Author: David Pierron

Octane

In the Aug 15 entry I mentioned that that Tuesday was shot and there were things about it that I might mention at a “later time” … Well, what I did on August 10th when I should have been doing the paper or sleeping, I went and auditioned for Octane. I was so sick that Tuesday … I was the walking dead as far as I’m concerned … but I did so much work that day … I got up early … about 9am and I went and rented a truck … drove that to my parent’s house where I worked on several speakers that needed to be replaced … They actually had to be soldered on … The current speakers were the press down kind, so soldering them was a hassle … I was sweating and being very sick … I had to take breaks … Once speakers were wired up, I had to load the truck … Then off to The Whiskey Tango to get what equipment I had there … While I was there I borrowed the mics and some monitors for the audition … A manager was there and I asked if I could borrow them … The manager didn’t even ask why, so I thought … okay! … I mean, I lent them my stuff, so I was just borrowing their stuff for an afternoon … I was already late for the audition, but I went anyway … So I finally got there maybe about an hour to an hour and a half late … But I was so sick, I was like “Yeah, I’m here, I’m late .. sorry, I guess I don’t get the job.” … but no, no, no … it was cool … I was fine … okay … Should I wait outside or should I come in? It’s okay to come in … Cool!

I was very happy that I could come inside and hear the first audition … You have to understand, I went in there feeling defeated before I had even started … I didn’t have the kind of boards that they would have needed … I only had my little Mackie 24-4 … my little Peavey 16 channel monitor board … Old crusty JBL speakers and like no substantial amount of equipment … I went in there with 4 tops, 4 bottoms, 3 racks, a cable trunk … monitors and boards … That was it … The guy before me had the room filled with 32 or 40 channel boards, tons of cases, etc … Me, even the speakers I just soldered the new speakers into I didn’t test cause I would have had to basically set up the PA to test them, so I didn’t even know if they would work … At that point I didn’t even care … At that point besides the fact that it didn’t matter cause I was so sick, I knew that my PA even without those speakers would WOW them … While I was there, the third guy to audition showed up … It was about 3 or 4pm at this point and I had to get back to The Whiskey to do The Interns … Waited a long time for the first guy to load out, and in the interim the offer was made that the third guy load in his system and I mix on it so they could hear me mix and save me the loading in and out because I was so sick … The third guy said that was cool with him, but I declined the offer … I wanted to mix on my system … After all, wasn’t that the point? After all, didn’t I go through hell to get it there including renting a truck? Didn’t I spend about $320 on new speakers and $155 on renting a truck? Well, hell yeah I did … so I was going to set up my system … The band helped load in (my hand truck went flat) … so did one of the managers … So I set up all the stuff and got checks while each guy checked out their stuff … There wasn’t much talking going on … When I got everything I needed and they got what they needed through what monitors they actually used, they just basically started playing … I cranked it, and it slammed! It sounded awesome in my opinion … Fat clicky kick, snappy snare and November Rain toms … cutting guitars and deep bass … A suggestion here and there and they just played and listened … No real direction to me … Then a mic was used to sing a song … okay, onto the acoustics … We checked those through the PA and monitor for the drummer at the same time, and they jammed on the three acoustics for a little while … The only vocals were that one song … Then the drummer had the monitor guy play his drums so he could hear them out front … and that was it … Thanks Dave. So I packed up and ran out of there to get to The Whiskey … spent … so sick …

I’m not mentioning who the other people were that auditioned for obvious reasons, but if any of them happen by this, I would certainly like to thank the third guy for helping me out as much as he did … I mean he wasn’t there to help me … but I was so sick, I guess everyone felt sorry for me … But everyone was cool about it, and I was very happy with the way things sounded … I certainly hope they were …

Well, 3 weeks later I guess they were happy cause they hired me … So I had to tell The Whiskey Tango and purchase the stuff that I said I would get if they hired me … The sound company that was covering them between sound companies was also in the running to do them permanently … They gave them notice (as promised) so they knew that their system was going to be available again. They would keep them for 3 weeks so that they wouldn’t lose any down time and the transition could be made to the new sound company (which is me) … Well, this company immediately decided if they weren’t getting the account, they were done doing the band entirely … no notice or anything … They supposed this might happen, but they didn’t think it would … So this would screw the band and it would screw The Whiskey Tango if I went out and did the band with the system that I auditioned with … Screw the band not having sound, and I would screw the Whiskey not being there for the weekend … Who would they get on such short notice? Props to John John at The Whiskey for being very understanding and helping work everything out, and props to the drummer for finding alternatives for that weekend … We are still going to rush to get everything for this coming Thursday, but heck … What else are we going to do?

