OFC Tour

I leave for tour with The Old Firm Casuals on Monday evening. Casey, Cris Powerhouse and I fly from SFO straight to London and Lars flies out a day prior. We'll be all over England, 1 date in Ireland and 2 in Scotland. We end the run playing the Rebellion fest on August 4th and fly back to the US to play some dates on the east coast before heading home. We're playing a lot of shows with a bunch of awesome bands, come out to a show if you're nearby.




East Coast:
8/6 Philly - First Unitarian Church
8/7 NYC - Santos Party House
8/8 Boston - Midway Cafe
8/9 Albany - Bogies
8/10 Buffalo - Mohawk Place
8/11 Detroit - Shelter
8/12 Chicago - Reggies

Gilman Benefit

We played an awesome show over the weekend for a good cause. This was a benefit for the wife of a member of Those Unknown, whose wife has cancer. Plead The Fifth, Sydney Ducks, Factory Minds, The Old Firm Casuals, Harrington Saints, Pressure Point and Those Unknown played. It was a good crowd and we were glad to be a part of it. Here's the flyer:
We're playing another show in Sacramento next Saturday with Pressure Point, Factory Minds, Sydney Ducks, and Crusades. Come on out if you're nearby.

Old Firm Casuals/Toughskins Weekend

Last weekend the Toughskins came up to the bay area to play two shows with us. Friday night we played at the Hemlock in SF with Hounds & Harlots. The Hemlock is a pretty small place with a bar and smoking room in the front and a performance space in the back. Mike from Pressure Point came down as well as some of my friends from Crockett. Hounds & Harlots were really good, you can tell that they practice a lot, really tight punk rock. They're looking for a second guitarist by the way. Toughskins played second, traditional American Oi with tough vocals. People got pretty rowdy during Toughskins set but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We played our set and had a pretty good response, things were getting pretty wild and I thought that a fight would break out at a couple points but it eventually calmed down. I left after we played and got home at about 2am and was back up at 4:30am to go to work. Worked a 12 hour shift then jumped in the car with my friends and headed to the Blank Club in San Jose.
Toughskins opened this time and were equally good as the previous night. The Forgotten played next and everyone was pretty into them. We went on at about midnight and at that point I was pretty delirious from lack of sleep but I feel like we pulled it off. I wasn't sure that people were liking it at first since they weren't moving around but we got a good response in between songs. It was kinda like a hometown crowd for Lars since he grew up in the area so lots of friends were there in the crowd. I met a lot of good people and the Blank Club was a good place to play. Here are some pictures:

From the Hemlock, photos by Jody Lyon:






From the Blank Club:

In Bloom

It rained for about three days last week. When the sun came back out I went into the backyard to check everything out and it is going nuts out there. Everything doubled in size and is growing like crazy. One cucumber plant didn't survive the transplant and is about dead and the tomatoes are getting way too big and are kinda crowding the nearby bell pepper plant. Definitely going to have to spread things out a bit more next season. Here are some pictures:

