Category: Observation

Major Rock (by that I mean Bach) SUCKAGE

My ears are ringing badly… why you ask… well I submitted to the Jedi mind trick my wife placed on me and I ended up agreeing to go see Poison at our local Peoria Civic Center last night.  That’s right, Poison… 80’s, makeup, hairspray, latex … you got it.  First a confession is in order.  This is the third time I have seen Poison in the last 3 or so years (that d*mn Jedi trick must be stopped).  But in all honesty, I must agree that it is a pretty fun time.  Poison does give their all and their songs are catchy and don’t take a master’s degree to learn the lyrics – but the number one thing, of course, is the people watching opportunity. 

Unlike the last two times I saw them, it wasn’t at the Mississippi Valley Fair in Davenport.  This was a real arena and there was a fronting band – let’s retry that.. there was suppose to be an opening act, specifically Sebastian Bach.  You know Bach, as in Skid Row, Super Band reality show member, VH1 top 100 metal songs narrator, rehabber – I’ll stop there because the downhill terrain is getting slippery.  Anyway, we find our seats, take in the view, note a tremendous amount of significantly overweight women dressed to score, spot an unusually large number of Affliction and other UFC themed shirts, settle in to the truly uncomfortable arena seats and prepare for Mr. Bach to bless us with his wonderful bygone day pipes.  First his band comes out and all I could think of is what newspaper ad did he find these guys at –  espescially the lead guitarist sporting the scary dude elongated sideburns, black boots and b e l l b o t t o m s – weak.  The music kicks in and it’s ABSOLUTE CRAP.  I’ve been to many concerts across many different genres and this is the worst I’ve ever sat through.  Every single act on the Warped Tour had better sound that what was blasting my ears – distortion out of tolerable gain, vocals lost in the guitars and Bach’s wireless uplink cutting in an out.  It was awful and based on the people standing around looking at each other, this was a consensus opinion.   As a side note, a good indicator that you are on the way out is when you have to come onstage and open up with a song from another band (Aerosmith’s Back in the Saddle).  Sebastion also has historically relied on his strong high end vocals but apparently that is gone because they had the reverb turned up so high on his mic he would stop singing way before the end of the screech.  Finally midway through the roadie guy kept coming out to play with his butt monitor to see if he could fix it (there has to be some funny shots of that and based on the thousands of camera’s going off in the no-camera show someone must have it).  They eventually gave him a wired mike which didn’t fix the problem but gave him the opportunity to stand on stage and due the horribly cheesy and stupid helicopter whirl with it.  Nothing tops the lead guitarist’s trying to actually hit his leads – missed note there, delayed note there all cranked up so we could hear every high school chop – I finally had to laugh out loud when he tried strumming with his teeth and ended up losing the rhythm – of course he was continually stomping on his pedals trying to get them to work.  I will digress again quickly – what is it about bands continually telling me where I’m at.  I know where I’m at, the guy next to me knows where he is at and if the lead singer bothered to look at the arena name he would also know where he was at – so use it once or twice to fire the crowd up .. and then just STOP IT.  To put it in perspective, I counted the number of times Sebastian said Peoria vs the number of times he said the F-word – guess which one won by a landslide and if you know anything about Bach, you know he uses that other word allllllll the time – the point I explained to my how before the show how it would be a great drinking game.  Sorry, back to the rant.  Finally they end, the audience applauds their exit (most reaction all night) and they crank up the recorded music which sounded absolutely awesome.  Guns N Roses: Welcome to the Jungle, AC/DC: Highway to Hell – was as if they were there rocking it out for us.  Bach – you owe my wife and I and apology for having to sit through that crap.  There was great retribution when Poison came out – Brett Michaels actually thanked Dokken for opening up for them – HEHEHEHE (I wish) – Brett turned to CC and he told him it was Bach and trying to brush it off then thanked Bach [for wasting our time] Classic!

As just a few comments, Poison didn’t disappoint.  They played their classics, interacted with the crowd, kept the Peoria statements to a minimum and get this…. sounded great as they hit all their keys and notes.  Imagine that – after 22 years and still delivering on the cost of their tickets (Sebastian, taking any hints).  The additional side of this was that CC sounded great – energetic, lightning fingers and good crowd interaction.  This opinion could have been amplified a little bit based on how horrible the opening guitarist was, but like I mentioned, I’ve seen them twice before and CC sounded just as good then (ah, life after the 80’s drug scene isn’t all that bad is it). 

