The Adventures!

2022, The Year that’s best told in Pictures

December 31, 2022 by Tyler

Some stories are best told in pictures. 2022 is one of them.

January 1st, 2022. The truck breaks down 125 miles from home on a 1000 mile drive. Sometimes the Universe speaks loudly.

In 2022, I still climbed on things that I shouldn’t have. Gravity is only a theory.

We also got a dog… the Cats did not approve this.

OK, 3 of the 4 cats don’t approve… Tubby is keeping an open mind.

Grant however found a partner in crime. If one goes to time out, the other does in solidarity.

Unfortunately only one of the criminals could be pressed into hard labor for their crimes.

Grant also got to enjoy some live entertainment this year. Jurassic World Live and Blippi The Musical!

Oh yeah, Grant also started Kindergarten. Here is the obligatory first day of school photo!

DRS started the year by running an 8 week long online course for USITT

We also were one of the Largest sponsors of their 2022 Annual Conference.

Instead of getting a booth at the conference, I opted to walk around with a bag of swag.

I also was featured on USITT’s Technically Speaking

DRS also was a minor sponsor of the New World Rigging Symposium

I also was featured by Technicians for Change during their Rig Safe Day

Things picked up in the summer and travel day Bloody Marias became a thing.

The first adventure was Eric Church for a week with Dad. His ability to sleep any where any time is impressive.

Then Dad got DRS sucked into Rolling Loud Miami. 3 days, 5 stages, 200ish acts, and 120,000 party goers. It was a thing…

After Rolling Loud I got to slow down a bit. DRS was the largest sponsor of the Midwest Rigging Intensive, and I did a 4 hour long seminar on rigging inspections, twice.

I also spent a couple of days as an instructor for the Jay O. Glerum Intro to Rigging Class.

My last big travel for the year was moonlighting for Post Malone. I was their Pre-rig Rigger from September to November. It was honestly the perfect schedule, DRS Monday through lunch on Friday and then fly out to Post Malone for the weekend.

Caitlyn continues to be hard to get photos of. She is killing it at work, and when her boss was out, she ran her branch for 6 weeks and they met all of the branch goals under her reign… something they don’t usually do.

OK folks, some of the things that aren’t pictured include:

DRS’s Gross raised 400% from 2021
DRS has added two new full time team members, Chris Berg and Bob Brown
Lots of weekends spent working as a local for 4 different IA Locals (no one has enough riggers)
Lots of training sessions for private groups
Lots of rigging inspections
Lots of Rigging Repairs
More than twice 2022’s gross already approved for 2023
Progress was made on the house, still not even close to done
A massive garden that got abandoned midsummer due to being too busy

I keep telling people I have all the right problems!

2021, The Year We Proved We Could.

December 24, 2021 by Tyler

Well 2020 was a dumpster fire. No arguments there, but if life works on the “f@#k around and find out” theory, 2021 is the year we found out what we’re made of.

The normal type is me, the italics is the Pretty Lady.

I have had one hell of a year. As you may recall, in 2020 the entertainment world collapsed and after a few months of what we’ll kindly refer to as down time, I channeled my anger with the world into starting DeLong Rigging Solutions. 2021 is the year that I more or less forced the company to go from just an idea to a fully functional company. In early 2021 we launched One Shot Training, a free online training resource for people wanting to learn about rigging. In March we were one of the sponsors for the virtual USITT Conference. During the Summer we did our fist run of The Basics, an 8 week long weekly online seminar series designed to introduce individuals to rigging (we’ll be running it again starting in January through USITT). Through all of this we still managed to complete a couple dozen inspections, repairs, and training courses across the state. As a company DRS has done better than I possibly could have hoped for, and 2022 is looking to be even busier.