Serranos - very happy


Serrano fruit coming in

2 tomato plant with an overpowered bell pepper plant in front


Purple Onions and more Bell Peppers


Carrots, Radishes, Cucumbers


Romaine Lettuce, Green Onions and Jalapenos

Hazard Pay

It's been about two and a half weeks since I've written anything, it's been really busy. I've been working 12.5-13.5 hours per day, 7 days a week. The project is behind schedule, over budget and there have been some safety issues and now I expect to be here until the end of the month.
I was sick all last weekend, luckily we were given those days off at the last minute on Friday. I had the worst cold in years, I was on the couch from noon on Friday until Sunday night just sneezing and coughing like crazy. I watched about 15 movies and a couple UFC fights while I was down. I'm feeling a lot better now and I'm back at work.
I arrived at work on Monday to find out that there was an "explosion" at the refinery on Saturday, about 20 feet from where our crew's equipment is set up. There hasn't been a lot of talk about it and there's nothing in the news about it but the people that were here on Saturday definitely experienced it. Our employees that were working that day said that it was the loudest boom they had ever heard and they returned to find the viewing portholes in the furnace blown open with the interior insulation all over the ground and the concussion was felt all over the refinery.
Refinery workers are very sensitive to any loud noises in the plant due to a history of explosions and deaths in the industry in the 80's and 90's. The last major refinery disaster that changed the industry was the BP Texas City explosion in 2005 which killed 15 people. After that disaster, refineries began using Blast Resistant Modules or "BRMs" for offices that were placed in the "blast zone", or within a certain distance of an operating process unit. These are designed to protect occupants in the case of an incident like the Texas City explosion. Hopefully I never have to experience whether they work or not.
All of us working in the refinery know that it's a potentially dangerous job but the money is what keeps us coming back. Most refinery workers know someone who has been seriously injured or killed while working here. The petrochemical industry has made a lot of changes in the last 10 years but there is a long way to go before it can be considered a safe industry. Then again, will working with flammable liquids under pressure and large steel equipment that weighs thousands of pounds ever be truly safe?

Sheer Terror/Old Firm Casuals Weekend

Shows this weekend were really fun. We had been practicing for 2-3 times per week since October or November, practicing existing songs, writing new songs, working on lyrics together. We all had a lot on our plates, with work, families/marriages, BlackNBlue DJ nights etc. Every spare moment we had was spent in the practice space just playing songs over and over so we wouldn't totally blow it for our first couple shows, and it really paid off.
Friday night was at Thee Parkside in San Francisco. I got off work at 6 o'clock and raced over to the city in time to load in and soundcheck. This is a luxury for me, with Never Healed we pretty much just set up in someone's basement or a bar and play. I usually can't hear anything but the drums, I just have to watch people's hands to see if we're all playing together. After we soundchecked we had some time to kill before the doors opened so we just hung out.
Massacre Time played first, good hardcore from Sacramento area. Knife Fight came up from Southern California, fast hardcore with brutal vocals. Crowd seemed kinda into it, it wasn't really their usual crowd but they ripped as always. We went on next, I was pretty nervous since it was our very first show but we had practiced so much that everything was fine. We played all 12 songs and the response was pretty good, lots of friend's there to cheer us on. I was really afraid of messing up but we really locked in and didn't make any mistakes. Sheer Terror was awesome. Tons of people were packed in the room to see them, people started going off as soon as they started playing. Paul Bearer told lots of jokes in between songs and stories about his past experiences in SF.
We left for Anaheim in the morning with a few friends and got to the Chain Reaction at about 5:30. One of the bands had dropped off the bill so it ended up being Ruckus, us and then Sheer Terror. The crowd was mostly younger kids so it was nice playing to a different type of crowd. They seemed to like us which was nice. Sheer Terror was killer again, playing the hits as well as telling a lot of jokes in between. We drove straight back to SF from there and got back around 6:30, dropped off the equipment and merch and went home. Two shows didn't seem like enough, we all really wanted to keep going! We've got shows booked for June and then we head to the UK and east coast of the US in July. The best part of the weekend was feeling like all the hard work and practicing had paid off, the 3 of us play well together and we're only gonna get better from here.
Here are some pictures:



(Supposed to be posted a week ago but internet has been spotty)

This Weekend

The new band I'm in will be playing our first shows this weekend with Sheer Terror, Friday in San Francisco and Saturday in Anaheim. Tickets are almost sold out for Friday night, get them while you can.

