CharlesMD

What a great thread, and great writing!!!

I always wondered what consultants did.

In senior year of college I did the whole recruiting thing, but decided that wasn't the life for me. Haven't looked back, but think your life sounds very exciting and interesting!

Zarcero

I'm not sure the ethos of this thread is what consulting is really ALL about. The thread appears to contain youthful descriptions of "consulting" which include a bit of prideful boasting about saving the Universe/Company/Client, along with some heroic bs'ing about the trials, tribulations, and sufferring of being on the road, while at the same time conveying that "I wouldn't have it any other way". And also the comments about envy of the client towards the consultant [?]. Not true for all types of consulting. What has been described thus far implies a horrible life, IMO.

Such is not the case with all consulting for those of you who have considered consulting. Consulting is a great option, and not a nightmare at all. There are many consulting paths, and these will depend on what industry you consult in.

I'm 47, I started my oil & gas consulting engineering company when I was 37. I was never a consultant before I started my consulting firm [there's three of us in the firm now in what we call an "association"]. Prior to this I was an engineer for a major oil company. I just woke up one day, and decided to go off on my own [a licensed P.E.]. First thing I did after leaving the oil company was to get back in physical shape [it only took six weeks]. I earned more my first year as a consultant than I did as well paid engineer for a major oil company. Ten years later this is a great life as a consultant. Now almost all the major oil companies use my services, and a lot of the independent oil companies also. My company has zero debt, and my personal finances have zero debt, nada. Paid the mortgage off in only three years, sent the wife to college and grad school, and now the kid. Financially, I could never have done as well by working for someone else as a "consultant".

I travel a lot, but it's pleasant. The consulting is split up between pedagogical consulting and project consulting. I do both. The pedagogical consulting involves teaching the client with formal classroom instruction on how to apply a specialized technology, and the project consulting is in assisting them with applying the technology. The classroom instruction also serves to market the project consulting. All the clients are appreciative of the learning in the classroom, and are eager for the assistance on thier live projects. Most of the project consulting is working right there with the client one-on-one, sleeves rolled up. It's great. There's no McKinsey-esque bluebook bull$hit here. The oil/gas well either makes more or it does not. Can't hide the results here behind MBA type recommendations on organizational effectiveness, creative accounting, and other nonsense, etc.

My travel is usually hassle free. The gigs are well planned and I am not pinging from city to city within a given week, like some have reported on this forum. Gigs are usually one or two weeks long, though some have gone on for as long as six weeks [Melbourne]. Biz or First C seats on most international flights, SWA for domestic, and great hotels. Sometimes, however, locations are remote. As an example, my pre-Thanksgivng gig to Angola had me lodged in a "camp", which was kinda like an army base. This is still okay, as I even had a troop of monkeys living in the trees behind the bungalow I was lodged in. Some places are a bit dangerous though, like Caracas, where I was dodging bullets a couple of years ago during the coup-counter-coup. This week I am off to Jakarta and staying at the very nice Shangri-La. Other nice places too, like the George IC in Edinburgh, Sheraton Pulitzer in Amsterdam, etc. I even loiter before and after the gig if it is in a good location, and catch some of the local stuff.

The stresses I read about on this forum concerning consultant travel do not apply to me, and I believe do not apply to a lot of other high quality consultants who are in their own game. So one's experience does not paint the true story of the consultant lifestyle for others.

The money I make is mine. I do not bill hours to the client, only to see a fraction of the revenue for myself, with the rest going to some boss who did none of the work. As I mentioned in another thread, there is no reason for one to have a "pimp" in the consulting business. At least not from my perspective.

Cheers,

Z

1993gt40

Ok, Well, I’m going to have to go and back fill the Las Vegas story after this, but I wanted to share some of the recent news and goings on. I’ll try to do a better job of capturing the ‘ethos’ of consulting since I apparently missed the boat on that one (which I never intended to do in the first place). If you have been following my thread you know that I have been staffed in L.A. working for a mortgage lender doing a migration project. Which is no longer the case.

After a retched weekend in Las Vegas with all the associated literal and figurative headaches of that debacle I was very happy to get back to Pasadena (no matter how much I dislike the place at times). I checked into the Westin Pasadena at about 8:30pm Sunday night and settled into my room for some much needed rest. My co-worker was out still on a surgery he had 2 weeks before. So I knew I had to be into the client site early so I could get a jump on the day.

