We've been doing this for 25+ years so we don't see a lot of 'firsts' anymore. Last saturday night was sure the exception. We planned extra setup time because my contact person never replied to my confirmation inquiries prior to the dance. We've been going to this school for about 10 years now, and sometimes that happens there. So we arrive we extra time as last year construction on the school forced us into the most difficult load in I think we had ever experienced. Back to saturday night. We arrive and the new addition is nearly done and it looks like we should be able to load in the new doors....except the inner doors are chained and padlocked. Great. Need to find a custodian with a key. Wander into the gym and immediately notice that the athletic room that contains our breaker panel is gone. Totally gone. Cement block wall gone. Electrical gone. Crap. Now we have a problem. Continue our search for a man or woman with a big bundle of keys. Eventually run across a principal giving a tour to a reunion group, and fortunately he is at the end of the tour. We follow the group back to the door and grab the Principal as soon as he's finished. We walk over to the new addition (the new door is about 20 feet from where we set up). He says he can't let us in that area because the contractor hasn't released that part of the building yet.....they are due to turn it over....wait for it....sometime this week. Oh well, there is another entrance that is quite a distance but not as steep and slanted as the front door we used last year. So we turn to our power search. Principal leads us all around 3 floors of school in search of anything we can tie into and finally find a panel in the basement, maybe 120 feet away that we can use. We've by now used up most of our extra time, and it's now 2pm and an 8pm dance start. Ok we are still alright and we begin schlepping gear. An hour and 45 minutes later, we have each racked up 3 miles in our trips of bringing in gear. Start setting up knowing we no longer have extra time and need to keep moving. At 6:30 our contact wanders in and asks how it's going, can she bring us anything, water, etc. Comments this is really cool, she's never seen everything on the ground like this (we haven't cranked up trusses or stacked speakers yet). Says "so about an hour". I say are we still starting at 8pm? She says no 7:30. gulp. Oh we forgot to tell you. We decided to start earlier so the younger kids can get home.....ooookayyy.... so are we still on for an 11pm end time? No that's 10:30 now. Okay well at least that's good news. Wrap up polite conversation with hearing 'oh and I turned in your invoice a week ago but I don't think they've printed your check yet but I'll check on it now'. Oh goodie. Now we're short on time and not getting paid tonight!! What could be better?!
So I break the news to steve and we kick it into gear and finish setting up. Ready to go and start on time, though didn't get our usual much appreciated few minutes to sit down and grab a bite to eat, and after a hard load in we're sure missing it. Dance is going along fine when one of the chaperones who is watching the crowd from our truss cameras points out that a principal has something on the dance floor at his feet and can't move. He's zooming in and can't see what the item is, and is listening on the radios and still not sure...finally says "I think it's a tampon....the suspense is killing me I gotta go look". Off he goes. Returns a bit later and says "it was. It was a used tampon". I say wow in 20 years that one's a first!! He says he's been a bouncer in a club and that's a first for him too. Back to dancing. The dance goes well and most of the 1200 kids are there till the end. Give out a card because our contact is retiring (YAY) and they want to make sure they get us back again (double YAY). We start packing up. About 11:15 the computer controlled lights go out. Custodians can't reset them. We say that's ok, it's not too bad as long as the pool lights next door stay on we can see well enough. HA! Yeah, they went off before midnight. Sigh. Putting away equipment into black boxes in a dark gymnasium. We have a utility room open to spill a little light into the room. Slow going between being tired & already sore & now working in the dark!
We get things packed up and start the long hikes down the sidewalk to load up the truck. The custodian graciously helps push boxes (he has before--really nice guy). Halfway through loading up we are met coming back in by a guy who says what are you doing? Steve answers trying to get our stuff out of here. The guy says do you work here? no. What are you doing? Ummm....loading up our equipment after the dance. Is there anyone who works here? Yeah he'll be coming through that door in a just a minute. [hoping he's not going to get in trouble for helping us]. That is the security company wondering why the alarm hasn't been armed yet. They talk--we continue loading up. Phone calls are made and he goes away. We finish up and thank the custodian with a little cash--he won't accept all of it, but finally get him to keep $20. Tired, sore, dirty, but done. Off to the motel where we are in luck and they have one room left.
