I grew up camping in Northern California, and before kids Kristin and I would go backpacking and camping as often as we could.  Since moving to Nashville  we’ve only had one camping trip and I’m sure most of you remember it.  Now, this year I hope to find a little more of a desirable place to camp and take the family out.  I love it.  I love being out in the middle of nowhere.  I love waking up in a tent, staying up next to a fire, and all that dirty, camping stuff.

Now, I know it’s a pretty even split of folks who either love camping or hate it, and I’ve already taken a quick Twitter poll, but I thought I’d follow it up on here.  So let’s hear it.  Camping or No Camping?

Ready?  Go.

So, check this out.  Yesterday I may have signed up to win a blogging position for a little “Expedition” to Antarctica.  I know.  It’s kinda weird and freezing and all that, but it’s only 20 days and you have to blog about your experience there, take some pictures and let people know how awesome it is.  I think I can do that.  I’m still trying to talk Kristin into going if I win, but I wanted to take it one step at a time.

I’ve already got a whopping two votes and I’m pretty sure that it’s a ‘get as many votes as you can’ type of thing, so here we go.  Want to send me to Antarctica for three weeks?  How about we make it a ‘Blog Nation goes to the bottom of the World’ type of thing?  All you have to do is go here, create an account, (yes you have to sign in because it’s only one vote per email address), and then vote for me. This might be one of the dumbest, but most awesome things I have ever done.

Let’s see what happens.

Ready?  Go.

Alright folks.  You know how this works.  It’s time to spread the word about the new MatthewWest.com.  I’m super excited to start working with Matthew and his ‘camp’.  He’s got some amazing ideas for the future of the site, he’s a ridiculously good songwriter and on top of that he’s currently riding a twelve week number one single for Christian radio.  Sounds like a decent online buddy to me.

So here’s the deal.   Head over to Matthews new site, check it out, click everything and see if anything is broken.  You guys know how to pick apart a site and let me know if anything is screwy.  And then there’s the ’spreading the word’ part.  Blog about it, Tweet it, Leave Matthew comments, and if you’re feeling ambitious, rent a plane and have it written in the sky above your city.

A big fat, “Welcome to the SkörInc Family” to a very talented Mr. West.

Today is Kristin’s Birthday and I’ve hijacked her blog and turned it into a Happy Birthday wishing party over there.  So  here we go.  Head over to Kristin’s Blog and wish her a very happy birthday.

Ready? Go.

Yep, I did it.  Now, I had the first generation iPhone.  You know, the one with the metal back and no 3G-ness.  Well, yesterday Mr. FedEx dropped off my Father’s Day present from Kristin and the boys and I immediately started in on setting it up.  It’s not all organized or set up perfectly yet, but it’s getting close.

What’s cool about this whole upgrade thing is that now Kristin can have my old one and let’s face it; What’s not cool about a two iPhone family?  Was that the proper use of the semicolon?  Anyway.  I’m still reading about all the new features, and honestly I’m just glad that I have a phone that doesn’t take thirty seconds to decide to unlock occasionally.

So a big fat, ‘my wife is awesome’ thank you to Kristin and my boys for my new distraction that I can also use for work.  So I know a bunch of you out there already have the new iPhone, so what’s your favorite thing so far?

Growing up ‘Trash Night’ was on Thursday meaning that the trash trucks came early Friday morning.  I was in charge of moving the trash can forward from the back yard to the curb.  I frequently forgot to do that and more often than not woke up to the sound of the trash truck outside slamming around my neighbors trash cans and running outside in my boxers and a t-shirt hoping that it wasn’t too late.

Then I got married.  Trash Night was on Wednesday or Thursday morning if you will.  Kristin and I had a long gravel driveway so I never heard the Garbage truck but frequently woke up and leaving the driveway would notice that I had yet again forgotten to bring the can forward.  Our second house, same thing.  Long drive way, always forgetting.  Third, we moved back to Thursdays, had a shorter driveway, but I still forgot more often than not.

Our fifth house was an apartment where the trash truck would come every morning to the end of the walkway and pick up the couple bags of trash that you had from the day before.  Again, if you didn’t put it out the night before, chances are you’d miss it.  Or at least I would.

So here we are at house number six, and while you think this post is clearly about me forgetting to bring the garbage can forward it’s not.  While I still forget almost every week, it’s not about that.  What I’m wondering is simply this.  Does anyone have a trash night at the beginning of the week?  I’ve never had one earlier than Wednesday and it’s kind of driving me nuts tonight.  I mean, if everyone’s ‘Trash Night’ is later in the week, what are these guys doing at the beginning of the week.  Surely there’s someone out there with a Monday Trash Night right?  How about a Tuesday?  Anoyone?

Let’s take a little ‘…in case you were wondering’ poll here.  What night is your Trash Night?

Ready?  Go.