The alarm reared it’s ugly head at 5:45 and the day started. My day started as it always does, with a 6:30AM conference call to my team in India. At first 6:30 calls were brutal but eventually became routine as time marched on, you just get used to it. I took my usual walk to work on a particularly cold Monday morning in southern California. Silly me, 2 weeks ago when I left L.A. it was nice, sunny and 85 degrees. So I packed for Nice, Sunny and 85. Oh what a mistake, it was 50 when I got off the plane 2 days later. Needless to say I was not prepared for the weather. Business casual is not always the warmest clothing. I was happy to get into my office, have some coffee and warm up and put the weekend behind me.

The work day was ‘business as usual’ on Monday. Running from one emergency to the next, working with developers to get their code to work properly on a new platform, and play nice with other applications, meeting with business unit leads to coordinate UAT efforts, planning deployment logistics all the way down to garbage collection and, of course, working with my outsource centers in India who are delivering the packaged applications for delivery via SMS. All in all, on an average day I will have 6 hours of meetings and 8 hours of work to do. Which honestly does not bother me one bit. I love the work I do and the amazing people I get to work with. The hours are long, but the weeks are short. I don’t work on Fridays, EVER. (ok, well maybe if something was going on I would, like the occasional conference call) Part of the value add of staffing consultants from out of town is that they don’t mind the long hours as much. If I were staffed at home, I’d have things to do, people to hang out with, friends, and all the other associated distractions of life at ‘home’. This is not the case with out of town resources. So, what’s 14-16 hour days every day? I have nothing else to do. Now that’s not to say that in-town resources don’t work hard or long . It’s just that in general an out of town resource will bill more hours than an in-towner. I digress,

I end my day with the daily 9:00pm conference to India and I am in my hotel by 10:00.

Tuesday was for the most part a carbon copy of the day before with one exception. At 7:00 the client engagement partner showed up and called an all hands meeting. Hmm,. This could get interesting. He announces that the original budget has run out and our client is dragging their feet getting the change order squared away. While we can and often do leave guys ‘on the ground’ working for the client without a contract with the understanding that they will back pay for those resources. But this client has burned us before and were not going to eat that loss again. Effective today most of the project team is rolled off the project. Including me.

Ok well now, this is certainly a change of events. I immediately begin the hand over process to the stream leads who will be staying. It is just a skeleton crew of guys left to keep the project going until the next change order gets signed. I am turning over documents, deliverables, contact info, and data to those who will have to deal with this tomorrow. I fire up my e-mail and start e-mailing everything to my former co-workers in an effort to hand off the client relationships I have built over the previous 7 months. I book a last minute flight home shortly before 1:00am Wednesday morning. Just 8 hours from now I leave L.A. with a future bright with uncertainty and bench time.

I realize at that point I am walking out of my office for the last time. Walking out of the building for the last time. Walking away from the only people who have known me fore the previous 7 months. People that not only took me in on a professional level, but people who became my friends when I needed them. We laughed, we cried at times, we worked like idiots, drank like professionals, and all accomplished amazing things as individuals and collectively as a team. Now, without a word to almost any of them, I step out onto the cold California street where I soon become a distant memory to all those who I worked so hard with.

I walk down Colorado Blvd for the last time with laptop slung over my shoulder and the contents of my desk tucked under my arm. I walk past all of the places I knew and became accustomed to for the previous 7 months. I walk past LoveBirds and stop in front of the window for a second. My very first day on this project the team and I ate lunch here. What a different time that was. I was still ‘relatively’ new, on only my second project with this firm. It seems like such a long time ago now. The walk down Colorado was something I had done many times before. Every day my co-workers and I would come down to some café to eat and talk about the events of the day and the direction of the project. We shared our downfalls, big wins, milestones, frustrations, and each one of us a little bit of ourselves. We all got along and I would do anything for any one of them, they were really great guys. At every closed café, or street corner I can recall an anecdote or conversation.

This time the walk was different. It was nearly 2:00am and there was not a soul around, all the café’s closed, all the lights off, all of the bustling city life was for all intents and purposes dead. I thought it fitting as I was in a rather somber mood, maybe sometimes I’m too sappy for my own good, but walking out on those who knew me leaving only a cold and uninviting e-mail in their inboxes was not the way I thought (nor wanted) this project would end.

I laid awake in my room most of the night with a hurricane of thoughts whirring around in my mind. Did I turn over everything properly, did I copy all of the data to the right place, did I forward that’s meeting request to the right person, will Kabul recover from his surgery well, will Sean’s training go well, will Adnan like his new home, what will I do when I get home?

