December 31 1994...

As many of you know, I was a BIG club person. I loved going to clubs to hear bands play live. Well, back in 1989, Fall, I was in school at SFA and we would go to a club called The Goodtimes Garage. One night, some friends told me to go with them to see a band called The Hunger. They were two brothers pictured here: Thomas and Jeff that formed the nucleus of the band back then.

I said sure as i was up for most anything back then. I went and they were AWSOME!!! They played for a good long time and did some original stuff as well as cover tunes. I ended up meeting them as some of the people that i went with knew them from Dickenson Texas where they went to school with them.

I became friend with them and would go see them anytime that they came to Southeast Texas and the surrounding area like Houston, Austin, Beaumont and Southwest Louisiana in a few clubs there. Well I was living in Arizona and I came in for Christmas and went to see the band and went backstage and had a few drinks with them. I got real drunk and took a dive off the speaker stack. I used to love to Slam-Dance and Stage-Dive. I hit the floor and knew I was hurt, not how seriously I really was at that time, I then went back stage and asked for another drink...

I broke my collar bone and was damm lucky that i did not break my neck. I went to the emergence room at about 2am smelling of alcohol and really hurting as my right shoulder was now close to my neck. Here is a pic of my with a brace on about 2 days after the accident.

Well, after that, i learned that The Hunger were having a show in Galveston Texas on December 31 at a club called the Purple Onion, so i got tickets and i went to it. I went backstage and had a few drinks, but not many and watched the show. During the show, Thomas Wilson, the lead singer, asked me to come up on stage and sing with him. Here are the pic on my 15 minuets of fame...

Colds...

When we were starting to leave Texas on Saturday the 30, I started to get a "cold". Everyone in Texas, at least the ones we wanted to see were sick or had a cold. IT seems that it never fails, One of us ends up sick and going to the emergency room! Over the last 3 years, Sondra and Chelsea have had to go for something. Well, when we got there, my mother was sick and my grandmother had a cold.

As i said, i started to feel sick. IT is not the "flu" but it is kicking my ass!! I am coughing my head off at night and i feel good and then feel bad, but the cough has go to GO! I am sooo tired of this. IT is like luggage that you never get rid of.

I have taken everything under the sun, NyQuil, Advil, other stuff and it does not work. I guess that i will just have to ware it out. The other night, I woke up at 4am coughing my head off and it woke my wife up. Bless her soul, she place a cough drop in my mouth and I went back to sleep...

Cough, Cough...
Almost time for bed...



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Vacation at Christmas.

It was fun going to Texas to see all of my family. I have been very fortunate in my 35+ years to have both sets of grandparents(paternal and maternal). My grandmother(Paternal) is not doing well and I was very glad to get to see her. My dad and Stepmother came in from Austin to see us as we had only very limited time in Texas. We flew into Houston and stayed with my wife's aunt as we always do and then went the next day to see her sisters. She has 5 of them! I was raised as an only child, but I have a half-brother/sister from my dad.

After we saw the sister, we went to my grandparents house on Lake Rayburn! I love going to the lake and they have lived there for 10 years now. we stayed there for the next 3 days and also my mother lives there as well. My uncle and his daughters all came over and we had a late Christmas dinner on the 29th with my cousin and his girlfriend also. My mother had a deer cooked so we got to have some back-strap...YUM YUM!! It has been several years since I have had deer to eat. I hope that my mother will come out to VA soon to visit and I want my Etha and Pawp to come out as well, if I can only get them to fly! We had a good Christmas and like most vacations, it had to come to an end.

We stayed a night with my mother as well. M<y stepdad passed over 3 years ago. it has been hard on her, but she is a trooper and will make it. It is goo to go visit home, but as nice as it is, I am glad to be back in my home with my wife and daughter. I hope that this year brings us good times!

I am just in a reflective mood at the moment and seeing my grandmother Jo so week and frail, makes me face my own mortality...
Peace...
--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++

Work and Stuff...

It has been a crazy last few days at work. On day shift, it is VERY busy with lots of engineers and other personnel making adjustments to the system. I tend to like night shift better as it is more relaxed and not as busy.

I have been fighting a cold now since December 30th and I can’t seem to shake it. I woke up this morning at 4am coughing my head off; my wife got woken up from it. I have taken everything under the sun for it and it just stays with me. I hate being like this... I hope that the rest of the weekend goes well.

Another thing, the weather is freaking terrible!! One day it is cold and the next it is hot, Going home last night, it was 70 degrees!! 70 at NIGHT!!! in the first part of January!! They keep saying, they being the weather people, that we are going to get some cold soon in the next 8-10 days. I will believe it when I see it. Although, it is warmer this winter than it was last winter, all over the country. Here is our 7 day forecast. The station that we use is a very good station. Here is their link: NBC12


Well, I will post more as I find some other stuff…
L8ters and Caio




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Vxcasualty

For those of you that like instrumental music in the genera of The Orb, Orbital, Vangelis and many others to numberous to mention, GO and check out this person's music. IT is all free to download and I will even gve you the link to get it: http://vxc.lsdxm.com/
Or, Album links below:

vxc - 5-meo-wtf
vxc - shadowcaster
vxc - synapse
vxc - singles


I really like this stuff and I placed it on my mp3 player last night. Very good to listen to as it changes and is not a constant drone or style.


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RIAA...Part The second

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This battle has been going on with the RIAA for over 7 years. The music industry missed the boat on this issue long ago. Way back when Napster first came on the Internet scene, they could have put an end to the file/music swapping by making pay sites back then. They DID NOT.
I remember back in the late 1990s, Camelot Music was going to put in their stores Cd burners that would allow you to make a personal CD to purchase. That would have been a great idea! You could have gone i and made a comp of your favorite artists for around $20. I mean, let’s face it, Most people purchase an album for 3-4 GOOD songs, the rest of the music is just filler unless you are like me and i am a completists and i like to get *everything* from the artist i like even if it is bad.
The P2P Internet trend is now unstoppable. It would take a complete shutdown of the Internet to stop the music/file swapping from happening and that will not happen. Too many people and businesses depend on the Internet for their livelihood. IF the RIAA shuts down a site, it will pop back up in another country. Period Point Blank!! I have seen it happen.

IF the Artist would have just agreed to let Napster sell their music for say $20 a month, they would have all been RICH! But they got greedy and now they suffer the outcome.

1. Better Technology
2. Declining Compact Disc sales
3. Declining Movie Sales(Not Good Products)

The RIAA can sue the entire world and it will not stop. Most people that download the tracks use them for personal use and do not *Sell* them to make a profit. In fact, a lot of people use downloading to sample the music beforehand to see if they like it.

IF you are in the middle of this RIAA/Music Downloading mess, a good place to go and join is the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Well, enough of this mess...
Back to life.

RIAA is at it again....

This is for you that have not heard this story yet or read about it.

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