Aaron Ewer
Aaron Ewers thoughts about everything

Forgive me for bragging a little bit, but I have always been so proud of my son for his work as a DJ. Our family has always been involved in the music business. My grandfather was a piano player for the silent movies back in the 1920’s and played the piano for thousands of events, like variety shows, beauty pageants, juke joints, and all kinds of dance jobs from weddings to sweet 16 birthday parties. My father played every instrument out there until he damaged his fingers on his left hand and couldn’t hold down the chords on a guitar anymore. So he played mostly piano and put together an orchestra aka the Ricky Ricardo Orchestra of the 1950′2. Later on, he managed several bands and handled the entertainment for a large pizza chain.

I took piano lessons for years but worked as a DJ for years for extra money. When possible, I would take along my son to help tote the gear into the venue and if it was an event for kids, I would let him choose the music, cue up the tapes, and eventually do some work on the microphone. When he got older, he started his own DJ company and has been thriving ever since. So that makes 4 generations of music in our family so far.

My son pays a lot more attention to the mechanics of music than I do. He actually mixes his own CDs and does editing, voice overs, and other technical things using the computer. He’s a big fan of a new software called MOV that lets him convert video files to MP3 format and lots of other features. It works with video, CDs and DVDs.

The mov converter does other cool things, like video editing, 30+ special effects and color adjustment operations. If you are into these technical things with video and audio, you should probably get this converter or at the very least check out their site. Even with the little bit that I know about this, I was impressed.

If Letterman is on the TV then I’m up too late and the next day is going to be a bear with me tired from not enough sleep. The problem is, I really like the show. I’ve been watching it for years. I think he’s been on the air for almost 30 years by now. Isn’t that amazing?

One of the funniest things he’s done is the Top 10 List. The writers have an incredible imagination to come up with those lists, night after night. They are always topical and at least 3 or 4 from every list will make me laugh out loud.

The “Legally Speaking” show has a variety of legal specialties represented on the show, so callers have a good chance of reaching someone who can answer just about any kind of question. One of the lawyers on the radio show specializes in personal injury cases and he handled a call the other night while I was listening that brought up some issues that I hadn’t considered but he must hear it all the time. What happens after a car wreck and you can’t work and have to pay your bills?

Obviously the common advice is to have set aside savings to carry you through emergencies like this. But I know a lot of people, if not most people, just don’t have the money to put enough away to handle a serious emergency. If the accident is not your fault, then most people are going to want to get a lawyer and sue the other people and their insurance company. But that can take over a year to get to court. So what do you do in the meantime?

What the lawyer suggested was getting in touch with a company that provides funding based on their opinion of whether you have a good enough case to win in court. It;s not that hard to look at the other court cases out there and see what kind of settlements they have awarded and compare the facts of your case to the ones that have already been successful. So if this lawsuit finance company thinks you have a good case, they advance you the money you need to pay your house payment or rent, keep the lights one, etc.

Finished the web site for the lawyers radio show, called “Legally Speaking,” and it’s up!

That was quite the process. I met with each attorney in his own office to write the biography and copy. Then I had a photo shoot of them during a live show. I just took my pocket digital camera, no extra lights, and shot about 100 photos - some posed and some candids.

I think it turned out great. And now I listen to the show as much as I can on Saturday nights, and I’ve even called in a few times to pose questions for my microphone shy friends.

School will be starting up again here. Some neighboring counties are actually starting back this week, and by the end of next week I believe all the kids in the area will be back in school. That doesn’t worry me too much other than having to spend a bunch of money on school uniforms and supplies this month.

The upside to this is that if we can still get away for a short vacation, the beaches won’t be near as crowded yet there are still two months left of great beach weather at all the Gulf of Mexico beaches.

I checked online for a condo rental in Destin or anywhere along the Florida panhandle and found a great site, Rentalo.com to help book a condo. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the listings they have for Destin condos and I think we can find the perfect spot tonight and make our plans.

This same site handles condo rentals for all over the U.S., so I checked out what they have listed for Kissimmee vacation villas because we want to go back to Disneyworld for Thanksgiving and visit the grandparents in New Port Richey.

With air travel costs going up every week, we should probably book our spring break trip, too. So I checked the condo listings for Cancun and compared those with villas Puerto Vallarta deals and as long as we can get the new passports for the kids, we’ll have all our travel booked in some great spots for really great prices.