The most important things about last night was that my wife enjoyed watching Poison and when she is happy I am generally happy – plus we were kind of celebrating our anniversary so I am glad at least Poison didn’t dissapoint us.  My only complaint was we decided not to buy Linda a concert shirt.  I wanted to get her one as a small anniversary gift, but we both decided that 40 dollars was toooooo much to spend on a T-Shirt.  Much like gas, 4 is the watermark for second thoughts.  I was also appreciative he only mentioned his reality show once unlike last time where he milked it from beginning to end. 

…now time to go and figure out a way to get this ringing to stop.

Coffee 5 Cents, Ice Water Free but NO PARTYING

I had to laugh while taking in the sites at Wall Drug while on our South Dakota trip.  Actually, a more accurate depiction would be …. trying to keep myself entertained while internally struggling to determine why the hell I bothered to detour from my intended destination to go to Wall Drug in the first place.  Unfortunately, my wife convinced me to go and I somehow let my expectations get a little too high – when someone tells you that you can buy all the crap you didn’t know you needed, my expectations was a Super Wal-Mart filled with trinkets from the Wisconsin Dells.  Not the case… they had a few stores, had the obligatory Jackalopes for sale … and a 6 Foot one Linda forced me to get my picture on (NO I will not be posting it) and sure enough free ice water.   This managed to keep my interests for exactly 32 minutes  – eventually I found myself outside the women’s bathroom waiting for Linda (I know.. TMI, but I didn’t want you to think I was just hanging out there for no reason).  Apparently this was an employee communication area since it had a number of bulletins pinned to the wall – one of which caught my eye.  One particular sheet went into great detail how male employees can wear jeans, but women were forbidden from wearing jeans and must wear black slacks or a skirt.   I decided the owners might be religious since we have similar sects around here that have the same rules for their women.   What really made me laugh was a whole dissertation on how there would be no parties in the employee dorms and that individuals caught would be subject to significant discipline including dismissal … and the local police have been notified of this policy.  The only thought that came to mind was … Here you are in the less than happening Wall, South Dakota and you can’t even drink your sorrows away… I’m not on vacation.. I’m in HELL.

Hey Linda! any chance we can get back in the car and start heading to Custer State Park? -no… pretty please -no what if I buy you a cute little jackalope? -no or a “We Must Be on the Backside of Mt. Rushmore” shirt? -no or Black Hills gold jewelery? -no moccasins? -no polished rock? -no let you control the radio on the way there? -no   ……. ugh, I’ll just sit here and wait for the horns and pitchfork to show up

 Just say NO to {Wall} Drug{s}!

A Mansion on the Hill

We ended up pulling into a small tourist town called Keystone looking for a place to stay after taking in the sights at Mount Rushmore.  While we were looking for a place to stay, we notice a large mansion sitting pretty high above the tiny town.  There were no signs anywhere around it other than a large cross embedded high into the side of the forward facing walls.  Based on that small amount of detail, we figured it was some form of monastery, but it looked a little out of place since it was clearly visible from anywhere in the city and was markedly upscaled to the rest of the surroundings.  The monasteries and abbeys around where I currently live are tucked pretty deep into the countryside and do not generally take on a high frill styling. 

After finding a location to stay (a definite upcoming blog entry based on the perceived fleecing that occurred), we found a small little pizza place to settle our hunger.  Note, although the food and service ended up being pretty darn good, we were a little annoyed that each table had a plastic cup on the table begging for tips.  I personally can’t stand this – if you want to raise the price to give the help a little more pocket money, then do it, don’t put up a price and then panhandle to subsidize inadequate wages.)  But I digress from the current topic.  A motorcycle couple come in all decked out in the standard garb – leather jackets, Harley branded dew rags, leather chaps, flame sleeved shirts and Harley boots (see previous post 8^)  They apparently also noticed the mansion and questioned the waitress on what it was.  She actually replied that they didn’t know who it belonged too, had never seen the people and that it was built just a few years back.  This apparently appalled the customers who proceeded to complain how awful it was to flaunt wealth like that and how it was apparently the most evil thing they had ever witnessed.  For the next 30 minutes, that is all they talked about – how could anyone do that, that’s sickening, wasting money to show everyone how much money they had yada yada yada.  When their pizza arrived, the waitress updated them that she was informed the owners of the mansion are the owners of just about everything in the town – most of the stores and restaurants targeting every tourist that came their way (likely on the way to the presidential carvings).  This resulted in having to sit through 20 more minutes of how horrible it was and how they must have done that to look down on everyone to make them feel bad. 

