#the stripes really make everything so much less busy and nicer

[starcatcher-psywurm]

I do really like the rosette veil changes, probably the only breed I like rosette on now

[the-awkward-outlaw]

Hi! I wanted to request something where the gang enjoys a thanksgiving or Christmas together?? :-)

Honestly, Anon, I’m surprised I got to this before Thanksgiving or Christmas. Anyways, here you go! 

Masterlist

Read on AO3

Holidays are a rare thing for the gang to enjoy because the lifestyles they live prevent them from doing so. Most of them don’t get much more than a “Happy (whichever holiday). Same goes for birthdays. 

However, Dutch and Hosea feel that Christmas is an important holiday that needs celebrating. Not because of the religious factors, but because it’s a holiday about love and unity. The gang needs to be reminded that they all care about one another sometimes. 

Most of the planning goes to Hosea, and he often has to remind Dutch to help out. He doesn’t mind though because when Dutch does get down to plan, he puts his whole heart into it. 

No matter where the gang is located, everyone pitches in to try and decorate camp without drawing too much attention. 

Arthur and Charles cover the hunting bit, gathering turkeys or geese for Pearson to cook. 

Although Pearson’s knowledge of different kinds of food are pretty limited, he made sure years ago to learn a good recipe for roasting birds on an open fire. Everyone appreciated it immensely. 

However, it wouldn’t be Christmas if Lenny and Sean didn’t pull a trick on Pearson. One year Pearson was making stuffing. He turned around for two seconds and his bread was replaced with corn meal. He didn’t realize it until half the bird was stuffed and then he had to pull it all out. He shouted himself hoarse at Lenny and Sean, but they were too busy laughing to care. 

Abigail will usually take Jack and a disgruntled John to town to buy some sweets, and if there’s enough money, maybe even some baked goods. There was one memorable year where John snuck away from them to play poker. He won a decent hand and used it to buy a double layered cake. An extremely rare treat. 

Tilly surprised everyone her first Christmas with the gang by baking a pie in Pearson’s dutch oven. It was so good she’s required to make them every year. Most of the gang agrees it’s not Christmas without Tilly’s pies. 

Karen and Uncle oversee the liquor supplies for Christmas Eve and Day. Uncle always pulls his usual trick of going into town, saying he’s going to buy more booze, but then he’s always found passed out in the saloon. Usually by Arthur and John who always give him an earful and sometimes a good kick. 

Grimshaw is a near terror the week leading up to Christmas. She flaps around camp and shrieks even more at the girls to get the place spick and span. By the time Christmas Eve comes, just about everyone, including the men, are about ready to shoot her. She makes it up by giving out some of the best gifts. 

Speaking of gifts, everyone’s very limited on what they can give simply because of money and availability. A rule was decided years ago when the gang started to get big that no one would give a gift for everyone. Instead, drawings were done and each person was assigned to give a gift for one person. It was Arthur who gave Mary-Beth her first real journal to write in. 

Grimshaw however is the only person who gives a gift to everyone. Dutch will usually give her a portion of the camp’s funds to go (usually after she argues with him about it) and then she goes into town with Tilly to buy everything. 

As far as decorations go, there’s usually a wreath hung up on Pearson’s wagon and mistletoe hung up somewhere. Lenny and Karen usually avoid that spot like the plague while Uncle and sometimes even Swanson will hang around it. Molly usually finds herself beneath it, hoping for Dutch to meet her under it. He usually does. 

No one really thinks about getting a tree as they’re too much hassle, but a few days before Christmas, one will just appear sometime in the night when everyone’s asleep. It was a real mystery the first year it happened until on Christmas Day, Trelawney strolled in, looking his finest. He made the slightest comment about the tree, trying to be sly, but everyone knew he’d done it. He’s done the same thing every year and everyone lets him think he’s being sneaky. 

When Christmas Eve comes, Pearson will lay out a huge dinner featuring the turkeys and geese. He also makes a mountain of mashed potatoes. 

Candles are laid out around camp and lit, which brings a lovely light to camp. 

When the food’s gone and everyone’s stuffed with second helpings of Tilly’s pie, the entire gang gathers around the campfire and sings songs and shares stories. 

Javier always tells the same story of Christmas in Mexico. How his sister would make small stuffed toys for children throughout the entire year and then he would go with her every Christmas Eve and give them to the children of his village. 

Charles will talk about his father, though very briefly. Christmas was not a big thing in his mother’s tribe as they didn’t celebrate it, but his father would always take him out of the tribe for a few hours every Christmas Eve and they’d watch the stars on clear nights or they’d go and make snow figures. 

Before bed, Dutch will usually ask Reverend Swanson to read from his bible about Christmas. However, Swanson is usually too drunk or will come up with an excuse not to do so. Arthur and Hosea are the only ones who know that his bible is fake, that it really hides his supplies of morphine. That doesn’t stop Swanson from reciting a scruffy rendition of the story, even though he sometimes gets it wrong. No one minds though. 

On Christmas Day, everyone wakes up with Grimshaw’s gift nearby. She likes to surprise them with the gifts. Most of the time, the gifts are things they need but they’re nicer quality, such as new clothes. That was how Arthur got his blue striped shirt. It was a gift from Grimshaw after his father’s shirt finally fell apart. He liked the blue one much better, mostly because it never belonged to his father. 

On the year when Abigail was pregnant with Jack, John received a miniature cowboy figure that looked surprisingly like him. He got so annoying with it that it disappeared. No one could confirm it, but it was suspected Abigail hid it. 

Pearson and Mary-Beth work together and make a big breakfast in his cast-iron pot, putting scrambled eggs, boiled potatoes, green onions, sliced peppers and other ingredients into a big cake-like structure. Strauss got haughty about it his first year and called it the mountain-man breakfast. The name stuck much to his dislike. 

After breakfast, the gang gathers around the tables and exchanges gifts. Sean will make fun of everyone’s gift, but he’s the most excited to receive his own. 

Lenny and Hosea almost always receive a book. One year, Dutch was giving to Lenny and he gave him an Evelyn Miller book. Lenny never read it nor did he want to. 

Micah’s the only one who never joins in the festivities, but Arthur and John got him for it. John was assigned to gift him, so he and Arthur went to the market and found a large fruit stand, which was selling pumpkins left over from the season’s harvest. They found the oldest one (this was a few weeks before Christmas) and they left it out in the sun for days on end until it was beginning to rot. They punctured a small hole in it so that bugs could crawl into it. 

When Micah opened his box with the rotting pumpkin, everyone laughed except for him and Dutch. He tried lifting it from the box but the stem ripped the top part of the pumpkin off, revealing the insects inside it. He spent the remainder of the day pouting on the outskirts of camp. 

By nightfall, most of everyone is drunk and singing loudly. Karen is usually pulled away by Sean, but Abigail and John almost always get into an argument. Usually in regards to John being a less-than-satisfactory father to Jack. 

Jack is by far the sweetest member. Days before Christmas, he begs Abigail to go into town and they buy small bundles of flowers (or they go pick them themselves depending where the gang is located at the time). Jack makes a flower crown for everyone. 

Bill says he hates the crowns, but he secretly loves them. He wraps it around his hat, which hides his hair that he’s slicked down with hair pomade. He tries to look a little nicer every Christmas but usually gets made fun of for it by John and Arthur. 

Dutch will always end the celebrating by telling everyone how much they matter to the gang, how life could be a lot worse without their efforts. 

Everyone goes to bed feeling good about themselves and their situations. 

Arthur will usually stay up later than anyone else, watching the stars if they’re not hidden behind clouds. He feels a certain fondness towards everyone (except Micah) on these nights, but often wishes he had someone special to share them with.

[blacknovelist]

Half-Empty, Half-Full (FE3H Fic)

hey hi what’s up lads, so I like, 100% forgot I could post my piece for the @threehouseszine Beneath The Banner (also available on Twitter under the same name) and as such I’m like ten years late. :) But the zine has been sent out, and I finally noticed like the fool I am that others have posted their pieces, and thusly, I too will post mine! Because I can. And I want to.

My focus was on the Golden Deer post-skip, specifically in some nebulous point during the war. Being part of this zine was really, really cool -- I can’t wait for all the books and merch to arrive with everyone!

(will reblog with links because we all know tumblr likes to break things.)

A beat of something nice, amid the fragments of harder times.

In the spaces between war — between scattered supply checks and ration distribution, bandit skirmishes and long watch nights — Hilda finds the time she needs to breathe.

It came easier, back in the academy. She could simply step back and let the world move around her, steadfast in her belief that it would still be standing when she returned. Nowadays she steals the air in her lungs from glances at the sky and quick delivery walks, from the chip of chisel and steel against stone and wood, from the sensation of gems and petals inlaid on clothes, chains and hooks when she can afford to lay down her axe. Infrequency makes the beats between battles all the more precious.

With the professor around she can afford more pauses still, but Hilda watches herself. She knows, all too well, just how young she is. Claude lies at one year her junior and the professor, with their five year hiatus, sits at two. It wouldn't do for her stubborn leaders to find someone they can’t believe in among their ranks, now.

She’s on the run for errands when she spots a hint of not-plant green and wood not far off the beaten path, and she wastes no time following that tried and true Deer instinct to take a peek. Ignatz is there, as expected, easel propped on a patch of flat land, what she can see of the canvas a tasteful blend of browns and golds. He leans in, fingers dabbed in the same off-white his paintbrush dusts onto his scene. 

Now, Hilda doesn’t paint, but she does understand the stress and struggle of art, different forms aside. Which is why she waits until he leans back before she steps forward and taps his shoulder. 

“Hey, Ignatz.”

Ignatz yelps, almost drops his brush and earns himself a stripe on his palm for his troubles. “Hilda! Hi. I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you there.” 

“Don't worry about it.” She clasps her hands together. “What’re you painting?"

"I wanted to capture the cathedral, while it's still under repair." He gestures to his piece — the white forms the glint of sunlight off patches of rubble, steel and glass, along with the robes of monks and priests as they shift and sweep aside what debris they can. "A lot of artists depict places in their prime, or utterly destroyed, or after they've been restored to their former glory. I thought it would be nice to show the in-between for once. People from every background imaginable, coming together to rebuild for the future. A little different from what I usually paint, but sometimes a little variety is nice." 

"And you're doing it all the way out here because…"

"I didn't want to be in anyone's way, and I come out here a lot. I've got plenty of references with me, so it's not a problem." Ignatz shifts and Hilda catches sight of a stack of sketchbooks, some more worn than others, half-spilled from a bag. The top one gets plucked up and held between them as he flips from page to page. Statue busts, the altar and rows of pews among pillars rendered in charcoal and sleek pigment lines. Sometimes, she catches glimpses of green and blue and other colors, or shapes that don't quite match the church art he focuses on, but Ignatz flips too fast for her to see. 

Or, almost. "Go back two pages," Hilda says. A grin tugs at her lips. "Was that Claude?"

"Oh! Uh, yes." Though Ignatz learned to leave embarrassment and nerves about his art behind, something in his chest still squirms, just a bit. An image of their leader in the library, face cast in candlelight and more at peace than he ever is during daylight, stares up at the duo. "It's easier when I’m with a person, but sometimes I'll do studies on my own. Practice makes perfect, after all." 

"It's beautiful." She reaches out, pauses. "May I…?"

He passes it over. "Here. You can look at the others, too. I don't mind." Then he turns back to the easel and reaches for his paint. "Anyway, I thought this was as good a spot to work as any. There's a field down that way you can see best in the spring, and I like the view of everything from here."

"You'll have to show me when it's in season." 

Her eyes flicker over thick paper. Statues. Flowers, trees, forest paths. Distance shots of people, strolling towards town. Swirls of filigree and patterns fill whole pages in patches, tiny stylized animals and the occasional dragon tucked into the empty space. Silhouettes crowd around the pews, and even if she recognizes clothes, many of these smaller figures are faceless. 

But she finds a loose sketch, hair popping blond against black ink, of Raphael and a young girl with the same square jaw and broad shoulders. Claude himself appears once more, this time in wireframe form, ordinary steel bow drawn all the way back and arrow pointed to the left. When she plucks one of his other books from the stack it follows a similar trend — renderings of the cathedral, inside and out, stuck in among horse-drawn carriages and sunlit grass patches and clothes and people, both familiar and unfamiliar, faceless and defined. A few drawings are from the past few months: Sylvain in his armor, Baltie with his open-chested shirt, Leonie and her long hair, the monastery scaffolding. 

