Arcade Fire at Gexa Energy Pavilion

Last night I went to see Arcade Fire play at the Gexa Energy Pavilion that used to be called the Superpages.com Center , the Smirnof music center before that and the Coca-cola starplex amphitheater before that. This was the first time that I ever went there to see a show and walking around kinda gives me the feeling of being at the state fair with many of the same iconic fair concessions being deep-fried all around the venue. The stormy weather that rolled through the area just before the gates opened kept most people off the lawn area and under the mostly water proof roof that covers the seats at the Gexa Energy Pavilion.

In the last six years since Arcade Fire last played in Dallas at the much smaller venue Trees they have received several Grammy awards and have seen an explosion in popularity with their 2006 album Neon Bible and their 2010 followup The Suburbs. Opening acts for Arcade Fire were Schmillion and Okkervil River; both from Austin. I didn’t hear much of Schmillion but I really liked Okkervil River and will be getting their new album when it comes out on May 10th.

Arcade Fire’s set was an energetic line up of the hits that the crowd would riot if they didn’t play and a nice mix of deeper cuts and newer songs off the latest album. There really wasn’t a “time to go pee” song in their lineup and carried the energy through their final song Wake Up from their 2004 debut album.

Arcade Fire lead singer Win Butler told stories about missing ‘warm rain’ that he remembered from growing up in Huston being reminded by the warm rain that blew through Saturday afternoon during sound check. He also talking about going to a French restaurant with his wife and band member Regine and seeing Dallas Mavs player Tyson Chandler coming in to eat  dinner and asking the waitress about the dishes that they served then saying ‘no thanks’ and walking out. Who doesn’t love a good crepe?

New Year’s Resolutions

It may by April, but with a quarter of this year already behind me I have a better idea and a better chance of keeping with my New Year’s Resolutions. More of a todo list than normal resolutions.
(in no particular order)

1. Start my own business
2. Loose weight
3. Start video podcast
4. Graduate college
5. Pay down credit card debt
6. Learn to play the guitar. (real kind, not just the rockband kind)
7. Brew my own beer
8. Apply to grad school

Blogging is Hard

Is it just me or is blogging hard. I mean in the sense of keeping up and actually writing interesting content on a regular basis. I find myself having a lot of good ideas that I want to write about but then when I am in front of the keyboard with some spare time not one single descent idea comes to mind. Some would say that writing is like a muscle and you have to constantly use it to keep it in shape. Here’s to trying to blog more often.

Big Changes

There have been  a lot of big changes going on in my life. I got a new job and I am headed back to college in a couple of weeks. I am getting back into programming and have spent the past few days working on servers and refreshing my programming skills. Right now I’m installing xcode tools on my iMac so I can try doing some coco apps. I have been to Fry’s twice in the past two days needing to pick up parts and books on PHP and Facebook programming. Back to the grindstone.

Planning my trip to Seattle

I have been working the past several days on planning our trip to Seattle and I can’t wait. I already bought the airline tickets and have our hotel reservation made and I’m trying to use gCal to plan out everything in our schedule. I working on some stuff so that I can be blogging while out and about seattle and keep in touch with the folks who haven’t really gotten into the whole social networking thing. Come on April 4th.

Travel Woes

So this weekend we were going to fly to Ohio to see family and leave my Dad so he could spend some time with his mom. Needless to say, we never got there. The snow that we had here thursday went there friday and caused alot of problems. We left and made it to columbus but never landed, just circled around until almost running out of fuel and having to divert to Detroit. American airlines then took all the luggage off the plane and quickly lost it. I had to scramble to reschedule everything and return to Dallas to try Saturday to get to Columbus on the dreaded flight 460. Saturday we get to the airport and 10 minutes after we check-in they cancel the flight. After one hour and three minutes on the phone with AA customer support I was able to get a refund for our tickets since they weren’t willing to reschedule the tickets for a time that works for us only the next day. I understand that it isn’t AA fault that the weather interfered with our flight but I shouldn’t be forced to take a flight days later when I can’t get off work or pay hundreds of dollars in fees to reschedule the tickets. AA is in the service industry and needs to remember what good customer service is about.

Is it Christmas yet?

I’m not sure why I’m excited for Christmas this year, whether it is the fact that I have no idea what I’m getting or the prospect of getting up at 4:30 am and going to work and collecting some double overtime but I’m excited for Christmas to get here. All of my Christmas is done and I’m waiting on the last of the Amazon.com gift wrapped stuff to show up on Monday. Aside from the stuff that I bought through amazon and shucked out the 3.99 for gift wrapping(well worth it in my mind) everything else is just sitting around waiting to be hastily wrapped after I get home from work on Monday just to be ripped open mere minutes later.