Garden

I've got a lot of my spring planting done so far, a little later than I was planning. I just got into growing vegetables last year, my wife planted a few plants and I didn't like the way she was handling it so I took over the vegetables. (Sounds mean but it turns out she doesn't like the vegetable garden anyway, she prefers the flowers.) They were planted in the dirt behind a retaining wall, really nasty dirt that contained lots of broken bottles, rebar, chunks of concrete and pressure treated planks. The plants did ok, we got a ton of cucumbers, sometimes 2 a day in the summer, the bell peppers only grew to the size of golf balls and one tomato plant got root rot and the other just wasn't very happy. This year I was determined to get my garden in the actual ground and not in the cheap retaining wall dirt. The site of my garden was to be the south fence of our backyard, all I would need to do is remove the sod next to the fence and break up a concrete pad that was ran the width of the lawn. Then I would prepare the soil and put a little fence up to keep the dog out. I began to break up the concrete and watch the sun patterns and I realized the the shadow of my house blocked a lot of the sunlight to the area for a good part of the day and it wouldn't be adequate. My wife wasn't very excited about my other ideas of getting rid of the lawn altogether and just farming the backyard, or having a million containers all over our yard so I had to come up with another plan. The retaining wall where we had our garden last year has 4X4s that the planks attach to, my plan was to remove the top plank in every other section, dig the dirt out of that section, replace the cheap filler with leftover dirt from the front yard that was removed for our sewer repair(another story), add a layer of potting soil and box it in with new wood, creating little planter boxes in the wall. I began this a couple weeks ago but as I dug about 18" down, I started pulling out large chunks of concrete and trash out of the dirt. Turns out whoever put the retaining wall in didn't fill the whole thing in with dirt, they put about 3 feet of concrete chunks on the bottom! All I could do was take enough out to make sure that the roots of my plants have enough dirt to spread their roots and not get tangled up in concrete.
I've got three planter boxes dug and working on the fourth, the wood to form the boxes is going to have to wait until the end of the summer, prices for wood are more than I can afford right now and I've already got plants in the ground that I do not want to disturb. Here's what I have planted so far: beefsteak tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, red onions, scallions, jalapenos, serrano peppers, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, and marigolds as companions for the vegetables.




When the fourth box is ready I'll be planting carrots, radishes, garlic(if it's not too late), and watermelons if I can find the space. This is my second season of planting and I'm still learning, I read as many gardening books and blogs as I can but nothing compares to being outside everyday, looking at your plants and feeling the dirt for moisture. This is something that I had absolutely no interest in until last year, now I love doing it.

New Interview

The Old Firm Casuals have a new interview up at oioimusic. Check it out.

Diet

I've been on a serious diet since mid March, I was inspired by someone on a message board documenting their program in a thread. I pretty much eat the most boring things ever, counting calories, cutting waaaay down on the carbs, smaller portions. Here's a typical day of food for me:

5:15am - 1 cup cooked oatmeal (plain) with 1/4 cup raisins, 16oz black coffee
8:30am - 1 apple
12:00pm - Spinach salad, balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing, 6 oz chicken breast
2:00 pm - 1/2 whole wheat pita with 1 tbsp all natural peanut butter
4:30pm - 1/4 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
6:30pm - 6 oz grilled chicken, steamed green beans, 3/4 cup brown rice
8:30pm - 1 square 70% dark chocolate
Water all day long

I give myself one cheat meal a week, usually involves pasta or pizza and beer haha. I've lost about 17 pounds in the six weeks that I've been on the diet, not a whole lot of exercise due to work, band, housework time constraints. Not bad. The only thing is I've been burning off muscle with the fat so now my challenge is to try to bulk up while still staying lean. I hit my goal weight last week and I think my body is getting accustomed to this, gonna have to change things up to confuse it.

