Concert Time Again…

September 2, 2007 at Kemper Arena – Nickelback, Puddle Of Mudd & Daughtry.  Not too bad of a triple bill.  Pre-sale of the tickets launched today for 12 hours.    I got in with 5 minutes left.  Pretty good.  However, the seats are in the back corner area of the first tier.  Can you say Jumbotron?  The floor is not reserved seating, but General Admission.  I have done my concert crushing thing for the year with Rockfest, so the seats are good with me!

One of the cool things for me is getting to see a more full set by Puddle Of Mudd.  They kicked major butt at Rockfest, but, it was a festival set list and possibly more condensed than a regular set.

One of the other neat things is that this is going to be my Oldest Daughter’s first ROCK show.  She went to Nsync when she was 6, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra this past Christmas.  She is a HUGE Daughtry fan and really digs Nickelback.  She was very excited when I printed the receipt off and had My Lovely Wife hand it to her.  This is going to be fun.

Gonna LOVE the brown bag special thing!  Expert Sammich Maker I am!

Expensive yes, but should be fun!

Cruise Update

We have already had a couple of updates so far.

1.  We were able to upgrade our rooms to the 8th level from the 4th, and put them closer to the elevators and the front, which will be greatly beneficial to my knees.

2.  I was able to use my hotel points that I had accumulated from a previous job where I traveled alot and booked a two bedroom suite (2 queen beds and 2 bathrooms).  My Lovely Wife and I are quite excited about how this turned out!

That is about it for now.  More details as they come in.

UGH!

Last night, I heard on Sirius Radio that Nickelback had added some dates to their current tour…finishing up in Kansas City.  Then tonight I get a notice from KQRC that not only is it Nickelback, but, the openers are Daughtry and Puddle Of Mudd.  Now, we have already established that I frickin LOVE Puddle Of Mudd.  I have also become fond of Daughtry – he has a good voice, and I did NOT start listening to him until AFTER the American Idol thing.  I am also HUGELY into Nickelback…have been for some time.  Even My Lovely Wife groaned when she heard the full lineup…she likes Daughtry and can tolerate Nickelback.

So, why am I pissedish?  (Yes, I am coining a new word here…feel free to use it.) Well, I went online to check the ticket prices.  The show is at Kemper Arena and list the tickets at $46.50 and $65.50.  Big deal?  Not too much – if you hadn’t JUST BOOKED A CRUISE!  UUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

So, I believe that I will have to be passing on this one.  Sadly.

But, keeping the cruise in mind, I will be fine with it.

THE CRUISE IS BOOKED!

February 3, 2008 is 222 days away.  222 days and My Lovely Wife and I board the Carnival Legend cruise ship with our friends for a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise!  Four ports of call: Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize, and Costa Maya. This is in celebration of many things: Our 5 year anniversary; both of our 40th birthdays; Valentine’s Day; and anything else we can come up with to justify the trip.

Since My Lovely Wife is a returning cruiser, she got to specify where our room was.  Since I am prior military, I got a room discount/upgrade thingy.  So, using my name, we got one room with a balcony and with her prior cruiseness thingy, My Lovely Wife put the other room right next to it.  So, we have rooms next to each other with a little gate between the balconies that we can put down and make one small balcony.  So THAT is cool.

We figured out one minor issue this weekend.  February 3, 2008 is the date of the next Superbowl (being held in Arizona by the way).  So, after the cruise was booked, I called the personal vacation planner who is working with us (yes, they have these people – pretty helpful actually).  He advised that there is a sports bar and it would be viewable on every television set on the boat – but you wouldn’t want to be sitting in the room when you can join in the festivities at the sports bar according to the planner guy.  Not sure if one sports bar on a boat that holds almost 3,000 people will be sufficient though.

The planner sent out 7 days worth of menus.  Holy crap!  My Lovely Wife and her friend went on a cruise two years ago and the friend imparted wisdom – On day one, wear the skinny pants – on day 7 you will need baggies.  I am going to be eating my way through the Caribbean!  Heck with Pirates of the Caribbean, I am going to be one of the Gluttons of the Caribbean!

Looking at the ship, it is HUGEORMOUS!  More than 9 levels above the water, a large casino, restaurants, theaters, anything you could want, it is there.  They have spas, exercise rooms, shopping, eating, gambling, movies, vegas style shows, eating, games, swimming pools, eating.  Did I mention all the restaurants?

Can you tell I am excited?

