Mile High to the Big Easy

As promised, I will attempt to catch up a shad on the last couple weeks. I would hate to lose either of my two readers for not fulfilling my word. Heh.

I began work again with Caldera on Feb. 1 up in Ft. Collins. I have worked with this outfit since college off and on, but they have grown incredibly since my last stint. The first week I was with them we set an event on Mon here in Ft. Collins on Mon. for bas Bleu Theatre. On Tue. and Wed. we had a team in New York City while the rest of us packed and prepped two 26' trucks and an additional small truck. The little one was for an event in Ft. Collins and the two big trucks were bound for Palm Springs, CA and New Orleans, LA at the same time. When I worked with these guys before our big travel jobs were about 50 miles away. I was slotted to drive the truck to New Orleans. I worked closely with a couple great people at the office most days, Devon and Josh. Everyone so far has been great, but those two seemed to be the ones I worked off of most. My life seems to keep coming back to packing and driving. Perhaps I am wasting time looking for acting work as I seem to excel at loading trucks!

We saw Josh and Devon off after a quick cross-load on Sat morning. I went back to Denver to hang with my folks for my short time off. My road partner, Hunter, picked me up early afternoon Mon. in Denver at the Colorado Opera Shop. Our departure was delayed by last minute changes at the shop and a couple pesky pick-ups on the way. We also stopped in Colorado Springs, but had to back track East to avoid a storm coming over the Rockies. Hunter and I got along great and shared musical taste. That is a big perk when you find yourself sharing a truck cab for 1400 miles! We made it to Hays, KS on the first stretch and to Nakadoches, LA on our second day. We were outfitted with a GPS for the road which was awesome, but ocassionally not as helpful. For some reason it took us through Paris, TX on the way, adding hours to our second day on the road.

We finally pulled into the Big Easy on Wed afternoon and were met by the rest of the team down there: Katie, Rob, Scotty, Kim, Shawna, and Christy. It was great to see Scooter again. We all headed to the French Quarter for dinner. After some debate, we settled on Acme Oyster Co. for dinner. I tried half a dozen raw and half a dozed grilled. Both were pretty damn good, but Tobasco helped with the raw ones. Apparently oysters are like sushi in that if you have a good appetite, you will send a fortune to get full. The whole area was fascinating, but I think a one time visit would suffice. When we go a chance to venture a little further than Burbon St. latter in the week, I was much more impressed.

Our week was pretty consistantly long hours in the convention Center setting up for the NBA Players Gala. I teamed up with Scott most of the time and we had a ball. It was a lot of waiting for sub-contacted companies to get their parts finished which led to a huge 5:45am till 6:30pm push on Sat. It still cracks me up that I was touching up a paint on a vanity mirror for Snoop Dogg's dressing room while holding a maglight that morning beacause the halogen lights had not come on yet. Ah, my surreal life!

I opted to return to the event with our "All-Access Pass." Several of us returned to see it all. I however was the only one that did not pack with this in mind and rocked out in a black t-shirt and jeans. It made me laught to be bumping elbows with NBA stars dressed so casually. I far and away was not the most casual though. It was great event and one I would not have had much interest in otherwise. Even Snoop Dogg was a lot of fun, despit not starting till 2am.

Our call to return for a brief strike was 2:30 am, and I left the party at 2:15. Scott and I came back a little after 3am and the team worked till 5am clearing our gear from around the stage and front of house so their crews could continues getting everything out. We came back at 9:30am and worked untill about 6:30pm. My main job was loading the truck, where I spent 5hrs straight. Our big boss took us out to eat at a sushi place across the street from our hotel. I can honestly say I have never had better sushi in my life, it was so great.

The next morning we went out to Cafe du Monde for Kim's birthday. We had wonderful beignets and chickory coffee. It was wonderful!! Scott and I hit the road around 2pm and after a drop-off i New Orleans, were on the open road by 3pm. We took I-10 to Houston so as I could get just a glimpse of the old home town and then headed North to Dallas. Again our GPS gave us an unexpected detour through downtown Dallas at 1am, but we were in a hotel room on the Northside of town by 2am. We hauled as fast as out fixed 65mph truck could go all day Tue and pulled into Colorado Springs just after midnight. Our drop there was across the street and we were finished in Denver by around 12:30. At that point Katie from the office texted us and told us we needed to take the truck to Greeley for a cross-load there. I guess we looked like hell and were told we could go after we fished off the right gear there.

That just about brings us up to date. I am tired of writing and you are probably tired of reading this too. Hell, I might even be down to just one reader now!