mmmPoo

It's been a while since I've updated my playlist listing.

I use last.fm a few months ago, but stopped when I did reinstall.

I'm going to start to use it again, so my playlist will stay updated in the right hand column.

Note, I often listen to a personalized Yahoo LaunchCast! Radio that does suggest a lot of music, so some of the stuff that will show up in my playlist will be music they played for me. Unless you see me play an artist multiple times, don't assume I selected that artist/track.

Some of the stuff I really like these days include the new Snow Patrol album, Ben Folds, and some Radiohead 2006 Tour bootlegs.

Here's a preview (note, I just started using last.fm again on May 18th, so it will take a bit for it be up-to-date):

Believe it or not, I don't feel any guilt about not having blogged in a while. It's the same old story here (busy, happy, blah, blah), but all is very well. I figured I'd throw up a quick round up of some stuff so in the future I can go back and remember what I was up to in the spring of 06’.

Soccer
The soccer season has begun again. It’s been an incredible two months:

• The MetroStars are no longer, having been bought by Red Bull: they are now the New York Red Bulls
• Launched an awesome new site based on Community Server for firstrowidiots.com that I’m extremely proud of. It's finally where I wanted the site to be when I first started it.
  
• Got a 2006 season photo pass to go on the field for every soccer home game at Giants Stadium to take pictures.
• Spun off First Row Photos (the photo companion to First Row Idiots) into my own freelance photo gig (more below)
  

The team isn’t doing so well, but it’s early and they have to have some time to gel. They will hopefully get some new players in the summer. The future looks bright tho with new ownership that has made a serious investment into the league, sport, team, and fans (a free bus trip to D.C. for the opener was very cool).

Work
Nothing exciting, but it’s stable, I got a great working relationship with my "employer" and I ain't looking to make any changes any time soon.  I'm making tons of cash, I have a decent amount of fun and got a nice amount of freedom. Can’t complain.

Photography
Been getting into my photography habit/hobby more and more, especially after I got the Red Bulls season photo pass.

I’ve bought a new sweet [telephoto] Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens, which is absolutely awesome. I never thought I’d spend so much on a lens, but if I keep this hobby up, the sucker I really want is a 400mm the pros use that goes for as much as a car.

I’m about to buy another lens in the next few days for general use.

Picked up a really nice Crumpler bag (7 Million Dollar Home) for the camera too. It’s pretty sweeet.

Probably going to take a course soon to learn more.

My real interest is photography as related to journalism, whether that be sports or news. Portraits, nature, etc, don’t interest me all that much [yet at least].

Travel
Since I last said anything about travel, I’ve been in a lot of different places including Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic in November for a vacation with my lady, Wisconsin for the holidays (saw the Packers/Bears game in Green Bay on Christmas Day, which was awesome), Chicago and Washington D.C.. 

Washington D.C. was awesome. It was only a quick trip, but I did the tourist thing. I got a tour of the Capital Building from my senator’s office, which was very, very, very cool. The next day I went to the Senate gallery and actually lucked out: they held a vote! (April 25, 2006 - http://tinyurl.com/neugn)

I saw [and surprisingly recognized many of the] 93 senators:

7 didn’t vote/show up:

It was very neat.

Apartment
The new bed is amazing and great. I’m very pleased, but the only minus is it’s very high off the ground. I almost need a step ladder to get on it. It’s still very cool and very nice.

Still working on that clean up project so I get the living room re-done. It’s stalled a bit, but I found a place that will help me sell all the stuff I want to get rid of, so that will probably help.

Life
I intently stay vague about my personal life when I can, for no other reason than I’m weird like that, but I do want to say in general, life is great and I can honestly say I have never felt better about the present and future.  It’s been almost a year since I started seeing Sandi and she’s awesome. Good times, good times indeed.

Until next time, but don't hold your breathe...

