I'm back... sorta

Well I am back for a time anyway. Winter is here, and that means blogging season once again. I have been remiss in blogging about my life because it was not important on the scale of things going on, but I am now back to doing so for a while. So what is going on? I will tell you.

First, Dad is doing well. There was a time that we were very concerned about what was going to happen to him as he battles cancer. He contracted shingles and prior to that was stung by a wasp and got pneumonia that sent him into a spiral of bad health and terrible pain for months. Having a compromised immune system is no joke and he was really suffering for some time. We all managed to work through it as a family and made it out the other side a little worse for wear, but alive and moving forward. During this time we all were pretty worn out and it took its toll on everyone in the family, but at least we are all in once piece for the most part.

I have been working as hard as they will allow me to work at my job. There have been several weeks that I have sat home and not gone to work for one reason or another. That has been a terrible strain on my finances of course, but there is little you can do to protect yourself from that kind of work stoppage in my line of work, other than to save for rainy days, and do everything that they ask you to do without complaint. It still sucks though.

I had a terrible scare a few weeks back. I had been working so hard that I got run down and started to catch a cold. I felt it mostly in my chest and thought that a weekend off, sitting quietly at home was the just what I needed. I woke up that Sunday with terrible chest pain and shortness of breath. I went to urgent care and was told that they were afraid I had a blood clot and that they were going to run some tests to see if I was going to be alright. I know that blood clots can kill and for a few hours, while getting blood tests, EKG, and xrays, I thought I might die. I can't tell you how frightening that was for me.

It turned out that my risk of blood clot was low and that the reason I was hurting so badly was that I had pneumonia and broken ribs. I had coughed so hard that I had broken 2 ribs and damaged all the connective tissue in my rib cage and diaphragm. I was never to happy to have pneumonia in my life. I was told to see me regular doctor in two days. I went in to see him on a Tuesday evening and could barely drive myself to his office. I was in so much pain that I could barely stay upright. My primary doctor is a friend of mine, and he took me out of work for a week to recover, gave me pain meds, and told me to stop working so damn hard. I was grateful for the pain meds, because I was worried that I was going to end up in the hospital with the amount of pain I was going through.

I went back to work last week only to run into the worst blizzard that has hit the east coast in years. I ended up stranded on the highway for 15 or more hours and a drive that normally would take a day with a 10 hour break in the middle, took 2.5 days to complete. I ended up breaking something in the rear end of the truck on the way home due to the rough roads, and damaging my rib cage all over again in the process. I am home this week because of that whole mess, and the fact that its xmas week as well. I am sure that by the beginning of the new year, I will be feeling better and so will my truck.

Things are going well on all other fronts. I am struggling along building the studios and the web presence that goes with that. I am also looking at converting this blog somehow to my own personal web space so that all my eggs are in the basket that I own rather than scattered all over the internet. I hope to accomplish this over the coming months and will let you all know what is going on with that as it happens.

I hope anyone left reading this is doing well and has a wonderful new year and a peaceful holiday. Take care everyone!

Sooooo Busy~!

I usually don't spam my own work but...

I have been busy framing this out and getting it ready to officially launch hopefully by the beginning of 2010. Not everything on the site is finished, but the staff page, the about page, and the main index are mostly complete. I still have demo files to upload, and category pages to write. I also have the individual bio pages to finish as well.

In other news....

If has been pretty good. I feel on top of things overall in the household and in life in general. I have been managing not to let my side projects take over my priorities with family, work, or friends. That seems to be an improvement in how I manage large scale things like this project.

Got drunk with my friend Phil on Friday night. He did a great job of holding up my floor while we took the time away from the worries of our everyday lives and just celebrated a regular Friday evening with no agenda attached. I have not done that in years and it felt good. A safe and good time was had by all.

Sunday was clean up of my daughters room and some rearranging of furniture. Preparing for her first party - set for Halloween! We are all excited for her. Five other little girls are going to be here to spend the night. Everyone is most happy with that idea.

Monday was mostly alone time for me as everyone was out of the house and off doing what they needed to do. I spent the day working out the site and getting housework done. Decided to take a break this evening and spend the majority of it on the couch with my lovely bride watching the boob tube. I just took a break from that to post this real quick.

Hope everyone out there in blogger land is good!

Laters~!

Project starting ... now!

So much has been happening lately that I haven't had the time to process all of it. It seems that I have been focused on a bunch of things, but at the same time, not getting a lot done. Spinning your wheels is never a good feeling, but at least there is some small bit of forward movement.

First - the family is fine. Everyone seems to be in good working order for the most part. Mom and Dad have a cold, the Mrs. and I are tired from all the hard work we have been doing, but that is just par for the course.

