Dream Theater Show #2

Sold out show number 2. Tonight was much better than night number 1.

Set 1
The Root Of All Evil
Another Won
A Fortune In Lies
Take The Time
The Mirror
Lie
Raise The Knife
Strange Deja Vu
About To Crash(reprise)
Losing Time/Grand Finale

Intermission

Set 2
As I Am
These Walls
I Walk Beside You
Sacrificed Sons
Octavarium

encore:
Sheep (Pink Floyd cover)
Wait For Sleep
Learning To Live

The show was so much better than last night in Anaheim. Even the performances of the same songs were much cleaner tonight. Terry was hoping for Strange Deja-Vu and Wait For Sleep / Learning To Live, he got them both. I was waiting for Lie, I got it. Plus we got to hear Raise the Knife, a b-side neither of us had seen performed live as well as Sheep by Pink Floyd. Total suprise.

Fortune In Lies, Take The Time, and Mirror -> Lie back to back was probably the best set of DT back to back songs I've seen them perform.

Dream Theater Show #1

With the continued spirit of multiple Dream Theater show experiences Terry flew to Los Angeles last night for a weekend of DT. We actually had not planned to go to the Thursday night show in Anaheim, but with some hopeful thinking and a little luck we were able to catch the show last night.

Terry landed at LAX at 7:10, got out to curbside pickup about 7:20, of course it took me an hour to drive the 6 miles to the airport. We made a judgement call and decided what the hell, the venue is only 40 miles away and the show starts at 8. Why not?

45 minutes of 80 mph and we get to the venue shortly after 8. Score the sweet seats, the last two seats on the very last row :-), (I think we made it a sell out) and get to our seats about 20 seconds before the band hit the stage. Perfect timing.



Setlist:
Set 1
The Root of All Evil
Never Enough
Another Won (Majesty)
Afterlife
Under a Glass Moon
Innocence Faded (1st time played in 10 years)
Just Let Me Breathe
Home

Set 2
The Glass Prison
This Dying Soul
The Answer Lies Within
Sacrificed Sons
Octavarium

Encore
In the Name of God

Nice, clean venue. Horrible sound. Surprisingly interesting set list, but a very long show that lost both Terry and I about 2 hours in. Show clocked in right at 3 hours with a 15 minute intermission.

Tonight we will see them at the Pantages in LA on the 7th row center so it should be a completely different experience.

Celeb Sightings

Quite a few recent celeb sightings.

We saw Leslie Jordan, the really small grey haired gay man that plays crazy characters recently on both Will and Grace and Boston Legal. Jacki and I saw him at Louise's Trattoria on Melrose on Feb 16, 2006.

Jacki and I saw CC Deville from Poison at the Cheap Trick show at the House Of Blues on Sunset on Feb 21, 2006. Jacki, Darian, Janice and I then saw CC again at the Rainbow bar and grill on Sunset on March 1, 2006. He walked out of Rainbow talking on his cell phone just as we were walking in.


Also at the Rainbow we spotted Steve Harwell, singer of Smashmouth and
B-Real of Cypress Hill.





This past Saturday March 4th, Jacki, Darian and Janice saw Deacon from King Of Queens, I mean Victor Williams.

Then today as I was walking to the parking garage I'm pretty sure Apollo Ohno got out of the elevator as I was going in. Not sure what he was doing at my office building, but since there is a high end gym it wouldn't be impossible for him to have a reason to be there.



Gotta love LA.

Helio Tattoo

Is it true? Can it be? The world's first and possibly only Helio Tattoo?

Jacki, Janice and Darian were out on Saturday in Hollywood and Jacki got a tat. A Helio tat.

Jacki wanted to have ink injected into her skin to
mark the event that moved us to Los Angeles.

The Dave Pod

Even though the wait for the rumored video iPod never materialized, it was time to end the wait for the upgrade and order a new iPod. Having Darian urge me to upgrade easily justified the upgrade, since she wanted to get my old iPod.

On Wednesday I went to the Apple website and ordered the 5th generation 30GB Video iPod. I personalized with the free laser sketching option and you can see the results for yourself.

Long live The Dave Pod!

