Inside the Mind of Sators

Grandma Blair

Jamie and I went down to Joliet to visit Grandma Blair this evening, my last surviving grandparent.  She’s my mom’s mom.  Grandma has had Alzheimer’s for many years now, living with my family for probably almost 10 years or so and a little over a month ago she had declined to the point where she was becoming a little too much for my parents to handle.  A tough decision I know for my family, but they decided to enter her into a facility that specializes in Alzheimer’s care and tonight was Jamie and I’s first chance to go visit her there.

While we both had fun and was great to see Grandma, at the same time it was somewhat sad to see her declining as she is.  It was not that long ago that we could joke with her and have a fun time, and she would be right there laughing with us and many times being the life of the party.    Several videos on my Youtube illustrate that well.  For many years she has been able to recite the first 20 or 30 Presidents of the United States in order. Today she had a hard time naming the first 3.  We all knew in the back of our minds that these days would be coming, just hard to swallow that they are here.  I’m sure its hard for my mom especially, but it was difficult to see her stumbling over her words and having a hard time just communicating.  Nevertheless, she still loves to laugh and has that spirit in her that is always smiling, and you can’t help but have a smile too when you’re with her.

Been a while since posting updates on what’s happening with Jamie and I and life, so here goes for March. 

In January, I started touring with Little Big Town as their monitor engineer.  That has been fun and a different change of pace.  Last group I was on tour with was Stellar Kart which at times was just me and 4 other guys.  In the LBT camp, there’s anywhere from 14-20 personnel on the road at any time among the band, crew, family, managers, etc.  The band also carries their own production, minus speakers/amps, so that’s also a nice change of pace compared to SK that only carried backline – being on the same console and the same setup every day helps with the confidence of always knowing what’s going on in the signal chain.  With the new territory comes new challenges though.  Some of the band individuals are very specific in knowing what they want to hear, which has at sometimes been a challenge achieving that successfully.  Overall though it’s definitely been fun and a good time meeting new crew and working in the new atmosphere.

Jamie and I are still in the “home moving” mindset.  While previously our minds were set on moving to Indianapolis, our final destination now looks to be Nashville.  As opposed to other groups in the Christian or Pop industry, the Country industry does not favor paying travel expenses for out-of-town crew members.  Right now, that means I’m getting myself back and forth to Nashville out of pocket. (Thanks to Southwest for less than $60 one-way travel back and forth to Nashville!)  So, with this in mind, Jamie and I are looking to rent a place for a year to start with in Nashville.

The million dollar question becomes when?  We have packed up a bunch of our stuff in Chicago and continue to load up everything we don’t need on a daily basis into a local storage unit in order too prep the house to paint, recarpet, and fingers crossed to go on the market.  No, it’s not on the market yet.  I really want to get the house to shine before we pull the trigger.  As with the housing market everywhere else, it doesn’t look too promising for here either.  Many of the homes in our complex are bank owned and selling for sometimes $60,000 less than our house…and I paid $159,900 for it.  Crap.  Even those houses that are selling for super cheap have been on the market for 3 months or so.  I’ve never sold a house before, and I know now is probably one of the worst times to get in the business, but we’ll see how it goes.  We’ll probably get the house on the market in April.

Late December and Early January I had both gum grafting surgery and hernia repair surgery done, all in the matter of about 2 weeks or so.  2 weeks after the hernia repair I was out on the road starting up with LBT.  Crazy – all went well though and those ailments have been out of mind.  I’ve been fighting a nasty case of bronchitus over the past two-three months that still prevails, took a nasty spill on my rip stick a few weeks back that the scars are still healing from, and this morning just hurt my neck washing/drying my hair.  This is not encouraging as my body gets older…sad.

Naturally, Jamie and I get the “kids?” question every now and then.  We’ll be married for two years in April and really with Indianapolis as our moving destination we were planning on delaying till we got settled there so that we could be by Jamie’s family.  With Nashville as the next stop…well, we’ll have to get back to you on that.  I think I speak for the both of us that we don’t feel ready…

I miss blogging…it’s always an ideal of mine that I want to hop on and write more often.  Maybe I’ll post up some good road stories here and there.  Till then…

Wow – Yes it has been an EXTREMELY long time since I’ve written a blog post.  That troubles me. (a big sigh is released)  At any given moment in my life, there’s a countless number of things going on and plates spinning, bowling pins being juggled (with a random flaming touch thrown in there every now and then), and it just so happens that blogging ends up being at the bottom of the list.  I certainly enjoy it…haven’t really had a whole lot blog-worthy on my mind recently, so figured I’d post out the general here’s what’s happening blog.

