The story so far...

December 1971:  I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Interestingly, it was the same year that Stanley Kubrick released his version of A Clockwork Orange.

1971 - 1987:  I lived my life as an odd child.  Some thought I was a prodigy, others thought I was a nerd, and a few probably thought I was just an annoying kid.  All three opinions were probably right.

Fall 1987:  I saw the video to Depeche Mode's "Never Let Me Down Again" on a TV show called New Grooves.  Although I had been impressed with their "People Are People" video years before, it was this video (and the TV show as a whole) that got me hooked on Depeche Mode and "progressive" music in general.

(For you kids out there who don't remember the late 80s "progressive" scene, it was kind of like what you call "alternative" music today, except that the music was [a] truly alternative, [b] didn't sound like "pop" music like the poseur "alternative" bands today and [c] didn't get played all the time on mainstream radio like the poseur "alternative" bands today.)

December 1987:  After a great amount of harping to my parents, one of my Christmas gifts that year was a cassette tape copy of Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses.

February 1988:  I got my feet wet in the DJ business when I did some graphic design work for "DJ Dave," a childhood friend and the owner of a local DJ group called Mirage Productions.  As time went on, I went from basic gopher work to running the light board.  My times with Dave along with fellow Mirage members Gerard and Dusty, performing and music shopping, were some of the best experiences of my life.

Summer 1988:  The first time I wandered into Mohawk Music, 51st and Sheridan, Tulsa, OK.  I only found one Depeche Mode record, which I already had (it ended up I was looking in the wrong area of the store), and I felt so intimidated by the man behind the counter that I just left.

Summer - Fall 1988:  Somewhere around this time, I began listening to KTOW:  AM 1430, later FM 102.3.  It was real progressive radio with truly "alternative" bands.  Incredible, incredible, incredible. 

Fall 1988:  I discovered that the handful of 12-inch singles that I had by Depeche Mode did not summarize their entire remix catalogue, when I found out that they had released a buttload of "import" items as well.  My obsession was fueled and greatly intensified.  In unrelated news, DJ Dave got his first fog machine and we took turns shooting the fog out the front windows of my parents' house and watching the traffic outside slow down.

Late Fall 1988:  Due to recommendations from others, I went back into Mohawk Music.  The "intimidating" guy from my last visit was Paul Meek, the owner, who turned out to be an incredible guy and became a good friend.  Mohawk quickly became a regular hangout.

April 1989:  Junior Prom.  I don't remember who DJed it; probably DJ Dave.  I took a friend named Neddra Knox, who pretty much vanished from the face of the earth a few years later.  If anybody knows what happened to Neddra, or where I could reach her, please write to me and let me know, or let her know that I'd like to hear from her.  ***UPDATE 2009-10-25!!! - Neddra contacted me a few days ago and we chatted for the first time in over fifteen years!  I'm happy to report that she's doing well.

Summer 1989:  Faced with the devastating news that DJ Dave was leaving for college, I was given the means with which to start my own DJ company.  I called it EKG, which stood for "Electro Kinetic Group."  Original members were myself, my best friend Kevin "Wink" Winkler, and his girlfriend Janet.

September 29th, 1989:  I DJed my first gig, the 1989 homecoming for my high school.  First song played:  "Youth Gone Wild" by Skid Row, by request, from a vinyl album.  The song sucked.  The record skipped.  Otherwise, the show went well.  Notably, I managed to play the full unedited version of LL Cool J's "I'm That Type of Guy," as well as a "brand new" song called "Personal Jesus" which Depeche Mode had released earlier in the month.  EKG Mobile Music was officially "in business."

December 1989:  DJ Dave took me to the Beat Club (51st + Sheridan, behind what was then Woodcraft Furniture) for my first real club experience.  :)  I got to see a Volkswagon covered in day-glo paint, enormous screen(s) were showing Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," and my entire view of music was expanded as I listened to even more music with which I hadn't been previously familiar, such as Ministry's "Everyday Is Halloween."  This was also probably the second-happiest Christmas of my life.  I spend the 23rd hanging out at Kevin's house, and I introduced him to a "brand new" album called Pretty Hate Machine by a then-obscure progressive/industrial act called Nine Inch Nails.