Some prime Helio coverage in Wired

Family if you read this you have magazines on the way. For others read on...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.03/helio.html

Questionable Ethics

I'm pretty sure I know who the offenders in the below article are. I worked with them at a prior employer and approximately a month ago I went to dinner with a friend who informed me of the move of a group of 7 from Yahoo to MForma and what I thought about this crew from my previous emplyoer.

Read on...

Yahoo sues MForma over mobile game secrets

Yahoo sued seven former employees who left the company for mobile gaming company MForma Group for allegedly stealing company secrets regarding mobile gaming. Yahoo is also suing MForma and plans to seek an injunction to stop the parties from using its technology. Yahoo's lawyer claimed that there is "extensive evidence of wholesale theft." MForma President Jonathan Sacks denied the allegations and chalked the whole thing up to Yahoo's attempts to pressure its employees not to leave the company for competitors. Yahoo's specific allegation is that a former manager copied Yahoo trade secrets when he left to join MForma and then he allegedly recruited another Yahoo manager who also provided MForma with confidential information.

Although I know nothing more about the allegations or how this case will shake out, if MForma emerges from this legally unscathed, at the very least the market now knows theirs is a mobile gaming solution that Yahoo deemed threatening.

For more on Yahoo's suit against MForma:
- take a look at this article from The San Jose Mercury News

New Computer HP m7360n

I broke down and picked up a new computer to replace the computer I have had for 5 years. I ended up going with an HP m7360n. I set it up this afternoon and the performance is light years beyond what had been working with. Dual core processor, lightscribe DVD burner, 2GB of ram, and what seems to be an endless supply of USB ports. On my old computer I had to ration the connections.

Oh and the iPod finally syncs and performs as seemlessly as it does with a Mac.

The computer uses Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. Most of the Media Center Edition features seem nice in principal but have a little trouble with their execution. I'll mainly use it for the online sites like MTV Overdrive. The online MCE sites look slick, but once you factor in bandwidth congestion the ondemand experience of watching your favorite tv shows from Comedy Central or your favorite music videos from MTV can become frustrating. I had numerous buffering problems, however when I did get a good stream watching some old bad 80s metal videos and a little Chappelle show was really cool.

With the MCE I finally got to try out the connectivity to the XBOX 360. This experience was seemless. Able to watch videos, browse MCE websites, listen to music and look at pictures all from the XBOX 360 interface streamed from the new HP computer to my TV. Some of the videos had minor drop outs due to the streaming. However I was quite impressed with how well it performed.

Now I just have to decide if I want to install the new Windows Vista beta onto this new machine.

Joe Travers Videos

I tried to publish and host these once before with no success. So here is try number 2 using Google's new video hosting service.

To recap:
On November 6, 2005 Joe Travers former drummer of Z, Mike Keneally Band, and Duran Duran made his vocal debut. Here we have two video clips documenting the momentous occasion.

The first clip is of Joe signing with Communication Breakdown featuring Mike Keneally on guitar.



The second clip is of Joe signing Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.



ENJOY!

Tulips for Jacki

Go Indian Go!

Jacki and I saw The World's Fastest Indian this afternoon. A nice feel good movie with some amazing acting by Anthony Hopkins. I'd seen the trailer on HDNet a month or so back and had been waiting for the movie to be released domestically. Very worthwhile and a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Check out the trailer


Definitely recommended.

Jacki's new Saturn Vue

So this is how it started this past Tuesday...

From Jacki
Feb 7, 2006
10:48am PT

I'm going to saturn tonight to speak w/sales rep about trading in my car…
I'm meeting him around 7pm…..wanna go?
[cut]

I'd like to get a new car tonight---am so tired of driving stick on highway every day.
[cut]

My reply at 10:57am PT
Wow. You make decisions quick.
[cut]

Jacki's reply at 10:58 PT
not hard to decide when i drive I 10 during morning traffic...
i'll pick you up...
i'll talk to you later

....
Approximately 12 hours later we drove off the Saturn lot in Torrance California.

Jacki was happy!

more new clothes

Made it to the store to get another round of new clothes. Dropped another inch in my waist and bought my first medium sized shirts in probably 10+ years. I'm still heavier than I was in college but my clothes sizes are nearly back to what they were then.

