Welcome to TroyThibodeaux.com
Sat 8-2-08
Triple A Muffler in Garland is about the only auto shop that I trust. They seem to be fair and reasonable. But who really knows. I had to get my truck worked on, and Triple A is pretty far form my home, and I knew it would not be a quick fix, so I loaded up my bike and fishing pole and headed to Garland. I arrived at the shop about 10 minutes before they opened (7:50 am). About an hour later they had looked at my truck and decided it needed new motor mounts. They said it would take about 3 hours, so I hopped on the bike and headed to Lake Ray Hubbard.
It was a 2 mile bike ride to the lake. I got there and started fishing close to the bridge at Rowlett Road. I threw out my trusty Rooster Tail and after a few tosses, and caught a small Channel Cat. I had snagged it in the eye, which was really weird. After being released, the fish swam off pretty quick, so hopefully it will heal and grow and I’ll catch it again.
After about an hour and a half, the day heated up. It got up to 100 degrees and I did not get another bite, so I got on my bike and crossed the road and went to a marina where I bought myself a bottle of water. I enjoyed the cold drink and the shade for a few minutes. The marina has a fishing area where a little kid and his grandpa arrived for an afternoon of fishing. I talked to them for a minute or two and then headed back to the shop.
The ride back, although only 2 miles, was mostly uphill, and at this point it was over 100 degrees, so the ride was pretty rough.
I stopped at a convenience store and bought another drink then went to Triple A and sat in the waiting room. At this point it was noon and I thought that they would be rapping up the repairs pretty soon. Well, not so much. It was three plus hours of watching a CNN loop and listening to all the different customer’s car problems.
The guy at the counter, Bobby, who might even be the owner, is almost savant like the way he multi-tasks. He goes from helping a new customer at the counter, answer the phone, updating customers in the waiting room, talking to the mechanics, etc., etc. It was pretty impressive. He seems to be a really good guy, judging from the way he handles people. He’s not a kiss-ass, but he is respectful and gives you the straight scoop. I saw numerous occasions where they diagnosed a problem and did not charge a dime. He gave out advice on options that sometimes didn’t involve his shop at all. He talked on the phone to a couple of young people’s parents. I would listen to the kid’s explanation of the problem and it was so confusion that I know the parent got frustrated and asked to speak with the shop their selves. It was pretty funny. But ol Bobby explained to Mom and Dad.
7-19-08
I went fishing for a little while at a little fishing hole not to far from the house. I didn't do much good, but I did catch one of my usual huge bass, and an interesting Gar. I caught a bunch of Bluegill too, but none big enough for the frying pan.
6-21-08
I took a few pictures of random things that I thought looked interesting.
Tue 6-21-08
My friends David and Amanda were married in Carencro, LA. We had a great time visiting and at the wedding and reception. I was also given the honor to perform at the wedding ceremony. I hope everyone enjoyed at. It was also the church (St. Peter) that my sister was married in, so that made it even a little extra special.
First things first, I had to get up Sat morning and have me some Meche's donuts. Simply the best.
A little later it was time to pass by the "Big Easy" to get some Daiquiris.
Of course the food was a priority as always when I go back home. Julian's Shrimp Po-Boy is about as good as it gets when it comes to Po-Boys.
Doug on the drums.
We went down to Lake Martin for some sight seeing.
We saw a little gator.
And the real reason I was down there. David and Amanda's wedding.
On to the reception. More good food - fried catfish and boiled shrimp.
The trip ended with a stop at Prejean's for breakfast and some live Cajun music.
Tue 6-10-08
I caught this freshwater drum in the Trinity River at lunch. I used a small white Road Runner.
Sat 6-7-08
We checked out Bob Schneider at Poor David's Pub. He was great as usual.
Port Aransas
I took a fishing trip down to Port Aransas and here's what I caught.
I started out catching a little Hardhead on a piece of shrimp.
Next I caught a little Pinfish on a piece of shrimp.
I scooped up this cool little Cuttlefish, which I used for bait.
I caught a few small crabs that I used for bait.
I caught a small Sand Trout on shrimp. It was barely too small to eat, but close.
Here's a classic Troy-size fish. This little Red is not even large enought to call a "Rat" Red.
I did catch a few keeper crabs.
Here's what the crabs looked like a few hours later.
Although it's quite the pretty little fish, Pinfish are the scruge of the bay.
They just take and take and never give back.
Now the fun really starts. I hit a spot that had a ton of small Specs. I was tearing them up using a plastic shrimp.
Unfortunatly they were mostly undersize, but I did catch a couple of keepers that fried up nicely.
Fri 5-2-08
49th Vibration played their first official gig at The City Tavern in Dallas.