Stellar Kart is on tour with Superchick this fall.  That would have been a fun tour to be on as I’ve helped out and hung out with the Superchick folk in the past, so it would have been just a big old party.  However, since SK (Stellar Kart that is) isn’t headlining the tour and the economy is tight, the road manager position wasn’t as valuable to the guys as normal.  That’s all good though, looking forward to connecting back up with them after the fall tour.

Instead, I’m heading out on a tour called the CreationFest Tour with bands such as Kutless, Thousand Foot Krutch, Pillar, Fireflight, etc. and running monitors for that.  That certainly excites me because I have been missing being on the monitor board as that is a whole different world to mix in, challenging, but fun.  Also, my good buddies Cliff and Darien are part of the crew which will make it a fun time.  It’ll be intersting internally for me to not have to worry about being road/tour manager and really focus on what I truly enjoy, mixing.  Equipmentwise the tour will have PM5D’s at FOH and Monitors, JBL Vertec, and a freakin amazing Darien Koop light show. 

The tour departs the beginning of October and goes until Thanksgiving.  I think I’ll see home a few times here and there, but will be out pretty solid.  December then is pretty quiet with the Stellar Kart boys, will be good to be home for Christmas.

Also in the news is Jamie and I still wanting to move to Indianapolis.  If you have read any posts before, we’ve been wanting to accomplish that for many a moon.  Last year, realtors said that we would definitely take a hit and have to plan on bringing money to closing as we still owe quite a bit on the condo…bringing money that we didn’t have.  Well – we’ve been saving over the course of the year and hoping to actually put a moving plan into action after the beginning of the new year.

Yikes – health stuff.  Seems about the 26th lap around the universe, this lil body is starting to fall apart.  I have an area in my mouth where the gums are receeding pretty bad, so I have to go in for surgery to get “Gum Grafting” in December.  Worse yet, over the summer I got a hernia somehow…hasn’t really bothered me that much – we named him “Henry” the hernia.  Some like to call him “Heff”.  To each their own.  Regardless, looks like I’ll probably be going in under the knife in January to get that all patched up.  Serious business – I have to be inactive for a solid 2 weeks following that one.  Lots of website design…here I come!!

Speaking off, Sators.com has been pretty busy the past several weeks.  Stellar Kart went out on their tour mid-September and the CreationFest tour that I’m on doesn’t depart till the first week of October.  In the downtime (there’s never downtime) I’ve been working on several projects:

• http://new.marriagevine.com/ (launches tomorrow!)
• http://new.sators.com/
• http://rasmithlaw.sators.com/
• http://www.elixerkitchenspace.com/ (Only concepts yet…posted designs coming soon)

I’ve been doing several custom Wordpress implementations, getting pretty good at that.  It’s been fun and a different change of pace to wake up every morning and step into the office and just work on websites all day.  Ya…I do get ready to head back out on the road though.

The old PT Cruiser has seen better days.  The transmission is starting to go downhill…I can only successfully shift into reverse about 10% of the time.  1st and 3rd usually pop out on the first attempts, and second tries usually get it into gear.  I get stressed when the things I have start to go ghetto…and the car is definitely starting to head that direction.  But hey, the wheels still turn and I don’t really need it that much like needing it to go to work and home each day…so we’re getting by.

Jamie is getting really busy as work.  She’s a photographer at a portrait studio at JCPenney in the Woodfield Mall and loves it.  She’s really good at it too – I’ve snuck in a few times and watched her without her knowing that I’m there.  She works with mostly kids all day which she loves and she really thrives taking pictures and that whole environment.  However, Christmas season is coming up which means people are already thinking about their Christmas cards, so she’s been picking up a lot more hours recently.  That’s good though cause it’s pretty much all going to the “Moving to Indy” fund.

And that about sums things up.  Quite an update, little lengthy, but glad to take the moment to keep you updated!

I’m with the band out on the road right now, have been since Feb 14th. Pretty long stretch. I miss Jamie more than ever. We had planned for us to connect midway through the tour so that it wouldn’t be three weeks apart from each other and…well…let’s just say things didn’t work out, so we have been apart a long time and it’s really dragging me down. I miss Jamie a lot. I feel like I show it often too, people have been asking me what’s wrong…got my wife on my mind. Read more…

Yes, I finally created a YouTube. So far just some Grandma videos that I’ve posted up there, but enjoy at www.youtube.com/sators