We are going to fly down there the night before so we don’t have any issues with travel.  Due to my excessive travel in my last job, I accumulated enough Marriott points that we are going to get a Suite.  Free.  If our friends fly down the night before with us, we are going to get a two bedroom suite for only $36.  Since we are leaving from Tampa, we might get down there early enough to check out the aquarium down there.  That might be fun too!  I like fishies!

I will be doing more posts about this as the time draws nigh.   By the time February rolls around, you folks will be ready for me to go!

If any of you readers have been to any of our ports of call and have advice, PLEASE drop me a comment or two!

Happy Saturday!

Well kids, it is another Saturday. Or, since I am writing this at 12 o’clock midnight, it WAS another Saturday. This is one of those blissful weekends where my corporate schedule has me off both Saturday and Sunday. Amazing! A WEEKEND! God, what a concept!

Anyway, My Lovely Wife and I took our Youngest Daughter to Oceans of Fun with our friend Mark and his daughter. We got a later start than we usually do, but that was fine with all of us. My Lovely Wife and I have season passes for both Oceans and Worlds of Fun. Therefore, we don’t worry about missing anything. So we go there, get a little wet (the lazy river thingy is cool), go out to the picnic tables for sammiches, get wet again, go home. Pleasant day when all is said and done.

So, is this post really supposed to be about anything in particular? Nope! It is SATURDAY. I get to relax on this one!

Another Spectacularly Funny Animal Video

The Dramatic Prairie Dog!

Found on Cute Overload of course!

Office Max Responds – QUICKLY!!

Less than 24 hours after my Office Max excursion, I was contacted by the District Manager, a gentleman named Marty.  Marty asked me to relate my story to him, so I did.  Without going into the details of our conversation, I will simply say this:  Marty represented Office Max with professionalism, and I will now consider shopping there again.  The speed of his response, coupled with his demeanor and assurances that this was not how they expected their associates to behave, went a LONG way in keeping my business.

Give credit where it is due kids, Office Max responded, and they did so very well.

Office Max has a Time Limit?

Today, I stopped by my local Office Max store to do some price comparison shopping on two types of printer ink, two sizes of photo paper, mailing labels, envelopes and postcard stock. The reason for these items is the 50th anniversary of My Lovely Wife’s parents later this year. There is a LOT of printing to be done in this project. My Lovely Wife has done a lot of work on scanning old photos and stuff. She also has done a great deal of price shopping. So, she asked that I stop by on my way home. No big deal right? Huh uh…

My Lovely Wife emailed me a list of specific items to compare prices on. I received this list as I started walking around the store. I knew I needed prices on ink, and what ink specifically, so I started there. I write down some prices and move on to the paper area. I finish up there and then go back to the ink. Now, keep in mind, this is Office Max. You can not walk 15 feet without being addressed by an associate wanting to help. “No thanks, I’m fine” was the phrase of the day! Anyway, this took all of about 15 minutes. As I was jotting notes in my pocket pc, another associate came up to me and asked if I needed help. I said no thanks, I am just doing some price comparison shopping. This associate asked what kind of ink I was looking for so he could help me find it. I thanked him and told him that I was staring at the ink I need, I just needed to write down the pricing. He said “well, you have been here for 30 minutes now.” I must say, I was shocked by this. I knew for a fact it had not been 30 minutes, and really, what if I had been in there that long? Typically, when someone is spending time comparing products and prices, if they have the best deal, there will be a great deal of purchasing done. Meaning money for the store. I told this employee, whose name tag read “Lewis” that I had been in the store for only 15 minutes and inquired as to why it was such an issue that I was shopping. Lewis said that they sometimes get price comped by competitors and this was a problem for them. I smiled and assured him that I do not work for a competitor, but that I was simply a consumer wanting to make sure I got the best deal for my money. Lewis reiterated that I had been in the store for a long time. I asked him if I could speak with the store manager. He told me that he is the store manager. I then asked why price shopping is a problem. Has he never heard of people price shopping? He said “yes, online.”

Again, I was completely taken aback by this. I did absolutely nothing wrong. I have never been treated like this as a consumer. I asked him to contact his district manager and have him call me. I gave him my phone number and he wrote it down. I then told Lewis that I had more shopping to do and if he had an issue with me being in his store, he should now ask me to leave. He told me he would give me “a little more time” then left.