During this whole time, I could think of only one thing… Why do they care how an individual spends their wealth?  They probably made a number of companies’ bottom lines to create that home (carpenters, brick layers, roofers, concrete workers, drywallers… the list goes on).   I on the other hand was curious as to whether the owners were Catholic (based on the large cross built into the external decor) – if so, then the recent Pope announcement that obscene wealth is a sin probably sparked a lively breakfast conversation…. probably starting with “Hey honey, I wonder if the Vatican will every announce how much wealth they have stored in their treasure vaults”

With A Rebel Yell, She Cried Yuppie Yuppie Yuppie

Due to the flooding occurring in Davenport Iowa, a motorcycle event was moved from the river up to the Missouri Valley Fairgrounds.  We ended up driving by that area on our way out of town and witnessed a huge number of bikers converging on the area.   I didn’t find this too ironic until we started getting close to the Black Hills and you probably guessed it… Sturgis.  So our trip (from the very start to our return trip) allowed me to observe the biker community.  I do not ride myself, but always intrigued by those who do.  When I was growing up there was really two camps – those that rode the Harley lifestyle and those who preferred the laid back luxury of the Honda Goldwings.  To be honest, I really didn’t see these two groups mixing much which probably led to my surprise at the number of “mixed” groups I was seeing on the road – The standard Harley crowd, mixed with the Honda crowd, interspersed with the Victory and Indian owners with a few crotch rocket riders.  (ironically the Dark Custom Harley commercial just came on the television)… one thing that stuck out, was the impression that none of these bikes were the low end machines.  As I was looking at the chrome and huge amount of accessories it occurred to me that motorcycle marketing must have transformed themselves.  Somehow they are winning over high bread makers who want to either live the weekend lifestyle or the biker lifestyle is transforming themselves into corporate management.  I’m not sure which way the change is happening, but what I do know from looking at the Harley website, some of these bikes are costing more than SUVs. 

I also had another observation that help drive this home while out in South Dakota.  We had stopped in Custer State Park to have a little picnic lunch when an individual rode up to the wayside on a nice looking Harley Davidson – chrome all over the place and decked out in all sorts of sidebags and lights.  The guy was dressed in a leather vest, leather chaps and a skull themed dew rag.  He steps off the bike and turns off his docked iPod, pulls out his GPS and flips open his iPhone.  I then looked on his passenger seat and noticed a laptop cased strapped into the rear bar.  No tattoos, no earrings – a quick wardrobe change and he could’ve been my CIO.  Hats off to the Harley marketing arm.

Taking “Green” to New Heights

I am sooo far behind on this month’s blogs!  I actually recently came back from a vacation out in the Black Hills of South Dakota which had its good points and bad points, but the difficult part was the Verizon Air Card would not work in a number of places we were at.  As a result, I had to capture a bunch of notes in hopes of making posts upon my return… well, I’m back and time to get down to work.

On our way out we headed through Davenport as we trekked up northwards to get around the massive flooding throughout Iowa.  So much flooding, in fact, that they shut down US80 – our planned main route out West.  As we drove through Davenport we started seeing an extremely odd scene.   Granted there has been a lot of rain pouring down up there, but I never expected to see weeds and grass growing out of house gutters.  At first, I figured it was just an abandoned house or something, but a block down I noticed it again, another couple of blocks and there it was again.  I can’t really figure out how this really happens.  Based on the type of shingle there may be some grit building up in the bottom of the gutter and in some situations I could see  a leaf buildup, but I’m entirely sure this is sufficient for plant growth…. and then a mass of seeds needs to be sprinkled on the area to produce the plants/weeds.  I am currently fighting with my new lawn to maintain last year’s seeding – apparently I need to lay down a covering of asphalt and leaves first based on the height of the gutter foliage. 