I wake up at 6:30 the next morning and begin to make my way to LAX for the last time. I return my rental car to Hertz at LAX for the last time. Check into my Flight for the last time. LAX-AUS flt # 1696. I make certain to say good bye to all those I have met here in the airport all along the way. The ticket agents who helped me make my flights last minute so many times, the ticket checker at the VIP line, the TSA agent at the metal detector I had gone through 60 times before, the gate agent who I was on a first name basis with now, all of them got a personal thank you and good bye as I closed the door on those relationships as I made my way down the concourse at terminal 4 in LAX. I took my seat 3F on the MD 80 and looked out the window over LAX.

LAX is a great airport to watch. A symphony of ground crew, aircraft and, people coming and going each with their own story. The sheer volume of traffic that comes down the runway on any given day is amazing.

I was on the starboard side of the aircraft so as we made our turn after take off I got one last look at Catalina. At one point during the project I took a Cigarette boat to Catalina. What a great time that was. I watched L.A. out the window for the last time, I was heading home and for some reason that was an unsettling thought this morning.

I opted for the chicken breast on lettuce for lunch in F. What a particularly vile creation they managed to come up with on this one. Cold chicken breast was not what I was thinking when it was offered. My seatmate wisely took the Turkey wrap. That looked much better. I napped for most of the flight.

Touching down in Austin was nice. The airport here is Fantastic! Bright ,open, welcoming, clean, friendly. I knew I was home. Down to baggage carousel 3 to retrieve my luggage and then home. All in all things went rather well today. I had no incidents, everything went smooth, I got to say goodbye to almost everyone I wanted to.

Getting home was good, I almost forgot what it looked like. After unpacking my bags I sat down and watched the TV. It was a pleasant change to watch the local news in my home town. That evening I met up with my friends who were shocked to see me on a WEDNESDAY! I told them I got rolled off the project and I will be home for a while. There was much celebration that night as I was in much need of some rest and time away from the road.

That night I slept well for the first time in many months and for the first time in 2 weeks I slept in a bed I OWN and did not have to rent (even if they were heavenly). I slept in until noon the next day (not too bad since it was 10:00am California time which I was adjusted to by now). I ran my errands and took care of some things at home that I could not do on the road and came back home by 3:00. Sitting on my couch I still had a feeling like I wanted to go home. I rationalize with myself that I am already there but I still feel unnerved and like I need to be doing something. For the first time in 7 months, I have nothing to do. No calls with India, no meetings, no deliverables, nothing to work on, no important e-mail, no one to go meet, no one I need to return a call to, no reports to generate, no status to brief, nothing. It was only at that moment I realize what a toll on my life that project had taken on me. I am having a hard time adjusting back to ‘my’ life again. Only now do I realize the extent of the people I have lost touch with and not talked to in so long. So I am working at rebuilding many of those relationships again. It’s a process that’s for sure.

Now I’m sure some of you are wondering what I do now. The best words a consultant can hear ‘bench time’. I am ‘working’ from ‘home’ trying to get staffed on a project. So I log into my e-mail and IM client and BS for most of the day. I’m getting paid like I normally do, I’m not taking vacation, and I’m not working all THAT hard. Life is good from this perspective, I just don’t know what to do with myself now. I will work a little harder on getting myself on a new project next week, I am enjoying some time off right now. My chargeability number may suffer a little, but I’m not concerned. My chargeability is 131% as of this morning. No one even bats an eye until it drops below 80%. Chargeability just means how much of my time is ‘billable’. Basically, am I making the company money? Yes, I have, a LOT of it.

Like I said I have not been working very hard lately. But there is one thing I have been working hard on. I found a staffing I REALLY want. I have been doing all I can to get it. It is a role in Heidelberg Germany for a 10 month project. I don’t know the logistics just yet, but there is a good chance I will get it. My resume has been proposed to the client and I am awaiting their approval now. So this thread could be making a drastic change in the near future. ‘A Consultants Life – In Germany’ Where I don’t know the language or anyone for thousands of miles but I’m going to do it anyways. This should be an adventure if I get it. All I know for right now is uncertainty.

cedric

Well, at least you got the chance to do a roadtrip to LAS in a Jag Good luck in finding another placement and don't sit on the bench for too long each day

Zarcero

1993gt40,

If you take the Heidelberg job, you'll probably like Germany. I lived in Germany for three years in [northern Bavaria] and just loved it. You'll be centrally located in Europe, and can get to most of the fun places quickly [provided you get the time]. As for the language, I took some local classes which helped out with basic stuff, but the work was all in English.

