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August 30, 2004
August 22, 2004
Prince Leads the Charge
Gotta give the guy credit for running against the grain, even though I don't necessarily dig his music.
Interesting numbers from the article:
ï 666,666: The number of CDs Prince had to sell under his old record deal to make $1 million.
ï 142,857: The number of CDs Prince has to sell now, on his own, to make $1 million
ï 13 million: The number of Purple Rain CDs sold since 1984
ï $19.5 million: The money Prince made off those Purple Rain sales
ï 1.3 million: The number of Musicology CDs sold this year
ï $9.1 million: The money Prince made off those Musicology sales
ï 30: Roughly, the number of studio albums Prince has released in 26 years.
ï 24,800: The average number of people who see Prince in each city
ï $1.5 million: The average concert gross in each city
ï $63.26: Prince's average ticket price
ï $143.60: Madonna's average ticket price
ï $79.5 million: Madonna's tour gross
ï $45.7 million: Prince's tour gross through June 30
ï $100 million: Prince's expected gross at tour's end
Link via Caroline.
August 20, 2004
Birthday Roundup
I've got the week off as we hang out with Sue's family and prepare for her sister's wedding next weekend. I've got a lot of other stuff I'm helping out with (a couple of videos for next Sunday, a website that was supposed to be done a month ago and something else I'm forgetting) plus we move out of our place into Sue's parent's place next weekend to allow for Jan's fiance's fam to use our place. All in all it should be a fun week - but it'll be a crazy one as well.
August 14, 2004
CD's Are A Thing of the Past
I finally did it. I got rid of all my jewel cases for my CD's. We bought 2 120 CD binders - but it wasn't quite enough. Ugh. It took me almost 4 hrs to go through and pull the CD's out (along with whatever insert would fit) and put them in and I still didn't finish completely. There's about 30 more CD's to go that will have to go in another binder.
On the one hand it was really good to get rid of 2 garbage bags worth of jewel cases that had been taking up space in our place - but on the other hand that's a lot of CDs that I don't really listen to. I've ripped anything that I might even possible listen to into iTunes - that gave me 2709 songs, or 7.9 days worth of music played back to back, or 12.98GB of music encoded in AAC at 160kbps - but there's still a lot of CD's that I probably won't ever pull out to play.
I went out with Mark to the Yard last night for cheap beer and an ok chicken caesar wrap. I still haven't found a replacement for the Odeon's wrap that seemed to lift up my day and light up my night. Anyway. Trav bought the Megaman collection so we hit that up for a bit in a Megaman 2 kinda way. I wonder how many hours have been spent on games like that - where you play the original when you're a kid, and then play it all over again when they come out with a 'retro' version that you pick up as an adult?
The Cash Family Empties Out the Vaults
It's kind of sad, but inevitable I guess, that you can bid on a whole schwack of Johnny and June Carter-Cash property from their estate.
Maybe I should bid on his rifle?
August 12, 2004
Bachelor Number 1
Sue's gone to the 'Peg to pick up her sisters and bro-in-law (also named Chris - the fun never stops at family get togethers) so I'll be partying it up this weekend, livin the single life again just like I used to before I got hitched up... ya know, ball and chain like.
Which really means I'll be in bed by 10 on Friday after exhausting myself watching tv and trying to figure out whether a bag of smarties or a box of mini-wheats would make for a better meal. Party on! Woo!
August 10, 2004
Pilate At The Ex
Went to see Pilate tonight. (Pics here) Pretty good show. I can imagine they'd be a lot better in a club/indoor venue so I'll try and catch them in the fall when they come back. Check out a video clip here.
Spec Spots
My new favorite site: www.thespecspot.com, a collection of commercials from around the world.
August 9, 2004
Wrap it up, wrap it in...
Well much to Sue's surprise, I've decided to skip the final day's wrap up (quick summary - we ate another fine breakfast, spotted some wild turkeys, had another heady session with David, exchanged email addresses and phone numbers with people, packed up our car, took our time heading to the Charlotte airport by stopping at a Appleby's for lunch and a Krispy Kreme for dessert, flew to Minneapolis, ate McDonald's in a moment of fast-food weakness, got a free Oreo McFlurry, flew to Saskatoon, fell asleep) and just post a whole schwack of pictures instead. The pictures are kind of in reverse order right now - I need to change the default for where it puts pictures when I upload them.
