Nothing of Consequence

So we took a short 4-day, 3-night trip to Maine for my mother’s wedding last week, and it was wonderful… I have a set of images on Flickr where I’m putting things from time to time…

But my reason for writing is the completely ludicrous experience we had in the whole travel process. The whole nasty process both ways was through Washington DC… The way out through Reagan, and the way back through Dulles (you know - the one from Die Hard 2).

First the way out. Reagan airport is very new, and very shiny with lots of stores and inflated prices for a TGI Friday experience. The problem, because it was designed before 9/11, we had to exit one concourse and go through TSA again before arriving at our connecting gate. Complete and utter BS. It’s also here where I saw an airport badged employee wearing a shirt with the word mujahideen on it. While I don’t care that someone is wearing that, it just struck me as ironic given that someone working in an airport these days in DC would wear that…

The way back was the coup de gras… We were scheduled to leave Manchester, NH at 7:14 pm (boarding at 6:44) on a United flight to Dulles (DC). We get there at 5 to drop off rental car, check into the flight, go through TSA, and grab light dinner. We got to the gate at 5:40ish, and we were the second one there. Everything seemed normal.

As the time went on and I ploughed through my Grisham book my wife noticed that the incoming flight was delayed 20 minutes. Then 40 minutes. Then an hour. All the while our departure time stayed the same and “on time”. No United employee was at the gate to give us any information.

This was the case until 7:10, when another passenger went up to the board and changed 7:14 to 7:41 because it was blatently obvious that it wasn’t going as planned. At around 7:20, another person waiting got through to customer and explained the predicament. According to the service rep, everything was still fine because the computer stated that it was “on time” and computers don’t lie. The man had to spell it out that it was now 7:25 and since there was no plane at the gate and no united employee present that there was something wrong with what the computer was telling everyone.

Then a United person miraculously showed up before the plane arrived, and promptly got into a fight with a ticket holder while not giving any answers to the complete sham of an experience that a completely booked flight of people were experiencing.

We found out that somehow Dulles organization forced a delay. Our arrival in Dulles showed that type of moronic planning. While we should have had about 2 hours layover in DC, we sprinted to be the last persons on an overbooked flight to Indy that saw us get home around 1. I blame William Sadler?

sometimes it’s how I feel

Collecting animated gifs was something I started a long time ago. Now I have quite enough to post them regularly. In the early days, animated gifs were usually very boring and annoying, but they do have potential. When I see one that makes me pause, I usually put it away for the possible future use that has now come around. Some are of the stupid variety, others are or the odd variety…  Some defy description, but are unique enough just to give props to.

While this first one isn’t original, it made me laugh just for how weird this loop is…  Get ready for some more goodies as time goes on…

So I’m currently fighting back the cobwebs of a nap with the faint recollection of a dream on the tip of my mind.

So I’m in some building that I’m used to.  It’s a place that I’m familiar enough in to not call it random, but not common enough for me to name it right now.  Maybe it’s my storage building…  But it’s a building 2-3 stories above grade, but one of the first weird things is that there’s about 6-8 stories underground with the deepest of which being some kind of top secret / classified area hiding something.

So were going all around this building, and when I say we, there’s myself slipping from 1st to 3rd perspective from time to time as well as people from my past and present here and there.  But wait, a constant presence in the various happenings is the members of the cast of Police Academy.

There’s some running around, and when it’s not in first person, there are the camera push moments to the face of the character to deliver a line.

I swear I’m not making this up.  This is how I dream.

There’s some element of getting to other lower levels by riding on the tops of the elevators for reasons that currently escape recall.

While in third person, a few people had descended the top of an elevator to the bottom level which was pitch black, and another contingent of good guys at the above elevator opening being taken out by Flea and his band of bad guys.

That’s when my cell phone blaring the first bars of Tears for Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World woke us up (yes I do have that ring on my phone and it’s not part of the dream).

