8-25-08 Week in Review

What a fast week. A couple of accomplishments this week. On Monday and Tuesday I spent the evenings tearing out our existing hot tub area. The landscaping and the privacy structure are now through the 'destruction' phase. It was rather satisfying to pull the stakes we spent so much effort pounding into the ground out by hand. This weekend we need to use the hot tub a few more times and then disconnect, drain and move it out of the way. Next week the concrete contractor is supposed to be here to start work. I have a schedule for the project now but we are still several weeks away from completion.

The other big accomplishment is that on Wednesday the guys from Park Lane came over. We jammed and chatted and we are planning on doing some stuff together in the future. Should be a great time!

Friday we headed down to Carthage to visit my in-laws. We caught to local high school football game. They routed their opponents 41 to 0 however the home team had quite a few disgraceful errors.

Week in Review 8-18-08

I need to keep on top of this...I'm having a hard time remembering last week!

I do remember that Monday I put the basement back in order after all the performances from the weekend before. Tuesday I tore some bushes out...my neighbors commented that they were impressed my old Ford could tear the hell out of them and was glad I didn't need the assistance of their Chevy.

Last weekend we headed to Chicago. We did some shopping for Jodi and saw the Robert Randolf, Switchfoot, Third Day show. Jars of Clay performed as well but we missed thier performance due to traffic, blocked roads, distant parking, and tickets that needed to be re-issued. I'd have to say that Switchfoot stole the show but here are a few pictures.

Robert Randolf

Switchfoot

Third Day

Stalker Alert

At the outdoor concert I saw this guy holding a sign in the back with my name on it. If I knew the guy I wouldn't have been nervous but I didn't. It dawned on me a bit later that everyone in thd band had a sign. While it's very cool that people brought the signs out, it was a bit un-nerving at first to think that some guy I didn't know liked me enough to have brought his own sign....at least he wasn't bad looking :)

Portable Pleasure Device

That's what someone called my iPhone today...quite interesting.

I downloaded the Pandora app...it's simply amazing. I can listen to the best radio stations in the world (mostly because I control the programming) on the go over the AT&T network...it blows my mind.

Week in Review 8-11-08

What a week. Sunday we loaded into the Church for production rehearsals. Monday night we did our first production rehearsal...I could have played better but had my mix tuned in by the end of the evening and was getting more familiar with the sound. Tuesday we found out that the car we wanted to buy was sold. We visited the dealership and found a grey car that we liked. We found out how much Jodi's old car was worth (right on target) and with extra incentives (a bonus) we decided to take the plunge. They couldn't find a finance guy so we ended up going back Wednesday evening to sign the papers and pick the car up. Thursday was another rehearsal (much better) and then Friday onto the big show. The cops threatened to shut the show down but that never happened. It was a great evening. The crowd really got into things at time. The guys from Park Lane showed up and we are going to jam sometime. Saturday we were back at it again. It was a battle of the bands show and some of the bands were...well....let's just say they could maybe refine their sound, abilities, and songs a bit more. Our set was awesome. We probably had more crowd participation than any other band. We must have been good because when we were done playing some lady threatened to kill everyone. Needless to say she was hauled off in a police car but not before she was able to remove her pants.

8-4-08 Week in Review

The highlight of this week was probably getting the award mentioned in my previous post. Last night I got to see the Smashing Pumpkins for the first time...they played well as a band but I'd question their choice of material. They didn't play many of their 'classic' songs and when they did, they played through some of them so fast they didn't really seem to care about them. There was lots of long feedback solos which got really boring and their encore was a definite let down...a kazoo/accordion thing.

Other than that, we continue to make the final arrangements for the outdoor concert.

Good Day

I found out today that I won the "Presidents’ Award of Excellence" at work today. It' the "most prestigious award of the Worldwide Agricultural Division" at Deere...so yea, I'm pretty psyched!