Change In Format

There will be changes to this site in the coming year. I'm planning on taking this site to a mostly political bent. I will include things philosophical, logical, theological, and all things related to ideas.

My MSN site will be used to cover everything in my life and include a ton of pictures. The My Space site will change to a purely music related format. Instead of just having 3 mostly duplicate blogs, I thought it best to set them up differently since they tend to work better for these environments. Please continue to check out all 3 and feel free to comment on them all as well.

Have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2006

I'm home alone this particular Christmas. It is kind of nice, actually. You see, I had a great Christmas weekend with my kids. I was able to get them several things this year. The big gifts were a KC Chiefs winter coat for my oldest and a Dallas Cowboys hoodie for my youngest. They were very grateful for their gifts. I also got them some games, books, clothes, and other goodies that girls would like.

I also cooked for my girls. I made a turkey dinner complete with mashed potatoes, corn, and dinner rolls. We had pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert. I also made them a nice breakfast on Sunday. They seem to agree that I should be doing more cooking for them.

It was a great weekend. I got to call my folks and the girls were able to visit with them and my little brother and his wife. I also visited briefly with my kids today to wish them a Merry Christmas.

I've added some pictures for Christmas 2006 that are in the family section of my photo albums. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas today!

Birthday Weekend Recap

My birthday is December 4th. I celebrated a bit the weekend prior. As you can read below, the weekend was started off with the Guns N Roses concert, but some other things went down that day and the following couple of days.

The original plan was for my girlfriend to get off work at noon to make the trip to Des Moines and join me in getting to the concert early. I figured there would be quite a long line for the floor seats that night so leaving my house at 5pm, grabbing a quick bite to eat, and then hanging out at the Hilton Coliseum should have been a breeze to get us up front. There isn't any other reason to have floor tickets if you aren't going to be toward the front with a great view.

Thursday was a huge snow day in Missouri and my girlfriend wasn't sure she'd make it. I stayed positive and sent her a link with the road conditions. By noon that day, the roads were ok to travel and got better the further north she'd have traveled. Well, the day started with her getting stuck in her parking lot at home. Her boss got her to work and had some guys get her truck out. While the truck has turned out to be in the same running condition prior to getting stuck, she was told that there were problems with it and she shouldn't travel. That put her in a not so great mood as this concert may be a once in a lifetime thing depending on Axl's mood. It's not something you take chances with if it's important to you. Well, there was no way she could get out by noon and the later it got the more likely it was she'd be stranded in Missouri for the weekend. Well, that turned out to be the case. I called my roommate and he offered less than half of the ticket price if I couldn't sell it and mine for more. It was too late to sell so I took the rip off price and let him have the ticket that cheap. (I have other ways to get the rest out of him. He reads this blog on occasion, too!) You can read about the concert experience below.

At about 3AM, my roommate and I started heading south for a Missouri road trip. We stopped at Wally World for a case of water and some caffeinated drinks. I did all the driving and we only saw one deer along the way to Missouri. We arrived at our destination about 8AM to the smell of biscuits and gravy. We were welcomed by my girlfriend and her daughter and fed heartily before crashing for a few hours. My roommate got the couch and I got a fairly comfortable Queen Size bed. I say fairly comfortable because I have a King size pillow top mattress and I have to give my girlfriend a hard time for having the more comfortable sleeping area. I told her to not let me sleep past 1pm and just before time was up, she woke me up. It's always great waking up to someone you love.

We pretty much puttered around the house most of the day, but I had the pleasure of joining my girlfriend for some taxi excursions for her daughter. In doing so, I got a nice trip around the town I spent most of my youth growing up in. It was great to see the changes and the familiar. Memories came rushing back at every turn.

My roommate and I were fed a wonderful chicken dinner that evening and we all turned in early since we needed the sleep. Sunday morning we had the aroma of more sausage, bacon, and French toast made by her daughter. Breakfasts like this are awesome. We ate a lot and then spent the rest of the morning just visiting for a while. I told them that we had to make a trip in to Wal-Mart for some shopping before leaving town, though.

We finally got around and headed out for another tour around a couple other parts of town and I wanted to see if anyone was at my old church. Sure enough, there was a carry-in dinner occurring at the church so my roommate and I headed inside. While in there I ran into some friends from my youth. Adults who had helped teach me and people who were friends of the family were there to say hello to. It was also great admiring the addition onto the building. I will be back in June for a celebration of my parents' wedding anniversary.

