NKOTB

I am still debating: are these driving directions? Or a request by a crazed soccer mom trying to regain her youth?
My friends hanging tough!

OK, so I stopped blogging since the tour ended. But this needed to be said! I went to the NKOTB concert last night. They did a great job (guilty pleasure). Natasha Beddingfield was phenomenal! and Lady Gaga...well, I cannot describe what happened and keep things to a PG-13 rating - ugh...I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit watching that. And needless to say I could have done without an entire arena of high pitched screaming, but I guess I should have expected that.

more pics 2...

For Those About To Rock!!!
Where there's Will...
I'll Fly Away
Scotty joined a boyband?!?!? Those Scottys...
Check out Sean rocking between Dan and Mac. Good Stuff. That's actual size too, no editing...

More pics...

Andy Conered!
Bartleys a spy!
Finale
I think the shirt stands for Dr.Phil
I saw red...

About Last Night...

So I didn't get the chance to go on stage exactly. I guess they were all looking for me so I could Heely across the stage with guitar in hand. Nobody let me know though. Oh well. I did get to watch the encore from the pit and get several pictures of the other guys up on stage for the encore. There was about 20 people on stage at one time, and only a few of them not armed with a guitar. Oh yeah, and did I mention one of them in an angel outfit? It gave new visuals to "I'll Fly Away". We also had an aftershow pizza party. We all hung out into the wee hours of the night talking, celebrating and saying our goodbyes.

It's Closing Time

We are in the final hours of the tour and a lot has happened today. Several goodbyes, some tears shed, and lots of pictures (to be posted later). We took a group picture also. I was able to attend devotions today for the first time - because I actually had time. Jenn and I used our passes to take pictures during Jars, Switchfoot, and Third Day's sets. The Jars guys made a Kodak moment with their white outfits. We had pasta for dinner. We cleaned out the road cases. "Switchfoot loves New Kids on the Block. Nuclear Hoedown made a slight comeback. I broke the doorhandle off a door and got trapped in the production office. I broke a candle on the floor by accidentally bumping up against a trash can with my booty. I had BBQ for breakfast. I got to Heely across the stage. And I think I get to go on stage during the encore tonight!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Switchfoot signing Christmas cards. Yes! They really hand sign all 2000 of them!

This is just a funny box I saw this morning when we stopped for gas. "Guaranteed to keep you from gelling!"

Original Prankster

We are down to the second to last show. The pranks have begun. Silly string,
sign changes, fees for free comp tickets, etc...I had what I thought to be a great idea, but little did I know that Ike had already beat me to the punch and concocted new dressing room signs for the bands and crewmen. So here I share with you, loyal reader, my ideas:

Third Day: The Day After Tomorrow
Switchfoot: Footloose
Robert Randolph: The Family Guy
Jars of Clay: Our Name is Mudd
Tour Crew: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Production Office: Pinky and the Brain
Artist Management: The Secret of My Success
Females: Little Women

Friday I'm In Love or TGIF

A show in Minneapolis! It was never a childhood dream to play at the Target center (it wasn't even around 10 years ago) but was really cool to play a hometown venue. Several of my friends came. I was glad so many people came out to support me. The show went off without any major problems. Smooth sailing all day! Only 2 shows left. :( Only 3 days until I see Elizabeth again. :)

My wednesday and Thursday in MN...

Wednesday I awoke and after preparing for the day, I went to breakfast at Denny's with my father. We then trekked to WalMart and Target for a few gifts for some friends of mine. It took 2 WalMarts and a Target to find gifts that I felt satisfied with - and to find glow-in-the-dark silly string (more pics of that to come) I then napped for a couple hours before joining The Pond family for dinner at Cici's pizza. I was not welcome there as I am in the south. I was greeted with a nice polite, "Welcome to Cici's." Where as in Georgia, we are welcomed with a shouting, "WELCOME TO CICI's!!!"
After dinner we spent an hour with the Ponds at the park. I then continued to church and saw several of my old church friends.
THURSDAY
I rolled out of bed and got ready to see the grandparents. Dad wanted to leave by 8:00am, so the day came no earlier than any other day I have to get up. I slept for the most of the 2 hour drive there. As we arrived both my grandparents were found alive and doing fine. Grandma was strong enough to cook up the sides as Grandpa grilled away some brauts and hamburgers. MMM MMM GOOD! Lunch was followed by a friendly game of hand and foot (cards for you deprived folk who may not recognize that name). Once again followed by a 2 hour nap as we drove back home.
I spent Thursday with my Grandparents out in Grove City. Grove city is within minutes of the largest ball of twine in the world.
Dad dropped me off at our hotel (bus) for the night. He was able to meet Jenn there. That was nice since he was not coming to the concert Friday. After the crew made it, we all gathered and shuttled off to the Mall of America. We wandered for a few and then settled in at a Tony Roma's. I was finally treated with a birthday dessert at a restaurant for free this year! I am glad I asked! Dave J ate the ice cream half and I ate the chocolate molten lava cake drizzled in hot chocolate sauce.

