I was looking through old posts and found this from a month or two ago. I have been waiting to post until I had pics of all the stuff. It seems that aint gonna happen lol. So I'm posting this as is. Painting word pictures is fun too.

I gotta tell ya I'm having a great month on Craigslist free stuff. It started out with a free camera stabilizer. One of those handheld gimbal thingies similar to a thing I used with our little cameras but this one holds the big 4k. Turns out the guy had cut the pole because he had a much lighter camera. I needed the original length to handle the weight of the 4k. I went to the website and tried to order a part; no luck. They had a find a dealer thingie and I found two local places. No luck. Without an actual part number they can't order nothin'.

Back to the website, drop an email and two days later I get a reply commiserating with my frustration and asking if I need the clamp too. He actually sent me the right part for nothing, free shipping and an apology. Stunned, I had to take a self-satisfied nap. The new pole works great and I get a 2.5 second drop time which is optimal. (whateverthatmeans)

The website reveals that this device is designed to work with a vest to make an actual steadica; they call theirs the flycam. A quick search and I find one at a hock shop in Poway. I bid on the ebay listing and grab it for fittybucks. Turns out it is a complete flycam setup: a vest, the spring arm, two pivot arms, all the counter weights you might need and a little bracket thingie you can clamp on to a table to help balance the cam. It also included a complete stabilizer with a long pole and a quick-connect camera mount. Brand new, never used in the original case with all the extra parts and a bag of extra screws. Great deal and now I can fly four cameras at once and one on the boom. I just need three more cameras now.

I've been searching for an old cement mixer for a big project at Roscoe, our place in the mountains. Finally find one on CL for 30 bucks. It's old. It's rusty. It's ugly. It's me. I unload the trash out of the back of my truck (finally), and off I go hoping I can load this thing myself. I get over there and back in and the lovely lady shows me her granddad's mixer. It is on a cart that he built and the motor plugs in and runs, the bucket goes round and tilts. Then I look at the cart and my eyes light up. She see me and says you get the cart too. This thing is so cool. It is like an old railroad cart from my days on the Rock Island line. Both sets of wheels turn when you move the handle. It is solid steel with these cunning turntable thingies the guy made. Fabulous antique deal and the cart makes it easy to load the mixer and the cart flips in with just enough room to close the tailgate. I didn't even have to tie it down. There is a brand new belt in the bucket and when I get home and plug it in everything works. The inside is clean and there is even a sheet metal slide for the unload under where it tilts down. Two antiques for the price of none.

About a week later, I see an ad for some AV gear and the guy is looking for a worthy home for his stuff. I write a nice email talking about barefootmusicnews.com and music videos with the kids on the jam stages and live shows, things we have done. I point him to my triple-platinum youtube page and hope for the best. I get a great reply with the address and off we go. We take the long way and drive through the city for the first time in a long, long while. Downtittydowntown we call it, right through the heart of LA. On our round trip, we're like tourists out the window as we pass some of our old stomping grounds. Our Thrifty Corp newsletter office on Wilshire, Wakitu's office on Sunset and Avenue of the Stars for her Miramax gig and more; such great memories of our LA journey.

We're in my huge truck. We pass by once to check it out. No parking, so we go up a block and turn around and park behind the Amazon guy in the middle of the road with our flashers on. The guy meets me at his gate with black AV bags full of stuff. He's on his second trip and I grab stuff and we load it up. Sweetheart of a guy, a former teacher turned video maker. His reason for unloading was a huge upgrade to his equipment due to lots of work. He just wants to give someone else the opportunity that gear gave him. He liked my music and the kid vids nailed it.  Sweet. We head home. Surprisingly, we again take the long way home meandering through old LA taking lefts to pop in and out of neighborhoods past what used to be Waki's high school, now a film school. We do this a lot and constantly marvel at the changes in architecture and cultures and lifestyles displayed on the tree-lined streets of Old LA and the cement canyons of the city.

We get home and unpack and we just can't believe the windfall. Let me list it:

• A nine-foot jib/boom that mounts on top of my big tripod. I can get about 20 feet in the air with that thing and swoop down like butta. It is like new and has all the parts and a sandbag for a counterweight and flies my heavy 4k cam like it is weightless.
• A small camera stabilizer. My cell fits on there and I can fly it around too now.
• A lateral sled, for left-to-right slides. A little small for our cam. We'll probably give this away. A little overkill for the phone.
• A very nice utility tripod
• A very nice utility mic stand
• A backdrop stand, two tall stands and 12 feet of pole. In a nice case.
• Four eight-foot light stands
• Two small LED video lights
• One larger LED video light all in a nice case
• Four batteries. These are standard and fit all our lights and the small monitor.
• USB dual battery charger
• Two expensive gel clips. They mount on a light stand and hold colored "gels" in front of lights
• Two monopods
• and the big AV bag to put all the loose stuff in.
  I can't even begin to explain how this fills in the oddly shaped holes in our video kit, as if hand picked for projects we have on the table.
  What a Deal.