There was a point where I wanted to keep looking for anything just to see what happened, but I stuck to my list and left it at that. As I headed to the front, I saw that Lewis was running a register and assisting another customer. I waited. As the customer completed his transaction and left, I approached Lewis. I told him, “I just wanted to let you know that I am now leaving your store since you are so concerned about my time here. I am looking forward to hearing from your district manager within the next couple of days. If not, I will call further up the chain and request a face to face meeting.” Lewis stated “that won’t happen.” I smiled and said “someone will be concerned with customer service the further up I go.” I got his last name before I left and exited.

So, the moral of the story it seems is this: If you HAVE to go to Office Max, I suggest you draw a flight plan so you can swoop in, get your stuff and get out before the 15 minute time limit hits.

Oh, and by the way, Office Depot had better prices anyway.  So the SECOND moral is to make sure you check prices there as well!  This makes me wonder, how much price matching would they do?  Hmmm…interesting thought though.

Absolutely ridiculous. I will post updates as they come in.

THE FINAL ROCKFEST BLOG

And My Lovely Wife says “THANK GOD!”

I know that it is a bit excessive to do so many blog posts on one topic.  But, Rockfest 2007 was simply one of the more entertaining, exciting, amazing events I have ever been a part of.  I thank all of you for being patient with my inane remarks and comments.  I know I have been rambling and blathering.  But, it is now out of my system.

A few quick comments though…

SEVENDUST:  This is one hard as hell band.  They brought it and gave everything they had.  The lead singer actually directed the moshing from the stage, commanding for circles in specific spots in the crowd.  They were very impressive and put it out there.  I have some Sevendust on my iPod and I am going to give it more of a listen.

THREE DAYS GRACE:  I honestly love this band.  I wish I could have written a full review of them, but, I am really out of time and words.  The music simply stands for itself.  “Pain,” “Animal I Have Become’” “Never Too Late,” “Home,” “Just Like You,” I mean damn.  All sorts of power and emotion.  Good, good, good.  I have been wearing out the repeat button on the iPod.  If you haven’t checked them out…PLEASE do.

SALIVA:  Very good set from the final band on the second stage.  I was a bit surprised that they closed with “Ladies And Gentlemen.”  I had figured it would be “Click Click Boom.”  I was wrong.  One issue I had was that they spend a LONG time with the audience participation thing – getting the audience to sing.  If you only have 30 minutes to play, why, why, WHY do you spend five of them doing audience participation?  I think they would have been better off putting another song in the set.  I did come away loving “Broken Sunday” off their new album.  Check it out.

And there we go.  The end of the blog series that almost never ended!

Is it too soon to get tickets to Rockfest 2008?

Rockfest Band Review: GODSMACK

Godsmack.  Holy Hell.  I got to see GODFRIGGINSMACK!  The headliner for Rockfest 2007.  This was an incredibly anticipated performance.  All 14 bands prior to them were the appetizers.  The snack leading to the main meal.  Ok…enough with the bad build up.

The band was brought to the stage with a video show, interspersed with live shots of them walking to the stage from the Liberty Memorial, which was apparently their waiting area.  The got to walk on to AC/DC’s “For Those About To Rock…”.

This is where my embarrassment kicks in…I can NOT for the life of me remember the set list.  I wanted to, I really did.  But, I did what would really be the true compliment to a band – I got lost in the show.  The music completely took over.  I love songs from all of their albums, the sound, the voice, the drumming from another frickin planet…damn I love it all.  So I let it.  Marcus and I just dug the whole thing.

One thing I have to say.  Sully is THE MAN!  The dude comes out slinging an axe and playing guitar with the best of them.  Then he rolls out on a secondary drum set and kicks into a drum war with Shannon and absolutely blows KC away in the process. To finish, the dude pulls out a harmonica and lets loose there.  The man has talent.  More than I had thought.  The finale was “Whatever.”  You know what?  One of the most incredible feelings and sounds you can get is to be part of 40,000 people yelling “GO AWAY!” with the band.  Chills people, telling you – CHILLS.

One other thing, Shannon, the drummer, is simply the greatest drummer in the business today.  I am a drummer who was raised on Neil Peart, so it takes a bit for me to say that.  The man is simply phenomenal.  Each limb plays its own rhythm.  His arms flail.  Not just that he plays hard, but the arms are all over the place.  Some bands use the guitarist as a springboard.  Godsmack follows its drummer.  Shannon is a Lead Drummer.

I dunno.  The review I am posting here is woeful.  I am coming across as a complete idiot, but, it completely kicked my ass.

I did find a video of a previous drum war.  It is similar, but with some different cover songs.  Still excellent.  And it gives you a good feel for what we got to see.  Enjoy -