“Patch these cables into the front of this rack. Everything is color-coded, so it's pretty straightforward.”

The young lady smiled big, and her eyes lit up as I handed her some audio cables to accompany my instructions. In that instant, I could see all the emotions on her face; surprised that I had asked her to help me, excited for the opportunity to be involved, and a little nervous about being given the responsibility.

  This exchange happened recently at a show I did in Glasgow. The venue had implemented a job shadowing program with the local audio school to give aspiring live sound engineers real-world experience. And I didn’t waste any time putting this person to work.

At eight in the morning, incoherent and not fully aware of where I was, I reached over to hit snooze on my alarm clock. The room was dark, the bed was warm, and I was nowhere near ready to wake up. So, ten minutes later, another snooze. I repeated this cycle for the next hour until my alarm gave up. I don’t remember any of it, but I didn't get out of bed until eleven thirty, so I have to assume that’s how it all went down. My thought process when setting the alarm the night before went like this:

• Get a solid eight hours of sleep.

• Wake up well rested.

• Get a head start on initiating a new morning routine.

By August 2020, the world began to resemble a zombie apocalypse movie. In the parking lot of every tour bus company, weeds had forced themselves through cracks in the pavement. Without vehicles coming and going, there was nothing to stunt their growth.

The first hint of fresh paint and chlorine hit my nose before I even crossed the door’s threshold. The chlorine helped sanitize the pool; the paint offered a facelift to the walls of the building. Walking into school for the first time after a summer break was always a bit surreal.