The deal of the month, however, happened today. A week ago I saw a listing for the dismantling of a garage. The folks just want it gone. I left a message that I'd come by and look at it and see what we could do. Heard nothing. A week later I get a note asking if I'm still interested, that the garage door and all the walls and wires were still up for grabs. With not enough time for me to do it before the cement demo guys needed it clear, another crew took the metal and the wiring. She calls me back and says the demo guys knocked everything down and all the walls were available. I told her I'd be there in 10.

The house is gorgeous and up high on a hill in a suburb of LA just outside of Glendale. A 360 of the whole area with a long view to the mountains on the north to the city to the west. Stunning views. The driveway. however, is a nightmare. My lifted 4x4 is nearly 20 feet long, the trailer is 16, the tongue and hitch is 3 so, all told, I am very close to 40 feet long. That is as long as a semi box trailer or flatbed but hinged in the middle. The driveway is eight feet wide with a bank on one side and a 200 foot dropoff on the other. My truck is 7 feet wide and my bigass back tires stick out a little on each side. There is a low border fence on the downhill side that my big rear tire will roll right over like a curb or a Prius. It is one short hairy curve after another for 1/2 a mile and then there is the garage parking area to work with at the top. The neighbors have a turnaround space but it is too short.

What they are offering is all the lumber for a single car garage that's 16x16. I get three walls and the huge header over the door. Everything else is gone. The thing that makes this deal special is that the wood is full-dimensional redwood from when they really built a house to last. Smooth round 16d steel nails and full dimension x-bracing on both sides. Probably built in the 40s. This wood will last a hundred years under our new deck and add on. That beam alone is 4"x12"x16' at today's rate for dougfir it's probably 80 bucks alone. The studs are 102" long and there is nearly 30 of them I can use plus the double-blocked corners. The top and bottom plates are all full length and there is a small header over the window opening. What a deal. Getting it was another story.

I call ahead to get the driveway clear. The demo guys are going home. I drive the ten minutes over and 3 miles an hour up the driveway and, low and behold, no one has moved their cars except the neighbor and he blocked the lower road with it. Now I am up this hill and backing down it would not be fun. It would take a while, so we jockey their cars around and I try to pass it and back in to the spot. It is just too tight.

Plan B is to turn around at the neighbors. My thought is to use as much as their little turn around as I can, drop the trailer, turn my truck around, hook up and go. So begins the 90 point turn as I inch back and forth between the fences and landscaping and rock borders. Meanwhile the old hippie neighbor couple and the owners are watching and yacking and giving advice. We manage to get the thing between their cars and ready to go. I unhook the trailer and do a 30 point turn around to get out from in front of it, nose back down the driveway. Of course it is the wrong angle to hitch the trailer. I dig a chain out of the truck hook it up and yank it over a few feet. Since we yanked it off the blocks we had to jack it up, put a jack stand under it, add blocks and jack again until it was high enough to get on the ball. We managed all of that without wrecking the neighbors yard. I ran over one single HUGE leaf that squirted stuff out of it. To be fair, it was over the line and crossing into the drive lane. She couldn't see it and as I walked around the truck I said "That one plant is gonna need a little aloe vera." She, of course, having planted and lovingly cared for this huge aloe vera plant knew exactly what must have happened and "laughed out loud." See that. We do that, we old folks, we spell it out so you can hear it. We laughed the whole time, me and the hippies got along just fine. Go figure.

Got it. Back down the driveway, passed the space and now I have to back the trailer in there next to the lumber and my truck and trailer have to be entirely off the road while I work. Another 20 point turn and my brand-new power steering pump is now making noises. I finally get it in there and an hour and a half after arriving I can finally go to work.