We finally got around to heading to Wal-Mart. I had received some Christmas money from my parents and wanted to get some new work clothes. I had asked my girlfriend to pick out something she'd consider stylish that might look good on me. She has great taste and picked out two wonderful outfits. I've received compliments on them at work and sent a picture to my mom for her to see. Thank goodness people like this stuff! I've always gone the plain route, but this new set of clothes looks good. If someone doesn't like them, I can always just say my girlfriend dresses me funny.

My roommate and I took off for Des Moines and made it home before 7:30pm that night to get settled and rested after such a crammed in weekend. I figured that if my girlfriend couldn't come see me, I'd go see her and we had a great time. She was kind enough to get me a handheld Yahtzee game and a card that fit me to a T.

Yes, I'm another year older, but it was a good way to celebrate.

Thanksgiving Recap

I guess I forgot to put up any details about my Thanksgiving trip to Missouri. It was a great week. My entire family was there and we created some great memories for a few days. My parents, my brothers and their families, and even my dad's sister were there.

I picked up my daughters not long after school on Tuesday that week. We went through KC and on to Kingdom City. We stopped there to meet my girlfriend and have a bit of ice cream. We got to my folks before 10pm and soon got the kids off to bed.

Wednesday was a nice quiet day for me and the girls to spend with my parents and aunt. We had raisin bran muffins for breakfast, which are my favorite. The middle brother got into town about 5pm with his wife and 4 kids. We had some dinner and then went to a Thanksgiving church service. My daughters sang a special with my niece and my brother accompanied them on the piano. It was great seeing all the girls sing together. They sounded great. The 4 oldest grandkids stayed with my parents and the rest of us went and stayed where my mom works. It was like having my own hotel room with my brother, his wife, and the two youngest boys next door.

Thursday morning we all went to my parents and my youngest brother and his wife joined us. It was a nice warm day so we went out and played some catch in the backyard with my oldest daughter. It was great tossing a baseball around with my brothers and Brittany. I haven't done that for a long time. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and ham. We played Farkle and other games.

My girls and I then headed off to see my girlfriend and spend Thanksgiving evening with her. She had some ham made and had some key lime pie for us. It was great to just spend the time with her. She even bought a Yahtzee game and we played that with her. Yea, I'm pretty crazy about her.

Friday was another one of those days to sleep in a bit. I took the girls and my aunt in for some shopping to the outlet malls. We looked around a bit for some Christmas ideas. My niece was given some money to do some shopping and bought a beautiful dress to wear. We got back in time to get ready for family photos. My parents had scheduled a professional photo session for the entire family. We also had a sitting for the kids. Both pictures turned out great and I can't wait to get the prints I ordered. We had another nice meal when we returned home. There is little like mom's cooking to make a holiday or any day.

We had said our goodbyes to my youngest brother and his wife on Friday evening and Saturday was the day to say goodbye to my other brother and his family. The kids had so much fun together and they only get to do it about once a year.

I left that afternoon to go see my girlfriend while my girls spent the evening with their grandparents and my aunt. The helped bake a cake and did some other fun things like watching a movie that evening that was finishing when I arrived. I had a great time that evening just spending some quiet time with my girlfriend. She even had another piece of pie for me. I got home in time to get my girls tucked in.

Sunday morning we all got up early for church. It was great to see some old friends while there. We had another nice dinner when we got home and left shortly after.

While at my folks on Sunday, we found out that my ex-brother-in-law had a mild heart attack that morning. Instead of taking my girls back to their mom's house, we took off for Des Moines. It was nice to have a shorter trip home, but would have been better under other circumstances. Turns out he was ok after surgery, though. I got home in time to spend a couple of hours relaxing and spent a part of the evening on the phone with my woman. It was great to be home with so many wonderful memories that had been made the previous week.

There is truly a lot to be thankful for.

Guns N Roses in Ames, IA

I have mixed feelings about this one. I've read a ton of comments to other reviews and it sounds like most people are griping about this show with a few of the "die-hards" defending Axl Rose for everything. This is only my opinion of the Ames show so here goes.

My girlfriend got snowed in and was unable to come up from Missouri to attend this concert with me. I sold my roommate my other floor ticket at just under half the price and we got to the Hilton Coliseum about 6:40pm. There wasn't a huge line at either entrance, so we knew we'd get a decent spot on the floor. The doors opened on time at 7pm and we walked in to get frisked and were let into the floor area. We looked at prices for the merchandise and almost died laughing that key chains were $10 and beanies were $30. They have a great baseball jersey at an outrageous price of $125. It's a shirt that wouldn't cost $50 elsewhere, but since it has a GNR design on it, it must command a higher dollar than sane people are willing to pay.