Sat 4-19-08
I went to Charlotte to visit my sister and her family and had a great time. I really miss all of them.
The Robert family
Blaise showing off his chops on Guitar Hero
Dell
LOOK! ------------> 49th Vibration at City Tavern
with Ali Harter & Home Spun Remedies
Friday, May 2nd at 11pm
City Tavern
1402 Main St.
Dallas, TX 75202
(214) 745-1402
www.myspace.com/dallascitytavern - Map
Sat 4-5-08
I received my new MP3 player from Woot today (Woot.com). I was thinking about the few MP3 players I’ve been through now, and the evolution of the technology and my needs usages of these devices.
About 4 years ago my then girlfriend bought me a RipFlash MP3 player made by PoGo Products. It had 128 MB of internal memory and had a slot for a Smart Media card, which could ad another 128 MB of memory. I think it coasted around $150.
I really liked this player. It was my first, so I have a warm spot in my heart for it. I had a voice recorder, which I used a ton, and still find it to be a very important function of every MP3 player I’ve owned. It really worked well for a few years. The volume function finally broke. If I was good at soldering in very tiny spaces I could probably fix it, but I’m not and I didn’t.
Of course 128 became just a tease after a while. It was also big and bulky, with two AAA batteries weighing it down. The screen not backlit, and did not read file names, so looking-back now, it was pretty much an 8-track.
For my 40th birthday my friend Robbie bought me a new MP3 player. It was made by Creative and had 1 GB of memory. Now we’re talking. It also had a voice recorder along with an FM radio, which you can record from. I think this player was around $100.
The Creative is smaller, lighter (1 AAA battery), has a back-lit screen, reads song titles, and shows up in WinXP as a drive, for easy drag and drop upload of files. The RipFlash required me to use a proprietary program for uploading. The Creative is barely bigger than a thumb drive, and can be used as a thumb drive.
This lasted me for over 2 years, and really still works except I broke the battery cover, which causes it to shut off when I jostle it around, which I do a lot, as I use it while I’m jogging and cycling a lot.
I then bought another MP3 player, or more correctly a “Media Player”, as this one will play video files. It is a Sansa made by SanDisk. This player is somewhere between the RipFlash and the Creative in size. It’s probably about the same weight as the RipFlash too, which I don’t like. The Sansa has 2 GB of internal memory and I purchased it off of Woot for $29.99, and it is refurbished.
The Sansa has a few issues that I didn’t like. It doesn’t take standard batteries. It has the internal Lithium battery that is rechargeable, which is good, but not very practical for running, fishing, cycling, or going to places that don’t have electricity handy. It does have a charger for the car, and can charge using a USB cable on your computer.
One big thing that I don’t like is that it uses an “iPod” type of cable. The Creative player uses a mini USB cable that is the same type of cable my camera uses, and I usually carry around both camera and MP3 player, and having to keep track of one cable was easy, and it was a cable that was easy to find if I lost it. The Sansa cable, although looks like an iPod cable, it isn’t. I tried using my daughter’s iPod cables on it, and it didn’t work.
So it’s bigger, heavier, doesn’t use a AAA battery, and doesn’t use a common USB cable. But it does have the features I want, like the voice recorder, FM radio, etc., and it’s 2 GB as opposed to only 1 GB like the Creative… and it plays video.
Well, the video capability function is very overrated. First, you have to convert the video files using the supplied software, which is expected because if not, people would try to upload full size videos that were not compressed properly. But the video files it produces are very big in size and after I uploaded two 20 minute Seinfeld episodes, over half the memory was taken up, which by the way is not 2 GB. It’s more like 1.8 gigs. That’s 200 MB missing, and that could be a lot of music. And really, I just never found a need for that feature besides showing people how cool it is to watch videos on this tiny box.
So on to phase 4. My new Designer Vision 1 GB MP3 player is here and man it seems like a piece of crap. It just seems cheap as hell. The screen is all crammed with text and icons and it’s impossible to read. There’s no FM radio, which I could have sworn the Woot ad described it as having, but my bad for not reading more closely. There’s no line-in, which I haven’t talked about, but the Creative and the RipFlash had, which I really liked. But it was $5.99. $5.99!!! I figured, how could I go wrong. It does have a cool feature where the USB plug is built in, so I don’t need to have a cable, so I can just use it as a jump drive if I can’t deal with it as an MP3 player.
So there it is. My MP3 player history. I see myself picking up another Creative soon, but probably a 2 GB or more.
Sat 4-5-08
April and I played at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival last night. I love the atmosphere of festivals, and love the whole vibe of the Deep Ellum Arts Fest. Unfortunately, Harbour could not make it, so April I did a set as a duo with her on percussion and me on acoustic guitar.