Billy Martin

after lunch we saw billy martin from good charlotte....darian got to talk
to him for a bit & got a picture...he was kinda surprised when david
mentioned d had his guitar...

More Helio sightings

News.com

The Helio rumors are picking up

I won't comment on the postings but considering I've been involved since the very first meeting between EarthLink and SK-Telecom it has been quite entertaining to see what others are saying.

Engadget

Phone Scoop

Referenced from Fierce Wireless

The Trainer

This past Monday I worked with a trainer for the first time. I didn't know what to expect so I went in with an open mind. Since this was our first meeting the majority of it was spent taking measurements, interrogating me about all of the bad food I like, and then discussing what I've been doing to date and how I've been losing the weight.

At the end of the session he had me run on an elliptical, which was disappointing because I already had been doing this on my own. However, he gave me a magic number for my target heart rate. 142 for those keeping count. Strangely this number was a good bit lower than I had been targeting on my own. My range was usually around 150-155, although if I pushed myself I'd actually get into the 160s, then immediately scare myself because the little chart on the machine says max heart rate for someone my age is just over 170. Don't want to know what happens if I go over max. :-) The trainer told me to stay around 140, run no more than 40 minutes total, no more than 4 times a week.

So I'm thinking, how will this work. I work out less, slower and no weights. Well 5 days later its clear the guy knows what he was talking about. I've been more sore the last couple of days and I've dropped 2 1/2 pounds this week alone while I've been tempting fate by eating larger lunches including a really tasty cheesesteak sandwhich with fries yesterday.

Next session we are supposed to start working on weights.

Weight Loss

I'm about 20 days behind the schedule I wanted to hit but I've finally gone under the 200 pound barrier. I think it has been 7 or 8 years since I was this weight. Weight loss to date is around 25 pounds. 25 pounds in a little less than 3 months, and about 35-40 more pounds to go.

Pepper

I knew it was coming, considering how bad of shape he was in at Christmas. Pepper passed away yesterday and I got the mail today. He'll be buried in mom's back yard.

Top Music of 2005

And now it's time to look back at my 2005 cd purchases and concerts I attended and highlight the best of the year. Of course for those that know me realize my tastes are wide in styles but fairly narrow in artists. Here we go.

Top Cds. In no particular order.
1. Mudvayne - Lost And Found
2. Bon Jovi - Have A Nice Day
3. Steve Vai - Real Illusions: Reflections
4. Kings Of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (Yes it was on my 2004 list, but wasn't released in the US until 2005)
5. Beck - Guero
6. Foo Fighters - In Your Honor
7. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Jacksonville City Nights
8. Journey - Live In Houston 1981, The Escape Tour
9. John Mayer Trio - Try!

Well I was hoping to get 10 on the list, but the above are really the ones that carried with me from the time I bought them through the end of the year. I also bought a couple of EPs from some Los Angeles artists that are worth mentioning.

1. Jason Falkner - Bliss Descening
2. The Wimbledons - EP

Yes both feature our friend Dean on guitar in their live incarnations but he doesn't play on either of the cds. Both cds are EPs that I've enjoyed through the year.

Now for the music DVDs. In no particular order.
1. Journey - Live In Houston 1981, The Escape Tour
2. KISS - Rock The Nation Live!
3. Iron Maiden - The Early Days - Part 1
4. Rush - R30: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

And last but not least, the concerts. Ordered chronilogically.
1. Norah Jones - Seoul, Korea - March 3, 2005
2. Steve Vai - The EVO Experience - Atlanta, GA - March 19, 2005
3. Mudvayne - Atlanta, GA - April 17, 2005
4. Black Crowes - Atlanta, GA - May 5, 2005
5. Mike Keneally Band - Studio City, CA - October 29, 2005
6. Bob Schneider - Los Angeles, CA - December 3, 2005

Looking back at the concerts shows how much of a world traveler I've been in 2005.

Lets hope for an even better 2006.

In Houston

We are wrapping up our vacation back in Texas. I'm sitting at my mom's computer and we are getting ready for bed prior to our return trip back to LA. We covered a lot of ground, spending Saturday through Wednesday in Port Lavaca at Jacki's mom's, seeing many in her family, and then Wednesday night through Saturday morning at my mom's in Houston, spending time with my mom, lisa and her friends and then breaking away to see my dad.