There's something like 4 billion pictures spread over 5 billion pages, so feel free to take your time not even viewing them at all. Some of my personal highlights are below:
August 7, 2004
Trip to N. Carolina Part 5
We had an early wake up call ñ 7:15 was breakfast ñ so I was pretty groggy for the first session. Great food all weekend hasnít helped the lethargy. David, the speaker, has an amazing amount of knowledge in his head and itís been great to get a lot of the background of the story in Isaiah as heís been teaching. Sometimes itís a bit much to follow (like this morning when youíre tired) but itís been good. We had a 4 and ‡ hour break this afternoon that we put to good use. First of all we had a good afternoon nap. Then we went for a walk down to the chapel on the grounds here. A beautiful building with lots of history behind most everything in and around the place (the pews, the pulpit, the doors, etc). It was a quick hike down, but a steep hike back up but we managed to make it back without having to resort to a van ride. Sue loved the shrimp for supper, I filled up on rice.
After another session with David we had our final small, interactive group session. I got to hear about the joys of cancer and making sure to go to your physical, etc. I was at least 20 years younger than the other 7 guys in my group ñ so I guess it gave me something to look forward to. Probably the best time we had was after the small group a bunch of couples (including Pal and Angie) hung out in the entry of The Shepherdís Inn where we were staying and chatted until midnight. Everyone else was from Ohio but we had good laughs talking about spiderbarks and getting free sandwiches.
August 6, 2004
Trip to N. Carolina Part 4
(This one was written in the 3rd person since Sue hijacked my laptop and took over for a day.)
This Holiday Inn Express had the cinnamon buns we know and love, but a bad set up for their breakfast bar. Sue spent most of breakfast analyzing how she could improve the layout.
We got onto the road around 10am, after stopping at a grocery store for some food to take with us, following a long and windy drive to Deep Creek. The first hike was easy, but gave some beautiful views of the creek and some falls. There were many others on the hike, but most were carrying tubes to float back down the creek. It looked like lots of fun. The second hike was a bit more strenuous, but much shorter and still showed us some lovely falls.
We headed back, arriving in Ashville and finding our way to the Cove by 4pm. After registering and discovering our beautiful room, and the beautiful scenery around the grounds, we had a tasty buffet supper. We are the only ones from Canada here, which was nicely pointed out in the first session. So we have been branded and are getting a little picked on because of it. Sue was forced to be the leader in her interactive session, and Chris was assigned to be the leader in his next interactive session. Seems people think Canadians make good leaders.
Our speaker talks a little like CJ Boldt, but tells great stories and seems pretty good so far. We also met another young couple here, Paul & Angie, both just 24. Paul has been a youth pastor at Angieís home church (just stumbled into it with no schooling) for 3 years, a conservative Mennonite church, theyíve been married four years, have 2 kids but parents close by, just got back from a missions trip with their youth, and are going to school in the fall. We found ourselves saying ìus tooî a lot while we were getting to know each other. It was kinda cool.
August 5, 2004
Trip to N. Carolina Part 3
Well today we did a bit of driving. We started off by going through Gatlinburg ñ which is kind of like the Banff of the south. Lots of candy shops, toyshops, houses of horror and tacky t-shirt shops. We went through Ripleyís Museum which was interesting. Apparently itís the one that inspired the TV show. Lots of weird, wacky stuff.
Then we drove through (and stopped along the way) Smokey Mountain National Park. It was gorgeous all the way through. We hit patches of sunlight, clouds, rain and even some fog that you could actually see rolling past us. Amazing. Beautiful views and way too many places to stop and take pictures. Weíre planning on heading back tomorrow to do a couple of hikes before we head to the Cove. We had a nice dinner in Asheville at a fancy-schmancy restaurant. Best dessert of the trip thus far. Weíll see what Billy Graham and his wife can cook up for us this weekend though. Time to go to sleep so that Iím not too cranky for tomorrowís hikes!