I have been focused on making the recording work that I have been doing into a business. I am not ready to jump in whole hog, and quit my job and go full time with it, but I would like it to be something that eventually looks like a functioning business.

I went ahead and purchased a .com address, paid for hosting for 2 years, and am in the throes of developing the site. I would like to have it done as soon as possible, knowing full well its going to take a while to get the site up to speed. I have to make sure that whatever I put up there, is of good enough quality that I can edit simply so that I can concentrate on the actual work. I want to make sure that I create a library of representative work that shows what I can do without giving away the store. That part of the project is going to take some time, but I needed a hobby over the winter.

Here is the link to the site - www.tughillstudios.com

I have not finalized the layout at all. Quite frankly, I am not even sure that the layout I have on there now is something that I am going to keep at all. I wanted to use a blogspot-type system for the site just to have ease of updating and such. I loaded WordPress on the site and am using that system at the moment. It seems to be pretty well suited for my needs, however, I am hoping that I can make it more like blogspot, in the sense that I can manipulate it a bit more easily.

In other news, with the help of some good friends I have my entire front porch loaded with wood nearly floor to ceiling. That is about half of what I expect to use this winter. The good news is that we have easily twice what we need for the season. We try hard to have at least 2 years of wood on site just in case. So we are well ahead of the autumn workload. Of course, as the leaves fall, there is going to be ton of yard work to do, but the good news is that I am going to be able to get that done much more easily now that I have the power equipment all in working order.

I am going back out on the road today, but not until late this evening, and I will be going all night. I usually leave in the morning hours and end my day in the mid to late evening, but the load I have today is going to pickup up at 630pm. So I "start" my day then. It is a new customer, so it should be interesting getting down there and dealing with that. The good news is that I am delivering into southern Georgia almost at the border of Alabama for Wednesday mid day. So as soon as I am done with all the puttering I want to do on the computer I am going to take a quiet nap.

Hope everyone reading is well~!

Audio engineering is so much fun~!

As you all may know, I am a Huge Fan of zombie movies. I always have been. There is something exciting about the prospect of the world deteriorating into a "tribal" government, where each small group of people have to band together and survive against everyone else that makes me happy. Maybe it is because I am so upset with the way politics and government work? I am not sure.

I also am a huge fan of NPR and PRI. Intelligent talk radio in the united states is increasingly rare. Most of the talk radio shows have been shoved over to the AM band and are 90% very far right leaning political shows, or sensationalized medical and advice call in programs. I don't like those at all.

So how do these two things go together? Enter Lost Zombies:

I am a featured member of this "social network" and have been for a while. If you ever wonder what I spend my time doing when I'm not blogging or working and what-not, this is it. Lost Zombies is a social network site, but it is far more. The ownership of the site is hell bent on creating a "Community Generated Zombie Documentary". What is that you ask? We are gathering interest, material, and contributors for a feature lenght movie. We have won several awards and gained some serious interest from the film industry. Anyone who ends up contributing work that goes to the film project, will get full credit and be compensated.

So I love radio drama, and radio programs. I have a home studio and freinds who do voice acting as a hobby. I have free time on my hands.... and well... this is what comes out of that combo.


So I present to you "The Gerald Borland Show":


Find more videos like this on Lost Zombies


And of course there would not be studio work without out takes. Beware the F-word show up in this out take so parental discretion is advised!


Find more videos like this on Lost Zombies

Off To The Fair

Good Morning Everyone~!

It is that time of year again. We are off the the Great New York State Fair~! I have my new straw fedora, comfy sneakers, a pocket full of cash, and the whole family. I love the fair I took photos of it last year and they can be found in my Photos Section. The fair is great for so many reasons. People watching is always a treat. There are so many freaky people at the fair. The food is to die for. They have everything from Gyros to Deep Fried Pickles (bleah) and Spaghetti on a stick (how DO they do that?). The exhibits are really interesting every year as well.

I'll post more tomorrow after I recover! Have a great weekend!

Whew....

This weekend was a disaster for my tractor. I can't get into all the specifics because I am going to be taking some legal action against the dealership, but we can easily say that the tractor that I had is no longer a tractor but a pile of parts.

I was lucky to find a similar tractor on craigslist.com and after a lot of anger, yelling, feelings getting hurt, pain, suffering, and of course... $4,000 dollars.... we now own a much newer and perfectly running tractor.