It's Tuuuuueeeesdayyyyy.....

I got a wake up call this morning from Aaron Wagner (A friend of mine for over 15 years). We went out to breakfast at this place that had some of the best waffles ever - too close to call in comparison with Waffle House. At the restaurant we were also joined by David, a friend of Aaron's. Really good conversations on private 109 and what we have all been up to. I then saw Appaloosa with Aaron, which was a good western flick. We need more westerns. We then journeyed to Northwestern Bookstore. That is the local Christian bookstore. We browsed around a bit, and then Aaron headed to work. I dropped him off and took his car home. I then had an hour nap. Tom and his family joined us for dinner with special guest Brandie Nelson (my cousin) who brought great tidings and great joy with a bag full of her uncle's beef jerky! MMMMMM Goooood! I am now at Starbucks waiting for Aaron to complete his shift and little did I know that Heather Meyen works with him. For the last five years apparently. I miss out on everything when I am gone...

Sweet Home Minnesota

I am in Minnesota once again. I flew in this morning and thank goodness I didn't drive. I took a nap on each flight (2) and napped for 2 hours once I got home. I landed around 1:00pm and Aaron Wagner picked me up from the airport. To my dismay not only was Camp Snoopy closed now, but Joey's Seafood was also closed. No Joe shirts for me. :( Last night I watched a show with Michael in our hotel room about what rednecks like. They covered Duct Tape, Dueling Banjos, and Tonya Harding amongst other things. Good Stuff! I am very excited to see everyone this week - family and friends.

It's my party, and I will steal a golf cart if I want to

Yesterday was my Birthday! I am now 33. That is old in dog years. Highlights of my birthday include:
1-Balloons in the office
2-Special day of Joe's Playlist on the Ipod most of the day
3-A present from Jars of Clay! Completely unexpected.
4-A toast from David Carr and Nigel James (Third Day road pastor)

5-2 bottles of Sparkling Apple Cider that several of us shared
Scotty
Jenn
6-A mission with Jenn to steal a golf cart and go on a joyride. Explanation: Jenn has started a list of things to do before the tour ends. One was steal a golf cart from the venue and go on a joyride. So we snuck out and found a golf cart parked in front of their production trailer. So we ran to it, jumped in and tore off at a whopping 5mph with apple ciders in hand. It was dark outside and I did not realize until afterwards that no one could have been able to tell what we were drinking. We drove all the way out front to the parking lot cruising through the isles until we found orange police cones. Then we slalomed down them until we were 100 feet from the police officers where I decided to u-turn. Upon doing so, I noticed an empty gravel parking lot to our left. I found the entrance and proceeded at break-toothpick speed. Fishtailing through the empty parking lot was a blast - especially with no doors or seat belts. Safety Second! Then we headed back to the office and as we passed people, Jenn would yell, "Joe is 33!!" and I would follow with a "Woohooo!"
7-The Count spent the day in the refrigerator. He was purple by the end of the night
8-Michael was at a wedding leaving us to do all his work. That made things busy.
9-And the best for last: I got several e-cards from Elizabeth. They made me laugh.

About Last Night

Here are some pictures from the Encore Jam last night. It's cool to see the show from the audience point of view again.

The Sunday Funnies

Check out the look Jenn is giving to the camera guys.

counting on the count

slick pix

Mike our Wired rep
Rick the merch guy
crew 1 bus & friends

Three musketeers or stooges - still up for debate...

It’s A Wonderful Life

People have been asking what a typical day for me is on tour.
So here it is, typically:

7:30am Wake up
7:45-8:30am Hang directional signs, schedules and room signs
8:30-8:45am Distribute towels, soap and shampoo to all the rooms
8:45-9:15am Change our forwarding phone number and get office set up
9:15-9:30am Breakfast
9:30-10:00am Make sure all of the above is done and verify tonight’s hotel
10:00-4:00pm Ticketing, stuffing envelopes, anything else that may come up
2:50pm Lunch
3:30pm-ish Restock the food on the buses
4:00-5:00pm Tickets to box office, prepare for meet’n’greet
5:30-6:30pm Supervise meet’n’greet with Jenn and security
6:30-8:30pm Prepare for tomorrow and the rest of the week if possible
7:50pm Dinner
8:30-9:05pm Make sure Third Day is ready to go on stage
9:05-10:00pm Check ice on buses and room towels. Hang tomorrow’s schedules.
10:00-1:30am Clean-up, repack equipment, shower, verify everyone is on bus

After the west (coast) was won.