I'm finally get a new bed. My old mattress was kinda cheap and is 7 years old at this point. I was going to try and pick up a new king size mattress, but the extra space necessary just wasn't going to work in the current layout of my bedroom. I thought about moving stuff around, but it's really not worth it at this point, so a queen for now will do.

I was kinda afraid of the whole mattress shopping thing because I know nothing about mattresses and the industry scares me. It's next-to impossible to comparison shop because each place has different names to the same models. Plus, mattresses can range anywhere from $500-$3000+. My parents have been buying their mattresses from the same place for many, many years, so last weekend while I was up there with Sandi visiting , we tried out a bunch of them and found one we both liked. My new Sealy Posturepedic Cherished Pillowtop mattress arrives on Monday.

After I get the new bed, I need to finish throwing out stuff in my living room so I can get started on my long overdue and long talked about remodeling project for that room. I'm excited, but I got way too much junk I need to get rid of.

Wow, it's been way too long since I've posted anything. I'm going to save a big post for after the holidays, but all is very well here. Been doing a ton of traveling and lots of work. For now, happy holidays and a happy new year to all!

I've posted the full set of Lollapalooza Day 1 and Day 2 photos.

I'll post the day 2 review one of these days.

Busy than usual, but all is very good. Longer update in the near future, i'm sure.

I went to Lollapalooza this weekend with my friend Sandi in Chicago's awesome Grant Park and had a blast. The event was the first big concert in the park since Radiohead played there in 2001 and was a test to see if future concerts/event could work. The Lollapalooza festival used to tour the country, but was canceled last year due poor ticket sales. The event was put together with fairly short notice for one show this year in Chicago. The organizers are considering keeping the festival as once annual and possibly homing it Chicago. The backdrop with the skyline of Chicago and space was pretty awesome. At times the sounds from the multiple stages bleed into each other, so which was kinda lame, but it wasn't horrible.

The weekend was a great success with an attendance of 33,000 and everything appeared to go pretty smoothly, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the event held there again.

The event featured 6 stages and 60 bands. There were two big stages: SBC East and SBC West and two slightly smaller stages: Parkways Stage and Budweiser Select. Planet Stage was across the street from Grant Park and Kidzapalooza [stage] was near the entrance to the park. We skipped both of those stages.

SBC East and West Stage

Parkways Stage and Budweiser Stage

Day 1: Saturday, July 23rd

The weather forecast for the day was mild and in the 80s. After spending Thursday out in the heat and getting pretty sick from drinking too much beer and too little water, I made it a goal to drink as little beer as possible and as much water as possible. They let us bring two unopened bottles of water per person, so before the event we picked up the four of the biggest bottles we could find. For the record tho, beer, water and food was VERY reasonably priced.

Ambulance LTD (they are in the background... trust me)

The festival started at 11:45am, but the first band that interest us was Ambulance LTD, which began their set on the Parkways Stage at 1:30pm. At the same time on the SBC East stage, And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, played a set, which at times we could hear as we listened to Ambulance LTD. I first heard Ambulance LTD on Conan O'Brien one evening and was instantly impressed. They are in a good indie-rock band and their show was enjoyable.

After Ambulance LTD was done, we move over to the SBC West stage and set up a blanket in a spot where we'd remain for the most of the rest of the day. We realized most of the bands we really wanted to see where playing on either the SBC West or SBC East stage on our spot perfectly positioned us to see both.

View of SBC West from our blanket location

View of SBC East from our blanket location

Liz Phair

At 2:30, we watched Liz Phair perform. She's improved her stage presence a bit since I've saw her last at Field Day, but she's still nothing special. She's not much of a live performer and her voice is far better on record than in person. She's coming out with a new album next month and played a bunch of tracks from it. Other notable songs included Supernova, Polyester Bride, ***/Run, Why Can't I [Be A Teen Pop Star] (ok, so I added the last part for effect, but that song was basically released back in 2003 as part of her attempt to be popular like Avril), and the surprisingly sexually explicit lyric filled Flowers (nothing like hearing an chick sing about being a blowjob queen when little kids are next to you blowing bubbles).