Most of his drawings are from the academy days. 

Lindhardt, leaned against a tree, the shadow of leaves mottled on his lap. Herself and Marianne seated in the dining hall. Lysithea, with a book in one hand and a swirl of magic in the other. Claude and Lorenz mid-argument. Felix as he trains blade blurred and bent as he lunges. Dimitri and Dedue bent over a table in their classroom. Edelgard as she strides across the courtyard, Hubert one step behind. Busts of the professor and Jeralt, side by side, the faintest quirk in their lips. 

Hilda looks up and pauses. Ignatz presses so close to the canvas he’s peering over the wire frames of his glasses rather than through, brow furrowed and jaw set. She shuts an eye as the sun slips out from behind what’s left of Garreg Mach’s spires. Greyscale flowers peer up from the pages, a reflection of the few asters scattered around their feet. Mountain monastery air goes down sweet and full in her lungs.

"I gotta say, Ignatz,” she says, the edge of her thumb smudged in stray charcoal. "These are amazing. How long have you been doing art?"

"Since I was little." He leans back, considers his work, then leans in again. "My parents are merchants, so we delivered paintings and statuettes to a lot of noble houses in the Alliance. One day I found some extra supplies lying around so I just… picked it up and gave it a shot."

"Well, I'm glad you did. Even these plain sketches look much nicer than anything I could do, and don't even get me started on painting. No offense, Ignatz, but no thank you. Definitely not my wheelhouse."

Ignatz pauses. "None taken, and thank you. You draw?”

"Not much." She waves a hand. "My talents lie in accessories. I like to plan before I start working, figure out how it should come together and doodle in the margins a little sometimes, that's all."

"You're always wearing beautiful jewelry, but I didn't realize you made them yourself." A smile breaks out across his face. "That's amazing, Hilda!"

A blush rolls across her cheeks and she can't stop the tug of her lips into a matching grin. "Oh, stop it. Really?"

"Of course! The colors and shapes you use match your hair, complexion, and the clothes you tend to wear quite beautifully." His brush plunges into a cup of water by the foot of his easel and faces her fully. "When did you start?"

"A long time ago, now – I'm not even sure exactly how long, anymore. I used to make flower crowns and necklaces with my big brother, and it just spun out from there." The book lies closed in her hands now. Her finger runs up and down the paper, feels the grooves between unaligned pages. "I could make them as pretty or ugly as I wanted, so long as I was happy in the end. No one ever expected anything more or less. Not that I ever made something ugly, mind you."

Ignatz hummed. "Have you ever considered selling them?"

"Not really.” Hilda tilts her head. “Do you think it'd be a good idea?"

"Absolutely! You should consider it, once the war is over. I bet people would love them."

She taps her chin. “I’ll give it some thought. What about you, Ignatz? What do you plan on doing once this whole mess is behind us?” 

“Well… Ideally, I’ll keep painting,” he says. “Even if I have to do it between my duties as a knight. It might make it hard to find a household to serve, but I don’t want to just stop.”

“Why are you aiming to be a knight? How come you’re not just going off to be an artist or something like you want to?”

“My parents sent me to the academy since my brother’s taking over the business. They didn’t really approve of the whole artist thing.” Ignatz shrugs. “I don’t really think I’m all that cut out for it, to be honest. Fighting’s never been my strong suit.” 

“Well that’s a shame,” Hilda says. “Have you ever spoken to them about it?”

He shook his head. "Not much recently, at least."

“You should. Maybe you can convince them, after all this. And if you can’t, then just come to House Goneril, okay? I’ll let you paint as much as you want.”

“That would be nice.” He smiles, then bends to reach for his bag. “Thank you, Hilda.” 

“Any time.” She holds the sketchbook out. Ignatz takes it, tucks it gently alongside the others. Before he can put his brush away, he pauses. 

“If you have time,” he starts. "Would you like to join me out here again tomorrow? We could work on our projects together, if you have any."

Hilda smiles. "I'd love to, but I'm on stock duty tomorrow. No shuffling off the responsibility for that."

"I see. That's too bad. Maybe next time?" 

"... Sure. I'd like that."

[oliverphisher]

Amanda Bridgeman

Amanda is a Tin Duck Award winner, an Aurealis and Ditmar Awards finalist and author of several science fiction novels. Her works included the best-selling military SF/space opera AURORA series (previously published by Momentum Books/Pan Macmillan Australia), alien contact drama THE TIME OF THE STRIPES, and sci-fi crime thriller THE SUBJUGATE (published by Angry Robot Books, UK).

The Time of the Stripes By Amanda Bridgeman

Born in the seaside/country town of Geraldton, Western Australia, she moved to Perth (Western Australia) to study film & television/creative writing at Murdoch University, earning her a BA in Communication Studies. Perth has been her home ever since, aside from a nineteen-month stint in London (England) where she dabbled in Film & TV ‘Extra’ work.

Her new novel PANDEMIC: PATIENT ZERO will be the first novel set in the award-winning Pandemic tabletop board game universe, and will be released worldwide in June 2020 through Aconyte Books (UK).

What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? 

String of Time (Topliners) By Irma Chilton

I think the first science fiction novel I ever read was String Of Time by Irma Chilton. I enjoyed it so much that I used that as the novel for my English Speaking Board exams when I was 13.

Less Than Zero By Bret Easton Ellis

As a teen I was a big fan of S.E. Hinton, and in particular, Rumble Fish. I also loved Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis. I’ve always been a fan of edgy dramas, and it’s fair to say that these two writers/books heavily influenced my early writing style.

Jaws: A Novel By Peter Benchley

As a teen I also enjoyed JAWS by Peter Benchley (mainly because it’s my favourite film). This was the first time I realized there was an intersection between novels and films/tv, and that a story can transfer across both formats. I then proceeded to read a bunch of film tie-in novels such as Goonies, The Accused, Gremlins, Cliffhanger, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Over the Top, The Karate Kid, etc, etc.Ever since I’ve dreamed of having my stories in both formats – novels and on screen!

Also, writing a film tie-in novel is still on my professional bucket list.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)? 

My Telstra TV device. Prior to that I was streaming a lot of TV on my laptop. It’s much nicer on an actual TV!

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? 

There’s a quote I heard a while back that I always refer to when thinking about failure. The quote is: It’s only a failure if you haven’t learned the lesson… And that’s exactly what failures are. If things don’t work out, sure it sucks, but if you look carefully and analyse the reasons why something didn’t work, you can learn valuable lessons on how to do things better next time – and strengthen your futureendeavours. 

Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?

See the one above about failure, but I also like one I read in an interview with Gene Simmons (KISS): It’s all good and well to have dreams, but what are you going to do about them? 

Also, one I read in an interview with Keanu Reeves where he said: It’s better to regret having done something, than to regret not having done it at all.

I have no idea who originated either quote, I just remember reading them for the first time in interviews with those two. Regardless, they’re both powerful quotes about giving your dreams a shot. If it doesn’t work out at least you know you gave it a try. You can then close that door and move on. If you don’t bother opening that door, though, you’re going to stand there staring at the doorknob for the rest of your life and wondering what’s on the other side.

What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made? 

I’m going to say attending conventions for this one. A lot of my success has come from building a network of writer friends but also meeting and staying in touch with publishers, agents, and other industry related people. Like any business, it’s all about networking and supporting and being involved in your industry, so try to attend as many conventions as you can afford to.

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? 

Silence. I write best when things are dead silent and I can just get lost in my thoughts without distraction.

I also always have to have a book title before I begin writing something. I can’t write a nameless novel. All the book ideas floating in my head already have novel titles. I just need to write them now!

In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life? 

Self-care. Even if I have a deadline looming over my head, if I’m tired I’ll take a night off. I know I’ll work better the next day if I give myself a break. So if you’re tired or not feeling well, allow yourself time to get your body/mind back up to speed. No good will come from pushing on and doing a half-arsed effort. 

I also work 4 days a week in a day job, so it’s equally important that I’m rested for that work or I won’t be able to pay my mortgage!

What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore? 

My advice is – take every piece of writing advice with a pinch of salt. What works for some doesn’t work for others. You gotta try everything and see what works for you. Everyone writes different books, everyone has different audiences, everyone has different living situations, etc, so you have to do what suits you, your lifestyle and your audience.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession often? 

Write every day. If that doesn’t work for you, if you have a super-busy day job that sometimes wipes you out, then you need to have some nights off. So, just write when you can – so long as you don’t keep postponing the writing. Sometimes you gotta pull up a chair and just get to it too.

In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)? 

I’m getting better at saying no to a lot of things. If I have a deadline to meet, I won’t accept social invitations if I don’t have time or take on any other workload of any kind. Where once I would reply to every email straight away, now I allow myself time to breathe and think about what I truly want to say before saying it. So, I basically just say no if it doesn’t fit with my current workload or preference for time out from writing.

What marketing tactics should authors avoid?

On social media, don’t ‘sell’ your books too much. There’s a fine line. You have to, of course, sell your books – after all a closed mouth doesn’t get fed, but there’s a limit between making people aware of your book and shoving it down their throat.

Also, know your audience. Find out where they are online (is it Facebook? Is it Twitter? Is it Goodreads? Etc), and market there. But at the end of the day, it’s social media, so you need to do more chatting then selling.

What new realizations and/or approaches have helped you achieve your goals? 

Always be learning. That said, this is nothing new for me. The first novel I ever wrote got published, so I’ve been learning how to be a better writer publicly since day one. It takes years to be any good, so keep reading, studying the craft and writing as best you can. Each novel I write is better than the last, but it’s a constant process of refinement.

When you feel overwhelmed or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do? 

I take time out. If I feel like I’m pushing a concrete block uphill then I step away and come back to it another day. Sometimes it’s your brain’s way of saying it needs a rest. Listen to your body. Besides, you’ll be surprised just how many plot holes your subconscious can solve when you just give it some space to breathe.

Any other tips?

In short, just be nice. Try to support other authors where you can. At the end of the day, no-one wants to support someone they think is an a-hole. I know I don’t.

Try and get a good bunch of supportive writers around you too – ones that you can gripe to privately when you’re having a hard time (best to keep that stuff off social media).

Don’t give up. If you really want to be a writer you need to accept that it’s bloody hard work and it that takes discipline, dedication and a whole lot of stubbornness.

________

Enjoyed this Q&A? Want to discuss in more depth? Join Community Writers. You'll get access to 100+ exclusive writing tips. Q&As with successful authors, an exclusive ebook on building an audience and much more. Sign-up for free as a community writer here

source https://www.thecommunitywriter.com/blog/amanda-bridgeman

[agentshilonglang]

Never Even Know I’m There

A Ron Delite Musical YouTube || Playmoss

For @iris-hawthorne, my gift on behalf of the @aamixchange! Turns out this playlist went through a whole lot of changes, but became much more bombastic and energetic like the thief himself in the end, and I hope it sounds good to you too!

Tracklist Below!

How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying - Overture

[ ♬ instrumental ♬ ]

Chicago the Musical - Mister Cellophane

“And even without clucking like a hen, Everyone gets noticed, now and then - 

Unless, of course, that personage should be... invisible... inconsequential... ... Me.“

World Inferno Friendship Society - ..and Embarked on a Life of Poverty and Freedom

“You make me feel as though I was somebody At first I thought you were making fun of me But, you're not making fun of me - that's just the way you are

...and my heart lept...“

The White Stripes - Why Can't You Be Nicer to Me?