Then again, it could be another victim of Global Warming propaganda and the homeowners are actually planting grass on their rooftops in order to become GREENER.  Oh, and this just in.. Al Gore’s energy use went up 10% this year.

No Pain, No Checkmark

So I may have mentioned previously, I have a “Life List”… I use that name because it sounds a little more positive than “Bucket List” or “Death List” or any number of other names that people refer to their set of things they want to accomplish during their lifetime.  My list usually refers to physical challenges or achievements I use to challenge myself.  I generally do not give a timeframe for them, but often the activity requires a certain age level, preparation or sequence of events to complete the task.  Without a doubt, there are few moments I cherish as much as when I get to take that spreadsheet out and place a little checkmark and date next to an entry.  two weekends ago I had the opportunity to make such a check – so alongside the black belts in martial arts, completion of the Bix 7 mile race and learning to Snowboard (to name a few) I now get to add the following:

Steamboat IL Toughest 15K

I started running sometime back in order to complete the Bix 7 entry.  I’ve been pretty much running ever since with the sole purpose of being ready compete in every Bix since then.  In the meantime I would catch the various 5Ks and would catch the Peoria SteamBoat 4 Mile (IL’s Fastest 4 Mile) in preparation for the treacherous 7 Miles of hills at the Davenport IA Bix.  At the halfway point of the Steamboat 4M, I would make the turn and head back to the start while all of the 15Kers started their trek up into the hills.  For some reason, I convinced myself on the way back that I needed to complete the 15K so I could prove Continue reading No Pain, No Checkmark

The News Not Worth Reporting

So yesterday I was getting ready to take on the day with hopes of getting a good 15K run in along with some badly needed yard work.  By basic routine these days, I flipped on the TV as some background noise and a final check of the weather.  To lazy to worry about changing the channel, I left it on CNN Headline news which I interpreted to be “headline news” or “news I should care about”.   Here are the first three stories I was subjected to:

  1.  101 year old is still driving around her Cadillac
  2.  A pressing concern because Scott McClellan will not say whether he is still a Republican or not.  … yeah, the guy who waits till election year to claim “it’s not my fault” and try to make a few bucks off an election year drama
  3. Wife of San Francisco guy who hired a naked maid off of Craig’s List (and surprisingly stole $40 grand or so) believes the trust is gone in their relationship – complete with shadowed room interview.

 That was three leading stories which means there were at least 6 commercials for tax resolution lawyers, 3 commercials for ambulance chasing lawyers, 4 commercials for how to get a free mobility chair from the MediCare, 2 head ache commercials and the garden cultivator which consists of sticking a paint mixing bit on a drill and then sticking it in pre-tilled potting soil.  All that for three stories… correction.. three HEADLINE stories.  … Find Remote, Click Remote…. I can get better written stories, more pertinent to the real issues I care about and not be inundated with stupid *ss commercials by simply logging into my computer and checking my RSS Feeds. 

I will not be wasting my time with Robin anymore I’m no longer buying their fabricated drama.  Ironically, I was reading the paper waiting for my dogs to take their agility runs today and there was the answer in black and white… Iraq violence is at a near low… they apparently have nothing to talk about since that is contrary to their drama, conflicting with their agenda.  So instead of reporting the successes, we get the naked maid and resulting infidelity concerns.

sad.

Slacker Retribution

I feel like I’ve been slacking a little bit on my regular posts.  I do have a number of additional bird entries to make, but figured I would step back and summarize some observations that I have made over the last week or so.  Hopefully, this will hold you over until I get through the pending feathered posts. 