Brian Jonestown Massacre

At 3:30, I wanted to check out Brian Jonestown Massacre, which was on the Parkways Stage. Sandi was somewhat interested in hearing Dashboard Confessional on SBC East, so she stayed back and watched our stuff, while I ventured over to the check out the band that was made famous in the Dig! Documentary last year. They were odd and I was impressed with the turnout for their set by the crowd and photographers. After watching them for a little bit, I headed back to join Sandi. I caught the end of the Dashboard Confessional set including two of their hits, one of which was Vindicated from the Spiderman 2 Soundtrack, which I sorta like.

Dashboard Confessional was followed by Cake at 4:30 on the SBC West stage. Here's an example of one of the really cool things at festival: one of the huge advantages of the multiple stages was the ability to instantly start another show after one stopped. So once Dashboard Confessional was done, within less than a minute, Cake was on performing. It was awesome.

Cake

Cake's set was awesome. They are a unique, impressive and entertaining group. Their stuff is extremely catchy and well done. They were great live. They told some short and amusing stories. I enjoyed it a lot and it was definiately one of, if not the, top sets I watched at Lollapalooza. Even songs I didn't know I enjoyed like their recent single No Phone. They had the crowd sing along at the time and I've had the lyrics "No Phone. No Phone. I just wanna be alone." stuck in my head for the last few days. Other great songs that I can recall include The Distance, Comfort Eagle and Stickshifts and Safetybelts. (I honestly wish I could remember more of the songs; I was unable to find a setlist).

Billy Idol

Billy Idol was up next on SBC East. I can't say I'm much of a fan, but he put on a great show playing classic like White Wedding and Dancing with Myself. During his set it started to rain. After I quickly wrapped my cell phone and camera in a plastic bag, I just relaxed and enjoyed the rain. It was a bit cold, but it was still nice. Sunday was predicted to be really hot [and it was], so I knew I should enjoy the rain while I could.

Primus

Primus came next, at 6:30, on SBC West. I'm not a fan, so I listened for a bit and then walked around.

The Pixies followed Primus for an hour and 15 minute set from 7:30 to 8:45. They drew a huge crowd. It was at this point, we decided to fold up the blanket and get away from the masses. They were getting our blanket extra-dirty with their foot traffic and we figured we'd go grab some food.

Pixies

I only watched a little bit of the Pixies. Sadly, I never really got in to them. I noted to Sandi that I probably will in a few years and regret not watching their set. Around 8:20, we headed back to the SBC West stage and took in the rest of the Pixies show as we waited for Weezer. I caught the Pixies' Where Is My Mind? and greatly enjoyed that.

Weezer

Weezer was the last band of the evening. They started their set seconds after the Pixies finished up. The band played most of their classics and were awesome. Weezer was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Lollapalooza and they didn't disappoint. They opened with Say It Ain't So and continued from there.One big complaint I had though was the crowd sing-along. I didn't pay to hear some idiot next to me sing all of Weezer's songs into my ear. Ah well. I still had fun. Some other notable songs include Undone – The Sweater Song, My Name is Jonas (Introduced as the first track that introduced Weezer to the few hundred people heard, who bought the album the first week in 1994, popped it in), Buddy Holly, El Scorcho (introduced as a song from an album that wasn't well liked when it was released, but has done pretty well since), Island in the Sun, Hash Pipe, Photograph, Beverly Hills, Perfect Situation and We're All on Drugs. The show ended with Surf Wax America.

I'll post on Day 2 shortly…. (as well as more pictures)

...was one of the many places I've been other than home recently. (more on this below...)

I've been running around so much that it's nice to finally be home and catching up on stuff. It's been an incredibly busy few months.