“ Somebody's screaming, looking at the ceiling Everything's so funny - I don't have any money... People don't even know me - but they know how to show me... ”

Mother Mother - Problems

“  Doo, doo, doo I'm a loser, a disgrace... You're a beauty, A luminary, in my face... I got it all, and not a lot - I got a lot less than a lot... “

The Hush Sound - The Market

“ Let me build you a fortress,  A fortress you can decorate I'll find a way to pay the bills to the estate... ... and we'll go to the market and sell it! “

Marian Montgomery & Richard Rodney Bennett -  You're My Partner in Crime

“ And though crime doesnt pay Try as I may I can't forget you Guess who's stolen my heart - it was my partner in crime “

Cloud Cult - The Will of a Volcano

“ You will make things right You have the will of a volcano! “

Fiona Apple - Better Version of Me

“ I'm a frightened, fickle person, Fighting, cryin', kickin', cursin' - What should I do? “

World Inferno Friendship Society - Let's Steal Everything

“  I got nothing, you got nothing, Let's find something fun for us to do - So why are we waiting? Let's steal everything! “

[privateplates4u]

Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad

Quick Stats: Chris Daughtry Grammy-nominated singer-songwriterDaily Driver: 2016 Chevy Suburban (Chris’ rating: 9 on a scale of 1 to 10)Favorite road trip: Charlottesville to Virginia BeachCar he learned to drive in: 1980s Ford pickupFirst car bought: 1988 Chevy Sprint Chris Daughtry likes cars higher off the ground, but suitable enough to drive the kids around, which explains why he used to drive a Honda Odyssey minivan. But when he moved to Nashville, the former American Idol contestant wanted to shed the minivan for a more rock star appropriate ride — a fully loaded 2016 Chevrolet Suburban. “I like driving it because it’s big and I can see over everything. I hate driving cars low to the ground and I can’t see past the hood and my depth perception gets off, so I love driving a tank,” he says. Daughtry rates his Suburban a 9 on a scale of 10. “It’s a 9 only because it’s not the Batmobile and if I was driving the Batmobile it would be a 10 automatically,” he says, laughing. “There’s a few things that could be better — like my phone syncing to the screen in the car every time as opposed to when it wants to. I’m such an electronics person, I get frustrated when any of that doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. That’s a recent nuisance that’s fresh on my mind.” This isn’t Daughtry’s first Suburban. He had one years ago, but when he lived in the Charlotte, N.C. and later in Los Angeles, he says it “was useless to have something that big there. We lived in Charlotte, but we were literally in uptown Charlotte.” He lived in a condo. The complex had few tenants and a small parking garage that he could barely get in and out of with a sedan, so the Suburban had to go. Later though, with kids, the go-to ride was the Odyssey. “We got it in 2010 right before the twins were born, it was a necessity at the time,” he says. Daughtry drove the minivan for six years. “Not very cool to be driving up to business meetings, or writing sessions or events in a minivan, so I decided once we moved to Nashville, that one of the first things I was going to do was get a Suburban again and I love it. I really do. I just like driving a big vehicle that – I can fit all my kids in, I can haul a bunch of [stuff] around if I needed to and it just looks cooler. But I didn’t get a black one, because I didn’t want to be confused with an Uber driver,” he says. Since Nashville has less traffic than Los Angeles, it’s also a good place to comfortably drive and park a larger vehicle. “It’s definitely more traffic than the people that live here and are native to here are used to, but because I came from L.A., it’s like a drop in the pan,” he says. “There’s no issue parking here, there’s so many options and room, so I get around pretty easily in it. My wife had an IS 350 Lexus. Now she drives a BMW 5 Series. I’ve never been a car collector. I usually get a car that I’m pumped about and stay with it. In all seriousness, if I have my free reign of choice, I would probably get the new Tesla.” Car he learned to drive in “I learned to drive on something kind of like a farm, driving my dad’s Ford pickup. It was a stick shift and I remember hitting the gas instead of the brake and almost running into our building,” Daughtry says. “But I also learned on a tractor.” He’s not sure what model year his dad’s pickup was, except that it was used. “Knowing him, this was back in 1990 and he never got anything new, so it was probably a 1985-1987. One bench seat and all the space was in the back of the truck. It was red with a grey stripe down the middle,” he says. His family had a lot of land with chickens, goats, a pond, and though they didn’t farm it to make money, they leased out fields to farmers for cotton and peanuts and grew their own vegetables and chopped trees for firewood. “We grew up very farm-like but we didn’t have a dairy or chicken farm. We had a long dirt path that went to where all the animals were. I remember driving the tractor on the road, that’s how small this town was, you could get away with anything pretty much,” he says, laughing. “It was fun. It was definitely a free, easy place to learn.” Daughtry’s dad was his driving instructor. “I remember him being outside the door explaining what to do, and I remember him yelling ‘Woah!’ within almost two inches of hitting the building that was our storage shed,” he recalls. He also learned shifting on his tractor. “I didn’t have any problem with that because it was so old that you could press the gas all the way down and it would still take a minute to get up some speed, so it wasn’t as jumpy as the truck. It was still very different than getting in a car and going out in traffic and navigating. This was obviously before GPS, so we had to pay attention to street signs,” he says, laughing. Though he was used to driving the tractor, it still wasn’t real life driving in certain situations and parking. “I wouldn’t say that I was full equipped when I took driver’s ed,” he says. First car bought Daughtry’s first car was a 1988 Chevrolet Sprint he bought for $1,000. It was tan but also rusty, so a friend repainted it to what was supposed to be the original color. “But it turned out champagne instead,” he says. “So the first car that I’m driving to high school in, supposedly trying to look tough, is a hatchback that’s champagne and it was what it was,” he says. “We grew up very practical — not a lot of money and it wasn’t like I could just go out and pick a car. It was a car that my dad found through a friend who had a body shop and he bought it, but I paid for it. I worked with my dad. He worked at a sawmill, so I was working at the age of 14 making my own money and pretty much anything I’ve ever got, I had to work for it.” Daughtry also worked after school and full time during summers until his senior year in high school. “My schedule was a little all over the place with wanting to be a rock star and also wanting to make money, so I had to find jobs that fit those hours,” he says. “I remember getting a job at McDonald’s, then worked a kitchen washing dishes, then moving up to a prep cook, so I’ve been around the block when it comes to jobs.” Daughtry’s Chevy Sprint did not have a happy ending. Its last trip was on a winding road, going 60 mph when Daughtry should have been traveling 30 mph. “I had it not even a year before I totaled it,” he says. “I was coming home from football practice and I had my best friend that lived with us in the passenger seat. We were taking a friend home from football practice. I’d never really driven these roads before,” he recounts. “They were very windy up near Charlottesville, Virginia. Very, very windy roads. Not a lot of signage when it comes to curves and some of the back roads, and it was dark and I got into the curve too fast. It was such a small car  and I knew it couldn’t handle a curve because the first day I got my license, I turned a curve too fast on my own road and it had just rained, I did a full 360 and landed in the opposite lane. No traffic, thank God, and I casually backed up and went home like I’d seen a ghost. It was terrifying, but nothing bad happened.” Daughtry says what happened that first day he got his license was almost like a foreshadowing of what would happened the night he wrecked it. “I knew how it handled, so I didn’t even try to force it into submission, so I went into a ditch. It flipped us across the road a few times,” he recalls. “I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The car was still playing Soundgarden. It was ‘The Day I Tried to Live’ or ‘Limo Wreck.’ Either way, it was a very poignant type of song to be playing. I had already dropped my friend off, so it was just me and my best friend that lived with me. He helped me get out of the passenger side. It was on its roof. Not a scratch on me, it was the weirdest thing. And we flipped it over  ‘Ace Ventura’ style.” Another teammate who lived nearby happened to drive by and helped them flip the car over. They drove to that friend’s house to use the phone. “The windshield was caved in, so I was having to drive with my head out the side,” he says, with a laugh. “It was so jank. My dad picked me up and the cops called wondering why I left the scene of an accident. I didn’t know any better. It was my first accident, I was just terrified to death and shaken and surprised I was alive.” After that crash, Daughtry moved the motor from the Sprint into a 1992 Geo Metro. “It was still a hatchback, basically the same chassis as the Sprint, so it worked,” he says. “I was a teenager that believed that cars ran on gasoline and gasoline only and seized the motor up driving on a two and a half hour trip. Instead of pulling over, I made it home. Dad was not happy. I think I had some sort of oil leak and ignored it. I learned the hard way.” He either had to have the motor rebuilt or get a new car, so Daughtry ended up getting a 1987 diesel GMC Jimmy because he wanted a larger vehicle. “I really dug that truck a lot,” he says. “It was how I feel being in the Suburban, it was a tank. It was a bitch in wintertime because I remember where you had to put a heat stick in it because of freezing temperatures.” After being on American Idol and getting his new album was out, Daughtry treated himself to a nicer ride. “The first time we really splurged on cars, me and my wife, she got a Lexus IS 350 and I got a Lexus SUV. It wasn’t the smaller SUV, it was the big full-sized. It was a 2007,” he says. “That was after we had some money and went and bought them cash.” Favorite road trip “I hate road trips now because we have kids,” Daughtry says, with a laugh. “It’s usually never peaceful, so we fly. But I do remember a lot of road trips as a kid with my buddy. I remember a group of friends going to Virginia Beach right after we graduated. It was a summer thing, we went to the beach and hung out.” Daughtry recalls taking that road trip from Charlottesville to Virginia Beach in his Jimmy. “I had some janky speaker wire in the back, I had one 12-inch speaker in the back that was carrying the weight of my sound system and a CD player put in,” he says. “It was just simple and it was fun. We had a blast. You know how it is when you’re a kid and there’s really no concept of time or anything. You’re just out being free and doing whatever.” On that road trip they went to a Sevendust show at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. “We had all gotten a hotel. I remember us all hanging out at the hotel swimming and may or may not have been consuming alcohol under the age. I just remember us all having a blast and we all ended up getting drunk and jumping on the beds in the hotel room. There was a wrestling match or some karate fight situation,” Daughtry says, laughing. “It was me and the boys, we had a band at the time and everybody had their girlfriends with them. This was before we had real responsibilities. It was just a fun weekend.” “I had my girlfriend with me and my buddy and his girl in the back. My other buddy had his car with him. He was very much a car guy, and still is. He runs a body shop,” he recounts. “We all shared rooms and went in, pitched in and paid for the trip.” The farthest Daughtry has ever driven was a 10-hour road trip he did all in one night. “It was for a hang,” he says, with a laugh. “I was hanging with a buddy of mine who was working on an album and I hadn’t even gone on American Idol at the time.  Didn’t have a lot of money, we were still trying to make things happen. I had gotten accepted on the show, but had to wait for the time to be called to come back.” He didn’t know if American Idol was going to happen. “So I had a friend that knew some producers. It was just a hang and getting to meet people sort of weekend,” he says. “I had a Dodge, it was white with red interior, I don’t remember the model because didn’t care about the car. It was a hand me down car because my wife had gotten in a wreck, we needed a car. I remember taking it by myself just driving from Burlington, North Carolina to Orlando, Florida.” On that trip he got a ticket because he went through a toll booth that he shouldn’t have driven through. “It was a Fast Pass lane. I didn’t have a Fast Pass, but I didn’t understand the traffic pattern. The cop didn’t care,” he says, with a laugh. “I was in the wrong lane and realized it too late.” 2017 Summer Tour with Nickelback Daughtry has been on tour since June with Nickelback. The tour ends Sept. 16 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Grammy-nominated band is also working on its fifth album. “We’re going to be in the studio very soon, cutting that,” Daughtry says. For more information, please visit Daughtryofficial.com READ MORE CELEBRITY DRIVES HERE: Geoff Downes, Keyboardist for Yes, Asia, Buggles Actor and World Celebrity David Hasselhoff Drummer John Densmore of The Doors “Farmtruck” From Discovery’s Street Outlaws The post Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad appeared first on Motor Trend.

http://www.motortrend.com/news/celebrity-drive-chris-daughtry-chevrolet-suburban-dad/

[hollypotter-witchingworld]

Holly Potter and the Witching World CHAPTER THREE: An Unexpected Meeting

The next day was bright and sunny. Uncle Vernon had decided to take the day off work, but not because the weather was nice. No, he'd announced at breakfast that he was going to spend the day clearing out the garden shed in preparation for Holly moving in there.

"Your aunt and I have been talking," he told Holly. "We think — hm! — that it would be good for you to get out of the house a little more."

Holly tried to look surprised at the announcement. It wouldn't do to reveal that she had been listening in on their conversation last night. "Right!" she said. "Getting out of the house and into the garden shed."

Uncle Vernon turned slightly red. "If you only knew how many girls would be grateful to get a garden shed all of their own —" he began in a threatening voice.

"Why can't I have the shed?" Dudley protested. He had never shown any interest in the garden shed before; he tended to view any building without a fridge and a telly as completely beneath his notice. But if Holly was going to get something, he wanted it. "I could make it into a clubhouse! I could start a secret club with Piers and Malcolm and Gordon and Dennis!"

"Not much of a secret, if you tell us about it first thing you think of it," Holly couldn't resist saying.

Dudley's lower lip immediately started to tremble in an exaggerated way. "Muu-u-uum," he whined. "Holly's being mee-e-e-eean!"

