As I suspected, God seems to not want us sinners to finish up our lousy little softball season...Ever...In a blatant act of defiance and blasphemy, though, we played through the Friday evening monsoon and were able to complete one out of the two games which we were scheduled to play. I'll tell ya, there's really NOTHING like playing slow pitch softball in a cold, driving rain on a field that resembles a swamp wearing just a shirt and some sweatpants (and a hat), you should all try it at your earliest convenience. The field was getting so bad that I had to keep telling myself over and over, "don't dive, don't slide." Being a drowned rat, I felt, was bad enough, I damn sure didn't need to be a big fat ball of mud for my ride home. Despite the conditions, we DID win the game. In fact, we won "big" (18-5 mercy rule type "big"). After the game, I proclaimed our team to be the "best bad-weather team of all time." I'm not sure that the other team appreciated my proclamation but, frankly, to Hell with them. That team is nothing but a bunch of whiners when they lose, so it's kind of nice, (and evil) to rub it in. We have (hopefully) our final final FINAL final FINAL rainout makeup game this coming Saturday. Will the weather be bad? Of course it will. No matter what, I'll keep you all posted (not because you want to know, but because it gives me something to type about. THAT, after all, is what counts here.)

So on Saturday I loaded up my equipment and headed into Cheyenne Canyon to D.J. my LAST wedding ever. Not a bad way to go out, either, it was an extremely laid back event and all of the people who attended were very friendly. For a while, I just played a Jim Brickman CD...There was no garter or bouquet toss, only two short "special" dances and the guests only danced during "open dancing" for maybe 10 minutes. After that was done, I just played music for...well...myself, really. Everyone else was outside "chit-chatting" and/or drinking...I had been paid to play until 3:30, though, so that's exactly what I did. Here and there, people wandered in and listened, some danced, some struck up conversations with me. All in all, it was a very nice event. As I was packing up to go, however, big rain clouds rolled in over the mountains. My biggest problem with rain is that, when I do these "gigs," I haul my equipment around in the bed of my little GMC pickup truck which, conveniently, doesn't have a topper. My way around that is to cover everything with a big tarp which I then secure to the truck, thereby keeping everything (potentially) safe and dry. I had done kind of a "burrito" technique with said tarp for my drive up to the event site wherein I placed the equipment on top of part of the tarp, which was already in the truck bed, folded the rest of the tarp over the equipment and then secured it. This worked great on the way up...

It's a shame, though, that I can't get anything right twice in a row...

When I started loading up to go home, It started to rain...Hard...I hurried up and put the "tortilla" (tarp) in position, loaded the equipment as quickly as I could and then went to make the big "fold-over"...As I yanked on the damn thing, I realized that I had positioned the tarp improperly and I didn't have enough of the stupid thing exposed to cover all of my (stupid) equipment...The rain had REALLY started coming down by this time so, instead of unloading everything just to reposition the tarp, I gave the damn thing three or four mighty tugs, fastened it to the truck and drove off, hoping that I had enough of my equipment covered so as not to sustain serious damage (from the rain). I figured that, if I hit the interstate, I could get home before things were completely "fried."

Then the hail came...

The storm that I suddenly found myself in the middle of ended up being one of the worst ones we've experienced all summer. Severe thunderstorm warnings were quickly replaced by flash flood warnings and the aforementioned interstate ended up being at a standstill. I can't say I blame people for not wanting to drive, there was roughly 6 inches of rain and hail filling up all of the lanes, it was amazing (and scary!). I inched my way home and, after what seemed like an eternity, I pulled safely into my garage. I left my equipment out there overnight to dry and, when I came out on Sunday to load it in, things SEEMED "ok"...There was still some dampness on the carpeted racks and speakers, and my spare equipment bag got pretty wet, but I'm thinking that no serious damage was done. If I lose anything, it looks like it'll just be one, cheap little speaker box (which is acceptable, they're easily replaceable) seeing as I can actually hear water "sloshing" around inside. I'll be unracking the equipment tonight so as to air it all out and also seeing about taking the "sloshy" speaker apart to view it's "innards." It looks like my "last wedding ever" VERY WELL could be my last GIG ever...Keep your fingers crossed for me, I don't really want to have to purchase a whole lot of new equipment...

As an aside, on the way home during the "flash flood warning," I was listening to 1240 AM, which is a sportsradio station here in town. As is the way of most AM stations nowadays, they're staffed very thin on weekends, usually with nothing more than just some kid, fresh out of school, who runs the board and tries not to fall asleep...The problem with this scenario is that, when weather alerts are issued, they are required to be read "live" by the operator on duty. The poor kid who happened to be at the station when all of this weathery crap went down tried his damnedest, but simply wasn't good at speaking into a microphone with any clarity. He stumbled and stammered through the information and, when he got to the part about "flooding in creeks and streams," actually said the phrase "swollen streaks and creams." I laughed appreciatively for most of the ride home following his misstep, repeating "streaks and creams" over and over to myself...

hee hee..."Streaks and creams..."

After the wedding, my wife and I were supposed to have gone to a "video game night" hosted by Justin, who is one of Collin's friends...Due to the giant, spooky, deadly storm hanging over the city, however, said game night was cancelled (Justin was concerned for the safety of his electronics, which I understand). Collin left a message on my home phone about the cancellation, but I did not receive it...Not "in time," at least...When we got to Justin's house, I didn't see Collin's car (of course, because he wasn't coming, but I didn't know that at the time) and so I didn't go up to the door. It's not like I'm afraid of Justin, but Collin was the one who REALLY invited my wife and I so, without Collin there, I wasn't gonna just go ring the doorbell. After waiting around for a while and then going and getting some dinner and coming back,(hint: don't ever pick up California rolls from a grocery store deli) we decided that, with no Collin showing up, something must be amiss. With no cell phone to call and check our messages, we were pretty much in the dark...Luckily, my parents don't live far away from Justin, so my wife and I went over to their place to check our messages and, sure enough, the "I hope you get this before you leave" message was on our phone at home. Crap. So no video game night, but we still had a good time, playing cards with my parents and finishing off some ribs from the Outback. I had even made "secret" cookies for Justin and Collin. Oh well, more for me, I guess...

So today I visited David Gunnarsson's DaveArt.com. As some of you may recall, he's the (wildly talented) Swedish airbrush artist whom I commissioned to paint my goalie helmet using my cartoons (he did a fabulous job). Anyway, he finally posted my mask in his mask gallery. He had very nice things to say (in his endearing broken English style) about me and the design of the mask. Head over there and check it out, it's under the "mask gallery" pulldown link (He calls it "scull scramble," but I personally prefer "reapers on parade."). It's really very cool to have MY mask up in his gallery alongside the masks he's done for premiere goaltenders such as Tommy Salo, Kevin Weekes and Johan Hedberg. He even lists my rec team...It's all so surreal...Hee hee...


Well, I'd better get some stuff done. Ooh, I should share that the first thing I worked on today was a birthday card for Mike Shanahan, who is the Denver Broncos' head coach. He also happens to be the spokesperson for one of our major clients here at the agency. Every year, I get to draw up a cartoon card for his birthday that, subsequently, gets signed by a lot of people who work for this aforementioned client and then, ultimately, presented to him. I don't know if he likes getting them, I've never received any feedback, but I sure like doing them. Just another "cool" perk of having a "cool" job. Maybe I'll post the finished product sometime...Either way, I have to get back to doing more "cool" stuff. Big time parody song audio tomorrow, kids! Don't miss it!..

Labels: indignities, lame stories, pointless shit, sports