So, I am now officially the new sound and lighting provider for Octane … I was also able to hang onto Sundays at The Whiskey Tango … I really feel bad about leaving the Whiskey, but this opportunity had to be pursued … It was what I wanted in the way of coming “out of retirement” if I had chose to go back “on the road” … plus the money isn’t something to shake a stick at … I will have more nights home now and my 6 year old was very happy about that …

There was also a lot of rumors going around about all sorts of things revolving around this band and stuff … Well, I got the job, and I will know first hand soon enough if the rumors are true … I will certainly vent here … Stay tuned …

Crawling from the wreckage

Besides being a pretty cool song, it describes the network after Tuesday night … There is a site hosted here by a reseller and my policy is to not expose sites that are hosted here to anyone. But, this site brought the network close to its knees Tuesday night. I have heard on The Howard Stern show about him mentioning a web address and the traffic created shuts down the server (it simply congests the connection) but access to the site becomes almost impossible … For the first time ever, this happened here except the web address was mentioned on National Television … The site was mentioned Tuesday night on The Late Show with David Letterman … I guess the guy who resells this site would want to promote the site even though it’s resold, so he could comment here if he reads this … but I sorta wanted a heads up to those people who host through me what had happened this past Tuesday night and the following days … Wednesday it was still pretty busy and fell off a bit Thursday … We’ll see what happens come later today … I think the initial traffic Tuesday night was people simply hitting the site, but the following days they had posted the video (streaming) of the appearance and that was probably killing the connection as well … While it’s a shame that it slammed the connection, it’s pretty cool that it happened … In a weird way, eh?

I got the SARS

Sick again … for almost over a week … it started last Friday bad … I ended up going home Saturday night before Steamroller started … Just surviving Sunday night and then Monday I slept all day … Of course I was supposed to be finishing the Out On the Town at this point, I had hardly started … Tuesday was shot for many reasons, and I may return to why later … I went home after The Interns 1st set … I also had a replacement Wed & Thu nights … Wednesday I finally got drugs … I had spoke to Mike about the paper and I was about half way done … I woke up about 3PM Wednesday and went in front of the computers … 2 hours of going through all the accumulated email and telephone calls, the cough syrup was taken about 5PM … a double dose that had me staring into space for 3 hours … The wife told me to lay down and I finally gave up trying to fight it as I was getting absolutely nothing done … About another 2 hours of sleep and when she tried to gove me more cough syrup, I held up the cross … She hissed and I went back downstairs and slowly but surely got through the remaining ads to the paper to finish about 4am Thursday morning … I then slept, took cough syrup, amoxicillun and slept … and slept … I had to go in Friday night so I had Last Man’s guy mix the opener and I did lights … at 2AM I ran out the door … and slept … Got up a little earlier on Saturday night and cleansed myself from head to toe, every nook and cranny … Felt a little okay, but still had a cold … Sweat up a storm setting up the band, Flavor … After their 1st set I felt a little bit better and several people also commented that I looked better … I still couldn’t hear too well being the “cold” was in my head and my right side feels “open” … It’s hard to describe, but that stuffy open feeling you get in your head when you have a cold … Whomever I asked said it sounded okay, so I was confident that it was a passable mix for the evening … While I thought it sounded very LOUD, the meters didn’t show me that it was, so I guessed and got through it … I felt pretty good throughout the evening … but I still have that lingering cold … Hopefully that will trail off …

Stress?

Lot of things all going on at once here … but I realize I haven’t made an update and I am getting sick of looking at the last couple entries … Of course the Out On the Town is looming for this week and this limits my time … My father wants a W2K installation at home as well as a pcAnywhere install at his home and office location … If I want a sound job, I have to “audition” for it, and I am having serious issues with making the audition date/time … I am still working 6 nights a week, and this past Sunday (Aug 1st) I came off of the benefit/W@B Reunion where I worked about 14 hours which shot my Monday … after recovery? I went back to work Tuesday … The launch of The Interns web site had most of them in the booth that night and I don’t know know … It just seems to be one thing after another … bam, bam, bam … getting hit from all sides … and it’s so very hot these last couple days … Where there’s a will, there’s a way … bah!