Things that happened after the California show (in order of random thoughts):

1. Was bet $10 to eat an entire side container of guacamole. About a handful of guacamole. I don’t like guacamole. Guacamole, I found out doesn’t really like me either. So the feelings are mutual. Only guacamole fights back more than I can- I did eat it. I have still not been awarded the monies.
2. Watched “Back To The Future” with Elizabeth and Chelsea. Chelsea had never seen it before. So young…
3. Played pinball after the Sacramento show. It was “Spiderman”. If you hit the right places Doctor Octopus, Sandman, or Venom will move up and down revealing bonus point areas. I got 12,000,000ish in my high score, but the high score on the game was like 300,000,000ish. So close!
4. I packed everything I needed into 2 carry-on bags. In doing so, I did not have to check any bags. How did I do this, you ask? I packed all of my clothes (almost all – I packed enough clothes in an “outfits to underwear” ratio) and brought them last week. So All the clothes I will need are already on the bus! That’s using the old kidney!
5. I saw a guy get on the MARTA and pay with 13 coins. The fare is $1.75.
6. I saw a woman get on the same bus with a grocery cart.
7. I pulled a piece of glass out of my foot from a glass that Chelsea broke on the kitchen floor from the night before.
8. I changed shampoos from Head’n’Shoulders to Herbal Essences. So if I smell better than normal, well - better than I normally do because I know I already smell spectacular, than it may be from the shampoo. But then again maybe not – could be last night’s dinner rolling through.
9. On the flight from Houston to Dallas there were only about 25 people on the flight. Everyone got their very own row of seats! I also got the entire can of Coke, two packs of pretzels, and a pack of nuts! All on a 40 minute flight. The sunset was also a beautiful orangey-red.
10. I have also packed my 80’s arcade TV video game system. It’s a joystick that plays Pac Man, Dig Dug, Space Invaders and Xenophobe all with the same controller. I am hoping to hook it up to the bus TV.

Oh what a relief it is...

Finally a day that wasn't a crazy whirlwind at any point of the day. It was nice, calm and relaxing. Of course there were points when things became urgent and needed to get done, but the fires were put out rather quickly and painlessly. I also got to have a taste of Jamba Juice. I am still not exactly sure what it is, but it tasted good! It was like an orangey smoothy frozen drinky thingy. Sounds good, huh? Tim Taber also noticed yesterday that I have been wearing all "Joe" shirts. He was the second person to notice and say something. Sean the drum tech for Robert Randolph was the first. I cannot wait to have these next 3 days off. Even if 2 of them are travel days.

You Can Count On Me!

The Count has been travelling with us. He appears randomly and people enjoy his presence as he "counts" on us to get things done! He has counted spiders on the wall. He has counted cobwebs in the hall. He has counted candlesticks on the shelf. And when left alone - he counts himself!

This is Ike in his bunk on the bus. Switchfoot has their manager sleep under the bus to keep their creativity level at it's highest and as secretive as possible.
Just Kidding. He's just resting.

Biff Tannen and Mike Sever

Today i got to meet 2 celebs in one day! Tom Wilson (who played Biff in "Back to the Future") and Kirk Cameron (who played Mike Sever in "Growing Pains"). Things also got a little rough today for an hour or so, but we pulled through it.

More Fame Knows My Name

I met yet another famous person today! Dave Ellefson of Megadeth. Although I was not ever a fan of Megadeth, it was still really cool to meet him. He was a really nice guy and is now a Christian with a band called Megalife (from what I was told second-hand, I cannot verify this to be true). Either was it was pretty cool. Tomorrow we have more stars to meet than any other show from what I was told. Biff from back to the future and Mike Seaver. Or Tom Wilson and Kirk Cameron if you like to use peoples real names.

See Titles Below...

I have so much to talk about and so many working titles in my head, but I am only doing one post of everything instead of several in an hour.

Lights! No More Cameras! Action!
For the last four shows we have had a camera crew following everyone (mostly the band) around taping for what is hopefully to be a video available at a bookstore near you. The cameras were...interesting...I don't know how Gene Simmons does it. They were there pretty much 24-7 following people to see what they are doing and how everything fits together to pull off the best show in Christian Music. It was interesting just to see how they do things from the backside of the camera, to get our side of the camera to look and sound great. Who knows, maybe I will be in the background looking pretty for the camera...please, no autographs or pictures...