I just landed CGK this morning.

Cheers,

Z

prncess674

Well 1993gt40 you are already wise beyond your years. You have already found out many of the benefits of working as a consultant for a large consulting firm. (Many pimps are good to the whores) Being paid while not working is one of the biggest benefits, as long as you get staffed eventually. Use the time to do your Christmas shopping, visit friends and family, do maintenance around your house, all the while not having to worry about if you will have a paycheck to pay the mortgage, car note, etc.

You have also found out about being able to pick and choose projects. Sure if you have your own company you can choose what project you do but working for a big company there is a huge assortment of projects to choose from. I have lobbied to be put on different projects for a multitude of reasons. Some I picked because I really loved that the project goals and objectives really fit with my long term goals. Other times when none of the current projects really excited me I would pick a project based on meeting new people from my company.

I do have to say that one time I ended up lobbying for a particular project based on location (Manchester, UK). Obviously I had to be qualified but being able to look at the database out of current and future available projects and being able to have some choice in the matter is a great benefit of being a cheap whore.

Be sure to take advantage of all the travel benefits that your pimp gives you. While working in Europe I took lots of side trips all paid for by my client. If you are there over the summer I highly recommend coming down to the DUS DO. There will be lots of other young consultants to exchange stories and beers with (it's all about the cocktails ).

B747-437B

May I kindly request ALL the participants on the thread to find a better euphemism for the "pimps" you are referring to. While I appreciate it is intended in good humour, Flyertalk does cater to a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and a number of users find such references to be offensive when used excessively. I would rather that this thread not devolve into a flamewar such as developed on TravelBuzz when similar terminology was used.

Thanks
Sean (B747-437B)
Moderator
Trip Reports

B747-437B

Sometimes the original posters can voice these things so much more passionately than the moderators can, so I will borrow his words (assuming he does not mind) and appropriate them as my own policy on this issue. After all, this is a thread that he started to share his own experiences.

As I have continually stressed on this forum, commentary (and even criticism) about the content of the reports is always welcomed in a civil manner but commentary that goes off on a tangent to discuss the lifestyles or preferences of the posters to the detriment of a travel related focus is better located in the OMNI forum. I'll be glad to spin off some of these posts into a related thread for you folks to continue there.

In the meanwhile, I trust that 1993gt40, prncess674, Zarcero and the others will continue to regale us with travel anecdotes from all of their travels, exciting or mundane as they may have been.

Thanks
Sean (B747-437B)
Moderator
Trip Reports

US1@ORF

Heidelberg is a BEAUTIFUL place. Yes, winter is cold and wet but still not a bad place to be. Wonderful in the summer months. Good luck.

ScottC

I've worked with 100's of consultants in my life, and they all seem to have one thing on common; they complain a lot about how "tough" their lives are.

The one thing I still don't understand is why they put up with the lifestyle, most of the ones I ran into had no social life, few active contacts with friends, no real place to call home and not much else going on in their lives.

What drives someone to live like this for years and years, I know what most of them make a month so that can't be it...

DAM1963

I lived in Stuggart for 4 months (just south of Heidelberg) and loved every minute of it. I was there from 2000 to 2001. In the 4 months, I went to 9 countries and 25 cities, mostly on the weekends and the holidays via a bus. The trains are great way of getting around too. The weather is cool and damp at times but just driving about 30 minutes away it will and can change. I hope you get the job.

DAM1963

tealeaf99

I hope you get the job! I worked in Walldorf (a 10 minute drive south of Heidelberg) back in 91-92. Almost every weekend we visited one exciting city after another. What a fun time that was! Now I am on a project in Hasselt, Belgium. And guess what - almost every weekend I am visiting one exciting city after another! The consultant's life is the life for me.

JohnWayland

Great trip report. Enjoyed reading it.

Snoopyo

1993gt40,

Having worked in a number of countries as a consultant for about 10 years plus last several years of commuting for different projects in US and Canada, I have learned that to keep my friends, I have to make the effort and make time for them in my life. Sometimes the long delays at airports are used by catching up with friends by phone and I try to catch up with them in person when I can. Good friends are understanding that I disappear for a while when I am snowed under with deliverables and deadlines but if there is something important for them, I will make time.

