Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Dave Rat Blog - Next Stop South Africa

Ooooh, since we fly so much in our world travels and occasionally run into humans carrying overwhelming or irrational fears of flying versus the realities of statistics, I did a bit of keyboard research and found this


But taking the ponder further, What are the odds of winning the lottery? Being eaten by a shark or dying in a plane crash?


And a last little bit while we are sync'ing some perceptions with reality I found this quote that seems naturally logical to me to be appropriate:

"Notwithstanding that fear, the odds of being in an airplane accident are incredibly small. Accidents occur at a rate of one per 1.2 million flights, and the odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 11 million [sources: Clarke, Ropeik]. The odds of dying in a car accident are around 1 in 5,000, so you're much more likely to die getting to the airport than you are flying in the plane [source: Ropeik]"

from the Discovery web page:


Well alrighty then and saying bye bye to Perth, soon to hop aboard an Air South African 11 hour flight to Johannesburg. Yay another new city! Oh and for all those that whine or whinge about plane flights and fears, are scared of swimming in the ocean because of sharks or generally let fears clip adventure from their lives, it's your lucky day, look what I found! The perfect solution (pun intended)


And ordering info:


Ok, and back to actually important things like whether or not a music at a rock show is loud or not, whether we can spot a wild kangaroo and taking a swim in a new ocean.

So after all the sound concerns for Perth:


Turns out I had plenty of headroom and was quite happy with the sound levels and it was another fun show. 


And as always, if seminar friends show up at the gig, I welcome them on the mix riser if there is room, or even if there's not room.


Then back to the hotel


A good night's sleep and thank you James for rocking us the cool ride for a day off adventure to Margaret river


Ahh, and I get to jump into the Indian Ocean!


 

No waves this time



But were way more successful with the Roo spotting


Yay, beers are only $10! Not only that, a tiny bowl off peanuts were a bargain at $3.50.  Oh my, crazy prices everywhere for us spending the low value US dollar


Heck ya, motherboard for a badass laptop!


Ok, after the string of goofy me pics, I feel I should share something remotely soundish and useful.  Here is a copy of  an Excel spreadsheet I use to help decide whether Rat will buy equipment to add to our rental inventory and the aspects of cash versus lease versus loan.


and an older blog post that explains a bit more


Cool cool. Off to professionally plane sit!








Sunday, January 27, 2013

Dave Rat Blog - Last Aussie Show

Perth show today and the last of the Big Day Out gigs as we wind down the Australia adventure. 

Secrets to happy road crews:

Good food and comfy shelter (and delicious drinks)

Excellent food and a great place to sleep will easily win the dedication of a road crew. So happy to see the same amazing catering we had at the New Zealand show back up in Melbourne


Especially considering how fried we all were doing back to back gigs with a 4:40 am lobby call to the airport.


to fly from Adelaide to Melbourne


And straight from landing off to the hotel Simon Stav rocked Kim and I right into a seminar


 and then off to the gig


And yay look! Scotty has set up lampi world sideways like me. 





Some noise regulations are more strict than others


The Killers rock the Green stage side by side to the Blue


 right before Peppers


Then a quick nights sleep and off to Perth and straight into yet another seminar with many cool sound humans.  Oh and an awesome adventure to Perth's Little Ceasars (not the US chain) for some amazing food, thank you Andrew Gissing!


Kinda cool to see modern versions of old school punk flyers 


String those trailers up for a long haul!


So on another front, my current Google pondering searches found me reading more about something I read a while back that left a strong impression:


That includes the quite interesting:

The Urgent/Important Matrix

Covey time management matrix 001 001

Wherein you divide all the things you do up into the four quadrants and if you do things right you can work you way into a low stress, highly productive lifestyle of quadrant #2.

I highly recommend as a read for those of you seeking a stronger grasp on guiding your life in a desired direction. So it turns out that his son has written a book as well that seems quite interesting and on point:


"Identify a person that you work with and whom you have a high-trust relationship.
Jot down your first impressions to these questions:
  1. What is it like to work with this person?
  2. What is it like to communicate with this person?
  3. How fast can you get things done?
  4. What kind of results are you able to achieve?
Now identify a second person that you need to work with but with whom you have a low-trust relationship or with whom the trust-level is not where you want it to be. Now re-answer those same questions.
Describe the difference in these relationships."
Alright, enough business nerdery.  How about we take a look back at the rock show? Andrew also gave me a heads up on noise limit issues:
Looks like the noise limits tonight could be a bit more strict and I was also sent the following:
"There will be compliance officers and police onsite to enforce the conditions of the permit , in particular the noise limits with threats of arrest to the key event people in case of non compliance."
At least they moved the set times up so that Peppers' show time ends at 9:30 rather than 10pm.  That would have really sucked to lose volume mid show. We'll see how it goes, I try not to stress too much on things beyond my control and will do my best to rock regardless.
Off to find coffee and head to the gig!
Oh, looks like Gold Coast is taking a water hit not long after we left