Based on curiosity more than anything, I interviewed for two jobs. Both places made me really nice [and multiple] offers in an attempt to hire me, but I decided against both. The interviews gave me a pretty good opportunity to figure out what I want to do with myself and I've started to further execute that plan. It's not much different then what I've been doing for the last few years, but it's includes more structure, milestones/goals, as well as a more of a mapped out future. I'm pretty excited and as it gets further along, I'll post more.

I've been traveling a lot. I've had a bunch of client projects out of town. Most recently, I just got back from Boston on Wednesday. I've been up there so much the last few months, it's becoming a second home. I try to mix some fun into my trips and the most notable was a recent visit to Milwaukee and Chicago. In Milwaukee I got a chance to check out their annual Summerfest Music Festival. There weren't any good artists performing when I was there, but it was a cool event and I was disappointed I couldn't stay around long. To give you an idea, here's some of the artists that performed  there this year over a 11 day period on the many, many different stages: John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, Tom Petty, The Black Crowes, Santana, Stevie Nicks, The Allman Brothers Band, Journey, Pixies, Weezer, Wallflowers, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, James Taylor, Ben Folds, David Lee Roth, Death Cab For Cutie, Gavin DeGraw, Gin Blossoms (they are still around?!? why?), Howie Day, Isaac Hayes, Lewis Black, Moby, Rachael Yamagata, Styx, Vanessa Carlton, and the Violent Femmes. That's just a small sampling. Pretty incredible.

On the evening before the Fourth of July (July 3rd of those of you that aren't good with math or using a calendar), I went to my friend's friend's boyfriend's friend's (yes, that's a vague description, but it keeps with my theme of being vague; because I'm in a silly mood, I've included a picture for those of you who might be confused by that description:

) where was I… oh, yeah, right…  house that was in Chicago, but outside of downtown Chicago for a Canadian Independence Day party (the person throwing the party was Canadian). We were able to watch the fireworks in downtown Chicago as well as surrounding areas in an awesome 360 degree display from the roof. (The fireworks weren't for Canadian Independence Day, rather for the American Independence Day, just a day early; it being Canadian Independence Day was just a coincidence. Any one confused yet?) Everywhere I looked there were fireworks. It was very cool.

On the Fourth, I took in the Taste of Chicago festival in Grant Park with my friend which included a free concert. One of the artists was Stereophonics, which we saw and very much enjoyed. We didn't stick around for the main act, which was Moby, because it was raining and we both had work to do.

I've been a lot more organized recently. My new cell phone has certainly helped me with that (more about that on my other blog). As part of my organization kick, I've been doing a better job of keeping my photoblog up to date. I've also created a new photo gallery using the same software. Check them out for some visual updates on my life, if you are interested.

For those keeping track at home, firstrowidiots.com has been updated with a new look and a new awesome companion site called First Row Photos that I'm pretty proud of.

I hope to stay a lot bit more on top of this blog, but that promise (as well as this statement for that matter) is getting old. As usual, I'll continue updating this blog when I feel like it.

That's all for now, folks. Thanks for stopping by.

I was driving through Hoboken today coming back from the supermarket and realize that today is the one year anniversary of the death of the first and only dog i ever liked (dare I say loved?). He name was Leela. She was an awesome companion to an old friend of mine and I greatly appreciated the time I had with her. I’m allergic to dogs and cats, so I never grew up with any pets (besides the occasional fish). I’ve never been a fan of pets either, but this dog was different. Leela showed me how cool dogs could be and for that I’m grateful. If it wasn’t for the poo (which ironically even tho that’s the name of this blog, i don’t like) and the responsibility, there is a good chance I’d have a dog today. I miss Leela; even her drool.

I was sort of like Bob Villa yesterday, but just on a very small scale and in a very special olympics way.

I did two little projects around the apartment that I’m pretty happy with.

I collect shot glasses. I have a nice collection from places all around the world that I’ve visted and my close friends and family have. Instead of getting me a t-shirt from somewhere, people get me shot glasses. I never had a good place to keep them except on top of one of my cabinets, but the other day i finally ordered a really sweet custom and high quality rack. I installed it yesterday and I’m really happy with it. I had a perfect spot for it and it looks great.