His fake sobbing wouldn't have fooled a two-year-old, but Aunt Petunia was immediately at his side. "Oh, Dudders, don't cry! We won't let that nasty girl be mean to you!" She shot Holly a look of pure loathing, and then she continued: "Just think, when she's out in the shed she won't be able to bother you anymore!"

"She won't bother me if I get the shed," Dudley sniffled.

"Oh, you don't want that filthy old shed," Aunt Petunia cooed. "Tell you what, sweetiekins, when Holly moves out to the shed, we'll turn her bedroom into an extra room for you. We can make it your — your game room, move in the extra television and your video games, and you can play your games as much as you want! Wouldn't that be a lot more fun?"

"I… suppose," Dudley said with the expression of a martyr who has truly suffered. In reality, Holly could tell, he was quite pleased. As soon as Aunt Petunia looked another way he cheerfully stuck his tongue out at Holly, and then he raised himself and plodded off to the living room to watch television.

"Right," said Uncle Vernon, jabbing a finger at Holly. "And I don't want to see you out in the garden while I'm working!"

"Why not?" said Holly, and this time her surprise was real. She'd expected that he'd make her clean out the shed, or at least do most of the work. "Don't you want my help?"

"Help?" Uncle Vernon repeated. "No thank you! You've done quite enough! I don't want you anywhere near that shed until I've cleared everything out! Oh, and Petunia," he added in an exaggeratedly casual tone. "Perhaps while I'm working, you can take the car and go pick up… those things we talked about yesterday. And if you have the time, maybe you can stop by the garden store and see if they have any good lawnmowers? I've been meaning to get rid of the old one for ages now… who owns a push reel mower these days?"

Holly wasn't as gullible as Uncle Vernon thought. She could certainly guess that 'those things' Aunt Petunia was going to pick up would include a new padlock, or a code lock, for the cupboard. She hadn't failed to notice, either, that the 'old' lawnmower was standing untouched by the shed at the very same spot it had stopped after yesterday's inexplicable events.

As Uncle Vernon went out into the garden, and Dudley settled down by the telly to watch some inane program or other, Aunt Petunia went upstairs to 'fix herself up a little' before her trip into town. Before she set foot on the staircase, though, she turned to give Holly a stern look. "And don't even think about trying to break into the cupboard while I'm gone and Vernon is working! I'm going to take the key to the padlock with me, just so you know!"

Holly's heart sank. "Yes, Aunt Petunia."

"In fact, why don't you go for a walk. A long one. Vernon's right, you need to get out of the house more."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia."

"But don't go near Number Seven! And if those two — men — have some of their freak visitors over, you're not to talk to any of them, understand?"

Holly thought about this as she put her shoes on and got ready for a walk around the block. Perhaps after Aunt Petunia had left, she could sneak back in and… no. She couldn't open the padlock without the key.

She stepped out onto the porch and looked across the street to Number Seven. It lay completely still, with no sign of either Mr Dumbledore, Hagrid, or any freak visitors, but of course you never knew…

Number Seven was sort of the odd house out in Privet Drive, and a constant source of gossip among the neighbours. Oh, the outside the house looked no different from the others. The same two-storey, yellow brick type of house, a with brown-tiled roof and a neat front yard. But the two men who lived there… Mr Dumbledore and Hagrid… they were a different case altogether.

The fact that they were two men living together was only seldom remarked upon. These weren't the stone ages, after all, and a modern and enlightened society had to show some tolerance and accept that not everyone could help how they were born. It was more the fact that they were so odd.

Aunt Petunia's friend Yvonne had once said that the men at Number Seven lived like bohemians. Holly could tell that she hadn't meant it as a compliment.

Perhaps it was because Mr Dumbledore, who was otherwise polite and charming, wore his hair long and had an affinity for dressing like an "old hippie" with colourful and mismatched clothes… or perhaps it was because Hagrid, who had been born with some kind of gigantism and towered over everyone, refused to let anyone call him anything but "Hagrid" and drove a motorbike instead of a car… an oversized, probably custom-made monstrosity with a sidecar, with which he would occasionally "chauffeur" Mr Dumbledore.

And then of course there was the 'freak visitors.'

They'd occasionally show up to visit Number Seven. Most of them were women — women of all kinds, both perfectly normal-looking ones, and some that… looked less normal. Some of them dressed so oddly that it made Mr Dumbledore's dress sense seem conservative by comparison. Holly had seen women dressed up in leather corsets and tight trousers, and girls dressed in tunics that looked like they were stitched together by leaves. Dudley had sworn that one time he'd seen a stark-naked lady who had painted her skin blue enter Number Seven, but Holly didn't believe that part.

Hang on. Holly couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that before. Could the visitors be the 'lesbian freaks' that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had talked about yesterday? They'd certainly fit the description of what the Dursleys would think of as 'freaks.' And maybe they were all lesbians!

Well… If so, Holly wouldn't mind becoming one of them at all. Going around in strange and colourful clothes and visiting Mr Dumbledore sounded a lot more fun than being stuck at the Dursleys, being yelled at by Uncle Vernon, given chores by Aunt Petunia, and teased by Dudley.

Holly pretended to be a lesbian freak as she walked down the driveway, and down the street. She lived like a bohemian, whatever that was, and she walked around all day dressing like an old hippie. No, wait, in feathers. Yes, she would walk openly on the street wearing nothing but a suit of yellow feathers, so that she looked like a giant canary bird. Of course, on second thought yellow feathers might be impractical to wear, maybe they'd tickle… all right, something else then…

She turned the corner into Magnolia Crescent and crossed it into Magnolia Road. To her relief, the play park was empty today… sometimes there would be other children there, but if they were very young they'd be accompanied by adults who might start asking Holly about her parents, and if they were around Holly's age chances were good they were Dudley's friends. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm and Gordon, who all nearly worshipped Dudley, never got tired of chasing her whenever they saw her, trying to steal her glasses or pull her pigtails or otherwise try to make her cry. She was usually too quick for them to catch her, but the play park was a lot nicer when they weren't around.

Holly climbed over the fence and into the park. (The gate was open, of course, and she could have just walked in, but it was more fun this way.) She ran up to the swings and sat down on the nearest one, beginning to swing back and forth as her thoughts went back to what she might wear when and if she became a lesbian freak.

She was busy trying to decide whether she should wear a rainbow-coloured poncho with lots of pockets, or just a shocking pink business suit, when she happened to glance in the direction of the corner shop at the end of Wisteria Walk that instantly made her decide: Yes, something like that!

A little girl, who seemed to have come out of nowhere, was just heading towards the shop. She was perhaps Holly's age, thin and wiry, with a mass of freckles, flaming red hair tied up in a rather messy ponytail, and her outfit was very much like that of the infamous lesbian freaks: A dark blue, thigh-length dress, with a yellow shoulder cape, and mismatched striped stockings in green, white and pink. Around her narrow waist was a white belt with a number of leather pouches fastened to it, and the outfit was completed by a pair of heavy black boots that were probably much too big for her unless she had really enormous feet.

Holly didn't know who this girl was, but was absolutely certain she didn't live around here… anyone who dressed like that would have been just as much a source of gossip as Mr Dumbledore and Hagrid. Probably she was one of their visitors or something.

Curiosity burning in her chest, Holly jumped off the swing, sailing several feel through the air before landing on the grass and hurrying over to the fence.

The girl had stopped outside the shop, peering in through the window. She seemed to be looking for something… apparently she found it, because she hurried over to the door, pushing it open and vanishing inside.

Holly waivered a little back and forth on what to do. She knew she was being nosey, and she knew Aunt Petunia had forbidden her from approaching any of Mr Dumbledore's guests… but Aunt Petunia wasn't here. Besides, she didn't know for certain if this girl really was one of Mr Dumbledore's guests.

After a bit of thought, she slid her hand down her skirt pocket. And just as she thought: She still had that two-pound coin left from the last time she had run an errand for Mr Dumbledore. It had been to this very shop, in fact; he'd asked her to buy a packet of chocolate biscuits for him and told her to keep the change.

Well, she had money, so why shouldn't she decide to pay a visit to the shop? Maybe there was something she wanted to buy! She climbed over the fence again to exit the park and then crossed the street towards the shop.

As she peered in through the window, she could see the girl, in the middle of a lively discussion with the cashier.

Holly pushed open the door and entered the shop, just in time to hear her say: "—but they're not fakes, I promise! I got them from my Dad!"

"I didn't say I thought they were fakes," the cashier sighed. She was a young woman Holly didn't know, but who looked rather tired and not in the mood to argue with girls in shoulder capes. "I said I couldn't accept these coins." She handed four shiny silver coins back to the girl. "I don't even know the currency."

"I'm dead certain it's enough for a Mars bar," said the girl. "But I'm in a hurry, have to get back to my family! We're just here to visit someone, you see… Couldn't you just…?"

"Sorry, luv," said the cashier, turning her head to look at Holly. "And how can I help you?"

"Er… just looking," said Holly. "I have money!" she added, a little defensively, as the cashier gave her a suspicious look.

"Wouldn't bother if I were you," said the red-haired girl, who had also turned to look at Holly. "Apparently this shop doesn't take money."

"We take money, we just don't take foreign money," the cashier protested. "You'll have to exchange those for British pounds. What country even uses Sickles as currency?"

The red-haired girl just shook her head so her red ponytail swished from side to side. "Never mind," she said, clutching the four coins in her hand. "I just wanted a Mars bar. I've never actually had one."

"You never had a Mars Bar?" said Holly, surprised.

The girl shook her head again. "My sister Ellie had one last year, and she won't shut up about how good it was, so I just wanted to grab the opportunity while we were here… But, never mind," she repeated with a sigh. "It was a stupid idea anyway. My money's no good and I don't know where to exchange it…"

Holly made up her mind then and there. "Right here!" she said, pulling the two-pound coin out of her skirt pocket. "Not quite sure about the going rate, but I have two pounds here. If you give me two, er, Sickles for it, you'll have enough for two Mars bars!"

"Really?" The girl's blue eyes widened in astonishment. "That'd be great! But… is that all right?" She looked at the cashier, as if afraid she'd be told that this was somehow against the rules.

"As long as you pay me in actual pounds and pence, I don't care," said the cashier dryly.

Less than a minute later, Holly and the girl could walk out of the shop; the girl with two Mars bars and Holly with not two but three silver coins in her skirt pocket.

"I'm going to save this until tonight, and I'm going to share it with all my sisters!" The girl was beaming as she slipped both chocolates down into one of her belt pouches. "At least with Nella and Ginny. Maybe Maryssa and Lynn, if they're good. Oh, and I suppose Fred and George. Ellie only gets a piece if she asks really nicely." She patted the belt pouch with a soft little hand, and then did something completely unexpected: She turned towards Holly and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you so much!" she said.

Holly, who wasn't used to this kind of affectionate thank-you, involuntarily raised her hand to her cheek to touch where the girl had kissed her. "Er… you're welcome," she said. And then, to feel a little less awkward, she asked: "How many sisters do you have, anyway?"

"Eleven," said the girl. It was hard to tell whether or not she considered this a good thing or a bad thing.

"Eleven…?!" Holly began. She couldn't even imagine having that many sisters. (Or even one sister, instead of just a lousy snitch of a cousin.)

"Yeah, it's a lot, I know," said the girl. "I have seven older sisters, four younger sisters."

Holly opened her mouth to comment on this, but then thought better of it. "You might have some trouble sharing two Mars bars between eleven people," was all she said.

"Twelve," said the girl. "I want a piece too. Don't worry, I'll manage, I know how to make sweets last. I'll just split each one into six parts and then — Oh, by the way, I'm Ronnie!" she said, as if suddenly remembering she hadn't introduced herself. "Well, I'm really Veronica, but everybody calls me Ronnie. Ronnie Weasley, of the Prewett line!"

"Hello, Ronnie, I'm Holly," said Holly. "Holly Potter. Of the… Privet Drive."

"Go on! Are you really?!" Ronnie's blue eyes widened in excitement. "Oh, right, you've got the scar! My sisters are never going to believe this! I knew you couldn't be a Muggle, of course, but I didn't know you were you!"

"Er," said Holly again. She touched the scar on her forehead, feeling self-conscious. "Who would I be if I wasn't me?"