 For starters, I was the recipient of outstanding service at a downtown establishment last week.  Around 9:00am, a coworker and I had a serious craving for some dark chocolate.  Typically this is a result of a need to relieve some work stress – nothing like taking a stroll downtown to clear the head and come up with a new approach to a vexing problem.  Our destination was a tiny little confectionary shop called the Nut House nestled in between the towering skyscrapers of Peoria IL (okay, if you are familiar with Peoria, you just laughed).  So off we went to ruin our teeth.  Disappointment soon took over as the shop did not open until 9:30 – Denied!  Like kids we were gawking in the window at the chocolate we desired.   A lady’s voice startled us from behind and asked if we were looking for something.  I recognized her immediately (guilty of chocolate addiction) as the store owner.  We mentioned we just came down for some candy, but noticed we were early.  Having sat out on Black Fridays before, I’ve been conditioned to be at the mercy of posted hours so I was totally shocked with her response.

Continue reading Slacker Retribution

A house is on fire … somewhere

I was going through my digital pictures I’ve been taking for a future blog subject when I came across an image I forgot I had taken.  In complete coincidence, I happened to be holding my camera when a news broadcast came on the television from our local news station.  There were working on a breaking story about a house that was on fire.  I had actually seen this from the highway on my way home and was wondering where the fire.  I was in luck!  News 25 was gracious enough to give me a graphic showing exactly er…. hmmm .

Peoria House Fire

well it appears to be burning somewhere in the heart of Illinois.  The good thing is they actually know what state it was in unlike my previous post about ESPN

“Mill-e-wah-que” which is Algonquin for “The good land.”

I get to check off another city in my Travel Log.  Yesterday I drove up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to attend an Architecture Best Practices Forum at a large company headquartered in the area.  Ironically living only 4 hours away, I have actually never been here before.  I am not sure if there is a connection or not, but first off, it is COLD up here.  Get this, it is the end of April and I had to drag out a heavier coat to come up here because it is 38 degrees out.  This clearly must be a figment of my imagination since we are currently in a death spiral brought on by Global Warming. 

Warning….. quick tangent… speaking of Global Warming, I was eating dinner in the hotel last night and an add came on with Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich whining about the political vogue topic of global warming.  Since I didn’t really have the opportunity to change the channel like I usually do, I had to sit through the stupid commercial which as expected ended up disgusting me (This is exactly why I try to avoid commercials whenever possible).  Turns out, that the two politicians were communicating their concern for the environment and how they are going to do something about it.  So, here’s a start Nancy – how about NOT flying to SYRIA in a provate jet with your personal entourage in order to talk to the head of a country considered to support terrorism – oh, and this environment damaging trip … is considered AGAINST U.S. LAW.  In fact, how about not flying in a personal jet to visit the Dalia Lama and since you were not authorized to speak on behalf of U.S., stating it was a personal visit. 

Now with that off my mind, I just wanted to comment that Milwaukee appears to be a surprisingly nice place to visit (although it would better if it was not so cold).   Driving downtown was a little interesting since my Garmin GPS was totally confused and kept wanting me to turn left for apparently no reason – there was a lot of construction around the downtown area which may have changed traffic patterns from those in my GPS (purchased only last November).  I was a little disturbed about how high some of the new highway overpasses are going to be – it looked to be about 4 – 5 stacked lanes high.  As it turns out we simply drove through downtown and eventually arrived at the Radisson on North Shore.  Fairly nice hotel, but clearly a former Holidome.  I am going to cut them some slack since they had fresh cookies, but the two ladies checking in myself and coworker need to pay a little more attention to their directions.  My coworker was given a room number and told to go out and around the outside of the building to an entrance in the back.  Not wanting to make him walk that far with luggage, I drove him around there and then drove all the way back to the front in order to get to the elevators for my room.  After walking through the lobby, making the appropriate lefts and rights I came to the indicated elevators, took it to the third floor and walked down two hallways to room 357.  Get this, my coworkers room number turned out to be…. 356 (right across the hall and straight up from the location I dropped him off at earlier.)  Good thing I didn’t have a 357 at that time. 

Anyway, pretty impressed with this area of Milwaukee –  local parks (lots of joggers out), above average homes nestled in the trees and an incredibly nice outdoor mall (good thing my wife didn’t come 8^) .  Among all of this was the company HQ I was up here to visit.  Definitely a place I would like to come back to and spend some more time exploring.  Van Halen was playing the Bradley Center yesterday, but I found out too late to hunt down some tickets.

 Well, off to find out how to turn up the heat in my room – oh, bonus points for naming the movie the title of this post comes from.