We saw King Kong, a dud, hit Pappasitto's twice, so against the diet, saw my dad's new house he is building in Houston, saw Narnia, not too bad, and Darian and I learned about Sudoku.

Once we get back I'll post pictures from the trip. Oh and pepper doesn't look so good :-(

Can't wait to get back home. Houston is where I grew up but it no longer feels like home to me.

On the way to Texas

We are at the airport and on the way to Texas. We had little scare when the parking lot I normally park in was full. The front entrance was blocked, but after we drove around the back entrance the workers let us in and showed us where to park.

Next were the really long lines at the airport. It turns out my Delta platinum card works with Continental so I was able to skip the line to get the boarding passes as well as the line to go upstairs to the screening.

And even better, we are no sitting in the Continental lounge with wifi access. We are about an hour and half early since we were able to skip all of the lines, but if I had planned on it then nothing would have gone our way.

I'll write next from Texas.

New clothes

The nutrisystem is paying off. After seeing how big some of my jeans, and shorts have gotten I decided it was time to go and get some new clothes. We had quite a few coupons for the Gap so thats where we went.

It was the first time in a long while where shopping for clothes actually was fun and not depressing. Clothes fit much better and I was actually able to drop a pants size and get a new belt. My old belt had also gotten to large as I was on the verge of creating a new hole in the belt to make it a smaller size.

Hopefully this is the first of many trips for new clothes.

Bob Schneider

A little taste of Austin made it to LA last night. Jacki and I went to see Bob Schneider at the Roxy Theatre. It was great to hear a couple of old Scabs tunes including Tarantula, and Bombananza. The Bob highlights were Round and Round, I'm Good Now, and Assknocker. The crowd was a good size, although no where near as crowded as Antone's would get in Austin.

After the show Jacki and I met him and got a couple of pictures and an autograph of his last cd. We were also able to pick up a live recording of last nights show at the show. It is by no means professionally mixed or mastered, but for a board recording it definitely captures the nights experience.

Jason Falkner Group

Last night we went to see Jason Falkner Group at the world famous Troubadour. It ended a Thanksgiving weekend of activity and was the last night Randal, Darian's boyfriend, was here. It was good to see Dean playing live again and talk a bit to Tara before the show.

Tomorrow is back to work and back to another month of reality before the Christmas break.

Walk The Line

Yesterday, Jacki and I saw Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash movie. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon did amazing jobs. Both sang their own vocals of Johnny and June Carter, respectively. By the end of the movie when the final credits rolled around you almost became so used to Joaquin's vocals that when the real Johnny Cash vocals played you did a double take almost as if it sounded off. Clearly not, but by the end of the movie the vocals were extremely believable.

Joe Travers on vocals?

On November 6, 2005 at Molly Malone's in Los Angeles, California a small group witnessed Joe Travers vocal debut. Who is Joe Travers you ask? He was once the drummer in Z, featuring Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa, in Mike Keneally Band, and paid his bills as drummer for Duran Duran. He is also the vaultmeister of the Zappa estate.

Here we have two clips of Joe Travers on vocals first signing Led Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown, and then his encore performance was for the Van Halen classic, Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.

Celebrity Sighting

Bob Saget shopping for groceries at Ralph's on Wilshire in Brentwood a little after 10pm on Sunday November 20. Jacki and I walked down the same aisle as him as we were shopping.

I need to set up a celeb sighting page, but I'll log them on the main page for now.

Chicken Little

Jacki and I saw Chicken Little in 3D this afternoon. The 3D was by far the best 3D I had seen on the big screen. And the glasses were the same shape as Chicken Little's. 

another week in

I have lost another 3 pounds so far so I'm down 10 pounds in about 2 weeks. The second week has been much tougher than the first but the forward progress is what matters. I've got 10 more to lose before the end of November to hit more initial target. We'll see how the holidays treat me...

My Santa Monica Neighbor

Last night I started to read Neil Peart's most recent book.
Traveling Music : Playing Back the Soundtrack to My Life and Times

As I read the first few pages he began to outline descriptions of places that seemed a little too familiar. Once he began to name streets and areas of a particular subdivison I realized he was talking about Santa Monica and very likely lives within blocks of where we live. Turns out when he begin writing the book he had been a resident of Santa Monica for about 3 years. He and his wife have a small 2 bedroom townhome with loft in Santa Monica (as described in the book).