I also had one hell of a garden going this year. I’ve got 6 raised beds, 2 vertical gardens, 4 berry barrels, a half dozen berry bushes, 3 potato towers, and over 1000 gallons worth of rain catch that irrigates the entire thing. Add in my mobile chicken coop ad it’s 6 residents and I am quite proud of my attempts at a slightly self-sustaining life style. I know my canning, dehydrating, and other tasks have started to annoy Caitlyn, but I think she is too afraid of what the next hobby will be to say anything about it.

My Turn! This year I am the one who is waiting till the last minute of writing the Christmas letter. This is why we work together. 2021 was definitely the year that we found out what we are made of. The building blocks were falling into place, and it makes me so excited for 2022. I love doing life with Tyler. We like to joke that we are a power couple but when we start listing all the things we have done and accomplished just in this year, let alone since the beginning, it really is hard to argue with that statement.

I graduated from Ivy Tech. Hallelujah! Got a full-time job at a small local credit union that on my second day there I found out that they were merging with a larger credit union. Where I got a promotion to teller supervisor and am now in the process of loan training to become a loan officer. I am so incredibly blessed and thankful for the new credit union coming in. The work environment did a 180, I have coworkers who are my second family and a manager who has taken me under her wing, training me to take her place one day. I have a job that I love and a career that I can make a future out of. Took a huge step towards making my mental health a top priority by starting therapy. We also got married! What an absolutely beautiful day it was. Everything about the day was perfect for us. Walking down the aisle, saying vows, and the bliss of being in the Smoky Mountains my favorite place was unbeatable. Then left the kid with family and enjoyed a week of us just doing whatever we felt like doing.

Grant has just been a long for the ride. He turned 4 and we had a great day at the park with family. He continues to learn daily and is very excited to start kindergarten next year. I think he wants to read just as badly as I wanted to learn when I was his age. As I just had to stop typing this in order to read him a book. All around he is a typical 4-year-old who loves chicken nuggets and thinks bedtime is the end of the world nightly.

Well Gang, that’s a very short summary of our year. So, from our family to yours, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Honeymoon Contest

May 6, 2021 by Caitlyn

Hello all!

Short post to give you guys information on voting in our honeymoon contest.

Since we are not accepting gifts for the wedding we decided to set up a way for people to donate for our honeymoon. With a twist. For our honeymoon, we are going to pick a direction, point the Jeep in that direction, and go. Getting to spend a week together in our jeeps doing what we love is going to be the best part for us. Now you can have a say in which direction we go.

When you donate just add in the comment which direction you want us to go. North, South, East, or West. Whichever direction raises the most money is the direction we go.

For an added bonus, you can also vote on which Jeep we take. Mine, Jackson or Tyler’s, Jeff. Just add the name in the comment as well.

We are so excited to see all of you at the wedding and to be able to include you guys in this adventure. Thank you in advance!

https://paypal.me/pools/c/8zdVKYYYZj

I am so excited to see which one wins!

With love,

Caitlyn aka Pretty Lady

“Protect Your Noggin Kid.”

March 28, 2021 by Caitlyn

Hello all!

A blog post is long overdue. If you are still watching the page/Facebook thank you for sticking with us! Hopefully this summer we will be able to be more active on here. We do have our wedding in July and a week together in one of our Jeeps with no real destination. Speaking of wedding, if you have an RSVP please get that sent to us soon. We have to give the venue a final guest count soon. We haven’t even received half of them back yet. Yes, this is me giving all of you stern talking too. Moving on folks!

Last night while giving Grant a bath, he was rolling around and hit his head on the side of the bathtub. This was the third time of the day that he had managed to hit his head. I told him that he needed to be more careful and that he needed to protect his noggin. He then gave me a very confused look and asked me, genuinely, “Why?” I couldn’t help myself, I laughed. Hard. He genuinely was asking me why he needed to protect his head. I told him that your head is very important and that you need to be careful with it so you don’t hurt it. He seemed good with that for an answer.

