Or more correctly, and to paraphrase one of my favorite movie lines, It ends. After a couple of years of association with Floydshow and many successful and fun performances, my participation with the group has most likely come to an end. After a lot of mud-slinging and whining, secret meetings and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Amy was asked to leave the band tonight. Since Amy is probably the main reason that I am associated with the group, I will probably leave as well. I have grown to like all the members (and in all reality, have grown to love some of them dearly) and this is a difficult decision. Just so you know, if they continue with the gigs they have scheduled for the rest of this year, I will participate with them, but I don't think they will be able to fulfill their obligations unless they get someone who has been playing Pink Floyd music for a LONG time, and has the keyboards. When Amy took a hiatus from the band a while back, there was a very unsuccessful effort to find a new keyboard player for the band. What Amy brings to Floydshow is not going to be easy to replace. My role since we re-started has been sax, vocals and additional keys. I cannot and shouldn't take over for Amy, since I have neither the ability nor the equipment for the role.
Thus it is with greatest regret that I step away from one of the greatest associations of my life. I hope that Amy has a new group in mind where we can continue to play together.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Floydshow returned to Tulalip!
On July 15th and 16th, the members of Floydshow left the Greater Salt Lake area to play once again for the Tulalip Casino north of Seattle, Washington. After our gig there in March, we were pretty excited to go again, because it was a GREAT crowd there last time. Some of us left on Friday morning with the intent to drive to Yakima, WA to spend the night. We ended up eating lunch in Brigham City while we waited for someone's laptop to arrive. We won't tell you who it was that has the laptop addiction. Suffice to say that some people have wubbies or pillows, but our comfort was the laptop. We love this person anyway, and we all got a good laugh out of it.
We got to the Seattle area on Saturday and went to the waterfront, the Pike Street Market and the Space Needle. We didn't actually go in the needle, but instead visited the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum. They were featuring Hendrix and Nirvana, but there were a lot of other interesting exhibits, including a live version of Animusic. Sort of. Not so detailed nor quite so fantastic, but there were mechanical fingers playing guitars and basses, so it was pretty cool.
Set up on Sunday for the gig, did our sound check at 5, then went to clean up for the gig. We started at 8, and played for a little more than 90 minutes. Again, it was a good show and the sound mix was by far the best we have ever had at a gig. There was a great crowd again, and they seemed very happy with the show. So much so that the venue paid us $500 more than the contract. We hope to go back again, of course. It's a good venue. Traveled home on Monday and got back around 3 AM.
I already miss it.
We got to the Seattle area on Saturday and went to the waterfront, the Pike Street Market and the Space Needle. We didn't actually go in the needle, but instead visited the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum. They were featuring Hendrix and Nirvana, but there were a lot of other interesting exhibits, including a live version of Animusic. Sort of. Not so detailed nor quite so fantastic, but there were mechanical fingers playing guitars and basses, so it was pretty cool.
Set up on Sunday for the gig, did our sound check at 5, then went to clean up for the gig. We started at 8, and played for a little more than 90 minutes. Again, it was a good show and the sound mix was by far the best we have ever had at a gig. There was a great crowd again, and they seemed very happy with the show. So much so that the venue paid us $500 more than the contract. We hope to go back again, of course. It's a good venue. Traveled home on Monday and got back around 3 AM.
I already miss it.
Chase is the very devil
OK, I know it's not such good form to bash some poor, helpless puppy, person or even a defenseless financial institution, but Chase bank is NONE of the above. If you have some account at Chase, I recommend you close it as soon as possible and never go back to the Great Satan. It's not the Anti-Christ, but it is one of his minions.