Hard to believe a drummer lives in a townhome. I guess he has some of the same space constraints I've been trying to figure out myself. I'll have to look up next time I see someone hiking or biking through the neighborhood to see if it just might be Neil.

Pretty cool...

Pound for pound

The nutrisystem program seems to be working. This is my 8th day on the program and I've lost 7 lbs. I realize the amount I drop week after week will slow but it is definitely encouraging. Hopefully by the end of this month I'll be able to be in the 190s. That will be a first in probably 6-7 years.

Although I'm hungry a lot of the time I don't feel I've been starving myself. Just before, when I got the urge for hunger I'd immediately overfill it. Now if i'm hungry I just drink water. Also one week in I haven't given into any temptations. At the office here they had pizza, candy for halloween, and other goodies and I've avoided completely. Also Jacki and I have been trying to enjoy things when we go out. I've had a couple of beers this past week, for business meetings, and enjoyed a couple of meals outside of the nutrisystem program.

So far so good. I anticipate I'll have to be on this program at least 90-120 days and then I will need to shift to non-nutrisystem food as part of a lifestyle change.

Go see Capote

Jacki and I saw Capote Sunday afternoon. We left the theater speechless. Philip Seymour Hoffman did an amazing job as Tuman Capote.

My friends at the Potato

Jacki and I made it to The Baked Potato to see the Mike Keneally Band. I think it had been about 5 years since I had last seen Mike's band play. Of course Bryan Beller was on bass as always. For this incarnation included Rick Musallam on guitar and Nick D'Virgilio on drums. We arrived a little after 7pm. Once the band finished sound check doors opened and the group came outside. Mike made the observation that his name was misspelled and was "Kenealy" with one "L" instead of "Keneally" with 2 "L"s. Bryan made the comment that Mike has to first earn the 2nd "L" before he can use it. This got a laugh from a few of us outside.

They played two full sets the first starting at 9:30 and the second around 11:30. I think in total we heard about 2 1/2 hours of live music.

One of the nights highlights was when the came out for the second set. Mike moved to bass, Bryan to drums and Nick front and center on guitars and vocals. They proceeded to play Hash Pipe, by Weezer, in its entirety. Completely unexpected.



They played quite a few tunes from Dancing, my favorite Keneally album, including Live in Japan, Ankle Bracelet, Ragged Ass, and We'll Be Right Back.

After the first set we went out back talked with Chris Opperman and bought a Dog shirt and a Nonkertomph cd. This was the only Keneally cd in print that they had for sale that I didn't already have a copy of. Jacki got Bryan Bellar's cd and got a picture with Bryan below. At the end of the night Jacki got a picture of Mike and I.

I mentioned to Mike that we were the ones that took him to Salt Lick in Austin Texas many years ago with Jacki's brother. Someone in Mike's camp made a comment that he had recently talked about that place. If you look close, a hat he bought when he was with us made it onto the cover of the Wooden Smoke special edition disc. Pretty cool that he remembered the experience, although not necessarily us.

It was a fun night, good music, good food and a good night out on the town in Los Angeles.

Time to lose some weight

Well, after several years of basically maintaining my weight I've decided it is time to lose it. I lost about 15 pounds last year when I was trying to get in shape for the band through tons of exercise and although I'm no longer in a band I'm hoping to one up myself.

Jacki and I joined the same program. Sadly it took fat celebrities on VH1 to motivate us. The program we joined was featured on Celebrity Fit Club. If Phil Magera can lose weight, then so can I, no offense Phil. Speaking of Phil I'm pretty sure I saw him walk across Wilshire Blvd in Westwood last week.

The program we joined is Nutrisystem. It basically consists of a full meal plan, although you have to supplement with vegetables, fruits and breads. So far the food has been suprisngly ok. The breakfast cereals take a bite or two to get use to, lunch entrees have been good, and the dinner entrees are probably better than most dinners I normally have. Very tasty dinners.

