Road Trip.

NOTE: This is one of two big announcements coming within a few days' span on Strobist. (Announcement #2 is here.)


I don't really know how to set this up rather than just to come right out and say it: Dude, I'm going on a 13,000+ mile teaching road trip with Joe Fricken' McNally.

We have cleared our calendars for March and April. We've got a totally fly set of wheels, an excellent radar detector, a trunk full of speedlights and a mapped list of every Chipotle in the United States.

It's gonna be epic...
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Announcing: 'The Flash Bus' Tour

By the numbers:

Number of cities: 29

Number of days on the road: 42

Length of the bus, in feet: 55

Miles to be covered on the Mother of All Road Trips: Over 13,000

Chipotle restaurants to be visited: Probably all of them.

Combined experience, in years, both instructors: Over 60

Average maturity level, in years, both instructors: About 13.

(Okay, 12.)

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If anyone woulda told me ten years ago that in 2011 I would be living on a bus with the Grandmaster Flash himself and teaching in 29 cites over the course of 42 days, I would have laughed in their face. Fact is, I am having a little trouble believing it myself right now.

My one concession to reality is that I am basically the warm-up act. Kinda like Wayne Campbell (party on, Garth) opening up for Aerosmith. I am teaching in the morning and Joe is teaching in the afternoon.

Little-known fact: Joe's contract states that he gets to sleep until 11am before being awakened slowly by the soothing voice of Julio Iglesias, live and in-person. Since I do not have a studio manager I did not think of such things in advance.

So I get up at 3am, clean the bus (quietly), wake up Julio (quietly) so he can start warming up (quietly) then exit the bus (quietly) so as not to wake up Joe Mr. McNally.

Then, I am to teach for the morning so there won't be any pesky lighting questions left by the time Joe Mr. McNally is on for live shooting in the afternoon.

(I'm just kidding. You can ask him questions.)

We're gonna be bilingual, too. We'll hablas both manual and TTL. I am teaching manual in the morning and Joe is teaching TTL in the afternoon. (I cannot even spell "TTL," so that choice was a no-brainer.)

We'll stop teaching only for a brief bio break in the morning and the afternoon, and for lunch. Because one does not get a body like mine by missing lunch.

Afterwards, we finish up with a panel discussion section with both of us and Joe's 1st assistant, Drew Gurian. Where that goes depends entirely on you, as we'll be in no-holds-barred mode.

Suffice to say that it should be a fast-paced, fun day. And by the end of it we hope your lighting will be pretty much intuitive.

To top it all off, we have pulled together an awesome group of sponsors who have worked with us to not only make it very affordable (under $100) but also to create a great goodie bag. Adorama is kicking in some cool stuff, too. I'm totally stoked. (More on that in the coming days.)
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In all seriousness, Joe and I have spent a lot of time on the road over the last few years. And we have decided that we really want to be able to spend more time with our respective families. So we are going out with a bang before dialing it back a few notches for a while.

We're not just talking New York / Chicago / L.A., either.

Albuquerque? Tell Heisenberg we're coming. Buffalo? Fry up some wings -- extra hot -- and save some seats for the Canadian day trippers. Madison? We'll see you on April 15th. See the tour website (link below) for a complete list of cities and dates.

We're going Full Monty on the social media, too. And considering who you are dealing with, well, let's just say you would not want to be the first person to fall asleep on this particular bus.

Lord knows what kinds of photos might get tweeted out from there. We will all be armed (with iPhones) and dangerous. Or dangerously immature, at least. Links to Twitter feeds, blog and RSS are on The Flash Bus site.

Registration will not open for a few more days, to give you 9-to-5'ers a chance to arrange an anticipatory sick day. There is (*cough*) that bug going around, you know.

Full details, registration info -- and one insanely demented illustration by warped genius Sam Spratt -- on our Flash Bus website.

Check it out, and we certainly hope to see you there.