Oh, to top off our weekend, we get home about 5pm sunday evening, get chores done, grab a bite to eat and watch tv for a bit. We're heading to bed early to catch up on sleep---watching tv in bed and hear a very loud bang. Like a very very close gunshot. Gets my attention. I sit up and notice out the window a vehicle in front of our house stopped--see a person run in front of it down the road in the headlights, then turn and run back to the vehicle. Tell Steve someone broke down or something, he better get up. I suddenly think oh crap, I hope the donkeys weren't out and someone hit a donkey on the road! Run to window and look out and see all sorts of lights....headlights, firetrucks, and a raging fire in the field right next to our property! Get dressed and run outside to assess the situation and see if we need to be packing up. A silage chopper has caught fire in the corn field, about 150 feet from our house...75 feet from the edge of our heavily treed property. The blaze is impressive but the crew had managed to drive the burning equipment to the ditch and away from the dry cornfield. We watched until the fire was under control. They immediately had dozers on site clearing the dry corn stubble from the area--they parked them between our house and the burning chopper. Talked to the guy on the silage crew who drove the burning chopper away from the corn and he apologized for disrupting us! No really, you kept our property from burning up, it's no problem!! Super nice guy. All in all they did a good job containing the fire and eventually getting it put out. Turns out the fire started about the time we went upstairs, but we had tuned out the trucks going back and forth (and don't have visibility on that side of the house). We had no idea it was going on till we heard the first explosion about halfway through the ordeal. We did get to watch the other tires blow--some of them were impressive.
In the chaos one of our dogs ran off. Searched for him for a couple hours after all the trucks had left and finally decided I had to go to quit. Hoped he would find his way back by morning (and he did). Attached are a couple pics of the sunday night excitement....one of the blaze (you can see our mowed ditch in the foreground showing how close it is) and one monday showing the wreckage with our house in the background.
Just an odd series of events. The glamorous DJ life.
So I break the news to steve and we kick it into gear and finish setting up. Ready to go and start on time, though didn't get our usual much appreciated few minutes to sit down and grab a bite to eat, and after a hard load in we're sure missing it. Dance is going along fine when one of the chaperones who is watching the crowd from our truss cameras points out that a principal has something on the dance floor at his feet and can't move. He's zooming in and can't see what the item is, and is listening on the radios and still not sure...finally says "I think it's a tampon....the suspense is killing me I gotta go look". Off he goes. Returns a bit later and says "it was. It was a used tampon". I say wow in 20 years that one's a first!! He says he's been a bouncer in a club and that's a first for him too. Back to dancing. The dance goes well and most of the 1200 kids are there till the end. Give out a card because our contact is retiring (YAY) and they want to make sure they get us back again (double YAY). We start packing up. About 11:15 the computer controlled lights go out. Custodians can't reset them. We say that's ok, it's not too bad as long as the pool lights next door stay on we can see well enough. HA! Yeah, they went off before midnight. Sigh. Putting away equipment into black boxes in a dark gymnasium. We have a utility room open to spill a little light into the room. Slow going between being tired & already sore & now working in the dark!
We get things packed up and start the long hikes down the sidewalk to load up the truck. The custodian graciously helps push boxes (he has before--really nice guy). Halfway through loading up we are met coming back in by a guy who says what are you doing? Steve answers trying to get our stuff out of here. The guy says do you work here? no. What are you doing? Ummm....loading up our equipment after the dance. Is there anyone who works here? Yeah he'll be coming through that door in a just a minute. [hoping he's not going to get in trouble for helping us]. That is the security company wondering why the alarm hasn't been armed yet. They talk--we continue loading up. Phone calls are made and he goes away. We finish up and thank the custodian with a little cash--he won't accept all of it, but finally get him to keep $20. Tired, sore, dirty, but done. Off to the motel where we are in luck and they have one room left.
Oh, to top off our weekend, we get home about 5pm sunday evening, get chores done, grab a bite to eat and watch tv for a bit. We're heading to bed early to catch up on sleep---watching tv in bed and hear a very loud bang. Like a very very close gunshot. Gets my attention. I sit up and notice out the window a vehicle in front of our house stopped--see a person run in front of it down the road in the headlights, then turn and run back to the vehicle. Tell Steve someone broke down or something, he better get up. I suddenly think oh crap, I hope the donkeys weren't out and someone hit a donkey on the road! Run to window and look out and see all sorts of lights....headlights, firetrucks, and a raging fire in the field right next to our property! Get dressed and run outside to assess the situation and see if we need to be packing up. A silage chopper has caught fire in the corn field, about 150 feet from our house...75 feet from the edge of our heavily treed property. The blaze is impressive but the crew had managed to drive the burning equipment to the ditch and away from the dry cornfield. We watched until the fire was under control. They immediately had dozers on site clearing the dry corn stubble from the area--they parked them between our house and the burning chopper. Talked to the guy on the silage crew who drove the burning chopper away from the corn and he apologized for disrupting us! No really, you kept our property from burning up, it's no problem!! Super nice guy. All in all they did a good job containing the fire and eventually getting it put out. Turns out the fire started about the time we went upstairs, but we had tuned out the trucks going back and forth (and don't have visibility on that side of the house). We had no idea it was going on till we heard the first explosion about halfway through the ordeal. We did get to watch the other tires blow--some of them were impressive.
In the chaos one of our dogs ran off. Searched for him for a couple hours after all the trucks had left and finally decided I had to go to quit. Hoped he would find his way back by morning (and he did). Attached are a couple pics of the sunday night excitement....one of the blaze (you can see our mowed ditch in the foreground showing how close it is) and one monday showing the wreckage with our house in the background.
Just an odd series of events. The glamorous DJ life.
