Apocalyptica in SLC

I just ran back from the best concert I've ever been to. Apocalyptica played tonight at "In the Venue". It was fantastic! I was only five feet from the stage. Antero Manninen was on the far left. He was wearing dark glasses and was straight faced the whole time except for a few smiles when other band members where making faces at him. In the middle right was Perttu Kivilaakso. He is a very slender guy. Animated with his hair flinging along with Eicca Toppinen. On the far right was Paavo Lötjönen. Some songs they played that were especially fantastic were:

The following songs were played in the order of my most favorites:

• Bittersweet - again no HIM singer to accompany, but hey it was surreal and wish I could relive the playing of that song over and over!



• Seeman was the very last song and I got total goosebumps. Missed Nina Hagen singing, but it was still so good!


• Nothing Else Matters - These guys are truly great musicians and did this song just as good live as on the record.


• Helden - They said that Till was too big to get on the plane so he couldn't be there. Too bad! That would have been awesome to have Till there!


• Enter Sandman - They played this so well that it sounded even better than other productions at other concerts and even from the video. Sound quality was fantastic.


• Somewhere Around Nothing - Great song.

There were several other great songs, but those were the ones that made me the most appreciative.

My favorite band member was Paavo. They were all great, but I liked Paavo's style the most. He looked to genuinely enjoy performing. They all did, but he in particular had a great genuine smile and really got the crowd into it.

I was so grateful they came to Salt Lake City. Makes me thankful that they aren't so high and mighty to skip us even though they had to play at a tiny venue. These guys deserve something like the E Center, but there aren't enough people in Utah with great taste. This was a concert that I am so glad I went to! Man!

Apocalyptica rocks! The ticket only cost me $15 and I got it at 24tix.com - I kind of felt bad cause the price was too good for what I got!

Hiking up to "the rock" up city creek canyon with Jacob

After I picked up Jacob the afternoon from the U for his reading workshop, I took him up city creek canyon where we hiked up the canyon to this point. We hiked up to the rock and took this picture of him.

Jacob sure is a good and lovable boy. We talked on the way up to the rock and on the way back we each collected one small rock for our collection at home. When we got back down to the city creek canyon road we ran back to the mouth which was about a 1 1/4 mile run. Downhill though.

Fun evening with Jacob!

Shocking news during breakfast

This morning I turned on the TV to eat my oatmeal before heading off to racquetball when I watched a news story about one of my alma mater's High School Counselors, Marco Herrera. He apparently pled guilty to three counts of second degree felonies (forcible sexual abuse). He could spent up to 15 years in prison for each count.

Mr Herrera wasn't my counselor, but was a figure of authority at West High and seemed to be well liked by the students. Well at least as much as a school counselor could be liked. I was shocked and sickened to hear this news.

Reference: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8945612

Austin's 12th Birthday

This morning we woke Austin up and had his birthday present (a new Mountain Bike) in his room. I whistled real loud and yelled "Austin! Get up time for school!" He woke up jumped out of bed and passed the bike half asleep as he headed to the bathroom. We all were in his room and laughed as he didn't realize there was a new bike in his room. He snapped out of it and said in a real tired voice, "Whoah! Sweet."

We then made a king's breakfast and we all enjoyed. Here are some pictures of this morning.

He had a really good morning. So did I.

Mama! Mama!

I found this hilarious video on youtube that makes me laugh every time I watch it!

Siren Edge 4 GB transfer problems

I've constantly had issues transferring music to this player and I think I finally figured out the reason why. I have all my music on an external Hard Drive connecting to my laptop via USB. When I plug the MP3 player in via USB it conflicts with my other USB devices. Sometimes my keyboard wouldn't work (also plugged in via USB through hub). I was able to navigate around inside folder system on MP3, but as soon as I copied from External to mp3. Disconnected.

Once I copied the music to my local hard drive and then transfered to MP3 it worked. Very flaky and lucky I discovered that.

Jonas turns 6

This morning I made a fancy breakfast for Jonas' 6th birthday. I made him Pancakes, bacon and eggs. I put 6 pancakes in a stack and layered them with strawberries and then topped it off with that whipped cream in a can. Then fried some eggs and bacon and poured some chocolate milk for him. He was beaming. Here are a couple pictures.

All the kids were glad now that it was Jonas' Birthday. He opened Grandma Gridley's present and they all played with it for about 10 minutes before Cathi ran them all off to school. It was a huge math/writing book with a few dry erase markers. They had fun. Cathi read to Jonas Grandma Low's email. He was happy to get his own birthday email. Cathi then drove the kids to school while I helped clean up after the big breakfast.

I set up the hose vacuum for Isaac and I think this was his first time vacuuming. Samuel wanted so bad to try it and would cry when Isaac wouldn't share the vacuuming job. So they took turns cleaning. It was a very good morning. Jonas was very happy to wake up to the Birthday song and a huge stack of strawberry pancakes and chocolate milk!

Einstein Brothers Bagels

This morning before I left for work I noticed a Skype event that it was Dax Denkers birthday. I thought about picking up some donuts on the way to work, but thought that I ought to break the trend of bringing fattening and fat friendly foods for the team. So I decided on stopping at Einstein Brothers in Layton on the way.

I did break my diet just this Monday so I have that experience fresh in my mind, but this morning I had two bagels (Chocolate Chip w/o cream cheese and a Cinnammon Raisin with Strawberry Cream Cheese) and they both were out of this world! The strawberry cream cheese on the cinnamon raisin was the best treat I've had in a very long time! It was so good.

OK - after thinking about how good it was - it was 360 calories. Not exactly a health food. But oh my gosh it was so good and filled me up. Here is their nutritional information page.

April Fools Prank

Last night I stayed up making No Bake Cookies formed in the shape of turds and gave them to various fellow co-workers with the following notes written on this image blown up to take a full piece of paper.

Sylaja - Are you pooped working on Advanced Pricing yet?
Brendon - I give a crap about you.
Jeff - I'm pooped after last week's work.
Mark Wiseman - I searched through My Program Files and found this log.
Trevor - Sorry about the time consuming "releases" lately.
Andrew - I give a crap about you.
David - This Crud's for you.
Lynn - Here's my core dump.
Christian - a tip: Flushing your cache every once in a while improves performance.
Mike Morgan - Can you ask [customer name] for another Log?
Jaye - Working anywhere else would really stink!
Shannon - Thanks for keeping the facilities so clean.
----------------------------------------------
and then I made one for my
Mom - I give a crap about you and your little dog!
Dad - I hope you're not pooped with all the tax returns.

Not many people could raise the amount of bravery to actually eat the cookies even though I provided a recipe to help ease tensions.