Time to be Thankful

I am a flawed person.
I spend a lot of time observing while standing at the merch table, and I see a great variety of people from many walks of life.  I see happy people, angry people, jealous people, sad people, and I thought I had people figured out, but I've been metaphorically looking in the mirror a lot lately, and I've realized that a lot of the problems I thought I saw in society are in fact shortcomings of my own personality.  I've always been stuck inside my head, alone with my thoughts, suspicions, ideas and fears, and I feel offended when others don't immediately recognize that it can be a struggle for me just to make it through the day.  It's very easy to pass judgement on each other based solely on outward appearance and those quick interactions that take place between us during every day life.  I find myself getting so wrapped up in my own life that I become completely oblivious to those around me, forgetting that each and every person I happen to pass by has their own world of troubles, adventures, excitements and heartbreaks.

I understand.
It is important to remember that these quick judgements and assumptions that I can make are based only on the small fraction of a person's world that they chose to let others in on.  Concentrating on that for a minute, I apply the same formula to myself and come to the conclusion that I can have a great deal of jealousy, mistrust, or false perspective towards someone only because that person may be reacting to a specific mood that I've presented them with.  When I think about it that way, I understand that I'm not so different from everyone else and it inspires me to be more outgoing, more understanding and more considerate.

I'm thankful.
This year will be the first Thanksgiving that I've been able to spend with my family since 2007.  If being away from that for 5 years has taught me anything, it's this:  Things will change, but not always the way I expect them to.  What was important to me back then is not necessarily relevant in my life today.  Taking that realization into account, I can see more clearly what is truly important to me and what I don't need to trouble myself with.  I'm thankful for family and friends who have always been there for me.  I'm thankful to live in a country where I am free to make my own mistakes and learn from them.  I'm thankful for forgiveness.  I'm thankful for all of you who read this and believe in what we do, and I'm thankful for a certain group of guys who make this blog possible through their talents and choices in life.  We're all a team, and it is important to work together to overcome disagreements, remembering that it's ok to have a different opinion from those around you, and instead of stepping on the dreams of one another in order to reach our own, we can lift each other up and achieve things greater than any one of us could imagine on our own.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  I look forward to seeing you all in the coming months and years!

Valemont, BC

Today is a monumental day! We've stopped in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and I can finally say that I've found a spot outside of Michigan that I think I could handle living in!
We're on the road from Edmonton, AB, to Vancouver, BC, and we fried a wheel bearing in the trailer. It just so happens that there was a little repair shop that was able to get us all fixed up and on our way.
While at the shop, Chachi and I took a short hike down the road to this AMAZING little Swiss bakery and I had the best double espresso of my life. Thank you kind-hearted Swiss bakery owner!!
I would give anything for a snowboard right about now. These mountains are calling out to me!
How did everyone's Halloween go? We spent the night in Edmonton, at the wold's largest mall, or so they say. There was a gigiantic waterpark inside, and ice skating rink, an amusement park, an aquarium with sea lions and penguins and more! The selection of stores and the food court could have been a little better, I feel, but whatevs...
Vancouver is the final stop of this tour, then after we head back to the States for a show in Spokane, WA, then we're dropping the guys off at the airport for the very first visit to Europe!
Things are starting to wind down for the end of the year, a lot of writing and scheduling out studio time is in the works. We're very excited to get a new album out! Believe me, it will be awesome!

Welp, I'm going to coach Chachi int he creation of a new blog! Stay tuned!
Happy November, and be safe out there, y'all!

That Orangey Time of Year

How busy have I been??  Let me tell you!
Crazy busy!
Since my last post, we've crossed the country a couple more times with 5 Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Emmure, God Forbid and Battlecross.  Yet another great tour in the books!  We were a little nervous going into it, not knowing what to expect as it was a bit heavier of a scene than we were used to.  But contrary to our fears, both the crowds as well as the other bands really embraced us and we were sad to part ways.  Night after night of arena shows and shenanigans and memories made and some really cool video that you all will get to see soon!
Which brings me to my next topic.  Purple.  As the 4th and final single from War of Angels, we decided to take a look back at the trip at some of our favorite unseen footage in such a way as to tell the story of our journey throughout the album cycle.  After slaving away for weeks and weeks, I'm proud to say that the video was finalized yesterday and now the distribution process begins!
If you've been to a show in the last few months, you may have noticed someone other than myself at the merch table.  Our newest partner in crime, the lovely Miss Koolaid Chocolate, or "KC" as she is commonly known from exotic Dallas, TX, joined us back in July, adding another facet to our already unique crew.  Sadly, she has returned home during our downtime and we miss her dearly!  But what can ya do during time off?
Upcoming now in the Autumn months, we're going to head to the great territory to the north on our very first Cross-Canadian tour with Black Label Society!  I'm looking forward to Halloween in Edmonton!  I'm still working on costume ideas, even though it was my goal to start planning in April.  That seems to be my plan every single year, yet it never happens.  Oh well, I best get busy!  Only 3 weeks to go!!
The smell of burning wood was in the air last night, added to the stunning kaleidoscope of fall colors in the midwestern woodlands always brings a sense of warm coziness in the cool breezy evenings, and it's a sign that hot cocoa season is upon us!  I've got to dig out my ginormous box of swiss miss and get to work!  FOOTBALL TIME!!!