"I don't know! For all I knew, your name could have been… Harriett, or Aurelia, or Rosalind, or something!" Ronnie giggled. "Should have known it was you. Everybody knows you live around here! So, you went off to live with a family of Muggles! What's that like?"

Holly was more confused than ever. This was the second time she had used the word 'Muggle,' and Holly had no idea who that was supposed to be. "I… live with a family called Dursley," she offered. "I don't know anyone named Muggle."

Ronnie shook her head. "No, no, no, Muggles," she repeated. "You know, people who…" (and here she lowered her voice to a whisper.) "People who aren't like us."

"You mean…" Holly wasn't certain how to proceed. She wanted to ask if the girl was a lesbian, but somehow that seemed silly. Especially after that kiss. "You mean… people who don't visit Mr Dumbledore?" she hazarded.

"Exactly!" said Ronnie. "That's why we're here in Surrey. Dumbledore's helping my sister Fred with — er — I'm not actually supposed to talk about that." She giggled nervously and turned a little pink.

"Your sister's name is Fred?" said Holly. "Isn't that a boy's name?"

"Yeah, that's… one of the things I'm not supposed to talk about." Ronnie's pink shade turned a little brighter. "Look, you did me a good turn, so I'd like to return the favour. Isn't there anything I can do for you?"

"I don't think —" Holly began, but then hesitated. Ronnie seemed really sincere, and once more the thought about the cupboard under the stairs was there. "That is," she said, slowly and without much hope, "I don't think so. Unless you know how to open a padlock without a key."

Unexpectedly, Ronnie laughed. "A padlock?" she repeated. "What, just a normal padlock? That's easy!"

"It is?" Holly felt a surge of hope.

Ronnie nodded and leaned in close. "I'm not supposed to talk about these things, at least not out in the open," she said. "But since it's you… my sisters taught me the trick. What you do is you take the padlock, and you blow on it three times."

Holly stared at her. "And then what?"

"And then it'll open! I swear, it works. You just have to believe that it will!"

Holly was about to say that this was nonsense, but Ronnie looked so earnest that she didn't have the heart. Besides… her thoughts went back to the lawnmower incident yesterday. In a world where a lawnmower could decide to move on its own, maybe a padlock could decide to open just because you blew on it? Maybe lesbians could do things like that. If Holly was turning into one anyway…

"I suppose I could give it a try," she said.

"It'll work," Ronnie promised. "Come on, I should probably get back to the family…. Er, you know where Dumbledore lives, right? I'm not sure I do."

Holly led the way back to Number Seven. While they walked, she told Ronnie about the cupboard under the stairs, and the feeling that something wonderful was in there, but her aunt and uncle kept pretending that there was nothing there.

Ronnie wholeheartedly agreed that something important had to be in the cupboard, but had no idea what.

"My cousin said he thought it was a treasure," said Holly. "Gold and diamonds. But I'm pretty sure he was making it up."

"You're right there," said Ronnie. "Gold and diamonds don't call out for you to come get them. Well, gold doesn't. I've never actually seen any diamonds, but I don't think they do either." She shook her head, making her red ponytail sweep from side to side. "Nah — whatever is in that cupboard, must be magic."

"Magic?" Holly's heart skipped a beat. She still remembered Aunt Petunia's harsh insistence that there was no such thing as magic.

"Yeah, must be, mustn't it?" Ronnie didn't seem to have noticed Holly's reaction; her tone of voice suggested that she took it for granted that everyone knew that magic existed. "Question's just what kind of magic."

Holly was about to ask how many kinds of magic there were, and how she might tell them apart, when they rounded a corner, Number Seven came into view, and she saw the huge number of people gathered by the entrance door.

She could at once see that they had to be Ronnie's family, since most of them had red hair and all of them were wearing the same kind of eccentric clothing as she was… but how many they were! There had to be something like twenty people there, crowding the street outside Number Seven, most of them talking at once. Like almost all of the visitors that came to Number Seven, this crowd was made up of women and girls, though this time Holly could plainly see that there was one man with them; a tall, thin one with glasses and thinning red hair, dressed in a brown tunic-like outfit.

"All right, everyone, let's not panic," he was saying. "Who saw her last?"

"I did!" piped up one of the smaller girls, a tiny redhead wearing the same kind of outfit that Ronnie was, only her dress and shoulder-cape were green instead of blue, and her legs were bare.

"When did you see her, Ginny?" said the man.

"Right now!" said the little girl, whose name was apparently Ginny, and pointed eagerly towards Holly and Ronnie. "She's over there!"

"Oops," said Ronnie. "Isn't that always the way. Nobody notices you when you are there, but when you aren't there, everybody notices."

The family started to call her name. "Ronnie!" — "Ronnie, over here!" — "Veronica Weasley, you get your arse over here right now!"

"Better get back to the family." Ronnie sounded annoyed, embarrassed and pleased all at once. And then, just as unexpectedly as the kiss, she wrapped her arms around Holly and gave her a quick hug. "It was great to meet you! Hey — if I don't see you before we're eleven, would it be all right if I looked for you, you know, on the train?"

Yes!" said Holly, almost automatically. That was the first time she could remember anyone having hugged her. "I mean… what train?"

"The Hogwarts Express, of course!" Ronnie giggled. "I've got to run! Good luck with the padlock!" And with that, she sprinted over to the crowd.

Holly wanted to call after her and ask what the Hogwarts Express was, but decided against it. Something told her she would find out sooner or later. She decided to go back a little way so as not to disturb the family reunion, and cast a last lingering glance at Ronnie, now in the middle of the crowd.

"What did we say about wandering off on your own?" said one of the women.

"Did we say we liked it and wanted me to do it all the time?" came Ronnie's voice, as the last thing Holly heard before she rounded the corner again.

She stopped and leaned against the brick wall, letting out a huge breath. That had, without question, been the weirdest meeting she had ever had with anyone…. But it had definitely also been the nicest. Even though Ronnie had been extremely confusing, Holly had liked her very much. And she thought Ronnie had liked her as well. Whatever this Hogwarts Express was, and however Holly was to find it, she couldn't wait to meet the girl again there.

But first… Holly glanced at her watch. It was an old and battered watch that constantly needed to be set, but if it showed the right time, Aunt Petunia had only been gone for slightly less than two hours. Holly knew her family well enough to know that Aunt Petunia wouldn't be back home for at least two more hours, and Dudley would remain in front of the telly, deaf and blind to everything, until she came back home to make lunch. The one wild card in this was Uncle Vernon, but with any luck he'd still be busy with the shed… she'd have to take the chance.

It was time to see if Ronnie's padlock trick worked.

[topicprinter]

I started out doing ecommerce as dropshipper. I was actually in ad-tech business, which sorta tanked because my customers were all in solar. (Thank you fracking.) I was doing lead gen in general and making good money, but I just didn't really find it all that fulfilling, and I was always into physical products so ecommerce seemed like natural fit.So I started doing ecommerce like most everyone else - using shopify and importing products from ebay / aliexpress. Couple of things I learned there1) shopify nickels and dimes you to death for every funcionality you can think of. The software is great, but the recurring payment + % of sales wasn't something I particularly liked. If any of you are thinking of jumping, i recommend doing it sooner than later. It'll get harder and harder. I can replicate EVERYTHING shopify does with woocommerce. Sure, you might have development headaches here and there, but you own your own data, and hence destiny. (If you need help migrating to WooCommerce, my team and I can definitely help you with that.)2) epacket shipping from china will be the death of you. Shipping directly from china to your customer is like crack - cheap, easy, but in long run, it will kill you. All it takes is few chargebacks / disputes on paypal / stripe / whatever payment processor use.. and viola, they hold your cash and you lose your ability to process payments. (Don't believe me? Just google "paypal withholding payment" and see how many results you see)Of course, you can go to 3PL. I have spoken to many... and here's usually what's the problemmin. spend per month .. and it's insanely highsmall mom pop operation that can't handle the load along w/customer servicemost 3PLs have really BAD technical teams that can't handle unique casesthey don't allow for much customization => like you ship them in bulk, and they break it out, put labels, and separate them into separate boxes... if they do, the costs are insaneThat's why I started doing my own logistics.It started small - just few packages a day here and there. But now we're doing much larger. Here's some pictures of the load i was dealing with:http://imgur.com/a/Zo5FuI'm an engineer by trade, so technical integration with customer service, ecom platforms, and shipping companies have been a breeze. The hardest part has been dealing with warehouse people (i'm used to dealing with engineers and marketers), but that's under control.Here's what I learned:1) retired people are really GOOD - a lot of them just want to get out of the house and be useful... i was skeptical at first, but damn, they are just awesome team players and super hard working2) I actually saved money by shopping around different post offices. Maybe the stereotype is true, but i found that some postal workers are indeed truly disgruntled and will go out of their way to make your life a miserable hell. My guy drives extra 15 minutes to go to another post office just b/c the lady there is like 5000x nicer and she's less fussy about packaging / labelling, etc.3) you'd be amazed at how you can get create "real brand" just by buying in bulk, breaking it into pieces, putting a 10 cent sticker, and into a box (that costs 35 cents). I had customers asking me if they can visit my factory b/c they love the product.But the best part?Our complaint rate went from 15%+ to sub below 1%. (I'm talking about complaints as result of delivery times.) Of course, the issue now is keeping the inventory up to date - not carrying so much to let the product go stale vs. carrying enough that your cashflow isn't interrupted. But since i'm a data scientist, I help my customers predict demand based on sales, trends, and your traffic stats using artificial intelligence / machine learning.We've struck deals with small and mid sized Chinese manufacturers to actually do a lot of their dropshipping for them as well. I was surprised when I found about how little they know about the US market, FB ads, adwords, CVR, and all that other marketing stuff. If you're a dropshipper, and you haven't attended the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, China... it's like a fat kid missing out on all you can eat buffet. Highly highly recommended.. especially if you're non-Asian and make the effort to go all the way there. You'll definitely stand out more. (If you guys want to go together with my team, maybe I'd consider doing a group tour.)Our distribution center is in NJ (for now), and if you are a dropshipper looking for boutique / customer service oriented 3PL, would love to speak to you. We focus specifically on small easily shipped items (like at most 30cm by 30cm by 30cm, 5-7kg / 10-15 lbs max.)... like watches, electronics, bags, etc. We can integrate with most major platforms - woocommerce, shopify, magento, etc.And if you have any questions regarding logistics, ask in the comments box below.

[robertkstone]

Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad

Quick Stats: Chris Daughtry Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Daily Driver: 2016 Chevy Suburban (Chris’ rating: 9 on a scale of 1 to 10) Favorite road trip: Charlottesville to Virginia Beach Car he learned to drive in: 1980s Ford pickup First car bought: 1988 Chevy Sprint

Chris Daughtry likes cars higher off the ground, but suitable enough to drive the kids around, which explains why he used to drive a Honda Odyssey minivan. But when he moved to Nashville, the former American Idol contestant wanted to shed the minivan for a more rock star appropriate ride — a fully loaded 2016 Chevrolet Suburban.

“I like driving it because it’s big and I can see over everything. I hate driving cars low to the ground and I can’t see past the hood and my depth perception gets off, so I love driving a tank,” he says.

Daughtry rates his Suburban a 9 on a scale of 10. “It’s a 9 only because it’s not the Batmobile and if I was driving the Batmobile it would be a 10 automatically,” he says, laughing. “There’s a few things that could be better — like my phone syncing to the screen in the car every time as opposed to when it wants to. I’m such an electronics person, I get frustrated when any of that doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. That’s a recent nuisance that’s fresh on my mind.”

This isn’t Daughtry’s first Suburban. He had one years ago, but when he lived in the Charlotte, N.C. and later in Los Angeles, he says it “was useless to have something that big there. We lived in Charlotte, but we were literally in uptown Charlotte.”

He lived in a condo. The complex had few tenants and a small parking garage that he could barely get in and out of with a sedan, so the Suburban had to go. Later though, with kids, the go-to ride was the Odyssey. “We got it in 2010 right before the twins were born, it was a necessity at the time,” he says.

Daughtry drove the minivan for six years. “Not very cool to be driving up to business meetings, or writing sessions or events in a minivan, so I decided once we moved to Nashville, that one of the first things I was going to do was get a Suburban again and I love it. I really do. I just like driving a big vehicle that – I can fit all my kids in, I can haul a bunch of [stuff] around if I needed to and it just looks cooler. But I didn’t get a black one, because I didn’t want to be confused with an Uber driver,” he says.

