So I'm a dad...

...it's been a long time I know. Things have been a little crazy around the Stoeber household. I haven't flunked out of nursing school yet, and my two jobs are going strong. I started running again in December as I was packing on some pounds again, and I'm trying to run at least 2 times a week even during school.

The most important thing that's happened though is the birth of Kristi's and my new daughter, Adelaide Grace Stoeber. I needed her to come on a weekend for me to stay in school and not repeat 5 weeks, and God was very kind to allow that to happen. Kristi woke me up at 4:45 on Saturday, Jan 23rd to let me know she was in labor. After some grumpy dialogue I cannot recall (I had only had like 11 hours of sleep the past 3 nights due to school and work), we headed for the hospital. Labor went very smoothly, and our daughter was born at 8:13 pm weighing 7 lbs 7 oz. The transition home been great too. It actually has been a little easier than I thought it would be, although Kristi thinks it's been a little harder...which goes to show that it's better for the person not feeding the baby every 3 hours. I've been a little tired, but fatherhood has been great. Watching the whole birthing process was pretty amazing, and looking at my daughter for the first time was also amazing. People ask me alot if I had some type of epiphany when holding/seeing her for the first time, but as great as it was, I think it was pretty much like I expected...my personality is just weird like that.

Our daughter's first name doesn't have a whole lot of significance. It is a city in Australia, and it is a song by Anberlin. Don't worry though, because our daughter's middle name was chosen because it was the name of my grandmother who passed away several months ago. I had the privelege of being in the room with my family and my grandmother as she took her last breath. For me, both birth and death seem like the most sacred of events in the human life, and I appreciate being able to experience both firsthand within a couple of months of each other. My grandmother was a great Christians lady, and as my wife said to Addy tonight, "if she were still here on earth she would be praying for you every day."

In case you were worried, the pets are adapting well. Lucy is mostly upset about all the visitors, and Oliver gets a little grumpy that he can't be in the bedroom when Addy is asleep in her infant napper. Other than that Oliver is just curious, and Lucy is a little scared of her...she'll get used to her though, especially when she starts dropping food off of the high chair.

In closing, I'll give you my 3 biggest earthly fears as a new dad...ready?

1. Being a lame dad - I feel like fatherhood automatically lamifies me a little, so I'll have to work extra hard to be non-lame, although I think I'm fighting a losing battle
2. Parenting in a way that screws up my kid forever - I'm in a Psych nursing class right now, and apparently I have no hope of avoiding this one
3. The next poopy diaper - some of them are worse than others

Until next time...

Adventures with the big GC

So many times in this past month I've thought, "that would be great to blog about." But alas, I am so exhausted by the time I get in bed that I never end up blogging about my experiences and thoughts. Sad I know, but I hope to have some more new stuff up soon.

One event I decided would be blog-worthy is an experience I had with Guitar Center, so I'll start with that. Lately I haven't had the best of luck with purchases. For instance I bought a snare from an ebay seller last year that had a nick in the bearing edge, so I had to send it back to Mapex to have it re-cut (under warranty of course). It turned out to be a great snare; but still, what a pain! Then I also bought a sweet new tweed Blues Junior with Christmas money, and since I wasn't comfortable with the first one I took it back to exchange it for another the same day. You may remember this ordeal from a previous post. There were a few other mishaps with orders from various vendors, but I'll leave it at that and progress to my current story.

I don't have many cymbals, but I do have high quality cymbals. I have this plan for my life where I try to be extremely patient and only purchase musical things that are quality that I will want to keep or can easily get my money back from. Because of this I have very nice cymbals, but only one crash. I like to consistently peruse Guitar Center's national used equipment lists because sometimes stores will list a cymbal for way too cheap. I don't know why, maybe they get it for too cheap from someone and just want to unload it. I found one of these 2 weeks ago at a guitar center in Maryland. The item was an 18" medium Zildjian Avedis crash. I've been looking for a heavier crash to complement my glassy 16" hhx evolution, and since I have been quite the low spender for quite some time now I decided to purchase it, especially since it was listed for a ridiculous price of 50.00.

So, a week went by...no cymbal. I called to check and was told it had in fact gone out, and should be there in a day or two...day 10, no cymbal. I call back and am transferred to the warehouse where a very friendly guy searches, puts me on hold, searches some more, tells me he'll call back, then calls back and says he doesn't think it ever shipped but he won't be able to find it until Monday. No problem, I'm in no hurry and he says he'll next day air it to me.

I don't get a call on Monday, so I call around 3 and work my way to the guy I talked to. Turns out they have no clue where the cymbal is. Someone remembers packing it up but they think they might have shipped it to someone else that ordered some other cymbals, they are really not sure. So I get my money refunded and am back to 1 crash for a while. I kinda felt like complaining some, but seriously, what could I gain? The cymbal simply doesn't exist anymore, and it's not like they'll sell me another nice cymbal for that ridiculously low price. Sometimes I wonder if it was just a cover-up because they realized it was too cheap.

So anyways, when the cymbal arrived I was going to start this sweet series where I went through all my random musical equipment with pictures and fun stories from past memories, but now that will all have to wait. I know you're sad, but at least it gives you something to look forward to. Who knows, maybe it will randomly show up at my house...we can only hope.

