The Reboot Button On Life

    Hey there, I'm sure you're all aware that there hasn't been a show in a while. We've been on a break from it for personal reasons. A lot has happened to us since the live show at Turtle Run Campground. When we were on our way to the campground I got a call from one of my co-workers stating that my whole department was getting demoted because they were transferring our job to another location. This was the first step in a series of events that left me pretty ravaged, and had a lot to do with the amount of whiskey I drank at that show.

     Shortly after we returned from the campground I went to visit my girlfriend of 2 and a half years and she told me that she wanted to split. This seemed to have come out of nowhere and took me by surprise, but I should have seen it coming as it seemed we had been growing more and more distant. It still really upset me all the same.

The next event happened just days later on May 26th. It was me getting an e-mail from a roommate telling me that the landlord wanted me to be out by the end of the month.  I replied asking if she meant the end of June. No. I had 5 days to pack everything I owned and move it out of the place I had just moved in to in October. I was renting a room on the second floor of a house and two of the other people were moving out and the dick landlord decided at the last minute that he would rather rent the floor to a family instead of renting the rooms to individuals. Unfortunately the matter of where I was supposed to live was unimportant.  I was going to just put all of my belongings in storage and then live in my van until I found another place to live. Luckily I have some amazing friends and one of them has been letting me crash on the futon in the spare room since this has happened.

     Finally, in the beginning of June I got a break from the insanity and went to California to visit my brother.  I had an amazing time that sadly came to an end all too quickly. As I was on the plane to come back I realized that I had very little to come back to. No girlfriend, shitty job that made me want to kill myself, no home, and the realization that my entire life fit in a 5x10 storage unit. I discovered that I'm 33 years old and have nothing to show for those 33 years. I had plugged headphones into the plug to listen to in flight tv, turned on VH1 and was hoping that the flight would be much shorter than planned, but then decided that I didn't want "Right Here, Right Now" to be the last song that I heard before I died, so I plugged into the iPod and cranked Slayer's "World Painted Blood". That's an album to die to.

     On the flight back I came to the conclusion that I've had enough of New Jersey, and decided to load up my van and move out to California as soon as possible. I was originally planning on leaving at the end of July but that didn't give me enough time to do everything I needed to do.  I ended up changing the leave date to the end of August to stick around and spend more time with friends and take more time to get my belongings in order to find out what I was able to fit in the van, what I would ship, and what I would need to find a way to get to California at a later date or just get rid of.

     During this time period life decided that it hasn't quite shit on me enough and my transmission goes out on my van and I lose my job right around the same time.  So $2500 later I have a van again, and luckily unemployment has started coming in. I've got my belongings in order and I'm going to be moving this Saturday.  I will be driving almost 3,000 miles cross country by myself.

     We are looking into setting up a way for me to do the show remotely when we start broadcasting again. I have my equipment that I will need for it, it's just a matter of getting everything set up and running tests on it to make sure there is no delay, echo, and that everybody comes through clearly. 

So now you're all up to date on what's been going on in my world. The next blog I post will be from the other side of the country, it will probably be pompous drivel about soul searching on the road and finding it behind a cactus on a side street in Nevada or something. If I'm lucky, I'll get abducted somewhere in that region when I'm passing through.

Mark