Since Nashville has less traffic than Los Angeles, it’s also a good place to comfortably drive and park a larger vehicle. “It’s definitely more traffic than the people that live here and are native to here are used to, but because I came from L.A., it’s like a drop in the pan,” he says. “There’s no issue parking here, there’s so many options and room, so I get around pretty easily in it. My wife had an IS 350 Lexus. Now she drives a BMW 5 Series. I’ve never been a car collector. I usually get a car that I’m pumped about and stay with it. In all seriousness, if I have my free reign of choice, I would probably get the new Tesla.”

Car he learned to drive in

“I learned to drive on something kind of like a farm, driving my dad’s Ford pickup. It was a stick shift and I remember hitting the gas instead of the brake and almost running into our building,” Daughtry says. “But I also learned on a tractor.”

He’s not sure what model year his dad’s pickup was, except that it was used. “Knowing him, this was back in 1990 and he never got anything new, so it was probably a 1985-1987. One bench seat and all the space was in the back of the truck. It was red with a grey stripe down the middle,” he says.

His family had a lot of land with chickens, goats, a pond, and though they didn’t farm it to make money, they leased out fields to farmers for cotton and peanuts and grew their own vegetables and chopped trees for firewood.

“We grew up very farm-like but we didn’t have a dairy or chicken farm. We had a long dirt path that went to where all the animals were. I remember driving the tractor on the road, that’s how small this town was, you could get away with anything pretty much,” he says, laughing. “It was fun. It was definitely a free, easy place to learn.”

Daughtry’s dad was his driving instructor. “I remember him being outside the door explaining what to do, and I remember him yelling ‘Woah!’ within almost two inches of hitting the building that was our storage shed,” he recalls.

He also learned shifting on his tractor. “I didn’t have any problem with that because it was so old that you could press the gas all the way down and it would still take a minute to get up some speed, so it wasn’t as jumpy as the truck. It was still very different than getting in a car and going out in traffic and navigating. This was obviously before GPS, so we had to pay attention to street signs,” he says, laughing.

Though he was used to driving the tractor, it still wasn’t real life driving in certain situations and parking. “I wouldn’t say that I was full equipped when I took driver’s ed,” he says.

First car bought

Daughtry’s first car was a 1988 Chevrolet Sprint he bought for $1,000. It was tan but also rusty, so a friend repainted it to what was supposed to be the original color.

“But it turned out champagne instead,” he says. “So the first car that I’m driving to high school in, supposedly trying to look tough, is a hatchback that’s champagne and it was what it was,” he says. “We grew up very practical — not a lot of money and it wasn’t like I could just go out and pick a car. It was a car that my dad found through a friend who had a body shop and he bought it, but I paid for it. I worked with my dad. He worked at a sawmill, so I was working at the age of 14 making my own money and pretty much anything I’ve ever got, I had to work for it.”

Daughtry also worked after school and full time during summers until his senior year in high school. “My schedule was a little all over the place with wanting to be a rock star and also wanting to make money, so I had to find jobs that fit those hours,” he says. “I remember getting a job at McDonald’s, then worked a kitchen washing dishes, then moving up to a prep cook, so I’ve been around the block when it comes to jobs.”

Daughtry’s Chevy Sprint did not have a happy ending. Its last trip was on a winding road, going 60 mph when Daughtry should have been traveling 30 mph.

“I had it not even a year before I totaled it,” he says. “I was coming home from football practice and I had my best friend that lived with us in the passenger seat. We were taking a friend home from football practice. I’d never really driven these roads before,” he recounts. “They were very windy up near Charlottesville, Virginia. Very, very windy roads. Not a lot of signage when it comes to curves and some of the back roads, and it was dark and I got into the curve too fast. It was such a small car  and I knew it couldn’t handle a curve because the first day I got my license, I turned a curve too fast on my own road and it had just rained, I did a full 360 and landed in the opposite lane. No traffic, thank God, and I casually backed up and went home like I’d seen a ghost. It was terrifying, but nothing bad happened.”

Daughtry says what happened that first day he got his license was almost like a foreshadowing of what would happened the night he wrecked it. “I knew how it handled, so I didn’t even try to force it into submission, so I went into a ditch. It flipped us across the road a few times,” he recalls. “I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The car was still playing Soundgarden. It was ‘The Day I Tried to Live’ or ‘Limo Wreck.’ Either way, it was a very poignant type of song to be playing. I had already dropped my friend off, so it was just me and my best friend that lived with me. He helped me get out of the passenger side. It was on its roof. Not a scratch on me, it was the weirdest thing. And we flipped it over  ‘Ace Ventura’ style.”

Another teammate who lived nearby happened to drive by and helped them flip the car over. They drove to that friend’s house to use the phone.

“The windshield was caved in, so I was having to drive with my head out the side,” he says, with a laugh. “It was so jank. My dad picked me up and the cops called wondering why I left the scene of an accident. I didn’t know any better. It was my first accident, I was just terrified to death and shaken and surprised I was alive.”

After that crash, Daughtry moved the motor from the Sprint into a 1992 Geo Metro. “It was still a hatchback, basically the same chassis as the Sprint, so it worked,” he says. “I was a teenager that believed that cars ran on gasoline and gasoline only and seized the motor up driving on a two and a half hour trip. Instead of pulling over, I made it home. Dad was not happy. I think I had some sort of oil leak and ignored it. I learned the hard way.”

He either had to have the motor rebuilt or get a new car, so Daughtry ended up getting a 1987 diesel GMC Jimmy because he wanted a larger vehicle. “I really dug that truck a lot,” he says. “It was how I feel being in the Suburban, it was a tank. It was a bitch in wintertime because I remember where you had to put a heat stick in it because of freezing temperatures.”

After being on American Idol and getting his new album was out, Daughtry treated himself to a nicer ride. “The first time we really splurged on cars, me and my wife, she got a Lexus IS 350 and I got a Lexus SUV. It wasn’t the smaller SUV, it was the big full-sized. It was a 2007,” he says. “That was after we had some money and went and bought them cash.”

Favorite road trip

“I hate road trips now because we have kids,” Daughtry says, with a laugh. “It’s usually never peaceful, so we fly. But I do remember a lot of road trips as a kid with my buddy. I remember a group of friends going to Virginia Beach right after we graduated. It was a summer thing, we went to the beach and hung out.”

Daughtry recalls taking that road trip from Charlottesville to Virginia Beach in his Jimmy. “I had some janky speaker wire in the back, I had one 12-inch speaker in the back that was carrying the weight of my sound system and a CD player put in,” he says. “It was just simple and it was fun. We had a blast. You know how it is when you’re a kid and there’s really no concept of time or anything. You’re just out being free and doing whatever.”

On that road trip they went to a Sevendust show at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. “We had all gotten a hotel. I remember us all hanging out at the hotel swimming and may or may not have been consuming alcohol under the age. I just remember us all having a blast and we all ended up getting drunk and jumping on the beds in the hotel room. There was a wrestling match or some karate fight situation,” Daughtry says, laughing. “It was me and the boys, we had a band at the time and everybody had their girlfriends with them. This was before we had real responsibilities. It was just a fun weekend.”

“I had my girlfriend with me and my buddy and his girl in the back. My other buddy had his car with him. He was very much a car guy, and still is. He runs a body shop,” he recounts. “We all shared rooms and went in, pitched in and paid for the trip.”

The farthest Daughtry has ever driven was a 10-hour road trip he did all in one night. “It was for a hang,” he says, with a laugh. “I was hanging with a buddy of mine who was working on an album and I hadn’t even gone on American Idol at the time.  Didn’t have a lot of money, we were still trying to make things happen. I had gotten accepted on the show, but had to wait for the time to be called to come back.”

He didn’t know if American Idol was going to happen. “So I had a friend that knew some producers. It was just a hang and getting to meet people sort of weekend,” he says. “I had a Dodge, it was white with red interior, I don’t remember the model because didn’t care about the car. It was a hand me down car because my wife had gotten in a wreck, we needed a car. I remember taking it by myself just driving from Burlington, North Carolina to Orlando, Florida.”

On that trip he got a ticket because he went through a toll booth that he shouldn’t have driven through. “It was a Fast Pass lane. I didn’t have a Fast Pass, but I didn’t understand the traffic pattern. The cop didn’t care,” he says, with a laugh. “I was in the wrong lane and realized it too late.”

2017 Summer Tour with Nickelback

Daughtry has been on tour since June with Nickelback. The tour ends Sept. 16 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Grammy-nominated band is also working on its fifth album. “We’re going to be in the studio very soon, cutting that,” Daughtry says.

For more information, please visit Daughtryofficial.com

READ MORE CELEBRITY DRIVES HERE:

Geoff Downes, Keyboardist for Yes, Asia, Buggles

Actor and World Celebrity David Hasselhoff

Drummer John Densmore of The Doors

“Farmtruck” From Discovery’s Street Outlaws

The post Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad appeared first on Motor Trend.

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[jesusvasser]

Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad

Quick Stats: Chris Daughtry Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Daily Driver: 2016 Chevy Suburban (Chris’ rating: 9 on a scale of 1 to 10) Favorite road trip: Charlottesville to Virginia Beach Car he learned to drive in: 1980s Ford pickup First car bought: 1988 Chevy Sprint

Chris Daughtry likes cars higher off the ground, but suitable enough to drive the kids around, which explains why he used to drive a Honda Odyssey minivan. But when he moved to Nashville, the former American Idol contestant wanted to shed the minivan for a more rock star appropriate ride — a fully loaded 2016 Chevrolet Suburban.

“I like driving it because it’s big and I can see over everything. I hate driving cars low to the ground and I can’t see past the hood and my depth perception gets off, so I love driving a tank,” he says.

Daughtry rates his Suburban a 9 on a scale of 10. “It’s a 9 only because it’s not the Batmobile and if I was driving the Batmobile it would be a 10 automatically,” he says, laughing. “There’s a few things that could be better — like my phone syncing to the screen in the car every time as opposed to when it wants to. I’m such an electronics person, I get frustrated when any of that doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. That’s a recent nuisance that’s fresh on my mind.”

This isn’t Daughtry’s first Suburban. He had one years ago, but when he lived in the Charlotte, N.C. and later in Los Angeles, he says it “was useless to have something that big there. We lived in Charlotte, but we were literally in uptown Charlotte.”

He lived in a condo. The complex had few tenants and a small parking garage that he could barely get in and out of with a sedan, so the Suburban had to go. Later though, with kids, the go-to ride was the Odyssey. “We got it in 2010 right before the twins were born, it was a necessity at the time,” he says.

Daughtry drove the minivan for six years. “Not very cool to be driving up to business meetings, or writing sessions or events in a minivan, so I decided once we moved to Nashville, that one of the first things I was going to do was get a Suburban again and I love it. I really do. I just like driving a big vehicle that – I can fit all my kids in, I can haul a bunch of [stuff] around if I needed to and it just looks cooler. But I didn’t get a black one, because I didn’t want to be confused with an Uber driver,” he says.

Since Nashville has less traffic than Los Angeles, it’s also a good place to comfortably drive and park a larger vehicle. “It’s definitely more traffic than the people that live here and are native to here are used to, but because I came from L.A., it’s like a drop in the pan,” he says. “There’s no issue parking here, there’s so many options and room, so I get around pretty easily in it. My wife had an IS 350 Lexus. Now she drives a BMW 5 Series. I’ve never been a car collector. I usually get a car that I’m pumped about and stay with it. In all seriousness, if I have my free reign of choice, I would probably get the new Tesla.”

Car he learned to drive in

“I learned to drive on something kind of like a farm, driving my dad’s Ford pickup. It was a stick shift and I remember hitting the gas instead of the brake and almost running into our building,” Daughtry says. “But I also learned on a tractor.”

He’s not sure what model year his dad’s pickup was, except that it was used. “Knowing him, this was back in 1990 and he never got anything new, so it was probably a 1985-1987. One bench seat and all the space was in the back of the truck. It was red with a grey stripe down the middle,” he says.

His family had a lot of land with chickens, goats, a pond, and though they didn’t farm it to make money, they leased out fields to farmers for cotton and peanuts and grew their own vegetables and chopped trees for firewood.

“We grew up very farm-like but we didn’t have a dairy or chicken farm. We had a long dirt path that went to where all the animals were. I remember driving the tractor on the road, that’s how small this town was, you could get away with anything pretty much,” he says, laughing. “It was fun. It was definitely a free, easy place to learn.”

