End of Week 5 Training

Since working out with Herschel - things have been going well - to date I have lost 11 lbs which is great, but now comes the second half of his program and the pounds aren't coming off as quickly or as easily. I've had to log all of my meals everyday for the last five weeks - even with the Hurricane. The week right after the storm was difficult due to the lack of power and grocery availability, but that's life. I weigh in tomorrow and our goal is at least 1 lb a week. I actually think I'll be behind in my goal.

I've been voluntarily working out at 8a.m. for four weeks! If some one would have told me I would be doing that last year at this time - I would have said they were crazy.

Linz is working hard to make contacts and find possible job interviews. She has a final interview with Frito-Lay in Dallas near the end of November. I think she really wants that job and it would be a great place to move to.

Anyways - pretty boring stuff. Lata

Movies (small moments away from real-life)

We are most likely about to cancel our blockbuster subscription :( we haven't made a final decision. But, we traded in some online movies for in-store rentals. We are currently watching "Kabluey". Pretty funny.

Check it out.

Working out for real is hard.

So I hired a Personal Trainer................ you are probably either thinking - "you lazy ass" or "waste of money" - which are all valid points - I think it WILL be a waste unless I make sure to be committed and to make the most of it.

His name is Herschel Johnson.


Herschel has trained many professional athletes and celebrities such as Warren Moon and Jeff Bagwell. Herschel is an amazing guy... He is a little shy of 6 feet - and he's pretty much all muscle - not like the huge body builders (even though he has been Mr. Houston twice) but none the less - stacked, ripped, swole, etc. etc.

He is also intense. He's basically been kicking my ass for the last two weeks every morning at 8 a.m. Hopefully he and some strange will-power that is hiding somewhere in my huge gut will help me lose about 25 lbs.

Interesting tid-bits about Herschel - He calls me "Baby-Boy" told me on our first phone conversation that the one thing I needed to rap my head around was that he was going to "change my life" - and after our first workout he told me to enjoy week one and two - because "we ain' goin' to be friends after next week".

He is an incredible encourager - very smart - knows what he's talking about - more importantly he knows the science behind it and he cares.

Designed to Sell? or Designed to Manipulate?

So my wife Linz loves to watch shows like: Designed to Sell and Flip This House etc. etc. Sometime I end up watching. The crazy thing is that these "teams" of people come in and tell you what people are looking for when they are looking at buying a house. Then they attempt to come up with a plan in order to make the "important" things that people look at the most really appealing by very very cheaply dressing things up. Of course with the magic of T.V. they always never spend over their budget and of course they don't ever factor in the cost of labor. Some times they do things that are cool, but most of the time it's all cheap little "cover-ups". 

I think it's crap. What do you think? 

Apple... Do your Job Steve Jobs.

Oh Shit! Someone within Apple out in Cupertino, CA had to have said that in the office at one point or another. I knew that my number one "go-to" company with a great history of efficient machines and support wouldn't last. It was too good to be true. As most of you may or may not know - Apple recently switched their .mac account(s) over to a new feature called Mobile-Me. At the same time they also released the new Apple iphone 3G, iphone software 2.0, and itunes 7.7.

This was a relatively large task that most consumers and Mac users were highly anticipating and now asking "What the hell happened?". I think the shit really hit the fan when AT&T's servers were overwhelmed with thousands and thousands of iphones being activated all within a very small amount of time. Even though AT&T was largely blamed for the iphone fiasco it still made a lot of Mac users a little uneasy.  

Many people with the older iphones tried to update the their phone to the new 2.0 software which turned out less than excited for many users. Most ended up with what they called a $500 functionless "brick" that would turn on, use battery life, but not make calls or anything else useful. Luckily my phone didn't "brick". 

Now onto the Mobile-Me fiasco. Mobile-Me was introduced to act as Apple's version of "Microsoft Exchange". New apple users could purchase a Mobile-Me subscription and the previous system users (.mac) would have their accounts automatically transferred over. This would allow anyone with a Mobile-Me subscription to "seamlessly" sync their iphone, home, personal, and laptop computers together. This was to include calendars, contacts, mail accounts, bookmarks, and apple based web applications such as iweb. Apple also loosely used the word "push" email and contacts which also created a lot of flack. Ultimately a great idea that was disastrously executed. 