August 4, 2004
Trip to N. Carolina Part 2
Well they were all out of cinnamon buns, but they replaced them with Krispy Kreme donuts instead ñ which maintains our fat level intake just the same. We booked some tickets for the Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede 4pm show and then headed out to do some outlet shopping (yee-haw!) Not too bad a shopping day, picked up some taffey, a pair of sandals for myself, sweater for Sue and a birthday gift for someone else.
(Mental note: Saw Settlerís of Catan for $30US, was it a good deal?) By the time we were wiped from shopping, it was time to meet up with Dolly and her stampede. About 1,000 people got shuffled into a small arena and ate dinner together while watching the North (woo!) battle the South (boo!). We ate soup & biscuit, a whole rotisserie chicken, pork loin, potato, corn on the cob and a apple strudel for desert ñ all without utensilsÖ just like they do it in the south apparently. In the end the North, our team, ended up winning 7-3. Just when we were about to relive the war and start wiping out the south for real, Dolly Parton appeared on the screen and reminded us that we were all united as the United States of America and there is no North and South anymore. We all put down our rifles and hugged and agreed not to fight anymore (or at least until the next show at 6:30). After the show, we went for a walk down the street from our hotel and ended up going mini-golfing. We ran into a family from Oklahoma who knew a lot about Canada. The state of Saskatchewan is very cold, full of small people who all deep down inside really think of themselves as Americans. Being that they were from the south and we were from the North, I felt it was my duty to walk 10 paces and shoot them dead on the spot. Sue wouldnít let me. After beating Sue 48-49 in golf, she treated me to some ice cream from the Marble Slab Creamery, similar to Jerryís ice cream with the smash-ins in Sítoon.
The Magnum keeps getting lots of attention from the locals/tourists. Itís kind of making us think that getting this kind of station wagon might not be so bad after all.
August 3, 2004
Trip to N. Carolina Part 1
We woke up at 4:10am to make it for a 6am flight out of Sítoon. Nothing that eventful except for the choice to bring a laptop, iPod and digital camera makes for a longer than usual security check. (Mental Note: Wear something that doesnít require a belt but still stays up without a belt) We landed in Minneapolis, MN and stopped for our usual Cinnabon treat before finding our gate.
It was a bit odd because the last time weíd been there was in November with Kev & Lue and Mark for the National Youth Workerís Conference in St. Louis ñ so it felt like we were missing some people this time.
Our flight into Charlotte was a little bumpier than others and Sue started to feel a bit sick towards the end, but it wasnít anything we couldnít handle. It felt good to walk out into the 27-degree heat and actually get a taste of summer.
Somehow the economy car we rented got bumped up to a Dodge Magnum station wagon/muscle car so weíre driving in style and power. Weíll figure out the gas cost later. ?
We stopped at a outlet mall in Gaffney for a Pottery Barn stop (no $ spent ñ whoohoo! It can be done! Take that Ikea!) Then we drove through Ashville, NC (our eventual stop for the Cove) to Pigeon Cove, Tennessee. Weíd thought about booking it straight to Nashville to try and get that in while we were down here, but it just felt like too much driving for a vacation. Weíll save it for next time. Gorgeous scenery was all around us on the drive in. Take the best shots from Cold Mountain and youíll have a good idea of what we were driving through today.
It turned out that somehow Holiday Inn Express had booked us into two rooms. When we moved into a single room (weíre not THAT far along in our marriage) it was a room with two double beds, not the single king weíd booked online. When I called down, the guy said all he had left was a wheelchair room but it had a king size bed. I said okay, so long as we werenít putting anyone out. When we got downstairs to swap keys, he realized that the wheelchair room was actually closed because of a leak. Now the only room he had left for us with our king size bed was a Jacuzzi room. We were more than happy to switch to that room!
We found a Atlanta Bread Company (a distant relative of the St Louis Bread Company we think?) restaurant for supper and now are ready to sleep a long, peaceful sleep with visions of Holiday Inn Express cinnamon buns dancing in our heads.
August 2, 2004
Waskesiu to North Carolina
We went up to my parent's shack at Waskesiu this weekend - (pics available here if you're interested) and now we're getting ready to leave for North Carolina. It's supposed to be 25 - 35 degrees down there this week so we'll hopefully get at least one full week of summer this year.