The night was a comedy of errors to say the least, but when we were done, I felt good about our performance and that's what matters. The night started with a mix-up with the booking, as the guy running the stage didn't even know we were playing. April had checked in hours prior, but it was never noted and the head honcho had no way of knowing we had showed up, so he over booked the stage. This wasn't a huge deal, but it did cut what was already going to be a short set, even shorter.
The next stumble came when I was putting on my guitar and it slammed to the pavement, breaking the nut in half, and making the guitar unplayable. The strap just popper right off.
A huge humungo thanks goes to Tiffany Shea for loaning me her guitar. That was very nice of her, especially after I had just trashed one guitar.
After that was smoothed out, we moved on to the stage and for some reason it seemed like we were the first band, as nothing seemed to be working correctly. Some guy was trying to figure out how to plug a mic cable into a mic. This seemed to be a new concept for him.
There was vocal mic for me with no cable and no one, besides April, really seemed to be doing much about it. There was a DI box for my guitar, but me being unfamiliar with the box and which input to use, I really couldn’t just hook it up myself, but I tried and that resulted in a loud hum of feedback.
It seemed like everything we plugged in had the channel fader wide open.
I had a monitor in front of me, but that was working and again, no one was really concerned besides April.
Really, the biggest props needs to go to April, because she was hoping around like a mad woman, and a lot of it was to help me, as she found me a guitar, plugged my mic in, found me a monitor, and eventually found someone who knew how to work the equipment.
Another huge thanks goes to Tiffany’s fiancé (I’m sorry that I don’t remember his name). He was tracing down cables and trying to figure out the equipment on the spot. He was not there to run sound for us, but he saw we were in a heep of shit with the crew that was there, so he jumped in and eventually got it all working, and I must say it sounded pretty good on stage.
Oh yea, there was the flying mic trick that April pulled during the set. I’m not sure why the mic stand was spring-loaded and set to launch mid-song, but it did. It was quite the display. April and I just looked at each other with a “That’s about right” face. At that point it wasn’t even much of a surprise.
I’m going on about all this, but it did turn out to be funny, at least to me, and I’m glad we did it, and will do it again if asked (except for the smashing my guitar part).
I thought we played really good. Lisa told me it sounded really good out front and we pulled it off despite the calamities.
There was this cool group of kids doing these fire tricks with spinning sticks of fire. They were dancing with these torches and blowing fire in the air. It was really cool, and since there was basically one street lamp as our light show, it really made for a cool stage look and vibe, at least from my perspective. Now that I think about it, there was one light on the side of the stage, so keep your e-mails to yourself on that.
I did take some video, so I’ll get back with you if the tape reveals that we sucked, but I thought we played well and from all reports, sounded really good, so all-in-all I say Success!.
Fri 4-4-08
OK, this is going to make me lose a lot of cred with my musician friends, my fishing friends, my former Metal-Head friends, etc., but I really like Vanessa Carlton. There, I said it. Go ahead, laugh if you must, but the girl’s got Skillz. OK, she’s not going to knock Bob, Julian, Kevin, John, Paul, George, and Ringo off of their thrones ever, but she can write, sing, and play.
Avery played one of her songs in the car the other day called “White Houses”, and she was singing along beautifully as always (Avery and Vanessa), and it struck me as a very well-written song. Vanessa has a little girly voice and maybe at first listen will sound like the rest of the cutesy teen girl singers like Hanna, Hillary, and Taylor Swift, but after listening to the whole album (Harmonium) and watching a few live videos on YouTube, then reading a couple of interviews, I decided that there’s some depth there. Some of her songs really reminded me of Fiona Apple’s first album. She doesn’t have the smokey voice that Fiona has, nor the demons, but the songs are personal and well-crafted, and her piano playing is great.
I could really see her being around a long time. She has a touch of Tori Amos in her. I know some really big Tori fans that are probably thinking I’m high for saying that, but I can hear just a splash of that in her music.
She is a pop singer and there’s no getting around it, but if she can expand her range some, and dig deep, she will be a force. If she would ever read this, I’m sure she’d crack up laughing… “Who’s this idiot telling me what I should do? Where’s his gold records?”.
Hey Vanessa, I can only speak to what I like.
Thur 4-3-08
49th Vibration will be playing Friday April 4th at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival in Dallas, TX on the Singer/Songwriter stage. The show starts at 8 pm.
Troy and April will be doing an all acoustic set.
LOOK! ------------> 49th Vibration at City Tavern
with Ali Harter & Home Spun Remedies
Friday, May 2nd at 11pm
City Tavern
1402 Main St.
Dallas, TX 75202
(214) 745-1402
www.myspace.com/dallascitytavern - Map