I was one of the lucky few once again. My computers and first generation iphone were able to sync together. Mainly and luckily because one of my newer machines (MacPro) has the latest platform (10.5.4) which works best with Mobile Me, even though my older 15" powerbook is running 10.4.11. The only problem I've run into is not being able to publish my new website I've been working on via iweb on my macs.

Other people are experiencing far worse problems. There are many people with mail accounts that no longer work correctly and are being told they need to upgrade platforms in order for their older .mac account to work correctly and be able to switch over to Mobile-Me. That is total bullshit since Mac announced the Mobile Me and previous .mac accounts would seamlessly work with 1o.4.11. 

Apple has pissed a lot of people off including me. It's ironic I was just telling my sister how great a .mac account would be for her this morning and even though I wouldn't use anything but a Mac, I kind of feel a small sense of worry about what's to come of this whole shit storm. 

Way to go Steve - take off your stupid black turtle-neck and get to work. 

Hijacked...because sometimes I think I need a blog

I have hijacked Jay's blog. You see, he leaves me at home alone for long stretches of time when he's in the studio (with phone turned off may I add), and apparently I'm not resourceful enough to just call someone to go do something, but I am resourceful enough to figure out his blog username and password. So I welcomed myself in. And changed all the colors (much better I may add).

And sometimes I just feel like I need a blog (but don't really want to commit to one). Like yesterday - I was thinking about the fact that everyone thinks they can be a photographer. This just seems wrong and worthy of commentary...

Foiled! Jay called and is on his way home. Gotta go.

The Hip/Hop Buzz continues.......

I couldn't really tell what my sister (Leanne) was trying to say about "the club" other than what she experienced personally was much different from what we typically hear "rapped" about in popular songs. Then again I don't know what kind of a club experience the "south" really has to offer. Cancun is one thing, but Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas? I think that Usher is probably talking about some swank place somewhere else. Maybe LA, NYC, Miami? I would have to say other than going to "The Swamp" in Destin, FL - I would agree... but I have seen the wet t-shirt contest, Tone-Loke in concert, and the bubble foam party (that my friends and yours truly) took part in.

I definitely have some musical respect for Jay-Z and a few others in the "rap world" , but as for the hip-hop genre as a whole - I think the newest batch of "artists" are ruining it. Who the f@#$ cares about half the stuff they rap about. Don't get me wrong I'm all about beats, hooky chorus melodies, and dancing at clubs. I write stuff like that all the time for different things ... but the stupid crap they come up with lyrically is so juvenile, chauvinist, so degrading, it's really quite despicable and I believe it's a slap in the face to artists. Which of course brings into question this idea of an artist. I mean come on.... do you think Lil' Wayne has something he really wants to say or get across? Horse-shit!

Call yourself an entertainer, call yourself a performer, but please don't call yourself an artist. I can deal with most of these guys because I think "most" intelligent people have some sense of culture and understand what these guys "really" do. Don't get me wrong - I don't think that Ludacris or Loyd Banks are out to make a political statement... I sure seems like they are mostly concenred with making a ton of money (showing it, spending it, and living for it) and showing all of us what kind of shit they have in their refrigerators on MTV's cribs... AND... I'm totally fine with that. There are a lot of hip/hop songs that I like and enjoy listening to despite the lack of integrity in the lyrics. Being a drummer, producer, songwriter, and programmer I can appreciate the production and work that goes into these songs. I just also know that they mean shit in the grand scheme of timeless music. I know what those guys and gals are about and hopefully most others do, but there are a few who really use that term "artist" very loosely and that just pisses me off. And yes.... I know what you are thinking - there are plenty of non-hip/hop "artists" that do the same thing just in a different vein. Take for example all of the big hair bands of the eighties. To save some breathe... DIDO to them too.

I may "paint" shit at home with my little midi keyboard on my computer, but I'm painting. I'm not showing up to the studio to figure out a way to come up with the next best catchy sexual innuendo or attempting to coin the newest narcissistic phrase. I'm playing and writing music because that's what I do it's a part of me and at heart it's really who I am. I would definitely consider the guys who come up with all the music for these morons artists. It takes some serious talent to produce a hip/hop record these days and the really good songs are so tight. For instance... 50 cents "candy shop", "in da club", "disco inferno" those are some musically tight songs. I like and enjoy listening to them, but the integrity of the music, the way those "artists" are portrayed, and the way the songs get written are so messed up. My personal analogy would be like making an amazing statue or sculpture that looks incredible, was molded, shaped, and refined into something amazing and then having a drunk, doped up, degenerate take a massive dump on it.