January 1990:  I fired Janet (either this month or December 1989) because she and Kevin had broken up and she was crying during the DJ gigs.  Her replacement was Billy "Mix" Purdum, whom I consider to be my second best friend in the world.

March 1990:  Depeche Mode released Violator.  Also, I went to the Cain's Ballroom to see Nine Inch Nails live, as an opening act for Peter Murphy, formerly of Bauhaus fame.  I was initially within 4-5 rows from the stage, but during the end of the NIN set, I accidentally got involved in my first (and last) mosh pit, and quickly moved further back in the crowd to a safer area.

April 14th, 1990:  Kevin, Billy, and I hosted the first ever EKG Duohouse Pilgrimage, a two-stage party in which everyone gathered at Kevin's house, watched movies and ate pizza, then we all drove to my parents' house and had a dance/music party with the EKG show in the garage.  There were other DP parties later in the year, but none of them came close to the fun we had with the first one.

April 20th, 1990:  Senior Prom.  I was on the prom committee, and I managed to get "Black Celebration" (Depeche Mode song, for those of you who don't know it) on the ballot for prom theme.  Unfortunately, that honour went to Guns + Roses' "Paradise City," which sucked.  Also, to my disdain, the committee voted to hire the K-107 Road Show, which also sucked.  Oh so very badly.  I'll refer to my date for the prom as "J;" she doesn't deserve to have so much as her first name on my site.

May 1990:  I graduated high school as our senior class' sole valedictorian.  I was also voted "Most Likely To Succeed" by my classmates.

July 8th, 1990:  Dave and Gerard from Mirage, along with our friends Kelly and Dana, got together, shoe-polished the Windows of Dave's big white van with Depeche Mode symbols and club names, and headed to Dallas to see Depeche Mode live on their World Violation Tour.

August - September 1990:  I purchased my first "DJ-Only Remix" issues, some of the old On-USound records with Depeche Mode medleys on them.

Fall 1990:  I started my first and only year at the University of Tulsa.  Although my dislike for Calculus would ultimately lead to my leaving the university, I enjoyed a lot of the activities there.  I joined the deejay team for their over-the-cable experimental pseudo-radio station, "The Storm," and proceeded to start my own show, "Badger's Psyche-Shredding Gameshow of Death," which ran from mid-fall of 1990 through spring of 1991.  It was a hoot.

January 1991:  I turned on the radio to 102.3 and heard Vanilla Ice coming through the speakers of my gold 1977 Malibu Classic.  I thought it was a joke or a fluke.  It wasn't.  The station had changed to an "urban contemporary" format.  The greatest radio station that Tulsa ever had, KTOW 102.3 Progressive Radio, was no more.  Also, Billy Purdum left Oklahoma to pursue a military career, and visited me very rarely since that departure.  I still consider him my second best friend - one of my two "brothers" - and I miss him greatly.

March 1991:  I started visiting my first shrink, a wonderful young psychology student named Glenda Parkhurst at the Alexander Health Centre.  She was terrific, and I hope she's doing well.

March 20, 1991:  This was a bad day.

Summer 1991:  After leaving TU, I started a 3-semester run at Rogers State College in Claremore, OK.  I also joined the staff of the RSC radio station, then known as KNGX 91.3, and almost immediately became the latest member of the Edge of Insanity team, the closest thing to "real" alternative radio that the Tulsa area had after KTOW died.  For a while, even Kevin joined as a DJ under his nickname "Wink."

Somewhere in early 1992, I think:  Kevin Winkler left Oklahoma to pursue a military career.  He has visited very rarely since then, though I still consider him my best friend in the world - one of my two "brothers."  Words can't describe how much I miss him.

May 1992:  After significant creative differences with the leader of the Edge of Insanity, I left the show.  After he was thrown out of KNGX 91.3 a while later, he would take it to 92.1 FM and rename it the "EOI Network."  That eventually failed as well.

