Every time I fly back to the US there is some big mission attached, usually involving trying to get something back to Grand Turk that is impossible to get while on Grand Turk. The day before I left Grand Turk Allesio's Mackie SRM350 self powered speaker stopped working. Within thirty minutes we had called Dave Horn, ordered a warrantied replacement, removed the amp, and packed it in shipping material. I have brought one of these back for repair before, more than a year ago, now. It is a large electronic part taken out of its case and looks very suspicious but after a thorough check it goes through security as your second carry on.
I brought it on board the Destiny and got it to Dave during the one day that I was in Columbus. Dave had ordered the replacement last Wednesday, but it was not shipped until this week. The plan was that it would arrive in Columbus on Thursday and Deneen would fly it down to me in Nashville on Friday. All a good plan, but the amp did not ship on time and was scheduled to come in on Friday at 11:30,an hour after Deneen's plane left. Several calls and emails ensued trying to work out what could be done. I was resigned that it wasn't going to work out.
Dave called a friend at UPS, on Friday morning he got up really early, went to UPS and pulled the package off the truck before it left. He then had to unpack it from its box and repack it in my carry on packaging. Deneen held off and left for her flight with less than an hour to make it.
Evidently she looks scarier than me. When she got to security they made her take the amplifier out of its package and swabbed both the electronic components and her for residual chemicals used to make things you don't mention at the airport. When I just came through security in Nashville they did not even stop me.
But with an imposingly huge Herculean effort on Dave's part, here I sit at Allessio's with his new amp. In a minute it will be hooked up and blasting new music from some Cuban percussionists he has just acquired.
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