The crazy thing about all of this... I still listen to it. I'm just as guilty as the next person. I don't go out and buy the next Big Mike album, but I also haven't deleted the spring break playlist I purchased back in 04' either. It's definitely messed up.

We need more Garfunkels, more RUN DMC's, more Beastie Boys (for the most part), more Etta James, more Bob Dylans.

4th of July, inventions, and harrison ford

Did you know that USA Today lists Belton, TX as one of the top ten places in America to celebrate the fourth of July? I didn't know that, but I do now... and guess what? I'm here right now. 

Jared Johnson (CMT's Can You Duet - Contestant/Brother-in-Law) played a show last night in Temple at The Duckhorn Tavern. 

On a completely different note... I am trying to invent something in order to secure my financial future. I'm not really "banking" on the invention thing - I just figure if guys like Tom from myspace and the "geniuses" at facebook can create websites that pretty much make people less efficient all day long.... then I can invent something worth more than a couple of hours a day wasted. By the way... I have a myspace and a facebook page - I'm a hypocrite, but I'm trying to create something else. 

My latest thought has been a new design for microphone stands. Typical stands are always moving and falling over. I just tried to think of something that has always bothered me and how I could make it better. Kind of like the guy from Dyson that invented the new kind of hand dryer you are probably seeing more and more of inside commercial restrooms.

P.S. and totally unrelated... has anyone ever seen Harrison Ford in an interview or on one of the late shows? He is so weird. Creepy.

Finally

Sometimes when you play music for a few years trying to make something of yourself you catch a small break. 

I have to say the first time I ever hear

d a great record with amazing drums I was hooked, and from that day on I wanted to get to play on a record like that. 

Well.... that day came in February of this year and I'm just now getting to hear some rough mixes of what is to come and I am so happy. 

The artist is Aaron Wagner. He calls Weatherford Texas home and his album is almost finished. 

New Song on the myspace

Wrote a new one today... Check it out.... maybe one day the songs will have words.

www.myspace.com/thesnig

Idle Hands

I don't know about you, but when I sit around all day I tend to do things that are completely worthless. Last week was nice because I had a job every day. I was in Palacios Texas. It's not that great of a place overall, but when you are with friends it can be fun. The Zach Hendricks Band played a camp. Camp went well and we all had a good time. Now it's back to the normal flow. My calender is pretty open which can be good and bad at the same time. Nothing on the calender means nothing coming into the bank account. I need to find some work.

J

Superbad and the New Machine

Superbad is totally Crass.... somewhat funny..... but crass..... ok it's really funny but super crass....

The new computer is great. I just got it today - and spent the day setting it up. I worked on a new song today and Linz and I finished it for the most part. I tried to put it up on my myspace - but it takes a long time to upload a song. www.myspace.com/thesnig

Little Rock was fun. Linz and I went for the last weekend to surprise my mom for her retirement brunch. I played golf this last weekend and shot 38 on the front nine. I was pretty proud considering I play less than 20 times a year.

Ok so superbad is SO Crass - I am watching it right now and was just shocked.....phew.....

Going to bed soon...

Five O 50

I let Linz pick the movie tonight... "Margot At The Wedding"...hmmm. It's from the same director who made "The Squid and The Whale" which was interesting, but weird. I'm not that entertained right now. Bored. I did however order the new Mac Pro today. A buddy of mine got me %15 off towards the machine.

Well hang on one sec.... it appears John Turturro is in this movie.... this just got a little more interesting.

Hmmm - still nothing - I guess going to bed will be fun later. So bored. Rotten tomatoes gave this movie a %51. Figures - rotten tomatoes is pretty reliable in my opinion.

Ok... see ya later.

Memorial Day

I thought that posting more often would be a decent thing to do. My oldest sister blogs all the time and I feel like she does a great job letting family and friends know what's going on in her fam's world. 

No REAL news here. Just bored. Wondering how I'm going to make some money in the next few months. Typically summers are packed with things for musicians that end up being the lot of your income for the year. I however of course don't like the typical summer stuff. Mainly - camps. Ugh

I said no to three camps this year that would have been some great income. But, honestly - I'd rather be home with my wife hanging out at our home. Thank goodness she will make some money this summer. 