The other project I worked on was a new showerhead in the bathroom. Not sure where the urge to get a new one came from, but I have been using the same showerhead that was here since I moved in 6 years ago. The new showerhead I got is pretty exciting. It’s a downpour model from Waterpic and I’m pretty happy with it. Good stuff.

I'm home and finally settled in. It's been a busy last few weeks with two trips up to Boston. One was scheduled during the Memorial Day weekend for a work project and the other was a last minute emergency work related trip that lasted pretty much the whole week. The traveling thing gets old very quickly and I'm happy to be sleeping in my own bed.

Last week I took a last minute flight up to Boston on Tuesday due to a server problem with a client. The whole flying thing is a headache, and it was pretty expensive on two hours notice, but door to door (from my place to where I needed to be in Boston) was 3 hours. Not bad considering if i took the train it would have been a little over 5 hours. If the Acela trains were still in service, I would have taken that tho, because it's around 4 hours door to door and it would have allowed me to actually do work. The flight to Boston is just 39 minutes and it's way too quick to try and get anything done.

The funniest moment of my trip to Boston was when I got in to town on Tuesday. I asked the cab driver to take me to the office I had to work at and he couldn't because of odd street closures. Instead, he dropped me off at my sister's place, which was where I was staying because of the short notice and ridiculous high hotel rates. I dropped my bags off at her place and walked over to the office. On the way to the office, I figured out why the streets were closed. Some sort of race was going on. The race presented me with a new problem tho: there was no way to cross the street. There was hundreds and hundreds of people running and it showed no signs of letting up. I stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes (which people were running down too) and tried to figure out what to do. I did the only thing I could and made a run for it. I ran right into the middle of the thing and darted across the street. I think I freaked a few of the runners out, but I had no choice and no one got hurt. It was very amusing.

Got a lot on my plate these days, but all is pretty good. Going to be posting a new, really cool, version of firstrowidiots.com soon. I'm excited to get it up. It's finally going to be database-driven.

Time for a soccer game. Until later...

Just got back from an awesome trip to Chicago. I had a lot of fun. One of the many highlights was an great MetroStars game on Saturday. firstrowidiots.com has a recap, but also here’s an amusing picture:

Photo from a Soccer Journalist of Me Tell The Chicago Fire's Mascot the Score of the Game.

Saw a bunch of great shows while out in Chicago: The Faint and Bright Eyes on Sunday night and Rilo Kiley on Monday night. I had never heard The Faint before, but they were rocking good. Bright Eyes was really good. They had 8 musicans on the stage, including two drummers, which was really cool. Rilo Kiley was pretty good. The leader singer’s voice is awesome. Ended up leaving the concert early tho in an attempt to get food before the place we wanted to go closed up.

I don’t post here enough, especially when things are going well, but I did want to post a quick note to say life is pretty good these days. I can’t remember when I’ve been this happy. I got a good lunch appointment which should make things even better, so I’m pretty excited about that. I didn’t take too many pictures in Chicago because I didn’t have a SLR, but I finally got a new Canon 20D yesterday and will resume my photo taking.

That’s all for now.

While visiting a friend in my old office building yesterday, I bumped into the great Al Franken. I had my camera on me, so I asked him if wouldn’t mind taking a picture.

Coincidentally, Air America is located on the same floor as my friend, so bumped into Al again on my way out. I said hello and he didn’t really reply. I wouldn’t be surprised if he called his lawyers to get a restraining order tho. Get in line, Al.

On Thursday, NME reported that Beck was holding a special concert the next day. The show was intended for members of his fanclub, but the NME report gave out all the details to get tickets. I’m not a huge Beck fan, but I’ve wanted to see him live for a while. I really like his new album. I was able to grab tickets to the show, which took place at the Hiro Ballroom.