Mail Server

It all started on a Monday … This reseller told me that there was a customer of his that was getting mail server errors … So I tried sending from/to accounts I have on that server … It worked. I also sent messages to the guy that was reporting the problem … They all worked. But, he tried sending, and he couldn’t do it, so then I thought that maybe I had some sort of privileges since I was on the same network … Regardless, then the phone rang … Someone trying through webmail wasn’t receiving messages … Another IM popped upped … Damn! Something was a amiss … I immediately contacted the mail server guy and he found that the virus scanner was crapping out on a corrupted database … He then thought it best to upgrade the virus software to fix the problem … All was fine and good … until the next day … Now the thing was core dumping … Various other errors, and the machine would quit under load and boot … The thought was that Perl should be upgraded due to the new virus software … While that was compiling, it was crapping out, so then things got real fun … So he figured that we should just upgrade the whole box and bring everything current … but the machine seemed to behave respectably if we left it alone … We did get a new kernel built, but trying to right everything else was resulting in Bus errors and more and more core dumps … At this point, the problem seemed to point to memory although the memory in this machine has been working for the last year … We decided to leave the machine running and stop the IMs and phone calls until I could test the memory in the wee hours … I did that yesterday morning and there were multiple errors so lo and behold, yes! It was the memory … So having that tested, I had to go another day running the bad memory until I could purchase new memory and install it. So, on my way to work I stopped at CompUSA and picked up 1G of memory … When I got home, I first tested the new memory in another machine … I checked it for over an hour and it passed all tests … Then I installed it into the mail server and have been up ever since … Then I tested the RAM again in the test machine … The stick that went bad wasn’t even the one I thought would have went bad … The 256 stick was bad, and the 512 is good … So, now we need to fix up the rest of the mail server and all will be well … I can’t tell you how I have felt the last week with all 3 of these scenarios hitting at once … At one point I almost gave up … but, that’s not like me …

Pick me! Pick me!

As I have said before, I have no idea who reads this stuff, or who happens on these pages in their Internet travels … There are many ways that someone could happen on this stuff being the wonderful way that the Internet searches and documents itself through search engines and web crawlers … So, at times I am vagues about things that I want to post up here for whatever reasons … I post this entry as a sort of vent as probably most of the other posts are up here as well …

I have been working house sound for approximately 9 months now. While it is something to easily fall into and something that someone like myself who has been “on the road” for the prior 7 or 8 years, it’s just not the same in many ways. The biggest is the money. In my current situation, it’s not my PA that is the house PA that I work on, so my PA has been sitting in a truck for the last 9 months. I don’t take any outside jobs as I am at the install 6 nights a week. Yes, 6 nights a week. The money is less than I made working with a band in the same situation. What we would refer to as “walk-ins” … I would show up just with the band’s equipment and run sound on the establishment’s PA system. In most cases, that PA was owned by a 3rd party and they were making money from the bar by them having that system in there … But that’s besides the point … So right off the bat, I am making less money in my current situation by not using my PA … Not that I don’t have a nice install to work on, it’s just not mine and therefor I don’t put as much “love” into that system as I would my own …

While I could have realistically sold off my PA either whole or piece by piece, I didn’t actively pursue that … Not for any particular reason, and not with any plans in mind … I just haven’t done it … and with the current job, my time has been severely limited … I may only work a certain amount of hours each night, but it is 6 nights … 2nd shift basically … I have also done extra things at my job … I have run a self serving network connection to the booth so that I can be on the Internet and do other things while I am at work. For example, if a band brings in a guy like my above example of the band’s gear and mixing, well, I just sit there and wait for 2 o’clock to roll around. So, I put in the network connection so I could work on Internet things while there doing nothing … So, I get paid to work on other projects while I am there “babysitting” as I call it …