Fall 1992:  I got my first pair of Technics SL-1200 turntables to replace the worn-out belt-drive Vector Research tables I'd been using for the last 3 years.  Also, I found out that there were a lot more DJ-Only remix companies than I'd been familiar with, and my appetite for remix collecting only became more voracious.  Finally, I signed up for a Creative Writing course at Rogers State College, and my writing was encouraged by a fantastic teacher named Teresa Miller.

December 1992:  I traveled to Dallas to see Erasure live in concert.  I got to go to Bill's Records in Dallas for the first time.  If you've ever been to Bill's, then you'll understand why that was so significant.  If you've never been to Bill's, I highly recommend it.  Shopping there is a definite trip.

January 1993:  As Rogers State College was a 2-year college, I moved on to Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, OK.

March 4th, 1993:  This was a good day.

Very Late August 1993:  A couple of guys, William and Mike, who worked in then NSU computer department, kept going on and on about this great new thing we'd gotten access to called "the Internet."  I didn't know much about it, but I told them that it was probably overrated and would be a non-practical and expensive as America On-Line or Prodigy were.  They pretty much insisted it was the greatest thing since the beginning of time, and I pretty much insisted that they were on crack.  They proceeded to show me how I could have a live chat with people I didn't know, even people from Canada (golly!), in real-time, over a telnet-based MOO.  (Most modern-day Internet users, sadly, couldn't even tell you what a MOO is.)  I immediately conceded and admitted that the Internet was pretty cool.

Very Early September 1993:  I became addicted to the Internet.  This was before the Net was "cool," and even before the World Wide Web became popular.  I was hooked on telnetting to MOOs to chat with people, though I also became extremely familiar (obsessed) with UseNet News as well as FTPing and doing Archie searches.

October 13th, 1993:  I saw Depeche Mode live for the second time, this time on their "Devotional Tour," with a young lady named Sarah.  The show was incredible, even though David Gahan was smacked out of his gourd with his now-notorious heroin addiction.

December 1993:  I had my first oral s...urgery.  Four wisdom teeth, all hacked out at once.  Also, I think that was the month that Sarah convinced me to try pistachio nuts.  I think that was the most productive thing I ended up getting from the entire relationship.  December was also the month that I installed and played the shareware version of Id software's Doom for the very first time, which was wonderful but didn't help my studies much.

Spring 1994:  I became completely burnt-out with college at NSU.  My Internet usage and faithful (ha!) girlfriend had proven to be much more important than my academic advancement.  I pretty much gave up on my schooling, failed some courses, and left in shame.  I still had a lot of extra "food" credits built up, and just before leaving, I spent almost all of them on numerous cases of a "new" beverage called Fruitopia.

May 29th, 1994:  Sarah and I went to see Depeche Mode live (for my third time) at the Riverport Ampitheatre, near St. Louis, MO, on their USA 1994 tour.  Good show.  Gahan was still a smackhead.

Fall 1994:  I changed colleges again, this time beginning a lengthy relationship with Langston University via the University Center At Tulsa (UCT), which would later become Rogers University and then Oklahoma State University-Tulsa.

September 1994:  I found out that my girlfriend had been engaged to someone else for the length of our relationship.  When I asked her why, she actually said, "I wanted to see how long you'd fall for it."  I quickly converted the girlfriend into an ex-girlfriend and moved on with my life.

December 1994:  While performing at the winter party for Tulsa's East Central High School, I met a guy named Tim, another Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails collector with whom I would quickly become friends.  Tim would later come to be known as DJ TMJ.

Spring 1995:  I kept DJing parties with EKG, going to college, and I started hanging around at a video store called Critic's Choice, at 31st + Harvard in Tulsa, where Tim worked along with his friend Chris (who soon became my friend Chris).  I hung around there so often that I finally had to start wearing a sticker reading "Hi.  I don't work here" so that [a] people would stop asking me questions and [b] I could offer my own outspoken opinions freely without people thinking that I was representing the store.

Late fall 1995:  While running around Tulsa with my old friend Kevin (who had come back to Oklahoma to visit), I discovered a remarkable pizza place called Mario's Pizza.  Yes, Mario's was (and still is) fantastic enough to warrant a mention in my history page.