Oh yeah... I am growing a beard. I may put up a picture of that progress later. Maybe.

Today is an American holiday - ... I think? I am still in The Woodlands from playing on Sunday morning and I am so bored. Our new computer from the previous post isn't here yet - so I can't really work on a lot of things until that is here.

Anyways.... yeah

New Computer? Yes Please

So... there I was waiting for the two packages to arrive at my mother-in-laws house. (I have to have packages shipped there because my apartment complex is a UPS nightmare.) I grew even more anxious as I finally opened the newly rapped reason refill samples that I had so desperately wanted for months. One of the sample packages, (reason Pianos) was an amazing catalog of four highly esteemed pianos recorded and sampled with different mic positions and insert many adjectives about recording and engineering that you don't care about - here - .

The second package contained a similar set up. It is called The Abbey Road Keyboards which of course contained the same type of samples, but taken from the actual pianos that have called abbey road studios in England home since the Beatles recorded there. Not only the Challen upright piano and the Mrs. Mills piano found all over the Beatles records, but some other very cool instruments as well.

So I rushed home to load the samples on to my hard drive. I inserted the discs, followed all the right steps, and proceeded to fire up my Reason Software only to find that my shitty G4 Apple Powerbook was not fast enough to use the samples I was so anxiously awaiting.

SHIT! I was pissed to say the least. Of course my lovely and supportive wife charms in with the last comment I wanted to hear... "You should have made sure your computer could run those things before you bought them." I wanted to kill her... don't get carried away - you know what I mean.

So for the past month I've been crazily trying to make various tracks and songs with my new samples only to find I can only load very small amounts of samples into my sessions.

Anyways with all that said - Here comes my digital saviour - Being that I am an employee of a non-profit church he also comes to us %10 off of the regular price and tax free. That's right... Tax FREE.

Please welcome the (2) 2.8Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon Harpertown Processor- 8 Core Mac PRO to the Snider Family.

Comedian or philosopher?

So I recently watched "Comedian", an independent documentary following the likes of Jerry Seinfeld after the hit TV show became syndicated and he made gobillions of dollars. Everyone wanted to know what he would do next... He started over doing stand-up using all new material going back to clubs in New York. Awesome...



If you haven't watched this movie then I would highly recommend you do so... especially if you are having trouble with your identity, job, happiness, life etc. etc. etc. if you are reading this then I will go ahead and tell you that YOU DO in fact fall in this category.

Fascinating thoughts from a guy who's made millions and been on stage a lot of his adult life. The movie also follows another comic,"Orny Adams" I think that was his name. Who, like Jerry, is trying his hand at stand-up, but is completely miserable. Mainly because he is too caught up in wanting fame and fortune to enjoy what he does. It's a really great parallel.

Jerry talks about watching some construction workers in New York "trudging" back to work after their lunch break. He talks about how ridiculous it is of him to complain about the difficulty of working the crowd, starting over with new material, and becoming a comic again when he's been doing and getting paid to do what he loves all the while the construction guys hate what they do.

The amazing thing when watching this movie is seeing this amazingly talented comedian sweat off stage and be nervous about coming out with new material and also watching him laugh and make fun of this other young guy (orny) who is completely miserable while HIS new career is just starting to take off.

Thinking about that makes me have a little bit more pride about playing at "Churches" - HA - By the way - Playing at church for me as much as I love being a part of the "worship" band (we are pretty damn good - probably the best band I have played in by far) and with a killer singer/songwriter... it's kind of like winning the special Olympics to a degree - please don't misunderstand me - I think you know what I'm getting at...

Anyways - chew on that!

Zach H Jared J and Brandon H

These three pictures are the latest additions to the list of artists I have been very fortunate to play with. 

