Wednesday, December 23, 2009

My Last San Diego Day... and two more sea days

San Diego day was about as eventful as last weeks. I got up early and got showered and dressed to go into town. I lifted my very heavy boxes and took them to the crew bar as I waited for the others that were leaving. After a few minutes, Glenn showed, a couple other guys, and Marcus. I gave Marcus a CD to listen to and show around to people in San Francisco. Never know when I need to find my way over there. He told us we didn’t have to wait in the crew bar, so he walked us up right outside the gate. He explained they really only have us go in the crew bar to get our passports. But American’s get to hold their passports, so there’s no point in waiting.
I balanced the boxes on top of a poll against the wall. I waited. Marcus offered to hold one of the boxes for me as we were getting off, so I handed it to him. Unfortunately they asked for people only shipping stuff to come forward first, so I had to take the very heavy box back. But I was first in line for xray, so I went by really fast, and found myself a taxi. As I was about to get in, I heard someone yell my name, and I saw Kelly with Leah as they were coming out of the terminal. I waved, and got in the car, and took the ride to the UPS store.
When I got in, I plopped the boxes on the counter, and they were weighed and re-taped a bit. But it only cost 95 dollars to ship everything. Significantly less than shipping the 491 dollars worth of stuff last week.
I got my phone out to call Nick, who didn’t answer, so I called my dad and talked to him for a bit about christmas. He received my guitars safe, and my other stuff, so that was good to hear. Unfortunately, the transmission in the explorer went out again (which proves Ford just sucks at making vehicles,) so that makes christmas a little tight. Not a lot of room to get the girls in the other truck and stuff. Hopefully they can get it fixed soon.
After I talked to him, Nick called back we talked. Talked about the band thing, and how him working at this store wasn’t really putting him up for manager and he was getting quite frustrated with them.
After that talk, I did my internet stuff at Starbucks, and updated a ton of things. I talked to Marina about what she was doing in Russia, and what I need to get going on my side o things. But with me going back to school, it’s hard to do a lot of the things I NEED to do. So my plan of action now is to just get a band together and try to play out, while getting an internet presence together. She suggests I go to NYC, which is a good idea, but with no money after college, that will be hard to do.
When I left Starbucks, I got a quick lunch, and saw a girl was playing guitar and piano outside in the mall. So I sat and watched her. She had a great voice and a cute look to her. So I went up and bought her CD, and gave her mine, and I talked to her mom for a bit. The girl’s name was Jessica Lerner. Jessica came over and talked to me, and signed her CD and asked if I’d sign mine, which I did. They asked what I was doing all the way out there, and I told them about the ship and stuff.. And college.
I wished her luck, and went to the music store to get guitar strings. Luke gave me a call back from when I called him earlier. We talked about the living situation. As far as he knew, we wouldn’t need couches, and all that. I would just need the bare necessities. We plan on making the third bedroom a studio. He’s got a girlfriend now, which is cool. He also said he likes to cook, so we’ll be definitely buying groceries for the house. I’d prefer to get a lot of good foods versus the fatty stuff. He said he’d take some pictures and give me everything I need to know in the coming days. I also talked to him about the project album, and doing the band thing with Nick and I. He said he was into the idea, so we’ll just need to get a drummer and a keyboardist and we should be good to go.
When I got to the music store, I bought 7 packs which gives me 12 boxes for the rest of my contract. As long as each box lasts a minimum of 2 nights, I’ll be fine and won’t have to buy anymore.
On my way back to the ship, I called Felicia and talked with her for an hour and a half or so combined. I got a phone call from Matt, a passenger from our first rivera cruise, who wanted to come pick up a couple CDs, so I met him outside the ship at around 3 and passed ‘em off. He’s the cop who used to be a drill sergeant and lost a lot of his voice.
I got on the ship and prepared for boat drill. We were given new vests to wear instead of the flaming gay green hats. Lots of kids running around, that’s for sure.
I had a meeting afterwards, which just went over the christmas stuff. Jessica passed us all a schedule. Something I hadn’t seen since my 2nd week on the ship. She’s really doing a good job as MD. She takes her job very seriously and really helps out.
I went up to the third floor, and browsed more internet stuff on my iphone. Then I called up Nick and had an idea for him and Katrina to move in the house with us, and then it could be like a band house, and we could work together most nights and stuff. Nick was very intrigued with the idea. He could easily transfer to Radio Shack, and right now Katrina doesn’t have a job. He called her to talk, but they’re going to have a more in depth conversation.
After the convo, I went and got some strings and restrung my guitar for the gig. I started playing for a few onlookers. But after the first set, I didn’t really have anyone the rest of the night and was very much dead.
I went to my room to see I had a message. It was from Jessica sending out a group message to all the musicians that we had cabin inspections in the morning. All my surge protector stuff was mailed home, so that was fine by me.


So I went to bed around 2 and woke up at 12. I went and got lunch, which ended up being Raisin Bran. It was good. Came back to my room and I started fooling with some song ideas, and clearing up my hard drive, and deleting unneeded stuff until cabin inspection which was a total of ten seconds. Since all my stuff was gone they didn’t have to look real hard for stuff. Then I got a set list together to send to Luke. Just an idea of some stuff. Maybe get some more input.
Had dinner, which was decent, and then got ready and dressed in my suit. Went up to play my gig. Though some people were watching, I got nearly 0 claps. It was quite dead. I was done by 12:30, and I went and ate with Randy in the crew mess. Pat joined, and soon after, Peter, the piano bar guy joined. We talked about the music business a bit. Randy suggested I went to NYC for the rock scene. Pat said Austin, Texas is great for original stuff and can really get stuff going with live. So... there’s some more ideas. From what I’m told, the new Hotel Director is kind of mean and picky. Our last one, Keith was a nice guy. I throughly enjoyed having him as a HD.
I came back to my room and watched some family guy until I fell asleep.

I woke up this afternoon at about 12:45 (but in all fairness, clocks went forward and hour.) I got online and checked some stuff. Amanda’s been entering me in a bunch of different things, from North by Northeast, songwriting competitions, and others.
I watched some more Family Guy until about 2 and then I went and ate on Lido Deck. The food was good. Enjoyed the Banana Creme pie. I came down and started work on another song. I have a horrible case of writers block write now. Nothing seems relevant to me, and nothing’s inspiring me so I’m stuck. I write 2 or 3 versus and then I don’t like where it’s going and get demotivated with it, and put it away. So.. that kinda sucks.
Anyways, tomorrow’s my day off. I intend to take full advantage of it. So.. until then!

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