Spring 1996:  I was approached by an editor of nationwide Karaoke + DJ USA magazine to write an article regarding DJ-only remix services.  That article turned into a regular remix review column for the quarterly publication.

Summer - Fall 1997:  Critic's Choice closed down for various reasons.  The manager, my friend Chris, then opened up his own store, Video Express, for which I designed all of the original artwork, signs, etc.  It opened around October 1997 at 37th and Harvard in Tulsa, and a while later, Tim began working there as well.  I hung out at Video Express all the time, and even did my college internship there.

Spring 1998:  I submitted what would have been my final remix article to Karaoke + DJ USA and received no response.  The issue was not published, I wasn't paid for the article, and I never received a set of record sleeves which I had sent to the publisher to scan in for the article.  I continued publishing reviews on a self-published Website, entitled Badger's Tracks, for a short while after that, but eventually it crumbled into nothingness as well.

Fall 1998:  After a unpleasant experience at Video Express, I stopped hanging out there.  Soon after that, they closed down.  I still retained friendships with Chris and Tim.  Also, during a visit to Tulsa, DJ Dave and I got the chance to head to the Cain's Ballroom and spend some time together.  It was the first time I'd seen him in over three years.

November 19th, 1998:  I went and saw Depeche Mode live for the fourth time, this time back in Dallas, on their "Singles Tour," with Tim, his girlfriend, and a new girlfriend named Elaine.  Dave Gahan was off the smack, which was great news, and the show was not bad but not overwhelming.

Winter - Spring 1999:  I purchased Sonic Foundry's ACID Pro software, version 1.0, for around $280.00, from a great place called Safe Harbor.  My days of early music production began, but since my Packard hell 486 DX2/66 computer at the time (no, I'm not kidding) couldn't run it, I had to play with ACID on my girlfriend's PC.

July 1999:  Although by this point I had always lived "around" Tulsa, I hadn't actually lived in the city since I was three or four years old.  This month, I finally moved back into Tulsa itself.

October 1999:  I co-designed and purchased the PD-2000 (Pimp Daddy 2000) computer system, manufactured by a company called TEC.  The computer was delivered on October 29th.  I could finally produce music at home.

October 31st, 1999:  Before I could get anything major done with the PD-2000 (other than some seriously intense sessions playing Sierra's Half-Life), I had to be rushed to the hospital with emergency appendicitis.  It was the worst physical torment that I think I've ever felt, and I vomited more that day than I had ever vomited before.  My life was saved by a Dr. Matt Bosquez, to whom I am eternally grateful.

November 6th, 1999:  While I was recovering from my surgery, Elaine broke up with me.  I like to joke that she said "We just haven't been going out and doing anything for the last week."  Seriously, though, it was an amicable parting.

Fall 1999:  I started working on a massive musical project called Clockwork Wizards.  The first song I ever fully completed was called "Pounding," and it can be heard here.

Winter 2000:  I met a young lady named Teresea, who was the inspiration for the Clockwork Wizards song "Heartstrings (Song for Teresea)."

Spring 2000:  I took the final class that had been holding me back from my graduation:  Linear Algebra.  I'd failed it several years before, but this time I scraped by with a "C."  Linear Algebra is horrible - absolutely horrible - and I pity anyone who has to take it in the future.

May 2000:  I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Computer Information Science from Langston University.  Boo-Yah!  It may have taken me ten long years, but I finally did it.  I'm still planning on having a graduation party, someday.

Summer 2000:  I met Shalisha, who was the inspiration for the Clockwork Wizards song "Shalisha's Intent."

December 2000:  I met Katy (Kasia), who was the inspiration for the Clockwork Wizards song "Kasia (Muse of the Madman)."

June 30th, 2001:  This was one of the saddest days of my life.  Mohawk Music, my regular hangout for over eleven years, closed its doors after a 13-year run.  I got there 5 minutes after they opened, with a big box of bagels and a lawn chair.  I set up camp near the back of the store, and with the exception of walking to the QuikTrip next door for food/drink, I didn't leave the store.  I saw a lot of old friends from the past several years, and there were lots there even after the 9:00 PM closing time.  Shortly before 10:00, I made my official last purchase from Paul, the owner and my friend.  I left the place just as the tears started to stream down my face.  An era in Tulsa ended.