Yesterday was my first full day on the program. For dessert I decided I needed to have a good first day so I had the Chocolate Shake that was part of the program. Not a good idea. I thought I was going to throw that up. Powdered chocalate in water just doesn't work for me. Other than that one mishap everything has been good so far.

Jacki received her food yesterday and today was her first full day on the program.

By combining some exercise and extreme focus on food portions I think we may actually have a good chance. I set my target goal loss at 60 pounds. If I hit that target then I'll be at my weight as a senior in high school some 15 years ago. If I hit that goal then I'll see about getting rock star skinny so I can join a new band out here in LA :-)

Shakin

We felt our first earthquake as residents of California last night. It was Jacki's and Darian's first earthquake experience.

Magnitude:
3.0 - local magnitude (Ml)

Time:
Saturday, October 22, 2005 at 08:42:16 PM (PDT)
Sunday, October 23, 2005 at 03:42:16 (UTC)

Distance from Santa Monica:
4 km (2 miles) ESE (102 degrees)

Map:
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/118-34.htm

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/ci10149481.htm

fixing the blog

RSS Site feed, the recently listened to iTunes page, and link on the Seti page is back up and working.

Life of a tourist

Last night my mom and her beau, Marvin, got into town. Today was an all day adventure kicking off around 9:30am this morning and just now finishing at around 11pm.

We ended up doing a little bit of everything.

First breakfast at Wacky Waffle on Sunset. This was also the first time we got to really talk to Marvin. He has his hands full with my mom but so far we approve.

After a quick breakfast we did a run by the Hollywood sign with a great view from Gower, then headed to the Hollywood and Highland shopping area.
This was a chance for Darian, mom & Marvin to see the Hollywood walk of stars. Fairly low key but we did get to see quite a few stars and the Chinese Theater. Darian took most of the pictures at the Chinese Theater.

While walking around we heard people pitching, come and see a taping of a tv show. We listened to the pitch and decicided to see Real Time with Bill Maher of Politically Incorrect fame. The other choice was Jimmy Kimmel so we clearly chose Bill even though our family doesn't lean as radically to the left as Bill and Bill's agenda seems to promote. But hey, its free and should be entertaining. We also got to see an on location movie shooting. Couldn't tell the lead actors but we did get to see one of the scenes being taped.

Darian wanted to go into Ripley's museum so we split off from Mom and Marv. We met up again about an hour later and relaxed in front of Bread Papa's, a cream puff store that mom somehow found. At this point we didn't have enough time to go anywhere but too much time to hang out in a line for Bill Maher.

After about half an hour we went to CBS Studios and saw Bill. Turns out he wasn't taping tonight but was practicing the show from beginning to end for tomorrow's live broadcast. It was pretty neat seeing a tv studio in action. They actually had us sitting in the Price Is Right Studio. Extremely small and very tacky. The tacky I expected but the size of the studio was probably half of what I was expecting.

After the pre-taping we picked up Jacki from work and headed to the King Tut exhibit. A worthwhile hour and a half with some pretty cool artifacts from Egypt and the various tombs.

For dinner we went to the Grove. The group saw David Spade. Unfortunately I missed the celebrity sighting but this continues to confirm the close encounters I have personally had with David Spade. I think this makes number 3 in a period of about two months.

Hopefully tomorrow is only half as busy as today. Off to sleep now.

Darian is braceless

Aren't 60 hour work weeks fun...

Nothing quite like life in a start up.

Travel

Last week was a full week of travel. First San Francisco to attend CTIA and then to Overland Park to meet the new number 3 carrier.

Flying back from San Francisco Wednesday night I was able to see an amazing view of the Chatsworth, later named Topanga, fire. I could not have imagined such a large fire. It appeared as though an entire mountain range was blazing away.

Friday night when returning from Kansas I was able to see the fires once again. I was much farther away, probably 40-50 miles but you could see the fire glow in the mountains to the north as we approached for landing.

Surfs Up

On Saturday we had our first annual company outing. The event was in Malibu at the Malibu Makos surfing school. The entire family went out and we had a good time, eventhough it was overcast.

Darian and I suited up, my first wetsuit experience :-(, found a surf instructor and headed into the Pacific. The water was extremely cold. I figured it was in the mid 60s but later heard someone over the PA state that it was a chilling 59 degrees. As you walked into the water your feet numbed, and then when the first wave hit your body it knocked the wind out of you. Or at least it did for me. The surf guy told me dive into the water, get used to it before you try to surf. That helped a little bit but it still was extremely cold, even with the wetsuit.