As we got to the front of the floor, the St. Louis band Modern Day Zero was starting a set long before the 8pm start time. They are a tight band that is still using the dated "nu-metal" sound, but considering that everything is considered dated at a GNR show, this wasn't entirely out of place. I actually enjoyed some of the rhythms of the band and they were very energetic. Everyone seemed to command the stage in that band with the only low point being the singer. The bass player and guitarist on the left hand side of the stage were great players with great presence.

When 8pm rolled around, the Suicide Girls came out with their entertaining and erotic burlesque show. Their whole thing is that they are natural girls with a bit of the gothic look and they look good without the harsh diets and fake parts. They were quite entertaining with their dance numbers on chairs, a ladder, with a flaming hula-hoop, dressed as cop and prisoner, and even as airline stewardesses. They came out again before GNR went on and even used chocolate syrup. It's not a concert type of production, but was entertaining.

Sebastian Bach came out with some great Skid Row tunes from their early days. He did Piece Of Me, I Remember You, Big Guns, and several from Slave To The Grind and Skid Row before closing with Youth Gone Wild. There were even a couple of tunes that I didn't recognize, but seemed to be new. Bas made some cheesy comments to go along with the titles of a few songs. He initially said he couldn't remember his last time in Ames, but before I Remember You he mentioned that he certainly remember us. That was one of the cheesier intros to a song. Bas does deliver, though. He has the vocal chops to hit everything and then some and he certainly gets the crowd into the show. He just has a natural enthusiasm for entertaining. Bas did brag about lying to Ted Nugent about his drinking, but I'm not sure how much of that is an act. The band did a great job playing the tunes, but it would be great for Bas to get a crack band that can keep up with him and look better doing it. Metal Mike looks like a Dimebag fan, but I'm not so sure that's a good thing. At least he has the chops.

Helmet followed Sebastian Bach and got booed loudly and angrily. I like Helmet. I liked their set, but it was out of place and out of pace with this concert. Helmet should have gone on at 8pm and then should have been followed by the Suicide Girls and Sebastian Bach. When you have to follow the crowd singing Youth Gone Wild and you are then put before Guns N Roses, you face the daunting task of keeping that energy up. It wasn't Helmet that had the fans angry, but the pacing of the show and the fact that many didn't even know Helmet was going to be at this show. The fans were expecting Bas and GNR, not Helmet and the Suicide Girls. Helmet got to the point of not even taking much of a break between songs in order to play their set. They were laughing off the crowd a bit, but thankful for the very few that were into them. I'm anxious to see how they perform the rest of the tour, but GNR would be better served to put Helmet on first.

The Suicide Girls came back out for another few dances, but the crowd was even more restless at this point in their anticipation for GNR. Many were unaware that Axl likes to go on after 11pm or even after midnight and that there was some trouble getting through the weather from Chicago to Des Moines. There were many that left at 12:30am angry that they spent their hard earned money on a show that they weren't aware would last over 7 hours.

Axl and his band finally came on about 12:40am. I'm not sure if it was worth the wait, but it was a great show. Axl did sound good and had a lot of energy. They started with Welcome To The Jungle and did the first three tunes from Appetite For Destruction before launching into their cover of Live And Let Die. There were a few new songs sprinkled into the set, but mostly the familiar. Sebastian Bach came out for his duet on My Michelle and both sounded great. There were fireworks, flames, and a great light show to go with the large backdrops and video screens used. The stage was split level with the drums in the center at the top flanked by keyboard setups on either side. Dizzy Reed, the only other member to record on a previous GNR disc was up on the left and he got a solo front and center on a grand piano. Axly used the piano on November Rain, too.

The band looked like they have been playing with Axl for quite some time as they were very tight. I just didn't get the feeling that this was truly a band, though, as it still came across like Axl and his backing band. That could just be my impression. The members have some originality and are very good players. The guitar players do play a little clean for my taste as I'm used to hearing Slash's tastefully sloppy play when hearing these songs.

Overall, there is no way to complain about how much you got for your ticket price. Four bands and a burlesque show for a top price of $77 plus TicketMaster charges isn't a bad value. The bad parts are the advertising for the show being that two bands would be there (some included The Suicide Girls.) and the late hour at which GNR goes on. If people were warned in advance, they could have just shown up later instead of thinking that they'd get a show and be home in time to get their babysitters home. The other bad part was the pacing of the show. As good as Helmet is, they aren't as popular as Sebastian Bach and certainly don't get the crowd going for the headliner when they are being booed.

Hopefully, this review will serve as a warning to some so that all will know what to expect in future shows. See it once, but don't bother a second time unless you have seats or the legs to stand it.