July 1st, 2001:  I started purchasing most of my music online.

July 17th, 2001:  I went and saw Depeche Mode for the fifth time, with Tim, Lori, and Katy, in Dallas, on dM's Exciter Tour.

August 23rd, 2001:  Urban Tulsa (Volume 11, Number 10) published a lengthy Mohawk Music piece which I'd submitted, focusing on the closed-minded music environment in Tulsa and how the actions (or lack thereof) of the Tulsa music-buying community brought about the end of a wonderful business.

November 21st, 2001:  The night before Thanksgiving, Katy broke up with me.  Happy holidays.

March 23rd, 2002:  After a few months of not seeing each other, I got together with my old friend Chris for dinner.  His recently-acquired girlfriend got into a jealous fit because he wasn't devoting enough attention to her that night and he had to run off.  I wrote, produced, and uploaded one of the worst songs of my career, "My Friend Chris and His Girlfriend," in response to those events.  It's an obscure, trashy song, and I have no intention of ever releasing it commercially, but if you try hard enough, you can probably find a copy to download somewhere online.  Shortly after the song was produced, Chris (whom I never told about the song) stopped talking to me, and his cell phone number suddenly wasn't even valid anymore.  I presume he heard the song, and frankly, I figured that it was easier to stop communicating with me than to grow a spine and confront his overpossessive wench of a girlfriend.

June 9th, 2002:  As I wasn't progressing quickly enough with the Clockwork Wizards project, I decided to start releasing other songs - and putting together an album - under the name DJ Badger.  The first DJ Badger track released to the Net, "Soundtrack To An Amputation," can be heard here.

June 17th, 2002:  I started going to a small Tulsa coffee shoppe called the Gypsy, which would become a semi-regular hangout of mine for a while.

August 2002:  I created my first demo CD - "The Friends + Family Demo 2002" - with an extremely limited distribution.  It contained a new song called "In Honour of Instructive Ambitions," which I put together for a Gypsy waitress named Becky, who was about to head off to college to pursue a career in music education.

November 28th, 2002:  When visiting family for Thanksgiving, I heard "through the grapevine" that my old friend DJ Dave, the person to whom I will always be grateful for getting me into the DJ industry to begin with, had gotten married.  Dave never sent me an invitation or any other sort of notification.

February 15th, 2003:  Quite an interesting, strange, and wonderful day.  I composed "The Other Side of the Fence."

Spring/Summer, 2003:  I began my adventures with anti-depressants.

July 1st, 2003:  After my first spoken-word/lyrical poetry performance at a Gypsy Coffee House open mic night, I met "Captain" Adam Shea Chambers, one of the most unusual and laid-back people that I've ever met.  After a few weeks, he made the realization that we had actually gone to high school together.  Friendship ensued.

July 19th, 2003:  I had my first date with my soon-to-be girlfriend Heather, whom most Gypsy denizens would get to know as "Jiffy Pop."

August 7th, 2003:  I took Heather to go see Dave Gahan, lead singer of Depeche Mode, on his solo "Paper Monsters" tour.  It was a fantastic trip, and we had quite a bit of fun.  Dave was still staying clean (it seemed), and it looked like he enjoyed the show, although he had the audience "sing" far too many portions of the concert for him.

October 28th, 2003:  I officially launched my new record label, Zonen Records, and released my first CDs, two different "Other Side of the Fence" singles, with remixes by myself, DJ TMJ, and Wilhelm Sin.

November 14th-15th, 2003:  After a significant span of time concentrating on production and not really doing many DJ gigs, I performed at the Gypsy Coffee House for the afterparties of both nights of Captain Chambers' Blue November MicroFilmFest.  The good news was that I was able to play a lot of really great, fun music from the past without having to worry about what was "current" or "top-40," and people loved it.  The bad news was that the second night, when I was expecting to perform until closing, I was shut down by the Gypsy establishment at around 2:45 AM, and thus some of my coolest, most expensive, and hardest-to-find tracks (which I had been saving for the end) were never heard.

