(30) Appleton

Sunday, January 11^th: This morning I watch my Sunday morning news shows(This Week w/George Stephanopolous and Meet The Press with David Gregory) and did a little bit of paperwork. I took 30 minutes out of my morning to turn the truck on and let it run knowing that we hadn’t plugged it in that night and I knew that we’d be driving it to the venue that afternoon. We left just after lunch for load in at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. At load in, I had enough extra time to do some touch up painting, which Jill coached me on. I remember a little bit from my rendering class in college and my time in the paint shop, but not that much. Regardless, my painting turned out so good you can’t even tell that the pieces were scratched now! That night, I had a compy date with Michelle and watched most of the Golden Globes before falling asleep.

Monday, January 12^th: Breakfast at the hotel as normal. We had one show at 9:30am(46) which went well. The venue was really big and we had lots of extra space which is always nice. Load out went quickly and we were on our way back to the hotel. I had Jill drive the truck, which she had never done before, all the way back to the hotel. She was very nervous, but she did a great job. We made it back in one piece without any problems. Caroline, Rudy and I then went out to Grainger, so I needed to pick up some casters and spring clips, then over to Woodman’s, which is like a local Wal-mart. We were looking for lunch and decided on Perkins. When we walked in, we saw Eric and Jill sitting at a booth having lunch so we joined them. After lunch, I made a bunch of phone calls which nobody answered. In the late afternoon, I went to the exercise room to work out. I did cardio and some strength training with my stretchy bands for the first time on the road. Late that night Caroline, Eric, Rudy and I played poker for about two hours. There was a $5 buy in, which I ended up losing all of. Caroline ended the night with $10, Eric with $8 and Rudy with $2. I got three good hands all night, 2 of which were beaten and one of which I won! Luckily, we’ll be playing again later in the tour so I can make that money back.

Tuesday, January 13^th: We drove strait West across the middle of the state along a couple of two lane highways for 205 miles(5910 total miles) from Appleton to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. We saw a number of small towns of 3,000 people or less. Jill and I were in the truck and it was the first time that she drove the truck on the highway. She did a very good job and we made it to the WI-21 and I-94 interchange. After arriving in Eau Claire, we had a tech dinner and venue meeting at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. Back at the Hotel, I went down to the hot tub to relax for a bit. I was joined by another hotel guest who was from Minneapolis. We started talking about the -20 degree weather and then got into other stuff. He started telling me about Minneapolis and how it’s quite a booming city. He works for a computer controls electrical engineering company that is based in Santa Barbara. I couldn’t express enough how much I love living in Northern California. We had a great conversation and then I headed back up to my room for the night.