So there’s a lot of the dream that’s gone.  Or at least that’s what I think after writing it down.  If I remember any of it after the fact, I’ll come back to it.  But that’s all I can remember for now.  And again…  That’s how I dream.  Very surreal stuff.

We went on a spur of the moment photography outing last night. On a school night nonetheless…

A lot of things didn’t turn out as I’d hoped, but oh well. I did get some fun images here and there. This is the first one that I’ve posted to Flickr…

Today is the last day of my employment before going off to “do my own thing”.

It’s pretty interesting.  Sure, I’ve had jobs before with the whole quitting / 2-weeks notice, but none for a job I’ve held this long.  There are some great people I’m going to miss, but the absence of a few key people is going to allow me to grow professionally as well as be able to remain sane throughout the course of any period of time at work.

Oh well.  On that note, I’m about to have my last lunch here…  And an exit interview soon thereafter.

I gave notice this morning. I’ve never done it a place I’ve worked this long at… There are many people I’ll miss working with, but it still feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders…

Who: Foo Fighters
Where: Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis
When: July 23, 2008

I’m not one to make any deal out of my birthday, but it’s always a treat when a concert I want to see happens to fall on my birthday as it did in ‘08.  My wonderful wife got some pretty good tix that included access to the VIP area and a parking pass (thanks honey).

This was the second time I’ve seen the Foo Fighters.  The first time was in the summer of 2000 in Portland Maine at the Cumberland Arena while they were touring with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That was a great show.

Since then, the Foo Fighters have released a number of albums.  I only own one of them, but I’ve not bought many albums in the past many years compared to my previous music purchasing.  Regardless, I jumped at the chance to see them again because Dave Grohl a legend and they’re good in concert.

This concert was good, but it was a little different from my expectations.

Cool parts of the concert. The long walkway from the main stage to a smaller stage at the other end of the arena floor… It was a good way to spread the love for better seats at any one time during the concert. They played most of the songs I wanted to hear. Dave is a very funny man, and it comes through in his interaction with the audience.

Not so cool parts of the concert. I’ve never been a huge fan of the Acoustic version of “My Hero” and he played a different version of “Everlong” that didn’t really do much for me. There were 4 screens behind the stage that moved on a vertical mechanism - but the live video that it played from cameramen was always about 1/4 a second behind live (pretty annoying). The worst parts of the show was that there was more of the stereotypical older rock show things like a drum solo and a few instances of dueling guitar.  This very may have been part of Dave’s sense of humor, but I felt that these things detracted from the experience. They are all great musicians, far beyond the skill of most – but none of them are as good as you’d expect to see in the soloist type concerts (i.e. Van Halen).  Their strong suit has always been the combination of phenomenal songwriting, showmanship, and sense of humor.

As a whole, the concert was very good. Harder than I remember during most parts, but that was brought down with the acoustic elements of the show. Sometimes the band was 4 members, but on certain songs that swelled to 7 (even including founding member Pat Smear from time to time).  I’m not sure that many other musicians was necessary - especially the violin / cello.

But if you’re a fan of the Foo, I recommending seeing them.  I’m not sure how you’d be disapointed. It was a standard fare, good ‘ol rock ‘n roll show that was a good one to see given the lack of concerts over the past few years.

Music is a big part of my life. I was raised with a healthy mix of classical, classic rock, and what was then contemporary. I picked up electric bass in 7th grade, and transitioned into a basic knowledge of guitar and percussion over the next few years.  This continued until about 4 to 5 years ago where I turned my creative output to digital media of a visual nature instead. But music is still a big part of my life.

My concert attendance started around the age of 8, and really took off around the time that I got my drivers license.  My concert attendance dropped off sometime around when the playing of instruments started to fade into the past. But I have a lot of fond memories of concerts and music that I rehash like everything else in my past.

I’m going to try and do a little bit of a series on my past music / concert experiences and also write about new concerts that I attend. But the best intentions quite often end up going nowhere. But it’s something I remember constantly and think I’d like to write about in this forum.