December 23rd, 2003:  At the Gypsy Coffee House, I gave away several copies of a free CD with a bass-laden techno remake of "Silent Night" as a Christmas gift for my friends and fans.

January 2004:  My only living grandpa died after a relatively short struggle with cancer.

June 12th, 2004:  I hosted a special event called "Mary-Kate and Ashley Turn 18," as a mock birthday party for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, at the Gypsy Coffee House.  I was accompanied by DJ TMJ, and the event was extremely successful.  The Gypsy had not brought in as much gross income on any single night for at least a full year before the party (including either night of the Blue November MicroFilmFest), and it is still considered one of the most profitable nights the Gypsy has ever had.

Summer 2004:  I became, for a short time, the resident DJ at Tulsa's underground Club OFF.

August 7th, 2004:  One week after celebrating our first anniversary as a couple as well as her birthday (which netted her a significant amount of free stuff), Heather aka "Jiffy Pop" ended our relationship.  In retrospect, it was a very lucky day.

August 28th, 2004:  DJ TMJ and I performed another show at the Gypsy Coffee House, a summertime masquerade party entitled "Halloween in August."  It went well, but nowhere near as well as the Mary Kate and Ashley party.

September 13th, 2004:  I had my first date with an astounding young lady named Lanna, who would soon become my girlfriend.

October 3th, 2004:  I made the decision to part ways with Club OFF.  The split was far from amicable.

October 10th, 2004:  Lanna and I traveled to Dallas to see the Dresden Dolls (amazing!) live in concert at the Gypsy Tea Room (no relation to the Gypsy Coffee House).  It was that night, while waiting for the show to start, that we first seriously discussed the concept of getting married.

October 30th, 2004:  I presented the follow-up to "Halloween in August," an event called "Hallowmania," at the Gypsy Coffee House, accompanied, once again, by DJ TMJ.  Although technically it was a success, a number of factors made it a not-so-fun event on my side of the turntables.  I decided to hold off on DJ gigs as a whole for a while.

December 5, 2004:  Lanna and I became engaged after I proposed to her using a specially-modified version of Atari 2600 Donkey Kong.

July 16th, 2005:  I got the urge to do another DJ gig, and thus DJ TMJ and I had another massive Gypsy Coffee House event, "Retro Without Shame," billed as a "1980s-1990s Bikini Dance Party."  It was far more successful than either "Halloween in August" or "Hallowmania" (though it still didn't beat the Mary Kate and Ashley event, as far as profit was concerned), and turned out to be the most enjoyable DJ gig I had ever played at the Gypsy.

October 8th, 2005:  Lanna and I had originally planned on this date for our wedding, but then decided to hold off a bit.  However, once we absolutely were sure we were not getting married on October 8th, DJ TMJ and his fiancee Lori chose to have their wedding on that date.  So, on October 8th, 2005, Lanna and I witnessed DJ TMJ and Lori getting married, and then I DJed his reception.

November 8th, 2005:  I saw Depeche Mode perform live for the sixth time, once again in Dallas.  This was during the Touring the Angel tour, to promote Playing the Angel, their best album release in over fifteen years.  Unfortunately, while it was a good show and the band looked like they were doing quite well, the tracklisting - which held no major surprises - kinda sucked.

April 1st, 2006:  DJ TMJ and I performed a new event, "Bikini Pop Fiasco," at the Gypsy Coffee House.  Unfortunately, the name of the event (which came to me in somewhat of a vision, and I thought it was cute) was too prophetic for my taste.  Due to inclement weather and a Death Cab for Cutie concert the same night, the turnout was low, and the behaviour of certain members of the crowd jeopardized any future DJ performances at the Gypsy for a while.  (Note that the Gypsy Coffee House was not at fault, and I still love the place.)

July 2006:  I officially left my "day job," which had been getting more and more unbearable, to concentrate on improving my web production skills.  Soon afterward, my position - and my department - were outsourced to another company.