If you get bored with the audio posts, you can skim most of this one...

Busy, busy, busy...that's what I've been lately. It's funny almost, you think you've hit the height of too much to do, only to have the next phase of life be more stressful. Right now my time consists of class, clinicals, tutoring, Southside, and Applebee's. This week I have off from school because I am in between classes, so I am hoping to get some yard work done during the day. Unfortunately I had a stomach virus Sunday night and so I am a little behind because I didn't get much done Monday. Figures...

By the way, did you know that Kristi and I are going to have a baby girl in January or February? We were going to wait until I was done with school, but things didn't turn out that way. We are both excited, and I think I am also a little nervous. Her name is Adelaide Grace Stoeber, Adelaide because we think it is pretty, and Grace because that was my grandmother's name who passed away earlier this year. We will probably call her Addy or Addy Grace. You may remember that I will not be done with nursing school until 2011, so feel free to send your financial support to our house. You can make your checks out to me.

One fun thing I had a chance to do more recently was a recording project for some friends in Columbia. They were part of the group from Columbia Crossroads Downtown that has become Riverside Community Church. They had a very closely knit community group from which several members were moving away, and they thought it would be fun to record some songs they enjoy singing together as a way to remember each other and their time together in Columbia. So, one weekend they all made the trip up here and we spent a good part of Saturday recording, followed by a going away party for one of the families at my parents' house.

The CD turned out really well, and while I can't post most of the songs as they aren't originals, one song that I really enjoyed was a short chorus written by Corrie, one of the girls. It is Psalm 34 set to a pretty melody, and you can hear her sing it here.

Speaking of music, I've done some exciting new things with sound at Southside. For one, we finally got some new mics and DI's, which have been fantastic. For microphones I am now using a Beta58 on Matt and a Beta57 on James. Both mics have been wonderful, especially the Beta57. Something about the mic just suits James's voice wonderfully compared to what I had to work with before. We also got an Audio Technica ATM410 which has been great. I didn't end up using it on Matt or James, but it sounded good with both of them, and I have used it on other vocalists and even a trumpet. I think it's going to be a very useful mic to have. I also asked for an Audix OM3. This was against my better judgement as I often do not like something about Audix mics. Recently though I have loved using an Audix D6 on kick drums, and also these little Audix micro condensers we have on flutes and other instruments, so I figured I'd give it a try after reading some reviews. It was no good, I did not like it on any vocals I tried it on. I'm sure it has a use somewhere, but I don't want a mic that is that difficult to work with, so Joe sent it back for me.

Other than the vocal mics, I am now using a BSS AR133 on acoustics, a Countryman Type 85 DI on bass, and some small AKG C430 mics as drum overheads. Out of that group, I think the Countryman has been the biggest improvement, but the others have been great too.

I also changed my approach a little back at the console. I tend to push everything pretty hard at Southside. I only run at about 85 dBA slow, which isn't loud, but it seems like that is close to the top for the system. I feel like I am always fighting harshness, and I started to wonder if perhaps part of it was a small amount of harmonic distortion somewhere in there...not enough to hear distinctly, but just to give it some rough edges. So, I decided I would try to not push the gains as hard, but instead run the clusters and the subs louder. I think the extra headroom in the channels has really opened things up a bit, and I even got a comment or two from people who don't typically notice things like that, so I think I am on the right track. I probably should have done this from the beginning, but I'm kind of learning as I go.

The only other thing I've started to do is to run the kick through an outboard compressor. Technically I have compressors in the board, but I just felt like the software compressor wasn't always giving me what I wanted, especially on things like drums. So, while the only compressor I had available was a behringer (yuck), I decided to try it out, and it has been way better. The kick hits harder and has better tone. I may try it on a few more things from here, like the snare and the bass guitar, and then maybe I can acquire a higher quality compressor eventually.

I guess that's it for now, it's getting late and I should probably go to sleep so I can get up and do some yard work tomorrow. As I go, I'll leave you with this...my fantasy football team is 2-0...Go Stoberto's Stallions!

Pet Peeves as a Waiter

As the 3 of you who read this blog know, I recently took a job being a waiter at Applebee's. It is alot of work for not a whole lot of money, but I enjoy it for the most part. However, I do deal with some difficult people, so I thought for fun I would write a few pet peeves I have noticed devloping.

1. Please don't tell me you're ready to order and then take literally 5 minutes to order because you don't know what you want...especially when I have 4-5 other tables.

2. Please don't order your steak "well done but tender." First, you are ordering it well done...second, this is Applebee's we are talking about.

3. Please don't complain when I have to charge you for extra chicken, or whatever else extra you want. When the suppliers stop charging Applebee's for these things, then they might stop charging you....maybe.

4. When I greet you and I am telling you my name, please don't interrupt me mid-sentence with your drink order. Or I guess if you have to interrupt at least make eye contact while you do it.

5. If you have a large party, please don't complain when the table of 2 across from you gets their food first. It takes a little while for the kitchen to coordinate getting all 10 meals out at the same time.

For the most part I get friendly people at my tables, but there are a few every week that do some crazy things. These are just a few things that happen on a regular basis that tend to annoy me. Maybe I'll have some more to add after a few more months...