It was AWESOME. It’s in my top 10 concerts. It might be in my top 5. Sadly, it was short show. Here’s the set list:

Black Tambourine
Devil's Haircut
Scarecrow
We Dance Alone
Guero
Girl
Knock You Out
Remain in Dark
Nicotine & Gravy
Broken Drum
Hell Yes
Where It's At
E-Pro
Encore: Get Real Paid

The venue was amazing. It was set up really well, even tho it isn’t a traditional concert venue. The acoustics were some of the best I’ve ever experience. Great show!

The soccer season has begun! The MetroStars played their first game yesterday. I put together this excellent video clip. firstrowidiots.com will have a recap shortly:

mms://crossfire.sunfire.net/fri/20050402.wmv

When I moved into my apartment building 6 years ago, the building superintendent (super) was an old guy who was awesome. You would always see him in the hallways cleaning and make the place look great. He was a cleaning perfectionist. A month after I was living there, he announced he was moving to Puerto Rico and retiring; taking over for him would be his daughter and her husband.  

I’m someone who tries to really show my utmost respect for people in the service industry. Whether that be a waiter, bartender, retail store clerk or cleaning person. They are doing jobs that need to be done, that I don’t want to be doing (and probably don’t have the work ethic to do, but that’s another story), and I respect them for that. I show that respect by trying to be nice by tipping well (when applicable) and expressing my appreciate (a simple thank you is always nice).

On the other hand, just like my bosses/clients expect me to do my job [well], I do expect people to do their job [well] too.

Since I’ve moved in, I’ve pretty consistently given a holiday gift to the super. I didn’t in 2003 cause I didn’t feel like they did anything to deserve it and mostly because it slipped my mind. It got so late in the game (mid-January 2004) when I finally remembered, that I figured I’d just skip it all together. Plus, I had given them my old refrigerator that year and figured that was all they really deserved.

So what exactly do they do and what’s their responsibility? Keep the building clean and accept packages. They do a fairly poor job of both. They aren’t around all day, so they rarely, if ever, accept packages. The place is always a dirty mess.

What do they get for being the super? A free apartment in a fairly nice building and I believe a small, but decent, salary.

Last year I decided to give them a holiday gift because I realized they were a little cold to me throughout the year and maybe it was because of the lack of gift. By cold, I mean no friendly greetings when I passed by them in the hallway and they would wait a long time before telling me a package was downstairs waiting for me.

I regret giving them something, because things haven’t changed. In fact, they have gotten worse.

I started to get really aggravated when I was throwing my Super Bowl party earlier this year. For the few days leading up to it, I realized the hallway were really, really dirty. We had a bunch of winter storms and the dirt/slush from people’s shoes took it’s toll. I had hoped they were going to clean up before Sunday afternoon, but Sunday rolled around the the hallways were still messy. It was embarrassing. If I had a mop, I would have cleaned it myself. I instead picked up the phone and tried to get a hold of the building president. I couldn’t get him. The next day I called the building’s management company and complained. No more than 10 minutes later, I smelled cleaner: they were cleaning the hallway. It was the first time I’ve seen that in a while and it was about time.

A few weeks later we were in the middle of another winter storm and I came home from the gym to find the super cleaning/mopping the hallways. I said to him that it seemed silly since it was going to get a lot messier that night [imply tomorrow would probably have made more sense especially since they do it so rarely]. He said it had to get done and continued on. That was at least a month ago and the last time I saw them cleaning. Lame, lame, lame.

Last night I got a call from my super to tell me I had a package downstairs waiting for me. When I got it, I opened and sent my friend who sent it to me a thank you note. He replied that I should have gotten it last Friday. I looked at the tracking and sure enough, the damn thing has been sitting down in front of the super’s door for a week! I’m not very happy. It might be early in the year to rule out a holiday gift, but so far they aren’t making a very good case for one. I’m also going to start stepping up my complaining to building management campaign when ever the building starts to look messy. It’s time for them to do their job.