Daughtry’s dad was his driving instructor. “I remember him being outside the door explaining what to do, and I remember him yelling ‘Woah!’ within almost two inches of hitting the building that was our storage shed,” he recalls.

He also learned shifting on his tractor. “I didn’t have any problem with that because it was so old that you could press the gas all the way down and it would still take a minute to get up some speed, so it wasn’t as jumpy as the truck. It was still very different than getting in a car and going out in traffic and navigating. This was obviously before GPS, so we had to pay attention to street signs,” he says, laughing.

Though he was used to driving the tractor, it still wasn’t real life driving in certain situations and parking. “I wouldn’t say that I was full equipped when I took driver’s ed,” he says.

First car bought

Daughtry’s first car was a 1988 Chevrolet Sprint he bought for $1,000. It was tan but also rusty, so a friend repainted it to what was supposed to be the original color.

“But it turned out champagne instead,” he says. “So the first car that I’m driving to high school in, supposedly trying to look tough, is a hatchback that’s champagne and it was what it was,” he says. “We grew up very practical — not a lot of money and it wasn’t like I could just go out and pick a car. It was a car that my dad found through a friend who had a body shop and he bought it, but I paid for it. I worked with my dad. He worked at a sawmill, so I was working at the age of 14 making my own money and pretty much anything I’ve ever got, I had to work for it.”

Daughtry also worked after school and full time during summers until his senior year in high school. “My schedule was a little all over the place with wanting to be a rock star and also wanting to make money, so I had to find jobs that fit those hours,” he says. “I remember getting a job at McDonald’s, then worked a kitchen washing dishes, then moving up to a prep cook, so I’ve been around the block when it comes to jobs.”

Daughtry’s Chevy Sprint did not have a happy ending. Its last trip was on a winding road, going 60 mph when Daughtry should have been traveling 30 mph.

“I had it not even a year before I totaled it,” he says. “I was coming home from football practice and I had my best friend that lived with us in the passenger seat. We were taking a friend home from football practice. I’d never really driven these roads before,” he recounts. “They were very windy up near Charlottesville, Virginia. Very, very windy roads. Not a lot of signage when it comes to curves and some of the back roads, and it was dark and I got into the curve too fast. It was such a small car  and I knew it couldn’t handle a curve because the first day I got my license, I turned a curve too fast on my own road and it had just rained, I did a full 360 and landed in the opposite lane. No traffic, thank God, and I casually backed up and went home like I’d seen a ghost. It was terrifying, but nothing bad happened.”

Daughtry says what happened that first day he got his license was almost like a foreshadowing of what would happened the night he wrecked it. “I knew how it handled, so I didn’t even try to force it into submission, so I went into a ditch. It flipped us across the road a few times,” he recalls. “I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The car was still playing Soundgarden. It was ‘The Day I Tried to Live’ or ‘Limo Wreck.’ Either way, it was a very poignant type of song to be playing. I had already dropped my friend off, so it was just me and my best friend that lived with me. He helped me get out of the passenger side. It was on its roof. Not a scratch on me, it was the weirdest thing. And we flipped it over  ‘Ace Ventura’ style.”

Another teammate who lived nearby happened to drive by and helped them flip the car over. They drove to that friend’s house to use the phone.

“The windshield was caved in, so I was having to drive with my head out the side,” he says, with a laugh. “It was so jank. My dad picked me up and the cops called wondering why I left the scene of an accident. I didn’t know any better. It was my first accident, I was just terrified to death and shaken and surprised I was alive.”

After that crash, Daughtry moved the motor from the Sprint into a 1992 Geo Metro. “It was still a hatchback, basically the same chassis as the Sprint, so it worked,” he says. “I was a teenager that believed that cars ran on gasoline and gasoline only and seized the motor up driving on a two and a half hour trip. Instead of pulling over, I made it home. Dad was not happy. I think I had some sort of oil leak and ignored it. I learned the hard way.”

He either had to have the motor rebuilt or get a new car, so Daughtry ended up getting a 1987 diesel GMC Jimmy because he wanted a larger vehicle. “I really dug that truck a lot,” he says. “It was how I feel being in the Suburban, it was a tank. It was a bitch in wintertime because I remember where you had to put a heat stick in it because of freezing temperatures.”

After being on American Idol and getting his new album was out, Daughtry treated himself to a nicer ride. “The first time we really splurged on cars, me and my wife, she got a Lexus IS 350 and I got a Lexus SUV. It wasn’t the smaller SUV, it was the big full-sized. It was a 2007,” he says. “That was after we had some money and went and bought them cash.”

Favorite road trip

“I hate road trips now because we have kids,” Daughtry says, with a laugh. “It’s usually never peaceful, so we fly. But I do remember a lot of road trips as a kid with my buddy. I remember a group of friends going to Virginia Beach right after we graduated. It was a summer thing, we went to the beach and hung out.”

Daughtry recalls taking that road trip from Charlottesville to Virginia Beach in his Jimmy. “I had some janky speaker wire in the back, I had one 12-inch speaker in the back that was carrying the weight of my sound system and a CD player put in,” he says. “It was just simple and it was fun. We had a blast. You know how it is when you’re a kid and there’s really no concept of time or anything. You’re just out being free and doing whatever.”

On that road trip they went to a Sevendust show at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. “We had all gotten a hotel. I remember us all hanging out at the hotel swimming and may or may not have been consuming alcohol under the age. I just remember us all having a blast and we all ended up getting drunk and jumping on the beds in the hotel room. There was a wrestling match or some karate fight situation,” Daughtry says, laughing. “It was me and the boys, we had a band at the time and everybody had their girlfriends with them. This was before we had real responsibilities. It was just a fun weekend.”

“I had my girlfriend with me and my buddy and his girl in the back. My other buddy had his car with him. He was very much a car guy, and still is. He runs a body shop,” he recounts. “We all shared rooms and went in, pitched in and paid for the trip.”

The farthest Daughtry has ever driven was a 10-hour road trip he did all in one night. “It was for a hang,” he says, with a laugh. “I was hanging with a buddy of mine who was working on an album and I hadn’t even gone on American Idol at the time.  Didn’t have a lot of money, we were still trying to make things happen. I had gotten accepted on the show, but had to wait for the time to be called to come back.”

He didn’t know if American Idol was going to happen. “So I had a friend that knew some producers. It was just a hang and getting to meet people sort of weekend,” he says. “I had a Dodge, it was white with red interior, I don’t remember the model because didn’t care about the car. It was a hand me down car because my wife had gotten in a wreck, we needed a car. I remember taking it by myself just driving from Burlington, North Carolina to Orlando, Florida.”

On that trip he got a ticket because he went through a toll booth that he shouldn’t have driven through. “It was a Fast Pass lane. I didn’t have a Fast Pass, but I didn’t understand the traffic pattern. The cop didn’t care,” he says, with a laugh. “I was in the wrong lane and realized it too late.”

2017 Summer Tour with Nickelback

Daughtry has been on tour since June with Nickelback. The tour ends Sept. 16 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Grammy-nominated band is also working on its fifth album. “We’re going to be in the studio very soon, cutting that,” Daughtry says.

For more information, please visit Daughtryofficial.com

READ MORE CELEBRITY DRIVES HERE:

Geoff Downes, Keyboardist for Yes, Asia, Buggles

Actor and World Celebrity David Hasselhoff

Drummer John Densmore of The Doors

“Farmtruck” From Discovery’s Street Outlaws

The post Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad appeared first on Motor Trend.

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[oliverphisher]

Amanda Bridgeman

Amanda is a Tin Duck Award winner, an Aurealis and Ditmar Awards finalist and author of several science fiction novels. Her works included the best-selling military SF/space opera AURORA series (previously published by Momentum Books/Pan Macmillan Australia), alien contact drama THE TIME OF THE STRIPES, and sci-fi crime thriller THE SUBJUGATE (published by Angry Robot Books, UK).

Born in the seaside/country town of Geraldton, Western Australia, she moved to Perth (Western Australia) to study film & television/creative writing at Murdoch University, earning her a BA in Communication Studies. Perth has been her home ever since, aside from a nineteen-month stint in London (England) where she dabbled in Film & TV ‘Extra’ work.

Her new novel PANDEMIC: PATIENT ZERO will be the first novel set in the award-winning Pandemic tabletop board game universe, and will be released worldwide in June 2020 through Aconyte Books (UK).

What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? 

I think the first science fiction novel I ever read was String Of Time by Irma Chilton. I enjoyed it so much that I used that as the novel for my English Speaking Board exams when I was 13.

As a teen I was a big fan of S.E. Hinton, and in particular, Rumble Fish. I also loved Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis. I’ve always been a fan of edgy dramas, and it’s fair to say that these two writers/books heavily influenced my early writing style.

As a teen I also enjoyed JAWS by Peter Benchley (mainly because it’s my favourite film). This was the first time I realized there was an intersection between novels and films/tv, and that a story can transfer across both formats. I then proceeded to read a bunch of film tie-in novels such as Goonies, The Accused, Gremlins, Cliffhanger, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Over the Top, The Karate Kid, etc, etc.Ever since I’ve dreamed of having my stories in both formats – novels and on screen!

Also, writing a film tie-in novel is still on my professional bucket list.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)? 

My Telstra TV device. Prior to that I was streaming a lot of TV on my laptop. It’s much nicer on an actual TV!

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? 

There’s a quote I heard a while back that I always refer to when thinking about failure. The quote is: It’s only a failure if you haven’t learned the lesson… And that’s exactly what failures are. If things don’t work out, sure it sucks, but if you look carefully and analyse the reasons why something didn’t work, you can learn valuable lessons on how to do things better next time – and strengthen your futureendeavours. 

Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?

See the one above about failure, but I also like one I read in an interview with Gene Simmons (KISS): It’s all good and well to have dreams, but what are you going to do about them? 

Also, one I read in an interview with Keanu Reeves where he said: It’s better to regret having done something, than to regret not having done it at all.

I have no idea who originated either quote, I just remember reading them for the first time in interviews with those two. Regardless, they’re both powerful quotes about giving your dreams a shot. If it doesn’t work out at least you know you gave it a try. You can then close that door and move on. If you don’t bother opening that door, though, you’re going to stand there staring at the doorknob for the rest of your life and wondering what’s on the other side.

What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made? 

I’m going to say attending conventions for this one. A lot of my success has come from building a network of writer friends but also meeting and staying in touch with publishers, agents, and other industry related people. Like any business, it’s all about networking and supporting and being involved in your industry, so try to attend as many conventions as you can afford to.

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? 

Silence. I write best when things are dead silent and I can just get lost in my thoughts without distraction.

I also always have to have a book title before I begin writing something. I can’t write a nameless novel. All the book ideas floating in my head already have novel titles. I just need to write them now!

In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life? 

Self-care. Even if I have a deadline looming over my head, if I’m tired I’ll take a night off. I know I’ll work better the next day if I give myself a break. So if you’re tired or not feeling well, allow yourself time to get your body/mind back up to speed. No good will come from pushing on and doing a half-arsed effort. 

I also work 4 days a week in a day job, so it’s equally important that I’m rested for that work or I won’t be able to pay my mortgage!

What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore? 

My advice is – take every piece of writing advice with a pinch of salt. What works for some doesn’t work for others. You gotta try everything and see what works for you. Everyone writes different books, everyone has different audiences, everyone has different living situations, etc, so you have to do what suits you, your lifestyle and your audience.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession often? 

Write every day. If that doesn’t work for you, if you have a super-busy day job that sometimes wipes you out, then you need to have some nights off. So, just write when you can – so long as you don’t keep postponing the writing. Sometimes you gotta pull up a chair and just get to it too.

In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)? 

I’m getting better at saying no to a lot of things. If I have a deadline to meet, I won’t accept social invitations if I don’t have time or take on any other workload of any kind. Where once I would reply to every email straight away, now I allow myself time to breathe and think about what I truly want to say before saying it. So, I basically just say no if it doesn’t fit with my current workload or preference for time out from writing.

What marketing tactics should authors avoid?

On social media, don’t ‘sell’ your books too much. There’s a fine line. You have to, of course, sell your books – after all a closed mouth doesn’t get fed, but there’s a limit between making people aware of your book and shoving it down their throat.

Also, know your audience. Find out where they are online (is it Facebook? Is it Twitter? Is it Goodreads? Etc), and market there. But at the end of the day, it’s social media, so you need to do more chatting then selling.