"Feeling Blue" or "All is Fair" or "Fair/UnFair"
I finally did it! I won a Blue Ribbon at the fair! That's the good news. Bad news is that is wasn't for photography (I am still striving for that next year). I won for a t-shirt that I designed and created myself. There are some pictures from the fair below...

Gnash-ville

Gnash-ville: to have the sound of gnashing ringing in your ears from running around non-stop in the midst of way too many people in one place at one time, specifically Nashville. The beginning of the day started out slow as I tried to wake up, and just could not. Juice did not help. Snickers did nothing. Amp energy drink was futile. Only the rush of 5:30pm on show day could get me going again. Once 5:30pm hit it was every man for himself. Or in my case every man for Third Day and Switchfoot in the meet'n'greet. And then things kept going in the office for a while as they had interviews to do and we had the box office having issues with someone else's tickets but only had our number so we couldn't help them. I also was able to meet Tim Taber (for the second time. I did not realize it was him the first time.) Tim Taber was the lead singer of The Prayer Chain in the 90's. Their song "Worm" is still one of my favorite songs of all time. I also now realize first hand what Elizabeth means when she adds on "...and the whole school has tiles..." when she talks about how bad her feet hurt at the end of the day. My feet hurt. I cannot wait for a day of relaxation.

Ice, Ice Baby

Ice Ice
Stop. Collaborate. And listen. Here is my frustrating story of the day. I have to ice buses as one of my chores. That just means I make sure the built in coolers are full of drinks and ice. I got all the buses iced other than Third Day's. And today was a day when instead of having the 20lb bags, they had the 40lb bags of ice. I carry the bag of ice on my shoulder to Third Day's bus and enter as usual. I set the ice down to check the drinks to make sure they were stocked before I did the ice. I stocked the drinks, iced the cooler and then grabbed the ice to continue to the back of the bus to check the drinks of the second cooler and ice that one. As soon as I got past the carpeted area and onto the tile, the bottom of the bag dropped out and a third of the remaining ice fell out onto the tiles. So I grab the bottom of the bag and flip it over (the top was still closed). But then the top of the bag gave way releasing another third of the bag between all of the bunks. The remaining third of ice I put into the back cooler. I then spent the next 15 minutes collecting ice off the floor of Third Day's bus. And the next 15 minutes cleaning the other pile of ice and wiping the floor by hand with paper towels.

Baby
On the bright side of things Elizabeth came to the show and spent some time backstage with me and my peoples. We got to sit down and have dinner together. And while having dinner, she and Christina (from our small group) got to meet the guys from Jars of Clay. It was so nice to be able to sit and enjoy a meal for once.

Ahoy Matey!

Arggggg! Today be talk like a pirate day. We all be speaking like the seaferin' swabbies our ancestors once were. Aye, it be a booty full of fun!
*Squak! Booty full of fun! Squak!*
Me parrot likes to speak smartly too! He don't like the landlubber speak.

That was the fun for the day. Hope tomorrow goes well - it's gonna be a busy day. Atlanta is our busiest show!

Pa-rum-pum-pum-puum...

Story of the day:

One of the guys on our tour entered the office around 7:30pm (The show was already well under way and Robert Randolph was rocking the stage). He begins to tell us of an unhappy man in the audience. The man stated that he cannot see the stage while sitting down because everyone in front of him is standing up. He complain to this guy for several minutes because our guy is wearing a laminate which means he obviously works there at the venue and can do something about this atrocity. Our guy keeps apologizing while the unhappy audience member keeps telling him how horrible the situation is. The man's daughter finally interrupts her father to let him know that he is not talking to an usher at all, but to David Carr, the drummer for Third Day. The man stops dead sentence, and begins to apologize to David.

Chattanooga Rock City!

I took a little pit stop on the way to Nashville. I swung into Rock City Georgia and did a little tourisming. Here are some pics:





Now the creepy part! Whoever thought this was a good idea for a grand finale is twisted. I literally got scared half-way through this cave of fairytales for children. They were playing songs sung by children's choirs while you look at all of these fairy tale characters including wolves, dwarfs, mice being chased by a woman shaking a farmer's knife at three blind mice - all under blacklight. And the sign at the entrance says, "no smoking". How ironic, cuz I think that's what the artist was doing when she built this creep show. BTW - I am afraid of dolls, so the tiny little miscolored people and animals didn't help.