking a month to relax and get the creative vibe back... I've been working on some different stuff than I normally get to play, which is really cool - some jazz, some prog rock... all sorts of bass goodness :)

New year... same ol' Caribou

So, it's 2005 - what does that mean for the Elder Caribou?

• Another 3 weeks before I quit writing "2004" on my checks
• The second half of league bowling - our team is currently in 3rd place
• Hopefully we will find a singer and possibly another guitar for the band - we are so close I can taste it...
• Look for another set of wheels in the driveway this spring - the pickup needs a break after almost 225k miles
• I'm looking forward to Grande Caribou getting his upgrade for his ham ticket - it will be nice to be able to talk on HF
• More time in the woods/at the lake this year
• Two words - Key West

There is more, to be sure, but I need some material for the next post :)

Wow! Where does the time go?

I can't believe that it is the middle of September - there has been so much going on here that I have only now remembered to update the site! Let's see... Paula is doing ok, she is really becoming quite the anime connoisseur - we need more book/dvd shelves :) I have started bowling in a league on Tuesday nights... so far, it's been fun but don't look for me on the PBA Tour; on Wednesday nights, I am playing bass in a band with some guys from work; our goal is to play a company function sometime next year, then maybe a gig or so a month around Austin; we all have day jobs, so there's no danger of us quitting to do this full time :) if we make any money at all, thats bonus - it's fun to just be playing again.

I am working on cleaning the website, making some style and organization changes - I am also going to move a lot of content to my internal servers here. This will give me more space and control over what I can put on the site. The external page will remain, however, as a portal to the internal site - we have been having some issues with connectivity lately, so I want to keep something out there that is not on the residential network.

Well, enough for now... look for the new changes on the site soon! later!

buffer dump

Lots of things have happened since the last entry... Paula and I went to South Padre Island, ostensibly to pick up a computer I bought from Chuck; however, we all know the *real* reason was to go play in the surf! We had a great time down there - it was great to see Chuck again, and the island was mostly empty since we went the weekend before Memorial Day. The people were all really friendly and we had a great room at a hotel right on the beach! (Ok, our room wasn't *right* on the beach, but we only had to walk about 100m to get there.) I think we have found a new weekend getaway destination! It's only 6.5 hours drive, too, so it is an easy weekend trip.

Dad went to the specialists, and the news was not as bad as it could have been, but it there are still things that must be dealt with... so we are still keeping him in our thoughts and prayers. We will be going up for my sister's wedding, so we will get to see him then.

Yes, that's right - Johnna is getting married again! She seems much happier this time, so that's good. At least Tim can keep a job :) So, they are going to have a wedding at the church in Roosevelt; hopefully, this time I will be able to avoid having an accident on the way to the church (like the first time - not good).

Justin and Jacob and I have been playing Diablo online - it is the easiest for Justin to connect to since he is on dialup. We have a great time, although I have to remember that in Diablo, my arrows can hurt the other players (heh). Justin has really leveled up his character, so it's hard to keep up until I can catch up with him. Jacob and I have been playing Ultima Online; it's our first foray into the MMORPG realm of online gaming, and it has had its ups and downs. We finally found a shard (server) that has a good mix of people, although it has the obligatory rabid-dog players, bent on killing all other players on sight. We can usually avoid them, though, except when we need to go to "their" areas - the parts of the world where player-killing is legal, that is. Hey, it's all part of the game! I like it so far, and if it works out, I may be willing to pay for Final Fantasy XI - it looks really good, but I wanted to be able to try the MMORPG thing first before I dropped $100.

more later :)

ok, we're not dead... we're feeling much better...

Lots going on lately - I finally finished the arcade cabinet, so that isn't taking up almost all of my free waking hours... except when I get the jones for Galaga, that is :) Paula is glad to have her laundry table back, as well as no sawdust filling the garage. The office chair finally gave up the ghost, so we are down to just one chair in the house - an old grade-school chair that Paula has had for a while. I think it is time to buy chairs ;)

Dad is doing okay for now, they are still doing tests and such but the outlook is better than it was... he is going to OKC in two weeks, and they will be able to figure out what is going on (we hope). He is still not getting enough sleep, though... give him a call whenever you can.

I am looking forward to getting back on the air with my Amateur Radio station - I haven't had much time to do so lately, but I have the new computer set up, and I am looking to build a couple of new antennas. Justin is finally working towards his 5 WPM CW test, so hopefully we will be able to start making skeds before too long.

Jacob, Justin and I have been playing Ghost Recon online for the last 2 weekends - we are having a blast!! I can't wait till we can get Joe in as well - of course, we *really* need to be playing Operation Flashpoint, but it has been hard to find copies at retail for Justin. That game rocks! Jacob and I did "weapons trials" Saturday night with some new Bradleys we downloaded - those are some tough IFV's! I think they are tweaked a bit, but who cares - it's a game!!!

Wow! has it been that long??

I am sure by now that you all think we have vanished from the face of the planet - no, but sometimes it seems that way :)

We made our speed run to Oklahoma over the weekend... what a marathon! 19 out of 36 hours spent sitting in a pickup... ugh. The whole trip was laid on to pick up our 10 sticks of Blue and Gold sausage from my brother's freezer (before he ran out of *his* order), plus we took some other bits and pieces with us... then on the way we found out that Dad was in the hospital getting re-hydrated. Fortunately, we didn't have to go to Hobart to see him - they released him and he was home by mid-morning on Saturday. So, since he didnt have to work we got to see more of him than we had hoped. We got to Cooperton at 0200 on Saturday, and I stayed up till 0330 talking with Justin... I am just almost too old for that anymore ;)

I am hoping to finish my arcade cabinet project soon, so I can get back to doing other things ...I haven't touched my radio in a long time; any skill I might have regained at the morse key has probably vanished. Oh, well - nothing for it but to start up again :) now, if only my brother would get his code test out of the way.... ;)

Just found out that Jacob has jumped on the broadband wagon - woo hoo! Now we can play Operation Flashpoint and Ultima Online at real speeds, and no more modem crashes! I am sure he will like it, especially now that he can ditch AOL :)