Good luck with the project in Heidleburg. It is a nice university town and very centaly located for travelling within Europe. Even though most educated German speak English, you would get better quality of life and friends if you make some effort to learn some German.

Tealeaf99,

Walldorf is really only famous / known for 1 maybe 2 things so I persumed you work with a German software with 3 letters ?

1993gt40

OK guys (and gals), I think I must update the thread now,. There have been some recent events and I feel like sharing some tonight. But, before we start, think this thread needs a soundtrack, after all, I do live in the live music capitol of the world. It says it right there on the jet way when you deplane. It must be true. So dig through your CD collection and find something to listen to.

Ok, That should set you for a while. In the last episode I left off with being rolled off of my project in L.A. and having a future bright with uncertainty. I was happy to be on the bench and get off the road for a little bit and live like a ‘normal’ person. I spent some time at home, visited some friends, re-built a few relationships, and went to Houston for a bit.

Going to Houston was a great thing for me. I got to go see my parents for a few days, and spend some time with my family. Something I realize that I need to do more of. I also got to see my sister, niece and nephew. I love my niece and nephew, they are the coolest kids in the world. We have a lot of fun doing what it is that 5 and 7 year olds do. How I dearly miss the innocence. It’s hard to spend time with them and not wonder how or where I went wrong, or sometimes IF it ever happened at all.

My sister is the person in my life who I am the closest to. I’d do anything for her, and I know she’d do the same. Spending time with her was a treat. I worked from her office for a few days and she gave me a contract for a web site as a side project. I’m sure it helps that the CEO for her company thinks I’m great! I used to work there with her years ago before I managed to complicate my life in such intricate ways.

After a few days at home, it back to Austin! I spent my afternoons at the Flightpath. The Flight path is one of the eclectic coffee houses that dot the landscape here. They offer free WiFi and copious amounts of caffeine, a great place for someone a little geeky like me. I would hang out and check and send e-mail and stay connected to the company while I looked for another project to roll myself onto. Bench time is good because it is very low pace, low stress, and somewhat boring. Which is exactly what I needed after the crazy project in L.A. Unfortunately, I ran out of stuff to do and life became seriously boring there for a few days. Everyone else was working or doing what ever it is they do during the week, some have even left for the holidays. So things were quiet around here for a while and I was left to my own devices.

Then one day it happened, I got the dreaded phone call. A project was needing staffing before the holidays. I got the call at 5:00pm Tuesday night and by 7:00am Wednesday morning I was on a plane to Charlotte North Carolina. Lucky me! I stepped off the plane into the freezing cold of CLT.

I gathered my belongings and headed for the Hertz shuttle. I rented a nice Hyundai Sonata! This was certainly not the nice Jag I was driving in L.A. But at least if I lost the key it wouldn’t cost me $2500. But the real kicker was no NeverLost! Oh no, I’m in for some trouble because I have NO clue where I am going. So with map in hand I set out looking for the client site. I called my sister and had her get on the internet and find me directions. I know, I know, I should have printed directions before I left Austin, but I have neither Internet nor a printer at home. But it’s a little late for that now anyways. After traveling the Billy Graham highway from end to end, I finally figured out where it was I was going to and made my way there.

The client site was nice and parking was FREE! Woohoo! A nice treat after spending 7 months in L.A. I hurried out of the cold into the nice mirrored building and called the project manager who met me in the lobby. I was introduced to the team (3 of us) who had also joined the project today. We were given the nickel run down of the company structure, their product, and what it is that we are doing here. The client develops specialty billing software for a niche market. WE are here to automate their testing procedures and verify that their existing process is either efficient or not. Ok, so it’s really boring high level work, I am going to work no less hard for them than I would anywhere else, so we hit the ground running and I am off looking at the best practices for test automation, contacting the firm experts and documenting the existing environment. A thrill a minute I tell you.

The engagement is for 5 weeks, so I can easily tough it out for that long. I am planning a trip for the weekend before deliverables are due. I hope that everything works out. I am particularly excited about that trip for some reason. It’s with a bunch of new people, to a very cool place in an unnamed European country. So as long as the project ending and deliverables being due the day after I get back to the US does not interfere with my personal plans, this could turn out to be a nice project for me in terms of logistics and time scale. The work is still boring but someone has to do it.

