I finally joined MySpace last week. Kinda cool…

Found some old friends, found some bands that I deal with regularly, and found some groups which give me good info. In one week I have gotten 2 gigs and 6 job offers (none of which I took cause I want my month off right now and I’m happy here in Maui)…

You can check out my listing at http://www.myspace.com/deltavtech…

Man, this stuff is time consuming!

I’m following my Granma’s family right now (my dad’s mom). I got her mother’s family down – not hard when you have the wills and birth certificates for 100+ years.
My problem: no one knows the first name of her father – my dad never knew his real grandfather (he was out of the picture before my dad was even born). My Dad thinks his name was Samuel (Salzmann/Salzman was his last name). I have a Social Security record for a Samuel Salzmann (b. December 31st, 1888 and d. in Feb 1983) issued in Iowa. But I have no way of proving this was my grandmothers dad – this is the only info I can find on the guy.
I do, however, have my grandmothers-grandparents names: Louis Salzmann and Maria Hoffman. I have the original baptism certificate from Rock Island, Illinois, that states the birth of Roy Louis Salzmann on December 26, 1892, and his baptism on February 12, 1893. I believe this man to be my Granma’s uncle Roy (who she always said I was built like)…
I have, and can find, no other records of these people – if anyone out there can help, please slip me an email…
My next move is to send my Birth Cert, and my fathers to Rock Island and request my grandmothers (her parents should be listed, hopefully)…

Another snag, which occured when I was dealing with the above issue, is that a fellow geneologist has come across papers which may prove that David H. (my grandfather’s grandfather) Hakes’ father was not Holmes Hakes, but the adopted son of Holmes. The papers she has, which she is sending to me as I write this, may solidify something I have been trying to figure out for 20 years. I kinda always suspected that Almeda Riggs could have been David’s mom. It is now fact that she had a previous marriage to a Samuel Tisdale, they divorced rather quickly, and then she had a baby. The info is unclear at this point – I’ll have to read the documents once I get them.
She is also sending me the Wills of both Holmes and Almeda – and, she said, by the way they are written it appears that David was not Holmes’ natural son and that he was in fact Almeda’s natural son…
In any case, I had done some research on Samuel Tisdale previously. All I have on him is that he was married to Almeda Riggs (either Aug 2nd, 1838 or Jan 18th, 1839 depending on the source) and Susy Ann Swiney (Oct 8th, 1843) – I also have the divorce documents which will take me time to read the writting…
He may be of the Cherokee Tisdale’s from Kentucky – I had come across this info when checking him out previously – but we’ll see…

The number one question I get from the guys I work with is: “When do you take time off?”

Well, the answer is “NOW”…

I usually get a month or two off during the summer. This year it looks like the season will be starting up again in August, so I have 5 or so weeks to play…

The second most frequent question is: “What do you with your freetime?”

I get a jump start on the ” busy season” by catching up on cleaning up my rental gear, check out and buy new peripherals that I may need when we start up again, contact people for shows that are coming to the island to answer any questions they may have, and I work out like a mad-man…

So basically, even when not working, I’m working. I’m just doing it from home…

Why work out like a mad-man? Try loading a truck at the docks, unloading the truck on site, setting up the show, putting a D-35/D-50 on your shoulder for 2-3 hours, then striking the show, and loading the gear back into the truck. That is what we call a one-off (set,show,and strike in one day)…

I do a lot of one-offs – I had one run that went for a few months one time. Your typical “Roadie” does this all the time, but they do it with drugs, I don’t take drugs. If I hadn’t have been in shape, there’s no way I could have done it…

Another thing I do on occassion is double/triple “dip” – which means working for 2-3 companies in the same day. This year alone, I’ve done a few of these which kept me up for 3-4 days at a time…

I wanna be in this business for a long time to come – so being in shape is kinda important…

I finally got enough info from my inlaws to do their family tree, and got enough from my dad to do my grandma’s side of the tree…

Looks like my grandma’s family has actually been in America longer than my grandpa’s – kinda cool to know you have solid roots…

My wife’s family goes back almost as far, so my kids will know for sure that they are, in fact, completely American – none of that Irish-American, or German-American crap – once your family has been here for a certain amount of time, you’re just American!!!

I was stunned at how easy it was to find my wife’s descendant’s (the Sloan’s) – pretty crazy how some family’s simply keep up with it, and how freely they make the information available…

In 13 years my direct line, from Father to Son (as well as my Grandmother’s line), will have been American for 400 years. My Mom is Native American. So I’m nothing other than American…

Once I complete the tree for my kids, I’ll put it in .gpro format and put it up here for all to see. It’s amazing how far back most of our lines go – pretty impressive – I was really stunned…

My Mac is in the shop right now – this will be my second logic board in so many months. I keep telling them that it’s my Mother Board or RAM (total heat issue), but they simply won’t listen to me. As a guy who fixes computers, it’s frustrating. But if I try to do it myself I’ll lose my warranty…

Maybe they’ll finally listen to me the next time it happens. I’m just hoping that it happens before my warranty runs out – maybe that’s why their putting it off, I don’t know…

Got a full on Weight Gym in my Workout Room now. Very stoked to be lifting again, maybe I can get back into rugby shape. Actually I will, but I don’t think anyone will let me play (had an issue a few years back that may prevent an “ok” from a doctor). Besides, I just hit 38 – I’d be at least 10 years older than the second oldest guy out there…

Got a lot of shows coming up in the next few weeks, and a lot of news stories to put up – so the next few weeks there will be plenty to read here boys and girls…

I just had an interesting show the other day, but I’m not gonna write anything about it till I get permission…

Man, it really sucks being without my main computer! The two things that are killing me (I can live without the rest if I have to) is that I can’t update my online calendar, and I have to check all my email addresses seperately (one at a time) online. It really sucks! Very time consuming…

Oh, and once I get my Mac back, I’m gonna try a different kinda thing here with the “News” section.  I’m gonna do a short video synopsis of the stories and then provide the stories directly below the video.  We’ll see if you guys like that format…