It only took 24 hours to replace the old one, but it did take 2.5 weeks and many phone calls from the dealer for them to supposedly "find" a crack in the block after weeks of work. They deliver the tractor Wednesday, in pieces, "completely unrepairable" so they say. Funny... It went in for an oil change and a small starter issue. It started and ran, drove it up on the truck and it was fine, no oil spilling all over, or horrible noises. How odd is that? Hmmmmmm.......

I will update more after talking the the Attorney General's Office, John Deere's Corporate office, and the local news station. I am sure each of these groups will love to hear about how a local business took a running tractor from a 100% disabled veteran dying of cancer, kept it for weeks, raised the price to over twice the original cost, then, when the veteran refused to buy a new tractor, claimed that it was "totaled" and returned it weeks later, in pieces.

The good news is that I have a nicer tractor being delivered at the end of the week, in far better condition, and that I had the money to replace it. The bad news is that it was every dime I had in a slush fund, and that I am dangerously broke and in hoc to be here. Going after the dealer for the replacement cost of the tractor is the only option, so that is what I will do. Satisfaction will be mine.

In other news:


My brother is such a nice guy. He gave me a wicked nice treadmill that he no longer was able to keep in his apartment. They had not used it much, and it really has all the bells and whistles including counting calories burned, heart rate, and pulse. Total motorized system with incline... its sweet. He rented a moving van and we loaded it up and hauled it here to the house. It is now in my living room, across from the television. From now on my posts and TV watching will be sweat powered.

I do plan on going slowly, but the end result needs to be a loss of 100 pounds in just under 2 years. That is my goal, to be 100 pounds lighter in time for my daughter to be old enough to take rock climbing courses with me. She really wants to start as soon as she can, and she can't go alone. Time to get off my butt!

I have been a busy audio editor lately as well. I am actively working with my friend Phil who is warming up to start work on a full length audio book. Phil is an author with several novels published over the years. He has yet to write the big one that launches him to stardom, but quite frankly... it is only a matter of time. I am working with creating the audio versions of his books and articles to get more attention for him. It is going along nicely and as time allows, I may post examples of his work here for your enjoyment.

Dinner is almost ready and the rain just started pouring down, killing my internet connection. Figures that would be the case! I will post this as soon as my satcom signal comes back. Take care everyone, I am out Monday (as far as I know) so I will update later.

Life get's easier, but hotter!

We have had an unusual summer here in Upstate NY. It has been cool all through July and into August. We also had much more rain than we usually do which killed my garden, and made it miserable to plan vacations and such. Now that August is in full swing, the heat arrives. No one was ready for it. We were all getting used to and enjoying cool evenings and mild days, then this heat wave hits. It has been terrible the last week or so. Highs in the 9o's and humidity and heat indexes both in the 100's. I have been very good lately at avoiding the heat and dealing with it since I travel to the south every week where, as you would expect, it is brutally hot all the time. I even went out and got a straw fedora to wear in the sun (as a stereotypical fat white guy should have) and I really don't care much about what people think. The last sunburn I got on my poor shaved head, nearly turned black, and I can't let that happen again.

We had the last parade for my daughter on Saturday, and that went very well. I am glad to have gotten to know the kids and be able to be there and help them My transformation into a "bank geek" parent is complete. All I need now is the T-shirt. We are going to start working on fund raising for the Washington DC trip next year and I look forward to the fun that will bring.

I seemed to mostly resolve a spat I had with an old friend. He is going through a tough time right now that I understand all too well. It is hard dealing with issues in mid-life while the economic downturn here slaps you around. It felt good to see him again. For his privacy, I won't go into any detail, but I am glad we are talking, albeit on a sort of top level only basis. I would love to have deeper conversation at a more convenient time for both of us. I think, having gone through a similar crisis, that I might be able to offer some help, and I hope I can. It was hard when I had to go through my last crisis because I did it mostly on my own. I don't ever want to turn my back on someone going through a similar thing, unless it gets to a point where my own self preservation calls for it. No matter, I am glad we had a chance to reconnect and talk.

Yesterday my brother called me on the phone and asked from my help. I was wondering what I was going to do for the day when he calls on the phone and asks me to help him clean his carpets in his apartment. They were going to get a delivery of new furniture and need to clean everything up nice. I lugged myself down there in the heat, daughter in tow, and we steam cleaned his carpets and moved furniture around. The nice part was that after we were done, we got to steal a quick dip in the pool they have there. I was going to just bail out in the am go swimming with friends and hang out all day, but when the family calls and asks for help, we jump up and go. That is how we are. Pizza and a few laughs ensued shortly after and we were home by bedtime.