I think I ended up trying for about 30 minutes. I was able to ride a wave in fairly easily if I stayed on my knees. Hopping up to a standing position never happened for me. I did get up on one leg with one knee down a couple of times.

Darian was doing a little better than me. She didn't tire as quickly and nearly got up several times. She attempted about 30 minutes like me, and then went back out a couple of hours later for another 30-45 minutes.

Who would have thought as little as a couple of months back that we we would have been surfing in Malibu...

It was a good thing it was overcast because Jacki got fairly burnt on her neck, the only area exposed, and my farmers tan turned into a tank top tan with slightly reddened arms. I still tan fairly easily but I've got a long way to go before I'm as dark as I was a child.

A Motley weekend

Last weekend definitely didn't work out as planned. Jacki, Darian and I had plans to fly back to Atlanta so Darian and I could see Motley Crue. I had purchased the platinum experience that entitled us to some nice extras (tour program, guitar picks, VIP room access) and some once in a lifetime pieces (meet and greet the band, photo with the band). Almost identical to the KISS experience I did a few years back.

Needless to say Darian and I were excited, especially after sitting on these tickets for over 6 months. We recently moved to LA and even made a special trip back to Atlanta to see the Crue. Of course we saw friends in Atlanta but the Crue was the primary driver for this trip.

The day started as planned. Wake up at an ungodly hour to catch a 6am flight to Atlanta. We got up, made the flight and arrived in Atlanta. Since I brought my Stick To Your Guns / Toast of the Town 45 and the new cd for autographs we decided to go to Best Buy and let Darian get something she could also get signed. She ended up going for the new cd as well.

Then about 2pm at lunch we get a call from Fanfire. They called to tell us the meet and greet was off. No explanation and all they offered was refunding the platinum package, and not even refund of the tickets. I was pissed but what could you do. We tried to call a couple of other people at Fanfire and they ignored our calls. I did get hold of the lady we were supposed to call in an emergency situation and she could have cared less that I had flown 2500 miles to see the but the ticket. The consolation prize, an autographed pic of the band.

We were told our tickets would be at will call so Darian and I left for the venue. Since we knew which hotel they were staying at we did a drive by. A small number of fans were outside so we decided to hang around to try to get an autograph. Normally I wouldn't do this but since the meet and greet was cancelled without explanation I figured why not.

First out was Nikki. He came out with his family and as a result didn't acknowledge the crowd. Next out was Vince and his wife. He had to walk through the crowd and it looked like he was going to just breeze by, but as he got to the first person he held out his hand, waited for a marker and then began to sign everyone's items. I finally got signature number 2 on the 45 (the first was from Tommy back in '86). He didn't talk but the crowd thought he was very cool for stopping and signing considering Nikki didn't even look at us.

Next out was Mick. He looked so frail. It took the crowds breath away seeing him walked slouched over to his bus. Crowd was very respectful and didn't walk over to him. As he got on the bus the security guy waved for us to come over and Mick signed for only one person and then went onto the bus.

We had a Tommy sighting but he quickly darted from the cab into the hotel avoiding the crowd altogther. For a fan friendly band I was extremely disappointed. Considering the meet and greet was cancelled they could have spent 2-3 minutes signing for the 10 people in front of the hotel.

After the minor disappointment we headed to the venue. Went by will call and discovered the promised guitar picks were not present, nor was the autographed photo. Made a couple of phone calls to fanfire and did not receive any response, just endless voice mail boxes.

Got inside the venue and at least our seats were good. We had 2nd row center with the elusive Ticketmaster 1x on the ticket. Darian and I noticed that the stage set up was for the Crue and had no gear for the opening bands. Sure enough The Exies, and Sum 41, 2 bands Darian really wanted to see had been removed from the tour. Just another in a day full of disappointments.

We ended up talking to other platinum ticket holders, and found out some of them weren't even notified about the cancelled meet and greet. They found out at the venue. And many of them had driven long distances to come to the show. A couple of groups we had talked to had driven 6 hours plus. The explanation they were provided was a scheduling conflict. This wouldn't be a problem if Darian and I hadn't seen all the guys at the hotel an hour before. They were all at the venue by 5:30 in plenty of time for a meet and greet.

