What Happens In Vegas…
What happens in Vegas… is completely foreign to the rest of the world. What a weird, messed up place. A spectacle for sure, but a crazy, tragic spectacle in my opinion. Every time I’m here, there’s a moment where I think it’s fun and exciting or whatever, then I walk out onto ‘The Strip’ and remember why I can’t really handle much of this place. And what’s crazy about it, is that it’s not just the obvious sex, drugs and unhealthy gambling that weirds me out, but the complete jacked up balance of wealth and poverty. Last night walking back from getting some food it hit me that this entire place was built on the bad decisions of other people. Millions and millions of dollars are blown here in an attempt to be ‘fulfilled’. That blows me away.
I talked to a guy last night who came here for a job at a printing company and then was laid off because the company closed. Now he walks up and down the street playing harmonica for people for tips. Sure he was probably a little crazy, and probably has made some bad choices but a sweet, older guy and he could rock some Richard Marx on the harmonica. Then across the street is some massive mall filled with stores I’ve only heard Oprah talk about surrounded by ice sculptures. Impressive sure, but I’m thinking the harmonica guy could have used a burger.
Now, I don’t mean for this to come across as all ‘preachy’ or whatever, but it’s a pretty sobering feeling when you’re in a place like this and can separate from the lights just enough to realize how sad of a place this really is.
Anyone been to Vegas? Thoughts? Am I way off?
Phoenix, AZ
It’s been a good six months to a year since I’ve played solid physical game of basketball. Today a handful of us on the tour found ourselves in the Phoenix Suns practice court playing some pretty intense games. I can’t even explain how tired I am right now. After five games, and a good two hours I can barely feel my feet. One thing I did find out though is a one Mr. Steve Fee is quite the baller.
So now the challenge is to find a court at every venue for the rest of the tour. I could literally do that every day. And my knee didn’t even break.
What’s your sport?
The LBC
So, I lived here until I was 3 or so. It was before Snoop made it awesome to be a thug here. And before there were purple shoes ‘representing’.
Today we’re at the Long Beach Arena gearing up for the 2nd half of the tour. So far I’ve seen a parking lot, a shower and I think I saw this building down the street. I’m hoping to get out and hide some tickets for tonight’s show at the beach, but I need to figure out how close we are.
This should be an interesting week for sure. Southern California, Phoenix, and Vegas. Then a day off in Vegas. Should be fun.
So here’s the question of the day. What city were you born in? Ready? Go. I’ve got some purple shoes to go find.
Colorado Springs Today
I love Colorado Springs. It’s seriously one of my favorite places to come. The picture above has nothing to do with Colorado Springs, but we are here today and I thought this was a cool picture. And speaking of this picture, it’s fun to be out with the Crowder boys again. This is my third tour with them, and I’m still not sick of watching their show. The energy, the emotion, and the skill. Blows my mind every time.
Hey, it’s time for “Tour Church” so I’m gonna run. Sorry these posts are so spastic, but it’s a little crazy.
The Roadshow Has Begun
So, The Roadshow is officially off to the races. I forgot how much stuff there was to think about on this thing. Currently I am standing in an Apple store in Madison Wisconsin waiting for my appointment to get my laptop looked at. Yep, I’m blogging on one of their demo computers. This one is nice. Macbook Pro 13-inch, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo for $1499. You should check it out.
Anyway, wanted to stop in and give a little ‘hello’ while I was waiting, but I really should get back to waiting in line. I’ll try to get some pictures up here a little later today.
Up Up And Away
So any of you that are following me on Twitter know the morning that I’ve had, and are probably sick of hearing about this, but for the rest of you here’s some pictures from my day so far.
This morning Jonny Diaz was scheduled to play at a church about 2 or 3 hours from the venue that we are playing at tonight. The only way to make that possible was to fly with a guy in their church who had is own plane. Yep. Awesome.
So about an hour flight there and an hour flight back in the smallest, go-cart, feeling thing I’ve ever been in, only it was about 4,000 feet off the ground. Again. Awesome. Jonny even got to fly the whole way back.
Now it’s back to work and time to get ready for the show tonight. Great experience this morning.
Anyone ever been on a plane like this one? What’d you think?
A Weekend In Mississippi
Well, it’s been a crazy few days, and I’ve been meaning to write about this for a few days, but iPhoto broke my computer and it took me all day yesterday to fix it.
This past weekend was my first run out on this tour with the MercyMe guys and the Fee guys. We only had one “tour” show this week, but the next day was an outdoor festival thing with Addison Road. It was like a mini SkörInc reunion of sorts.
Seriously though, I had a great time getting back together with all these folks. I’m excited about this tour and all the fun stuff we have planned. We’re still working out some of the bugs and getting everything set up, but we should be good to go by this weekend when we head back out on the road.