First, (top) Zach Hendricks from the Houston area. Zach is an up and coming very young and very talented singer songwriter who I've been playing with since May of this year. Zach is going to do some great things very very soon. Zach is finishing a worship promo project and has his debut solo album in the works right now. Zach is a great artist and phenomenal worship leader. You can see Zach at The Woodlands United Methodist Church during the Harvest service at 9:15 in the main sanctuary.

myspace.com/zachhendricks

Jared Johnson (middle) is a singer songwriter from Nashville, TN. He is currently working for Craig Wiseman (country songwriter) at Craig's publishing company. Jared and I will be playing at "The Ranch" in Belton, TX on November the 3rd. Jared is an up and coming artist who you will absolutely be hearing about very very soon. He is very close to breaking through with some really great songs he has written. It's only a matter of time.

myspace.com/jaredjohnsonmusic

The third (bottom) is Christian artist Brandon Heath. Brandon has one of the most played songs on Christian radio right now "I'm Not Who I Was" off of his latest release "Don't Get Comfortable". I was fortunate enough to play with Brandon at The Woodlands United Methodist Church in The Woodlands, TX. Brandon is all over the radio and is a great guy and performer. If you haven't heard his music - you will soon - or just turn on your radio.

www.brandonheath.net

myspace.com/brandonheath

anyways

next you will hear about something even more exciting than these great opportunities

yes.... for those of you who know me..... THE 71s

Playing

It's been a while - I've had some new things happen since the last time I posted. My wife and I are now coming into our fourth month of marriage and it's amazing. God has blessed us in so many ways it's very humbling - or at least that's the way I feel when I recognize how he's working in our lives. I was recently let go from my old job at The Woodlands United Methodist Church. They went through some "downsizing" if you will. (the office) It kind of came at a good time for me - The end of August and September have been my two busiest months this year. I was just starting to get to work quite a bit in the Church's studio before they gave me the axe. But, that's life I guess.

Some good things have happened lately as well. I recently played with Sparrow recording artist Robbie Seay at his home church. His band - The "Robbie Seay Band" recently released their second album called "Give Yourself Away". His drummer Dan has recently moved to Dallas. Dan is still a full time member of the band, but Robbie has asked me to start playing at his home church, Ecclessia, on Sunday nights when he is in town. I'm not sure how much I will actually get to play, but either way it has been a great experience and opportunity for me to play with someone like Robbie. If you haven't heard his music - you should go and buy it - he is incredibly talented - a true - artist.


Robbie contacted me about filling in for Dan on their next leg of the tour - Dan caught pneumonia and is going to be out for possibly two weeks. I cleared my schedule and was excited about flying out to catch up with the band this coming tuesday, only to find out that they ended up calling another drummer - who happens to be a friend of mine in the area. I was bummed - but who wouldn't be? That's an experience of a life time - besides - the guy they hired is a killer drummer - his name is Michael Lisenbe.

During the past couple of years - I've gone through some rough periods where I doubted playing music, and I think the only thing that has gotten me through those slow times has been my close friends who have always encouraged me to follow my dream and to be patient.

My wife's sister Kathryn has been dating a musician from Nashville named Jared Johnson. Jared is a great guy to say the least and is also a songwriter under a publishing contract with Craig Wiseman's (Tim MgGraw: Live like you were dying - Everywhere and tons of other hits) company "Big Loud Shirt". Jared is an up and coming writer and is bound to hit the bigtime very very soon. It's been great getting to know Jared - he has some amazing songs and it's only a matter of time for him. I'm also going to be playing with Jared soon in Belton, TX - his home town on November the 3rd.

And last but not least - I've been playing with a band for almost the last two years. The band is called The 71's. Consisting of Micahel Coffman, Ryan Cecil, Jacob Lisenbe and myself - we have been working hard. Recently we were invited to perform and compete in a showcase for Word record label. Word is the christian label owned by Warner Brothers. We traveled to Nashville - picking up a friend to play bass along the way since our bassist Jacob was out playing with matt redmon. We played in nashville but didn't get chosen. Thus is life - eventhough we were way better than all of the other crap bands there.

Anyways - thats whats going on in my world.

Jay

One New Pic

April...May...JUNE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hardly ever post on this thing anymore, but I think I will start again. My birthday was last week (the 19th) and our (Lindsay and I) next shower for our wedding stuff is this weekend in the woodlands. I had some promo pictures taken yesterday and today|I will have to post those eventually - they should turn out really good.

Our studio at our church is almost finished and i've been mixing some tracks and working a little here and there on my AE skillz. I'm also hoping to work/gain experience at Robbie Seay's studio at Ecclesia (hyde park).

I'm about to move into downtown houston in june - that will be crazy. I will be near the rice university campus for lindsay. I guess I'll be going to more Astros game.

Lataz

J