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

Airline Accident Rates

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

What are the Chances?

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:

Odds of Surviving a Plane Crash

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:

"as and aid in relieving wind in babies and infants"

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.

http://www.daverat.com/Rental vs Lease-Purchase_blog.xlsx

and an older blog post that explains a bit more

http://www.ratsound.com/cblog/archives/376-Important-Things-and-Stuff.html

Cool cool. Off to professionally plane sit!

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:

 Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

That includes the quite interesting:

The Urgent/Important Matrix

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:

Stephen M.R. Covey's The Speed of Trust

"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:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-19/big-day-out-hit-by-tougher-restrictions/4435530

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

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/09/07/3415287.htm

Dave Rat Blog - Wander and Ponder

Wander and Ponder

Big Day Out show 2 done and missing doing our own shows a bit.  Festivals can be fun but I prefer doing our own tours at this point. That said, being in Australia easily makes up for it.

So after a show and three full days off in the Gold Coast, it is now time to rock Adelaide today. There was much healthy fun to be had in the Australian sun, but first something I google stumbled on when doing a search for spokeless wheels

Now here is a concept I don't see back home, giant tubes of dog food yum!

Off to adventure south a bit down the wild and wonderful Australia coast.

Oh what will we find

Perhaps exotic critters

and such perfect place for a swim, and of course I did!

Shhhh, he's sleeping

Watch out for speeding Koala's

Super cool $20 a day board rentals

Hey look, a board from my home town Oxnard!

Darn it, the waves look fun but there are so few people to share them with.

Oh well, at least its not stunning here

And  not just fun in the sun, I did a seminar with a great group of soundies at BSG, thank you Rosh and all for taking such great care of us!

Hey, I put up syllabus of the Waves to Wires seminar on the daverat.com site links/downloads page

On the Soundtools front, the new Senn to Shure adapters are done and ready to ship:

with more on the way with a DMX version of the  XLR Sniffer/Sender and Polar Pointer soon to come.

I did another seminar in Adelaide straight off the plane flight and kept everyone up to near 1 am  Really digging this go-go-go nonstop thing.  Thank you Andrew and Luke! I am so looking forward to trying to line up a worldwide seminar tour adventure.

Thought of the day:

Consistent work in a positive direction will bring positive results over time.

Or conversely, 

If you are not seeing desirable results then there must be flaws in the direction, consistency or persistence.

Bummer of the Day

A small handbag with cash and a very sentimental ring belonging to Kim has gone missing from her suitcase at the Marriott in Gold Coast. Super sucks but ya never know, if by some magic reason it turns up or anyone sees it somewhere, it would make a great story of happiness to see it unvanish

Ok, off to the Big Day Out gig in Adelaide and see if I can find and unravel some mysteries.

Dave Rat Blog - Hot and Fast

 Okey dokey Sydney was super fun but way too short of a stay. We all stayed out near Circle Quay which I never have before, kinda cool being near the Ferry terminal and got to see the Opera house up close too. Kim and I took a ferry ride to Manly Beach for a swim and a wander about

Then next stop was Sydney Seminar, thank you Simon, Tony and all. 

 Dinner with my super good friends Cat, Ady and new shorties, as time warp steps in. Tour life is like living a series of short movies all jumbled and spaced apart on a random playlist. And "oh, I so forgot how much I love this" keeps coming round.

Happy Birthday Kim!

And after few too many beers and fun night out how about we do

 a rock show in an oven!

Stupid hot and crazy humid, its all about moving in slow motion

Oh, and while wandering, I spotted these ants.  Check out how fast they are! It's just crazy and they were non stop sprinting in every direction

Speaking of fast, they should always have toys at gigs backstage!

Some sort of weird cool plywood I have not seen before being used as utility decking.  I'm guesing its a down under version of chipboard

Checked out the Yeah Yeah Yeah's

Hey, no overheads looks cool!

A robot band plays between sets

And the Peppers were super fun!

And when all is said an done, we're off to Goldcoast

Oh, and does the water really spin the other way south of the equator? 

Well, not sure, I forgot to videotape which way it spins before I left but here is what the water does down here.

And off to breakfast and hello Goldcoast