What is on the ground waiting for me are the walls. One is whole and intact. another has the corners cut off, the third is cut in half and one half is leaning up against a tree. All of them weigh significantly more than I do. She is looking at me skeptically when I say, "There we go. This won't take long now." She wishes me good luck and I'm by myself with my work. When I got there these two old Brits are sitting down breathing hard. They are on the jack hammer taking out the slab between my walls in wheel barrows down to their truck. It is 2pm They are just whipped. With lots of 'alrighty mates" and "on the morrows" they are gone as well. "Off for a pint," they said. Looking at the pile of rubble I say, "You deserve it mate." he did ask me if I wanted to buy a pair of boots as I, as usual, was barefoot. I think he thought I was nuts. Looking at those wheelbarrow loads. I thought he was nuts! My back hurts thinking about it.

Now I've been doing this kind of thing for a long, long time. There was no way I was gonna work hard, lift anything heavy or get hurt in any way. I grab a small sledge hammer and my sawzall with a nailcutter in it. A younger me would have tried to load the walls as is. I would have done it too. Hanging over the trailer, sticking out all over, all heavy and needing to be unloaded somewhere eventually. That is a lot of work.

At my age, barefoot with a bottle of water in one hand I take the sledge and knock the plates off the studs a little on all the ones on the ground. With the sawzall in one hand and a smoke in the other I cut all the nails. I put on my gloves and load the big beam by sea-sawing it over a full wheelbarrow. Lifting one half of it at a time I swing it onto the trailer. I toss the studs on and before you know it the one that "had to be moved today" was gone.

I called in to the house to say it's done and that I dropped the trailer and am taking a lunch break. She said no way, hung up and ran out to see for herself. She couldn't believe how fast that old man got it done and she took my picture. It was hot out there in the sun and, of course, I am allergic to that beautiful yard next door. I grabbed a bite and waited for the cool and went back to finish up. Using the same techniques I finished up what was on the ground. I gave the leaner a push and it fell over onto the pile. I knocked it loose right there in sort of the same fashion and we were done. Six ratchet straps later and I am ready to hook up the trailer. Of course their car is in the way and I have to turn around again.

So the dance begins. I go in and 6 point turn around and pass the space. He pulls way down the neighbor's drive and I back up to the trailer. I nailed it in two turns this time. Drop it on the ball and say my goodbyes. I am driving away with hundreds of dollars, maybe over a thousand dollars worth of lumber that will last 100 years. All it cost me was a little gas and my right side mirror. Did I mention that I broke the mirror off early in this endeavor and did most of that backing through a kaleidoscope of fragments. It was like the 60s over there. I only have the one eye you know, perspective is sketchy at best. I had eight corners to watch and two mirrors. 9 out of 10 aint bad. It was so cute the hippie lady ran inside and got a hand mirror and asked if I wanted to duct tape that one there. I managed it by positioning the largest fragment with some electrical tape.

So what is the point of this story? Several times during these many adventures I said out loud "Oh to be 19 again." I said it when I picked up the 4k camera on the flycam without the vest which makes it so I can do it anyway. I said it to the granddaughter's boyfriend who helped me load the mixer and cart. I said it to the teacher when talking about carrying AV equipment our whole life. Then I said it again messing around with the trailer. "Oh to be 19 again." We all laughed and the boys agreed. The lil mirror lady says, "Yes, but if you were 19 again you wouldn't know how to do this." I stopped dead in my tracks. She was absolutely right and I told her so.

All this time wishing I was 19 again so I was buff and strong and healthy and willing to do crazy shit for little or no money. Now, thanks to a wise hippie lady with a lovely hippie yard, I realize I wouldn't be able to do 90 percent of what I can do now. When I was 19 I was a welder and that was the very start of my construction career. When I was 19 humping steel I was buff, I had guns, I had black hair down to my ass and looked good in jean shorts but I didn't know shit about how the world worked, how things were made. I thought I knew everything, of course, and it paid well being a drone in a mask. We made cool shit. Before that I wore a tie and sold electric razors in Macy's in NY and drove a crane for the railroad in Illinois. It's different now. I can back a trailer like a boss because of that guy though. Years later working on the military bases I was a welder again, dragging a big-assed welder behind my truck for two years or so. I can back a trailer into your pocket and button it up. "If" there is enough room to approach.

So, no, I no longer wish I was 19 again. I don't have to live without the right tools or the experience that says "You Will NOT Back Up That Driveway." I didn't get a splinter or step on a nail rushing around like a 19 year old. Slow and steady, I just did it all right except for the mirror. To be fair, that pole had to try three times before it snapped. It is YOU punks who should be wishing you were my age with all that knowledge, two broken hearts, all those tools and a mortgage, insurance payments and a tractor, 120-foot rope and a sensible jacket. Oh, and pie whenever you want.