As I thought about it last night, that was good for the moment since he is only 4. I also realized that I am going to have to teach him about protecting his noggin mentally too. That his mental health is very important and something that he should learn. Right now he is 4 so let’s try to just survive his daredevil phase. But one of the best ways that he can learn about mental health is by me and Tyler modeling taking care of our own mental health. So I am going to tell you about what I have been doing to help mine. Will, he ever read this? Maybe, maybe not but the act of me writing it and putting it out there is important not only to become the model I want to be for him but also for myself.

A few weeks ago, I took a HUGE step towards taking care of my own mental health. I signed up for therapy through the app Better Help. Currently am in week 10 and Tyler was the only one who knew about it (Thank you love for always supporting me through this). I am so incredibly happy that I took this step and made the decision to do something solely for myself. Leaving my toxic marriage, moving to Bloomington, going to school, all of those things were for Grant’s benefit. Truthfully. I did those for Grant, not myself. But talking to a therapist once a week, I did that for me. I have gained so much insight into my mental health and also why somethings are the way they are in my mind. We also created some techniques for me to use and she has given me some great books to read in my spare time (which is almost never now haha).

I don’t think I am ready to fully talk about what I have learned but I will one day. I know that I don’t have to but I think it would be beneficial to my healing. That is going to be my next step I believe with my therapist. Last session she told me to take some time to figure out where we needed to go next or if this was the end of journey. I have seriously made some amazing progress. Tyler can be the biggest advocate to that. But I believe that I need to now figure out where I go from here. Now that I have discovered what the message is that causes me so many issues, I have come to a cross road it feels like. Do I continue living my life like I am now or do I make some changes and possibly confront some people? I truly do not know, but I have never felt more like I was heading in the right direction. All because I took a leap on myself and taking care of myself mentally.

To wrap things up, if you have seen ads about the app Better Help and are questioning if it would be right for you, take the leap. For a while now, I knew that I needed too but one I was scared that my ex-husband could use it against me somehow with custody of Grant, and two because it is expensive. With Tyler’s help, I realized that no one is going to see me talking to someone once a week as a bad thing or a reason why Grant is not in the best hands. Better Help is super affordable and if you fill out a quick form you can get it at an even more discounted rate. So check it out. Even if you don’t have a mess of things to sort through as I do, it could still be a beneficial thing for you.

Take care of your mental health folks. Protect your noggin kid.

With lots of love,

-Caitlyn aka Pretty Lady

Kitty cuddles, 240 ft up, and some changes

January 21, 2021 by Caitlyn

Kitty cuddles, watching Disney’s live-action Aladdin and making a blog post to update you guys on our lives. Not a bad way to spend an evening if you ask me. Grant has had a bath, a story and is now in bed. Tyler is going to be late getting home tonight so figured I would take some time to update you on some new things. Where do I start?

Tyler is currently working 240 feet up in the air at Lucas Oil Stadium. The pictures alone are enough to give me a heart attack. The long days are the hardest part. He leaves before we get up and is usually home when Grant is in bed. I do like having the bed to myself, makes laying diagonally much easier. Now for my turn!

I have news! News that I am very excited about. I have been offered and have accepted a job with a local credit union. I will be starting at the credit union in February. It is full time, as well as comes with a lot of opportunities for growth. This credit union is getting ready to expand and grow. They are looking to build up internally before they expand.

I looked for a full-time position for a couple of months now. Out of the blue, they reached out to me. Leaving Royal South is hard for me. I have been there for almost two years and have enjoyed my time there. I started there right after I started my journey at Ivy Tech. They were instrumental in my success to be able to go to school, raise a toddler, and be able to work. They would work with me around my schedule when they would make their schedule. When I would work I could work on my school’s assignments and homework. If you are a college student in Bloomington or know of one looking for a part-time job, send them to Royal South. The ladies in the office are all amazing and will do what they can to help you succeed in your life.

I am very excited to see where this new journey will take me. We will continue to update you guys as well as “regularly” as we are now with updates.

Now go have your own adventures and tell us about it!

-Caitlyn aka Pretty Lady

The Adventures!

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