September 2006:  I found another day job, and things were good again.

September 30th, 2006:  DJ TMJ and I were scheduled to perform at a massive new event, "Saffron Retro Night," at Saffron Coffee House in Tulsa.  Unfortunately, when I went to do the initial setup of equipment the night before the event (as per multiple discussions with Saffron's owner), the owner had decided to shut down early for the evening without bothering to let me know.  Since this was a promotional appearance offered to Saffron for no charge, and since she couldn't show me the common courtesy of a simple phone call, "Saffron Retro Night" was abruptly cancelled.  It is my understanding that Saffron went out of business approximately one week later.

January 13th, 2007:  I married my longtime fiancée, Lanna, in a five-person wedding ceremony at two friends' apartment.  The roads were too icy for the wedding ceremony that we had planned, but we still wanted to have a "13th" wedding so that every few years we would have a "Friday the 13th" wedding anniversary.

January 27th, 2007:  I married my longtime fiancée, Lanna, in a twenty-plus-person wedding ceremony at a small northeast Oklahoma wedding chapel.

April 2007:  Lanna and I had our first child, a boy named X.  (Yes, for those of you who are able to perform basic math, this means that, much to my regret, Lanna was pregnant when we got married.  On a related note, one should never trust the birth control pill called Ovcon-35.)

July 30th, 2007:  One of the darkest days of my life.  After a little over two weeks of hospitalization with breathing problems that quickly turned into absolute lung failure, my mother - my hero and one of the best friends I ever had in the world - passed away at the age of 71.

January 2008:  I performed a set of five "intimate" low-key performances at 3316, an upscale Tulsa restaurant, spinning a mixture of downtempo (mainly trip-hop) and classic house tracks.

April 24th, 2009:  DJ TMJ and I held a new event, Depeche Mode Night, at the Gypsy Coffee House.  It was not as well-attended as some of the more successul Gypsy events such as the Mary-Kate + Ashley party or Retro Without Shame, but it didn't go too badly either.

July 31st, 2009:  I made my "major" club debut at an event called "True Faith," held at the Marquee in downtown Tulsa.

August 29th, 2009:  I saw Depeche Mode for the seventh time, along with Lanna, once again in Dallas.  It was the 20th anniversary of the commercial release of their single "Personal Jesus," so that was kind of cool.  Unfortunately, compared to the "wow" factor of some of their earlier concerts, this was disappointing.  It was somewhat fitting, as their 2009 effort, Sounds of the Universe, was (overall) a fairly disappointing album.

November 15th, 2009:  I performed at Assimilation's Depeche Mode Tribute Night.  Due to technical issues, it would be my final DJ performance at the Marquee.  It was after this gig that I also decided to take an indefinite "break" from actively DJing, in order to focus more of my concentration on my wife and son.

Spring 2010:  After undergoing increasingly bad respiratory issues, I went to visit a pulmonologist - a wonderful gentleman named Mark Britt, who had also treated my mother as she was dying.  I was diagnosed with asthma - which I'll probably need to address for the rest of my life - as well as Legionnaire's Disease, which I didn't realize still existed.  With Dr. Britt's help, I recovered from the Legionnaire's and made some life changes (reduced milk intake, asthma inhaler, etc.) to help keep things under a bit better control.

August 6th, 2010:  I returned to DJing with an event called "The Great Gypsy Chillout" - a laid-back evening of strictly downtempo music at the Gypsy Coffee House.

September 17th, 2013:  I reunited with an old friend from college, Tiff G, to see Depeche Mode for the eighth time (on the 18th) on their Delta Machine tour in the Woodlands area of Houston, TX.  I hadn't seen her in person in over 20 years.  Compared to the previous couple of tours, it was AMAZING.  Great to see Depeche Mode back in proper form with a few decent surprises thrown in.

September 20th, 2013:  I saw Depeche Mode perform for the ninth time, on the Delta Machine tour in Dallas, TX with my wife and my six-year-old son, X.  It was still amazing.

July 1st , 2016:  I gained a new respect for time.