What new realizations and/or approaches have helped you achieve your goals? 

Always be learning. That said, this is nothing new for me. The first novel I ever wrote got published, so I’ve been learning how to be a better writer publicly since day one. It takes years to be any good, so keep reading, studying the craft and writing as best you can. Each novel I write is better than the last, but it’s a constant process of refinement.

When you feel overwhelmed or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do? 

I take time out. If I feel like I’m pushing a concrete block uphill then I step away and come back to it another day. Sometimes it’s your brain’s way of saying it needs a rest. Listen to your body. Besides, you’ll be surprised just how many plot holes your subconscious can solve when you just give it some space to breathe.

Any other tips?

In short, just be nice. Try to support other authors where you can. At the end of the day, no-one wants to support someone they think is an a-hole. I know I don’t.

Try and get a good bunch of supportive writers around you too – ones that you can gripe to privately when you’re having a hard time (best to keep that stuff off social media).

Don’t give up. If you really want to be a writer you need to accept that it’s bloody hard work and it that takes discipline, dedication and a whole lot of stubbornness.

________

Enjoyed this Q&A? Want to discuss in more depth? Join Community Writers. You'll get access to 100+ exclusive writing tips. Q&As with successful authors, an exclusive ebook on building an audience and much more. Sign-up for free as a community writer here

[robertkstone]

Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad

Quick Stats: Chris Daughtry Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Daily Driver: 2016 Chevy Suburban (Chris’ rating: 9 on a scale of 1 to 10) Favorite road trip: Charlottesville to Virginia Beach Car he learned to drive in: 1980s Ford pickup First car bought: 1988 Chevy Sprint

Chris Daughtry likes cars higher off the ground, but suitable enough to drive the kids around, which explains why he used to drive a Honda Odyssey minivan. But when he moved to Nashville, the former American Idol contestant wanted to shed the minivan for a more rock star appropriate ride — a fully loaded 2016 Chevrolet Suburban.

“I like driving it because it’s big and I can see over everything. I hate driving cars low to the ground and I can’t see past the hood and my depth perception gets off, so I love driving a tank,” he says.

Daughtry rates his Suburban a 9 on a scale of 10. “It’s a 9 only because it’s not the Batmobile and if I was driving the Batmobile it would be a 10 automatically,” he says, laughing. “There’s a few things that could be better — like my phone syncing to the screen in the car every time as opposed to when it wants to. I’m such an electronics person, I get frustrated when any of that doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. That’s a recent nuisance that’s fresh on my mind.”

This isn’t Daughtry’s first Suburban. He had one years ago, but when he lived in the Charlotte, N.C. and later in Los Angeles, he says it “was useless to have something that big there. We lived in Charlotte, but we were literally in uptown Charlotte.”

He lived in a condo. The complex had few tenants and a small parking garage that he could barely get in and out of with a sedan, so the Suburban had to go. Later though, with kids, the go-to ride was the Odyssey. “We got it in 2010 right before the twins were born, it was a necessity at the time,” he says.

Daughtry drove the minivan for six years. “Not very cool to be driving up to business meetings, or writing sessions or events in a minivan, so I decided once we moved to Nashville, that one of the first things I was going to do was get a Suburban again and I love it. I really do. I just like driving a big vehicle that – I can fit all my kids in, I can haul a bunch of [stuff] around if I needed to and it just looks cooler. But I didn’t get a black one, because I didn’t want to be confused with an Uber driver,” he says.

Since Nashville has less traffic than Los Angeles, it’s also a good place to comfortably drive and park a larger vehicle. “It’s definitely more traffic than the people that live here and are native to here are used to, but because I came from L.A., it’s like a drop in the pan,” he says. “There’s no issue parking here, there’s so many options and room, so I get around pretty easily in it. My wife had an IS 350 Lexus. Now she drives a BMW 5 Series. I’ve never been a car collector. I usually get a car that I’m pumped about and stay with it. In all seriousness, if I have my free reign of choice, I would probably get the new Tesla.”

Car he learned to drive in

“I learned to drive on something kind of like a farm, driving my dad’s Ford pickup. It was a stick shift and I remember hitting the gas instead of the brake and almost running into our building,” Daughtry says. “But I also learned on a tractor.”

He’s not sure what model year his dad’s pickup was, except that it was used. “Knowing him, this was back in 1990 and he never got anything new, so it was probably a 1985-1987. One bench seat and all the space was in the back of the truck. It was red with a grey stripe down the middle,” he says.

His family had a lot of land with chickens, goats, a pond, and though they didn’t farm it to make money, they leased out fields to farmers for cotton and peanuts and grew their own vegetables and chopped trees for firewood.

“We grew up very farm-like but we didn’t have a dairy or chicken farm. We had a long dirt path that went to where all the animals were. I remember driving the tractor on the road, that’s how small this town was, you could get away with anything pretty much,” he says, laughing. “It was fun. It was definitely a free, easy place to learn.”

Daughtry’s dad was his driving instructor. “I remember him being outside the door explaining what to do, and I remember him yelling ‘Woah!’ within almost two inches of hitting the building that was our storage shed,” he recalls.

He also learned shifting on his tractor. “I didn’t have any problem with that because it was so old that you could press the gas all the way down and it would still take a minute to get up some speed, so it wasn’t as jumpy as the truck. It was still very different than getting in a car and going out in traffic and navigating. This was obviously before GPS, so we had to pay attention to street signs,” he says, laughing.

Though he was used to driving the tractor, it still wasn’t real life driving in certain situations and parking. “I wouldn’t say that I was full equipped when I took driver’s ed,” he says.

First car bought

Daughtry’s first car was a 1988 Chevrolet Sprint he bought for $1,000. It was tan but also rusty, so a friend repainted it to what was supposed to be the original color.

“But it turned out champagne instead,” he says. “So the first car that I’m driving to high school in, supposedly trying to look tough, is a hatchback that’s champagne and it was what it was,” he says. “We grew up very practical — not a lot of money and it wasn’t like I could just go out and pick a car. It was a car that my dad found through a friend who had a body shop and he bought it, but I paid for it. I worked with my dad. He worked at a sawmill, so I was working at the age of 14 making my own money and pretty much anything I’ve ever got, I had to work for it.”

Daughtry also worked after school and full time during summers until his senior year in high school. “My schedule was a little all over the place with wanting to be a rock star and also wanting to make money, so I had to find jobs that fit those hours,” he says. “I remember getting a job at McDonald’s, then worked a kitchen washing dishes, then moving up to a prep cook, so I’ve been around the block when it comes to jobs.”

Daughtry’s Chevy Sprint did not have a happy ending. Its last trip was on a winding road, going 60 mph when Daughtry should have been traveling 30 mph.

“I had it not even a year before I totaled it,” he says. “I was coming home from football practice and I had my best friend that lived with us in the passenger seat. We were taking a friend home from football practice. I’d never really driven these roads before,” he recounts. “They were very windy up near Charlottesville, Virginia. Very, very windy roads. Not a lot of signage when it comes to curves and some of the back roads, and it was dark and I got into the curve too fast. It was such a small car  and I knew it couldn’t handle a curve because the first day I got my license, I turned a curve too fast on my own road and it had just rained, I did a full 360 and landed in the opposite lane. No traffic, thank God, and I casually backed up and went home like I’d seen a ghost. It was terrifying, but nothing bad happened.”

Daughtry says what happened that first day he got his license was almost like a foreshadowing of what would happened the night he wrecked it. “I knew how it handled, so I didn’t even try to force it into submission, so I went into a ditch. It flipped us across the road a few times,” he recalls. “I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The car was still playing Soundgarden. It was ‘The Day I Tried to Live’ or ‘Limo Wreck.’ Either way, it was a very poignant type of song to be playing. I had already dropped my friend off, so it was just me and my best friend that lived with me. He helped me get out of the passenger side. It was on its roof. Not a scratch on me, it was the weirdest thing. And we flipped it over  ‘Ace Ventura’ style.”

Another teammate who lived nearby happened to drive by and helped them flip the car over. They drove to that friend’s house to use the phone.

“The windshield was caved in, so I was having to drive with my head out the side,” he says, with a laugh. “It was so jank. My dad picked me up and the cops called wondering why I left the scene of an accident. I didn’t know any better. It was my first accident, I was just terrified to death and shaken and surprised I was alive.”

After that crash, Daughtry moved the motor from the Sprint into a 1992 Geo Metro. “It was still a hatchback, basically the same chassis as the Sprint, so it worked,” he says. “I was a teenager that believed that cars ran on gasoline and gasoline only and seized the motor up driving on a two and a half hour trip. Instead of pulling over, I made it home. Dad was not happy. I think I had some sort of oil leak and ignored it. I learned the hard way.”

He either had to have the motor rebuilt or get a new car, so Daughtry ended up getting a 1987 diesel GMC Jimmy because he wanted a larger vehicle. “I really dug that truck a lot,” he says. “It was how I feel being in the Suburban, it was a tank. It was a bitch in wintertime because I remember where you had to put a heat stick in it because of freezing temperatures.”

After being on American Idol and getting his new album was out, Daughtry treated himself to a nicer ride. “The first time we really splurged on cars, me and my wife, she got a Lexus IS 350 and I got a Lexus SUV. It wasn’t the smaller SUV, it was the big full-sized. It was a 2007,” he says. “That was after we had some money and went and bought them cash.”

Favorite road trip

“I hate road trips now because we have kids,” Daughtry says, with a laugh. “It’s usually never peaceful, so we fly. But I do remember a lot of road trips as a kid with my buddy. I remember a group of friends going to Virginia Beach right after we graduated. It was a summer thing, we went to the beach and hung out.”

Daughtry recalls taking that road trip from Charlottesville to Virginia Beach in his Jimmy. “I had some janky speaker wire in the back, I had one 12-inch speaker in the back that was carrying the weight of my sound system and a CD player put in,” he says. “It was just simple and it was fun. We had a blast. You know how it is when you’re a kid and there’s really no concept of time or anything. You’re just out being free and doing whatever.”

On that road trip they went to a Sevendust show at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. “We had all gotten a hotel. I remember us all hanging out at the hotel swimming and may or may not have been consuming alcohol under the age. I just remember us all having a blast and we all ended up getting drunk and jumping on the beds in the hotel room. There was a wrestling match or some karate fight situation,” Daughtry says, laughing. “It was me and the boys, we had a band at the time and everybody had their girlfriends with them. This was before we had real responsibilities. It was just a fun weekend.”

“I had my girlfriend with me and my buddy and his girl in the back. My other buddy had his car with him. He was very much a car guy, and still is. He runs a body shop,” he recounts. “We all shared rooms and went in, pitched in and paid for the trip.”

The farthest Daughtry has ever driven was a 10-hour road trip he did all in one night. “It was for a hang,” he says, with a laugh. “I was hanging with a buddy of mine who was working on an album and I hadn’t even gone on American Idol at the time.  Didn’t have a lot of money, we were still trying to make things happen. I had gotten accepted on the show, but had to wait for the time to be called to come back.”

He didn’t know if American Idol was going to happen. “So I had a friend that knew some producers. It was just a hang and getting to meet people sort of weekend,” he says. “I had a Dodge, it was white with red interior, I don’t remember the model because didn’t care about the car. It was a hand me down car because my wife had gotten in a wreck, we needed a car. I remember taking it by myself just driving from Burlington, North Carolina to Orlando, Florida.”

On that trip he got a ticket because he went through a toll booth that he shouldn’t have driven through. “It was a Fast Pass lane. I didn’t have a Fast Pass, but I didn’t understand the traffic pattern. The cop didn’t care,” he says, with a laugh. “I was in the wrong lane and realized it too late.”

2017 Summer Tour with Nickelback

Daughtry has been on tour since June with Nickelback. The tour ends Sept. 16 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Grammy-nominated band is also working on its fifth album. “We’re going to be in the studio very soon, cutting that,” Daughtry says.

For more information, please visit Daughtryofficial.com

READ MORE CELEBRITY DRIVES HERE:

Geoff Downes, Keyboardist for Yes, Asia, Buggles

Actor and World Celebrity David Hasselhoff

Drummer John Densmore of The Doors

“Farmtruck” From Discovery’s Street Outlaws

The post Celebrity Drive: Chris Daughtry is a (Chevy) Suburban Dad appeared first on Motor Trend.

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