We’ve got several places where you can stay “up to date” with the MercyMe and Fee guys on this tour, but I’ll give you a little ‘insider’s info’. The two main places you’ll want to hang out other than their actual sites, are Twitter and Facebook. I know, I know, I’ve always been sort of a nay-sayer when it comes to Facebook, but there’s some okay things on there, and there’s a ton of people on there who aren’t willing to look anywhere else for awesome info…. so we do what we can do.
Anyway. There you have it. MercyMe’s Fall tour is officially off and running. It’s going to be a fun one. Make sure to come say hey if we are in your town.
Remembering The Alamo
So, I’ve been absolutely slammed today with work. Now, that’s a good thing because I’ve had a great “office” to work in. It’s quiet, I can turn on some music, kick my shoes off and really get to it, but I’ve been slammed regardless. Yesterday was a pretty full day of work too, but with the rest of the country taking yesterday off, the projects all piled up for today.
Well, today about 1:00, just about when my brain was going to stop working and I was tempted to jump back in the bed behind me and take a nap, I remembered The Alamo. I remembered that it was about three blocks from me and I needed to go check it out. I also remembered that I heard there was a mall down the street from there and most likely there was cheaper food than the hotel snacks. So off I went.
Now, I didn’t realize that you aren’t allowed to take pictures in The Alamo, and I’m not entirely sure why not, but I found out pretty quickly after I took this picture of a gun and some other stuff that was once owned by David Crockett. Pretty cool eh? I only spent about 10 minutes there and then met up with our Road Manager to grab some real lunch and ended up saving my super healthy green tea and Snickers. I’m sure that will come in handy later.
Anyone been to The Alamo? What’d you think?
Sorry Oprah, You Lose
According to Forbes.com Chicago has been rated the ‘Most Stressful City In America’. Sort of a surprise to me, but after reading a little about it I can see it. I’ve heard so many great things about how ‘Chicago is the perfect city’ when it comes to development, and urban living and all that. Turns out, not so much. What’s really interesting to me, and much less of a surprise is that six of the top sixteen most stressful cities are in California. That’s a big number. Interesting to see Vegas so far down on the list, simply because I’m always a stress case anytime I am there. But then again Wal Mart stresses me out a little too, so I guess that makes sense.
From what I can tell the information was based on five things in bold below. Seems like a pretty good list of things to base this on.
METHODOLOGY
To find the most stressful cities we examined quality of life factors in the country’s 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or metros — geographic entities defined by the (OMB) for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics. We looked at June 2009 unemployment figures provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics and cost of living figures from the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). We examined median home price drops from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 that were provided by the National Association of Realtors. Population density based on 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and ESRI also factored. Last, we examined the number of sunny and partly sunny days per year, based on 2007 data from the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, as well as air quality figures, based on 2007 data from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
So what do we think? Pretty accurate list? Where’s your city rank? Glad to see Nashville way down at the bottom there.
Morimoto NYC
Remember that twenty-three hour drive I was on yesterday? Well, about eighty miles outside of New York, Billy decided that we should all take a little detour and go to dinner in the city since we were so close and ahead of schedule. Fair enough. He’s the boss right?
Well, he decided on a place called Morimoto and I knew I had heard the name before but couldn’t place it until I looked it up online. The Iron Chef. Now I remember. As we pulled into the city all the guys who had been on a bus a day and a half started wondering what you wear to something that says on the website the attire is “Casual Chic”. Turns out they knew we were a band so I think they were a little more lenient on the dress code thing.
Well, since this could possibly be the only time in my life I would eat at an Iron Chef’s restaurant, I had no intention of getting a cheeseburger or something like that, and I wanted to try something appropriate with the environment. Meaning, I wanted something weird, or something that was specific to that place. That first picture up there was my dinner. Some spicy tuna rolls, some other salmon looking things, some shrimp, some more tuna things, a clam and some cake type stuff that was actually made with shrimp. I’m sure it all has really fancy names, but I don’t remember any of them and probably wasn’t paying attention when the waitress told me.
That picture in the bottom left is oysters that Billy talked me into trying. While I’m glad I gave it a shot, I can’t say that I was a huge fan. The bottom right is a little hard to see, but it’s sort of an appetizer thing. The big square in the back is actually a tray of salmon paste type stuff that you scrape out and dip in the various things up front. You know wasabi, avocado, and some other things. That black dot is some caviar. Pretty good but a very different texture. There was a ton of other stuff all over the table but I felt weird running around taking pictures.
All in all we had a great time. It was fun to experience something like that. And a massive thanks to Billy for picking up the tab. When you walk into a place and they offer you three different types of water it’s typically a little over my price range.
Today we are in Maine, and I heard there’s lobster for every meal in catering, but haven’t been in to check it out. I guess this is the trip of awesome food. So here’s a question. What’s the fanciest place you have ever been to eat? City? Name of restaurant? Anything. I just experienced mine last night.
Ready? Go.