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Welcome to Sunday. It’s time for another installment of ‘Stats Suck Sunday’ where everything is random and it doesn’t matter anyway because no one is reading it.  To join in it’s easy.  Write a bunch of random bullet points on your blog and leave the link in the comments along with your comment.  Things have changed up a little because I’m mad at Mr. Linky for screwing up my blog too much.  Here goes:

• First off, I know this video above is old and most of you have seen it, but go ahead, tell me it’s not good enough to post again.  Plus with this week being the 4th of July and all, it’s only appropriate.
• I actually have a Saturday and Sunday “off” this week.  And when I say “off”, I mean that I get to be home and not on the road.
• I do have to be gone for The Forth of July though.  I will be in New York, which is a bummer but I think there will be plenty of time to blow things up with the boys when I get home.
• The Disney Channel weirds me out.  It’s like they take a bunch of kid actors and put them in adult story line movies.  Like crime fighters, or ninjas, or something else awesome and then these kids are fighting adults.  I’ve never seen a kid ninja soccer player girl before.
• I’ve decided to start memorizing songs on the guitar.  I’ve always been a slacker at that.  I suppose that’s the problem with learning guitar by leading worship.  You always have the option of chord charts.
• Playing basketball barefoot hurts my ankle.
• This week is Kristin’s birthday (July 1st), so I’ve got some planning to do, but I have some sneaky ideas.
• Last night we had green beans and spaghetti with basil from our garden.
• ‘Return To Neverland’ is way more intense than the first ‘Peter Pan’ movie.  Those pirates are rough.
• I’d like to go on a roller coaster.
• I thought about the green overlay thing on my Twitter avatar, but I don’t really get what it’s supposed to do.  Plus that green weirds me out a little.
• I think I need to be done because my foot is asleep.

Happy Sunday.  What’s on your mind?

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At the end of Sugarland’s set they get in massive bubbles and run out on to the crowd.  I’ve only stuck around a couple times to see it happen and the other night I decided that I needed to get some pictures of it, since it’s you know… a person in a bubble… on a crowd of people.  Pretty crazy huh?

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I can’t sit here and say that I was the biggest Michael Jackson fan in the world and how devastated I was to hear of his passing.  Truth is, I like his music enough to know most of the hits, but I didn’t know much about him.  I grew up hearing about him and seeing him on TV or whatever.  I had his Greatest Hits CD in high school, and I have the ‘Bad’ and ‘Thriller’ records on vinyl, but that’s mostly because they are cool.  What I do know is that his influence on music and pop culture can only be compared to what The Beatles’ was.  There’s no denying that Michael Jackson’s influence on music has shaped every form of pop music today.  And I think that’s worth remembering.

And here’s what I think is cool.  Whether you believe all the weird media child molesting stuff that went on with him, and yes I agree it was weird and creepy, or whether you think that his parenting tactics were weird or his plastic surgery decisions or whatever, the man was an amazing talent.

Now I know that everyone and their brother is blogging about this today, and I think that’s fine.  I think yesterday was a day that will be remembered for a long time, as someone who greatly influenced our culture has died.

So let’s hear it.  What’s your favorite Michael Jackson song?

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I haven’t been in the “business” world or the “entertainment” world long, but I’ve noticed something interesting recently and am wondering if it’s the same in other facets of business.  I’ve noticed how common it is to forget or ‘overlook’ the family of the person you are doing business with.  It seems like in the music industry specifically, it should be a family affair and the decisions that are made affect the entire family.  Whether it’s signing a record deal, choosing a manager, planning a touring schedule, or even where to live the entire household is affected and the Industry (capital I) needs to recognize that.  Now I’ve seen great examples of this, and I’ve seen really bad examples of this.

Look at it this way.  If there is someone that you want to do business with, whether you’re a… let’s say web presence company, and want to start working with an artist and want them to understand that their success is important to you, yet when you meet their family you blow off their wife and ignore their kids, it’s sending a clear message that what is important to them is clearly not important to you.  Or let’s say you’re a manager and are considering working with an artist, or an artist wanting to work with a manager, or an artist wanting to work with a web presence guy, or a label wanting to sign an artist, or whatever, but you don’t treat their family as if they deserve your time, how can they feel comfortable putting their career in line with you and the direction you would take them?  Common sense right?  But I think that happens more than we realize.

Now again, I’m sure it’s like this everywhere in business, but more specifically in the music industry, family needs to be more accepted and the ‘business’ side of things needs to realize that more.  If an artist is important to you, then the most important people in their life also need to be important to you.  If a manager is important for you to work with, their family has to be equally as important.  And it goes both ways.  Artists, if you want to work with someone, treat their family nice.  Sounds simple right?

So this long-winded post is simply to say.  ’Hey music business people, stop blowing off the wives and family of the people you want to work with.  Yeah I know you want to look ‘cool’ to the artist and you think you’re cool because you work in the music business, but the easiest way to work with them, is to treat them all as if they are important to you.’

So is it like this in other parts of business?  Does anyone out there see this happen in business?

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