I had a credit card with them for a long time, and we were relatively happy. One day they decided to raise my rate for no reason that they could adequately explain, so I called like it said to in the disclosure and told them that I wouldn't accept their new rate, so they closed the card, which was also fine with me. They then raised the rate twice anyway. Bastards! OK. Whatever. It went from a revolving line to a term loan, except they don't have an option to make a recurring payment on the debt that's not the minimum payment or the total amount. That means that I can't use their system to pay off the loan faster in a way that might be at all convenient to me. I was going to set up automatic payments from my credit union account (America First, who I highly recommend lest you think I am bashing ALL financial institutions) but I noticed that the payment date kept moving, so there was no way to set it up that way. I had to log in to the web site EVERY time to make a single payment for the amount I wanted to pay. Just imagine what would were I to miss a payment by a day. Yeah.
I was able to come up with the money to pay off this debt I owed to the minion of Satan, so I logged on and found out what my last statement balance had been, and paid that amount. It came out of my account and the balance went to zero. End of story? Of COURSE not! three days after I paid the loan to zero, I got an interest charge on the (closed, by the way) account that would be due in 1 month, give or take a few days. Of course, if I paid THAT balance on or before the due date, I would then be assessed interest on THAT amount for that billing cycle and on and on ad-infinitem until the account could no longer accrue any interest, which would likely be a couple of months.
Just as a comparison, I paid off another card at the same time. I paid the statement balance, and the balance went to zero on their web site. They cut another statement a few days later, and wonder of wonders, the balance was still zero. They didn't pull any of this crap that Chase, the evil minion of Satan, was pulling. I called their 'Customer Service' line to complain and spent 5 minutes arguing with a heavy Indian (yes, from the other side of the world) accent who was obviously reading from some script he had in front of him. Finally, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I spent about the same amount of time arguing with HER until finally, she said, "OK, we'll credit that interest amount back, but (paraphrasing) remember that we're doing you a HUGE favor by doing this. At least the balance is now zero, which I expected in the first place.
Ohhhhh, that felt good to get off my chest. If I can warn just one person in the world not to do business with the evil minion of Satan, then I will consider this entry to be a success. Thank you and goon night!
I had a credit card with them for a long time, and we were relatively happy. One day they decided to raise my rate for no reason that they could adequately explain, so I called like it said to in the disclosure and told them that I wouldn't accept their new rate, so they closed the card, which was also fine with me. They then raised the rate twice anyway. Bastards! OK. Whatever. It went from a revolving line to a term loan, except they don't have an option to make a recurring payment on the debt that's not the minimum payment or the total amount. That means that I can't use their system to pay off the loan faster in a way that might be at all convenient to me. I was going to set up automatic payments from my credit union account (America First, who I highly recommend lest you think I am bashing ALL financial institutions) but I noticed that the payment date kept moving, so there was no way to set it up that way. I had to log in to the web site EVERY time to make a single payment for the amount I wanted to pay. Just imagine what would were I to miss a payment by a day. Yeah.
I was able to come up with the money to pay off this debt I owed to the minion of Satan, so I logged on and found out what my last statement balance had been, and paid that amount. It came out of my account and the balance went to zero. End of story? Of COURSE not! three days after I paid the loan to zero, I got an interest charge on the (closed, by the way) account that would be due in 1 month, give or take a few days. Of course, if I paid THAT balance on or before the due date, I would then be assessed interest on THAT amount for that billing cycle and on and on ad-infinitem until the account could no longer accrue any interest, which would likely be a couple of months.
Just as a comparison, I paid off another card at the same time. I paid the statement balance, and the balance went to zero on their web site. They cut another statement a few days later, and wonder of wonders, the balance was still zero. They didn't pull any of this crap that Chase, the evil minion of Satan, was pulling. I called their 'Customer Service' line to complain and spent 5 minutes arguing with a heavy Indian (yes, from the other side of the world) accent who was obviously reading from some script he had in front of him. Finally, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I spent about the same amount of time arguing with HER until finally, she said, "OK, we'll credit that interest amount back, but (paraphrasing) remember that we're doing you a HUGE favor by doing this. At least the balance is now zero, which I expected in the first place.
Ohhhhh, that felt good to get off my chest. If I can warn just one person in the world not to do business with the evil minion of Satan, then I will consider this entry to be a success. Thank you and goon night!
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