When I started there was a DJ that worked Sunday and Wednesday nights … He moved to Chicago and they never replaced him … I purchased the appropriate cables and started to bring in my laptop to play music from the computer … I purchased a program to “rip” my CD collection (I was a DJ way way back too) and I provide the music between sets on these Sunday and Wednesday nights now … In fact, I did that before I put in the Internet connection, and I did that cause I started bringing my laptop to work more and more and I currently bring it every night now … When they needed things to use while others were repaired, I opened up my truck and grabbed those things … The short list is a drum monitor (that eventually got blown), a monitor board and some mic stands (or mounts) … I didn’t ask for money for any of these things … I have also done benefits where I essentially worked a “double” shift and I received quite less money than a normal shift … The thing about these benefits was that you were dealing with bands that were right out of the garage or who had never played such a club, so in my opinion it’s more work …

Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining … It is a fine place to work and very easy to sit back and just do it because there is little pressure what-so-ever … The stress factor is very close to zero … There are perks that I don’t even take much advantage of, and that’s free food and drinks … In fact, I buy $1.00 sodas out of their take out … When I get food, I believe I tip very well … All I am leading up to is that this job would be great for someone who hasn’t had a taste of “the road” … Where there is much more money to be had … While I may not think it’s that much money, someone else may think it’s the best job in the world … They could look at it as getting fed 6 nights a week with the opportunity to tie one on every night … While I don’t choose to do this, someone if well behaved could manage it … I seriously don’t think there are any plans of doubling my pay anytime soon, and I don’t think the bar would consider investing anymore money into a sound guy simply because in actuality, I don’t really do much … I may be realiable and a great worker and a pretty go0d sound guy even, but there just isn’t enough to justify paying more I think …

So, on to the title of this post … I decided that if I “came out of retirement” as I like to think of it, that I wouldn’t do that for a mediocre situation … In other words, when the band I worked for broke up, I could have easily did sound for various bands that needed sound for various venues and did it that way … I would have had to be responsible for booking myself and finding work … That wasn’t a scenario I wanted … I also didn’t think that if I ever got the itch to take my PA back out that I would do it with a band that wasn’t a true “A” band … I would need to do a band that would bring me the recognition that I think I deserve … I have done many things for many people in the entertainment industry and I seriously don’t think that it’s something that I shouldn’t take advantage of, or expect to be respected for … it’s about that time …

So, there is currently 2 bands that I would want to work for, and I am waiting around to see what pans out with them … One is very near and was a recent surprise availability … In the case of “Pick me!” it has to do with a semi-local sound company that does a lot of bands on the circuit … While the owner seems to be doing very well for himself, while it was said he would be declining this recent availabilty … that changed … He isn’t in business to say “no” to money … Me neither …

Going, going, gone!

Seems all the waiting and the sending in of resumés etcetera didn’t pay off … Being patient did nothing but allow a “beloved” employee who has applied for the job … So, my “buddy” has informed me, and this just makes everything look bleak as far as the pending job goes … But he has hopes that they will still interview me as his job may be available soon … He is applying for another job within the company … I don’t know about you, but a job that sits dormant for almost 3 months that there was interest in isn’t filled, makes you wonder about their priorities and then someone (who has obviously quit or moved on before) just jumps right in. It makes you think that there was no desires to get outside inquiries at all … I have heard that there are companies that actually run ads for job openings that the job opening has already been filled by someone within the company or a friend of a friend (which is what I thought I was doing) … but there is some sort of reason that they have to run the ad … I don’t know what, but it’s something that I’ve heard that I am probably not explaining properly … Oh well … I shall keep on keeping on …

I’m down!

If I had a dollar for every time this happens, I’d have about $20.00 … Maybe I exaggerate, or maybe it just happens so often to piss me off for me to post about it … I get the call, “Oh my god! What did you do? I can’t get to my web site! You’re down! I’m down?! What the heck did you do??” So, I go to GoDaddy.Com … click on the WHOIS at the bottom links section … Lookup the domain that’s “down” … and there it sits, expired … I guess what upsets me the most about it is that when there’s a problem, the first place the finger points is at me … The labor I put into the network, connection and monitoring is probably more than most ISPs do … and I’m only one person … I can never understand how someone could have their domain name expire … I get tons of emails letting me know of upcoming domain expirations (which I find annoying that they let me know 90 days in advance, but at least it’s placed in my mind what domains are coming up), and I check almost weekly the domains I manage for their expiration dates … The fee is nominal, and it makes no sense for anyone who wants their web site to remain active to keep that nominal fee paid …

Microsoft

I posted a message in a forum about Microsoft software, I figured I would post it here as well to share it with anyone else who comes here:

For us end users that live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have the extra money to rent videos or order in very often can’t really afford to go out and spend thousands of dollars on Microsoft software and the hardware necessary to run it … We have to find other alternatives … I think the majority of these people sink a bunch of money into robust hardware and then look for the “copy that floppy” solutions for the software … In my case, “copy that floppy” isn’t going to fly running on the public side of the Internet, so I looked for other solutions that didn’t break my wallet and weren’t illegal …

When I started, I wanted to be “legal” so I purchased NT4 in November 1999 for $799 … 2000 came out in February, and guess what? I wasn’t eligible for the “upgrade” so I had to pay for that as well …

Shortly after Microsoft had an offer if you ran 25 domains (hosted) that you could join their Web Hoster Program … It included a FREE copy of Windows 2000 Advanced Server … so I took advantage of that, and this is what my Windows hosting is based on now …

Over the course of the last 3-4 years, I have had the trials and tribulations of running Windows in hosting environment, and getting the most out of their servers … Every other piece was a 3rd party piece of software because Windows didn’t support it in a hosting environment or it was too damn expensive …

The mail server I ran was $1495 for unlimited accounts/users and allowed the end customer to manage their mail server … Now, with the SPAM and virus stuff, the price has gone astronomical … That’s when I started into the FreeBSD for the mail solution … before that, it was just something to dabble with … but the attraction of the MySQL server vs. MSSQL server was there too … I have (and still) been using Access Databases on the Windows Servers … (Which I bought Microsoft Office ($600) just to get Access) …

Running Counter-Strike, I couldn’t afford the lag that the software firewalls put on that much of a demanding server, so I brought up a Mandrake box and ran the CS Server on that … No worries of meanies getting into there on a machine with no firewall … Actually, Mandrake ran Shorewall, but it really wasn’t necessary … It did stop portscanning though … Which is 24/7 …

The Windows boxes started failing in February 2003 so I had to move the DNS off of there cause when they went down, there was no access to anything here … Finally with your help [person who this message was directed], the cause of the “crashes” were determined to be ZoneAlarm, so I have built a FreeBSD Firewall … to maybe remove the ZoneAlarm firewalls from all of my Windows machines …

All of this happening over the course of the last years, and I came in very Windows proficient … Born of the IBM Mainframe and the early IBM compatibles … Coming from an environment where I was doing networking and C programming at home where the business I worked at had XTs and ATs, I had a lightning fast 386 … DOS was my utter friend … I was a BAT file master … I was also the communications specialist … getting leased lines up and modems talking to mainframe, minis and micros … and putting the VTAM entries in for all of them … Windows was fun to mess around in, but I really lost interest when they took away my booting to DOS, and running C:\>win when I wanted to … I was now forced …

I think realizing all of this makes me understand why I am so comfortable in a FreeBSD environment … although I could probably mop the floor with most MCSE’s certificates … I thought about getting one of my own, but I figured what’s the point? I am not up for a job or anything [that requires or demands this cert] … and knowing what I know about the value that an MCSE Cert holds, I would figure most employers would know this too … And, as we’ve already determined, I’m cheap … But I do have the Core 4 Sybex books and did plan on pursuing it …

So why do I type all of this? For [person with FREE access to MS software] … Realize that we don’t all have an MSDN subscription, and anything we want to “play” with we have to purchase … Free trials are bogus cause they’re never long enough … and if it works, and we’re into it, we have to buy it, and then, it’s a couple grand we’re looking at again … Not to mention the fact that we’re limited to one operating system, and for some, this isn’t acceptable … It’s why I chose C way back in 1991 … Mostly ANSI except for operating specific file system structures …

So this defines my “outperforms” statement in that Linux/FreeBSD is FREE to download, FREE to install and FREE to run … You’re also FREE to delete it and not feel a loss … It runs lightning fast on lesser hardware … To me, this is a very good product not to mention the stability that it brings my network … So much more so than the Windows machines … Maintenance goes on … “apachectl graceful” no downtime …. IIS? about 5-6 minutes of downtime … If a patch goes on something else, Windows = Boot … BSD? rehash; restart service … I am just seeing way better benefits in my line of work for the FreeBSD machines …

Corporate American can afford the inflated price tags and inflated hardware requirements … Americans can’t …