Keyboard for my iPhone!

I've always hated typing on the on-screen-keyboard on the iPhone. The buttons are so tiny and there isn't any tactile response as to when you've successfully entered a keystroke.
That is the reasoning behind this wonderful bluetooth keyboard!
In other news, today is our first day on the Trespass America Festival, and so far everything is awesome! There is a ton of new faces that I'm going to have a hard time remembering at least for the first couple weeks. I have the All-American tour shirts in finally! They look great! I'm super excited for this tour! Be on the lookout for new videos and shenanigans coming VERY SOON! Trust me this time!
Stay tuned for more!!

Burger ... Krazy?

So either this Burger King has some immensely huge issues, or they were just screwing with me.

I pull up to the drive through and the speaker is just intermittent static, so I wait like 30 seconds and it continued, so I ordered 2 double cheeseburgers and it popped up on the screen. I said "yeah" and drove around. The girl was having a full-on conversation with the guy behind me. She sniffs around herself for a few seconds before asking me if I smell something burning. I tell her that I did not, so she walks away and mutters "Man, I am tripping balls!" Then I got a free pulled pork sandwich.

Spring? II

So I feel a little bit early, but the bus is scaring me, so I'm sitting in the trailer scanning merch forms and I thought "Hey!  Why don't I continue that blog post from earlier today?"  So here I am, Listening to Pennywise and typing up a storm in the trailer.
So we wound up December with some shows around home right before Christmas, and then New Year's in Madison, WI.
After all those shows and miles in between, our trailer had taken quite a beating.  We spent the majority of January at home measuring some new on-stage gear and playing some garage Tetris trying to figure out exactly how everything would fit in.  After we got those measurements, we took a few trips to Lowe's and bought a lot of wood and screws.  I now have a floor to ceiling shelving unit custom built by your's truly to hold all of my tshirt boxes and cables and such, while Bobo and Blinker have more floor space that they can take up with all their large rolling boxes.
With that all done, we set out for a 10-show mini tour with Lansdowne through VA, WV, OH and so on, where we had the worst bus of our relatively young careers.  It seemed that almost every single day something was broken with it.  Hell, the night it came into town to pick us up, the batteries died and I had to jump start it with my truck.  On our way to show number 7, the engine felt that it was a good time to die and threw a rod through the block at about 7am.  The rest of that morning was filled with finding a rental van and a haul truck and then driving the two 4 hours through the mountains to get to Lynchburg, VA.  Luckily after driving back to the bus the next morning, there was a shiny new one there waiting to carry us swiftly away from certain death.
That brings us up to the present, touring with Otherwise, Man Made Machine and Lansdowne.  MMM left us a couple days ago, and they will be missed.  Hopefully we run into them again soon.
Any of you out there thinking about coming to one of the upcoming shows, stop thinking, just be there.  It is definitely a great bill and you won't be disappointed!
Ok the batteries are dying, I've got to pack up, but hey!  I'm gonna post this one in the morning, so the timing will feel a bit off, but just go with it.  ;)

Spring?

I'm sorry, everyone, I can't seem to keep up with this silly thing!  Now that we're in a running bus and steadily on the road, I think I'll have more time to get it done.  The same goes for tour videos!  I've got #18 in the works, but I can't seem to finish it to my liking.  Maybe I'm getting too picky.  What do you guys want to see in it??  I'm trying to get more of our behind-the-scenes type of stuff in there, but Chachi has been covering most of that in his daily videos.  Should I put some of that in mine to have like a re-cap of the highlights?  I feel like I have a lot of questions, tonight.
So tonight we're in Toledo, OH.  The weather has been very warm and sunny for us for the last week or two, it feels like we didn't even have a winter.  I can't believe it's March, already!  I guess I should go back to October and fill you in on things.
We were touring with Theory of a Deadman and 3 Doors Down and it was almost Halloween.  Right?  The rest of the tour, every show was packed and we became great friends with 3 Doors Down.  We all really look forward to seeing them and hopefully touring with them again at some point!
We'll be touring with Theory of a Deadman again starting in April, we're all looking forward to causing some mayhem with those boys again!  If we're coming to your town, you had better be there!  Remember to check out our TOUR DATES page on Facebook!
After 3DD, we played some dates with Puddle of Mudd and Lansdowne as far west as Missoula, MT, the others went further, all the way to Washington I think, but we were back home for a few days and then picked back up with them in Iowa.
I feel like I shouldn't do this, but I will have to continue this tomorrow, hopefully, because I have to go inside and sell some stuff!  But don't worry, there's lots more to share!  Don't miss out!


To Be Continued...