The next minor disappointment was the show started 40 minutes late. Very small in the grand scheme of things.

The show finally started and other than a rough Too Fast For Love where Vince's vocals weren't in sync with the song the band sounded great.

Shout at the Devil
Too Fast For Love
Ten Seconds to Love
Red Hot (Nikki threatened to play a country song at this point)
On With The Show
Looks that Kill
Louder than Hell
Live Wire ....

And then during Live Wire Vince tore a muscle in his leg. Darian saw it happened and I saw him stumble off the stage. The band were still in the first verse of the song and played the song out as an instrumental. By the time they got to the end breaks you could tell the band didn't know what was going on. At this point Darian told me, she didn't think he was coming back.

The curtain then dropped and an announcement came on saying there would be a 10 minute intermission.

An hour later Tommy, Nikki, and Mick came out and announced Vince ripped a muscle and the show was cancelled.

End of show. 2500 miles, no meet and greet, no opening bands, missing platinum items, delayed show, and a 35 minute concert.

All I can say is the rest of my weekend was much better.

Photos taken with a Treo 650.

We're not in Kansas anymore

Well I just was, I'm in Missouri now. Here for a business meeting tomorrow morning. Living in Atlanta I became spoiled by doing day trips to most of the US. I could fly in early morning, get to a destination before business hours and catch the last flight of the day back to Atlanta. In Los Angeles you can't get there in time so you have to fly out the night before.

A little scare with my baggage tonight. The plane was packed so by the time I boarded, I'm one of the last since its Southwest and the board by the time you arrive, they made me gate check my luggage. They claimed there was no room, although when I walked back and found a seat there was plenty of luggage room. I got to the baggage claim and the sent the last bag out notice and there was no sign of my bag. Fortunately I was able to get someone in service to call the plane before they left and they found my bag.

Nothing like some drama on a business trip.

My new TV

After living without the Runco projector in Atlanta I decided to make the plunge and upgrade our TV as we moved to Santa Monica. I purchased a Samsung HL-R5688W. After doing a little research on Cnet's shopper site and checking out a few of the HDTVs in stores around LA I decided on this model.

It is one of the first DLP sets to display the full 1080i HD resolution. I'm watching progressive DVD displayed for the first time and the picture is amazing. The HD Tivo and my high end SACD/DVD player are finally getting used to its full extent. I can't wait to try out the HD adapter I purchased for the Xbox a couple of years ago.

My Dad

Can you believe it. He checks out of the hospital on Saturday and he is already back at work.

A few days in...

We have mostly gotten the house in order now. We had our first Ikea experience. I was a bit overwhelmed. So many people and then Darian got sick. The best part was the cinnamon rolls. We ended up leaving with a bookcase for my cds, a couple of cabinets for the bathrooms, a wardrobe, and a desk for Darian that will fit in her room.

The weekend has been spent emptying boxes, probably only 10 left, and building furniture.

The bad news for the week is I found out my dad had a minor heart attack. Although there isn't really such thing as a "minor heartattack". I'll give him a call tomorrow to see how he's doing. He was supposed to get out of the hospital last night. Came as a surprise considering he went through a bypass about 3 years ago and had been given an excellent bill of health ever since.

I'll probably go to Houston to see him mid September.

Dave Matthews Band

We saw Dave Matthews Band a week ago. This was our first concert in the Los Angeles area after relocating from Atlanta.

Saturday Aug 27 2005
Home Depot Center

Everyday
Don’t Drink the Water
American Baby Intro
Dream Girl
Grey Street
Hunger For The Great Light
Say Goodbye
Bartender
American Baby
Out Of My Hands
Smooth Rider
Dancing Nancies
Granny
Too Much
Louisiana Bayou *
__________________

Best of Whats Around
Two Step

Show Notes:
* Robert Randolph

Back online

The Dave Blog is back online again. Turns out Verizon won't let me host my own server on their residential DSL so I'm using imagelinkusa to host my home domain once again.

I'll get the apps back online soon but at least the blog entries are back online.