Gearing Up

I am working on a project in a California refinery as a safety supervisor. This just means that I advise the workers and management on working safely and following OSHA rules. I go around doing job audits most of the day and correcting anything that is out of compliance. The other part of the day is spent sorting and filing forms and other paperwork that may be needed if there is a safety investigation. The job itself is pretty good, I get to travel pretty frequently, see new places, meet a lot of people and watch craftsman build some pretty amazing pieces of equipment. My work is project based so I'll typically work for 3-6 weeks on a project, have a week or two of downtime, then start on another project. I usually work 7 days a week for 10-12 hours per day. I really like being able to make a nice chunk of money in a short time period and then have a week or so to spend at home doing nothing. Being in one place for too long drives me crazy and I start to feel like a working stiff that's getting nowhere.
The project that I'm starting right now is an upgrade to a coker unit. The coker unit in a refinery is basically the last stop in the production process of crude oil. The oil gets all of the useful products pulled out of it along the line and the stuff left over is called coke, it looks like black porous rocks or black gravel. The coker unit I'm working in has four coke drums, about 100 feet high and the unit operators have to manually dump the coke out of the bottom of the drum into a pit by using a pneumatic wrench(similar to what is used in auto shops to loosen lug nuts, just bigger) to take all the studs out of the bottom flange, slide the bottom head off, wheel a chute into place over a hole in the floor and let the coke fall into the pit. This is very time consuming and labor intensive. What the project is going to do is automate this process by replacing these bottom heads with gigantic valves that open and close by the push of a button, thus eliminating the need to move these heads on and off every 10 hours. I've worked on a project similar to this before and the process is pretty cool. They will use a "water laser" which shoots a 35,000 psi water stream to cut off the bottom of the drum which is made from thick steel, weld a new piece on that will fit the valve, then use an enormous crane to lift these enormous valves into place(the valves themselves are probably around 15-20 feet long). The crew I'm with will hook up all the electrical components to make the valve work and all of this will be done in about 30 days. There will be 1000 workers total working day and night to get this done. It's really neat to watch this from beginning to end.
Refinery work isn't for everyone though, there is a lot of money in the construction side of the oil business but the long hours and traveling are too much for some people to take. I meet a lot of interesting characters as well, I'll probably talk about some of them in the future.

Summertime

I can't wait for this summer to start. I had become accustomed to working long hours and away from home for the past few years and I was really burnt out by the end of 2009. The economy had canceled a lot of refinery construction projects that I had planned on working and I was beginning to get nervous about finding work. I accepted a position on a long term electrical project at a refinery in last April, working 4 days a week, 10 hours a day at a refinery in Northern California, about 15 minutes from home. I'm used to working 60-84 hours a week so I wasn't too excited about the smaller paychecks I would get from a shorter work week, but I felt lucky to have steady work for several months. Three days off every week was so killer. My wife and I bought a 2 1/2 foot deep blow up pool and started barbecuing 4-5 times a week. I'd come home from work and my wife and the dog would be sitting outside in the camp chairs, the coals had just been lit, Tecate in fridge and we always had fresh salsa ready. We would barbecue and eat dinner outside and just enjoy the nice weather. I always had plenty of time to get all my chores done on the weekend and still relax in the sun.

This summer is gonna be a little busier, I start a busy project in mid may that will last about a month. OFC will playing shows and then we leave for tour in late July, 2 weeks in the UK and 1 week on the east coast. I come home for about 3 weeks before my wife and I fly to Spain for my cousin's wedding at the end of August. In between all of that, I'll be barbecuing, hanging out at the Russian River in Northern California, possibly lounging on the beach in Southern California and chilling in the pool in the back yard. I've got so much fun stuff planned for this summer, after this work project is finished, it's gonna be the best summer I've had.

The Old Firm Casuals

Here is a band I'm playing drums in, there's an interview here. Casey from Look Back and Laugh/Never Healed/No Tolerance is playing bass and Lars from Rancid/The Bastards is on guitar and vocals. We've got a 7" coming up on Oi! the boat records and some other releases coming up. Most news comes from the facebook page if you're interested. New releases and tour info coming soon.

Stories

I created this blog about a year and a half ago, guess it's time to make the first post. I originally created this blog to document all of the bizarre people and experiences that I encounter working in refineries throughout the country but I just never got around to it. This will pretty much be a catch-all for things going on in my life, which are pretty much refinery work, band stuff and just normal boring everyday life. Feel free to comment if you like. See you soon.