I am staying at the Residence Inn on Mint Street. Not TOO bad, but certainly not somewhere I would have picked to stay. Well, I do all I can to avoid Marriott properties. But this is where the rest of the team is staying so I didn’t want to be the black sheep. Well, that and the Westin is just outside of the budget this time. Oh well, I’ll pad my Marriott account some for the next month. Unfortunately there is NOTHING around the hotel. I mean not even for several blocks! Nothing is within walking distance. Which is not going to be good for me (although my liver may disagree). I am rather fond of evening cocktails but, driving to obtain them is not in the plans. I suppose I could take a cab but I don’t even know where I would go. Fortunately the work weeks are short until after New Years and I can get things sorted out by then.

I spent another 2 days at the client site. I worked a Friday! I have not done that in nearly a year! Regrettably I forgot what time my flight was on Friday and thought it was at 5:00pm. So I arrived in time to catch what I thought was a 5:00 flight. Such was not the case, I had actually arrived VERY late for my 2:00pm flight. Goodbye upgrade, hello standby. I was confirmed onto the flight to Dallas right there at the ticket counter, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I would at lest make it to my own state tonight. Worst case I could rent a car in Dallas and drive down to Austin.

So I took my seat on the flight from CLT to DFW. Seat 31F on an MD 80. The worst seat on the plane. I had a window seat with a GREAT view,. . . . of the engine (and the galley, and the lav, and the screaming kid next to me). I realize that this is going to be a long flight, and 30 minutes later, when the battery died in my MP3 player, I had the stark realization that this was going to be a VERY long flight. After a LONG wait in the last seat on the aircraft, the FA finally makes it down to row 31. At least I can get a cocktail now. Open the wallet to reveal a whopping 4 dollars. Ok, this flight just took a turn for the worst, I cant even sedate myself now. So I took my ginger ale and pretzels. I should have eaten lunch today because the pretzels were not going to cut it. None of this would have been a problem if I would have taken a seat where I belong, up front. (yes I can be arrogant at times, I think it’s one of my more attractive features )

DFW was a welcome sight when we landed. As much as I detest this airport at times, I detest seat 31F even more. I arrived at gate C30, the flight to Austin was at gate C31. How nice, at least I didn’t have to make the dreaded C-A marathon tonight. DFW has to be the most poorly designed airport I have ever had the displeasure of flying into. The terminals are ‘U’ shaped with jetways on the outside of the ‘U’. While in theory this may sound like a good idea, it is the absolute worst layout, especially if it is going to be a major hub with lots of connections. The major problem is that there are only jetways on one side, so automatically it takes twice as long to get anywhere than it would in any other airport in the world. And if you have to go from Terminal C to Terminal A (or B for American Eagle, or American Connection flights) your in for a trek!

After an hour in DFW, I took what I think was someone else’s seat into Austin. Fortunately I was not in row 31 this time. The gate agent must have bumped someone for me to make this flight. I don’t think I would have gotten the seat if I didn’t strike up a conversation with the nice lady. I asked her if I could get on stand by, so she starts banging away at the key board for what seemed an eternity. Just as she was looking up at me to say something, I comment on the pin she was wearing. United States Coast Guard. I comment to her that I am active USCGA and it is nice to see someone wearing the ensign on their uniform. She squints her eyes, looks down for a second, looks back at me with her mouth cracked open like she wants to say something, looks back down and starts typing away again. Out spits a boarding pass. She picks up the microphone, and calls for a passenger “Michael Something, please see the gate agent at gate C31”, and hands me a boarding pass for seat 18D, winks at me, and tells me that I better hurry onto the plane. She has made my night!

I’m going home! Woohoo! I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there, but I’m going to be there tonight. I stumble into ‘home’ at around 10:00 or so. I knew I had to get out so I went downtown to see what was going on. That’s the beauty of living in Austin, on any given night of the week, you can go out with $4 in your wallet, and catch a great show somewhere. Tonight was no different. I saw PubCrawler at BD Riley’s on 6’th. I know all the guys in the band and I always have a great time seeing them. Being a part time musician has it’s benefits in this town.

I don’t play with anyone anymore, my last band got tired of me being out of town all the time so I was replaced. I don’t blame them, they were a lot more serious about it than I was. Music was just something fun I used to occupy my time. I actually got a chance to catch a set of theirs this weekend. It is a very strange feeling watching someone else play your songs. Kind of cool in a way to sit back and listen to, but can be a bit personal at times. I remember all the things that were going on when I sat down one night while staffed in a project in Dallas to write it. How appropriate that I hear it tonight, it smells like winter outside, and winter smells like memory.