I got an email a short time ago from the boss, telling me that I do, indeed, have a load today, and my truck should be done from it's 30,000 mile service. I am glad I had taken the time to clean it through and through before the service, and now when I leave, the truck will be in great shape inside and out. That truck is my house 4 to 5 days a week, and just when you clean your house from top to bottom and everything is repaired, it feels very nice to be there when everything is done. It sure makes the trips more pleasant in a clean, well organized, and well running environment.

So, it is time to pack up and take off. Thank you all for reading again, I appreciate it.

RIP Les Paul

Les Paul has left us...

Les made everything possible for everyone alive today. There is nothing that we touch daily that he did not have a small hand in effecting. Everyone listens to music, everyone has heard an electric guitar, a recording, and has been inspired by music today. Les invented the way we hear music today. He played a huge role in the way we live our lives and now he is gone. There are few public figures that I will mourn more in my life than Les Paul. God Bless you Mr. Paul. I am greatful to you for everything you have done, and I promise to remember.

Tired!

Well it is Friday, I think. I have been up since Thursday night at about 6pm, only got 4 hours or so of sleep the night before. Wednesday night I only got about 4 hours of sleep as well, and that was interrupted. I feel pretty much like a zombie now. At least what I believe a zombie might feel like, minus the whole craving of brains thing.

Weee 4 day weekend! I have all day off today, Saturday, Sunday, and (since my truck is in the shop for service) Monday as well. Saturday looks like another day with the marching band and the last parade of the season.

I am glad my Live Journal setup is working, however, of you want to see all the links and the pictures on my blog you have to go to the blogspot address. Apparently there is no system in place to convert blogspots html to the "lj cut" stuff that LJ is using. At least you get the text, so that's something.

I have the house to myself now, as everyone leaves to do some shopping, I am left with a quiet house. I am going to unwind and take a short nap, then its back awake for the rest of the day so I can get back to normal.

Hope everyone is well.

Got a great load this week~! Talk to you all this weekend... Later~!

--
==================================================================
This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

Noteable Things

I spent some time last night with my great friend Phil. He is a talented author and I learned very quickly that he also has a talent for voice acting. I asked him to read me some reviews of movies that he had written, and some of the great articles he has on line. After a few of them, I said "Come sit here and read them!". So it started.


He is hilarious! I was really stunned that, for the most part, he was a one take guy, totally unflappable under stress, and completely able to add lib at the drop of a hat. I know I am going to have a lot more work with him in the future. It was way too much fun. As soon as I master the files we recorded, I will get permission to have them posted here for download.

I got turned on to this artist by a friend a while ago. Blotch is actually two artists working as a collaboration to create work under one name. The art is brilliant, the facial expressions are incredible, and I really enjoyed reading some of the stuff Blotch has put out. A new project called "Nordguard" is in the works. Apparently it is a "blog following the development artwork for Blotch's graphic novel trilogy" and it looks fantastic. I look forward to seeing the work done. Great art comes in all forms, give it a chance!

Speaking of great art...sometimes that art happens to be words.


I don't know who this person is.... but they are surely hilarious. There is some serious humor going on here and I can see this just getting funnier and funnier. I was surfing around blogspot, checking out some of the "newest" blogs that had been created. I was bored and needed something to talk about, so that is where I started.... Excellent reading if your in a weird place, you will end up in a weirder place. Great movie reviews, observations, and thoughts on life.

Finally there is this:


I don't know what else to say about this...

That is my random for the week, talk to you all later!

When it hurts to type...

It had to be done, and now everything hurts.

Years ago, we lost a garage. Every tool, every material, every screw, nut and bolt...got piled in a small storage area and left to die. Every time we needed to do anything in the house, even if it was just a 5 minute job, the time it took to find the things you needed for the 5 minute job was 2 hours. It was a mess. This is the pile, and as you can see....disaster.

The room is small, and the tools we really need are far less than what we used to have around. But like so many things in life, you live with what you have and make it work for you. So a few gallons of paint and a lot of bending over, the room was painted with drylok sealant paint, and cleaned out. Remember this small space had all this stuff just thrown in it for years.


So we started early, worked hard, everyone had a job to do. We sorted and pitched, hauled and lifted. The door is only 4 feet and some inches tall into this room, and so is the ceiling. I managed to smash my head on the roof and doorway about 5 times yesterday. My head still hurts.


When we were done the pile was gone. Anything that was not important was thrown out, and everything that was important was sorted and duly put in a place you could easily get to it.


The room, is much nicer now, and doing any repair work, project, or other work around here will be as easy as walking in (banging your head for old times sake) grabbing what you need and going to work.


Isn't that the way its supposed to be?

Back on the road again today, after a really nice weekend. Looks like the week is shaping out to be pretty nice. I will try t

--
==================================================================
This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

Technology = Fail

I love technology. It can be the best thing that ever happened if you use it correctly. If you become dependent on it, however, it can be your worst nightmare. Any of you out there who believe that our devices that we love so much are just things, and not living breathing beings, let me be the first to say that you are dead wrong.

My sister in law came over last week with a new version of my phone (pictured here) to show me. I really loved the fact that it had a sliding cover with a full keyboard. I have a difficult time with my phone (pictured here) because the touch screen is nice, but it is a bit touchy. I have a hard time texting the right letters when I am sending messages. I said "Wow this is really nice, I should get one of these when I am ready to upgrade.' That.... was a huge mistake.

I grabbed my phone to compare hers to mine. I touched the screen, nothing. I tapped it, nothing. I powered it on and off, nothing. I tried and tried to get my phone to work......nothing. It was dead.

Apparently, my phone "heard" me talk about upgrading it, got mad, and just stopped working completely. Worse than that, years and years of contact information for work and friends, were gone. There was no hope of retrieving it. I could not get the phone to open the menu for the address book, because there was no way to touch the screen and get the numbers to show up. I could not even write them down. I was screwed.

I got the phone replaced under warranty at no cost to me. That was good because the replacement cost is terrible. The bad news is that there was no way to get any data off the phone. I lost all my numbers and was really upset because some of those numbers I could not replace. Luckily, the most important contacts I have in other locations so I am not at a total loss.

The rest of the week was stressful in some aspects. Mom and Dad's finances now that they are on disability are not nearly as good as we had anticipated. There is a $3000 a month discrepancy that we are facing. Luckily we are in a position to be flexible enough to handle it right now. For a short while this week, we were panicked that we were not going to be able to make it. It seems now, however, we will. I can honestly say that I was freaked out about that.

Work was good, and the weekend is going to be short again. I am leaving out Monday to cover for someone on vacation. I am glad to have the job and the hours that I have right now, so you won't hear many complaints from me.

Today my daughter has a parade with the marching band. We are leaving in a little bit and won't be home until later in the evening. I am looking forward to some fun, rather than stress for a change.

Quiet Weekend / Short Weekend

This week was calm and relaxing for the most part. I did not leave out until Wednesday, which put me back on Saturday in the early afternoon. I got home and dove right in helping around the yard. Everyone had a bonfire going and we were burning our old scrap wood, rotten furniture we had been meaning to throw away, and paper that had been out in a pile for such a long time. I relaxed while the fire burned and helped throw on some more heavy items. It was nice.

Spent most of the day messing with a secret project for my social network Lost Zombies. I am working on a website to coincide with the official time line, separate of the main site, that will hopefully drive traffic to the main site, and help us to achieve our film making goal. I have been working on the idea for a few weeks, and have the basic framework up. Now it will all be filling up the content and releasing it on time. I am really excited.


Not much else going on at the moment. There is a huge storm rolling in with some violent wind, hail, and possible tornadoes right now. I am going go get off the computer and watch the show!

~Be Well Everyone!

Out on the road finally, after a very nice vacation. I'll be back this weekend.

--
==================================================================
This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T

Barrel Monster at Urban Prankster

Barrel Monster at Urban Prankster

Posted using ShareThis

What happened here?

Okay, so I have some explaining to do...

I walked away from blogging for a while do peruse other things. So much has happened since I last posted it would take too long to explain it all. For a while, I had created a new picture blog, and was just taking photos and not posting anything on the blog at all. Then life took a terrible turn.

My father was diagnosed with lung cancer in April, and life has been one hell of a ride since then. He has a tumor the size of a grapefruit over the top of the right upper lobe and it is wrapped around this trachea and larynx. It also had spread to one lymph node. The diagnosis came very suddenly after what we thought was a common chest cold. After a few weeks of terror waiting for results from the docs, we found that it was cancer, that he has a 30% chance of making it 5 years, and that he was to start chemo and radiation immediately.

The last two months have been radical chemo and radiation five days a week. Dad finally got a break about two weeks ago and is doing well considering everything he has been through. He is up and moving well, getting things done around the house that he always wanted to do, and now due to his retirement, he gets the time to do them.

My wife, daughter, and I took a vacation once he was doing well enough that we could take some time off, and I have posted those pictures here to give you all a treat. We were in desperate need of a break and finally got a chance to take that break.

So I decided to compile all my old blogs here and post updates in one place from now. I hope you like the new layout, new title, and new outlook. Things are different today than they have been in the past. I look at things differently than I used to, hence the title change. Hope you like it!

Vacation Pics, Day 3

Vacation Pics, Day 2

Vacation Pics, Day 1

Memorial Day