George Michael 25Live USA Tour in San Diego

I had the opportunity to go to George Michael's 25Live tour which kicked off in San Diego tonight. I've never been a huge George Michael fan, but my wife is/was. As a result, we ended up buying tickets for the show at the San Diego Sports Arena.

While George has been a tremendous hit in Europe, his following seemed to have waned over the last decade. If you don't remember George Michael, more information about him can be found on his website, here, or on his Wikipedia page, here.

According to George's Wikipedia page, he has been quite active in politics since his early days in Wham! Tonight, his political commentary was very brief and to the point, saying something like, "Last night I saw two women get married on the TV; it's about fuckin' time," with the audience enthusiastically supporting his statement.

As far as concerts go, the San Diego Sports Arena is not an ideal venue. The facility is old, the seats are uncomfortable, and the $20 to park is pure extortion. Perhaps if they hadn't sold off a good portion of their parking lot to build a Chili's, Chic-fil-et, and an Arco, there would be enough parking and they wouldn't have to charge so much. Fortunately, we arrived early and were able to park on the street behind the Sports Arena for free and then walked to Stuart Anderson's for dinner. With the money we saved from parking we were able to eat dinner with a drink as the run a half price appetizer and drink special in the bar before 7:00 p.m.

We returned to the arena about 45 minutes before the 8:00 start time to walk around and look at the souvenirs. There were a few reasonably priced items and some unique items, but most items were at concert pricing. For example, a program was $30. We then headed to our seats and I noticed that the arena had made an effort to improve the acoustics of the place by hanging punching bag like devices along the perimeter and putting some kind of baffling in the ceiling girders. Unfortunately, we didn't realize we'd have so much time to look around as the concert didn't actually start until 8:30 p.m., despite the fact that the tickets and the marque said "8:00 p.m. prompt; no opening act."

As for this specific concert, it was probably one of the best live performances I've experienced. George had six backup singers, and nine or 10 musicians playing with him. However, what made the performance was the stage, which was uninspiring upon first glance. But when the lights went down, what looked like three flat panels opened up to reveal a three-tiered stage for the musicians. In addition, the center panel was an LCD screen that went up at least 40 feet, draped over the stage, and then into the audience as can be seen in this poor quality cell phone picture.

During the concert, the screens served as a giant "Jumbotron" showing clips from his old music videos, closeups of him singing, and the like. At other times, the graphics looked like something from Windows Media Player, simply pulsing to the beat. Either way, the screens, especially the center one, was quite impressive overall as seen here.

If you get the chance and even halfway like any of George Michael's songs, I'd strongly recommend seeing this concert. Beyond the awesome staging and performance, George was clearly in touch with his fans playing many of the favorites dating back to Wham! and not overly emphasizing the "new stuff" that so many performers do. And if you do go, make sure you stay for the finale as it's not to be missed; however, I wont tell you more as to avoid any spoilers. Let's just say that the audience left on a high note!

Kudos to KPBS

I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the fine work of KPBS in San Diego and the Google Maps mashup they put together to track the San Diego County fires, evacuation areas, and the like. It's being updated regularly and provides much better information than I've been able to find anywhere else on the internet, even through the County of San Diego websites or the Cal Fire websites. The City of San Marcos Website even links to it rather than any of the other "official" maps provided by the county or the state.

The Google Maps mashup can be found here and is updated quite regularly.

i-Didit

I finally swallowed the magic Apple pill and bought my first Apple product yesterday. Now mind me, I've always been a big fan of Apple engineering. They make a fine product that usually looks fabulous compared to their rivals. However, I also always felt that Apple charged a premium for their products even though a premium price was not always warranted. As a result, I usually opted for equivalent item at a significant discount. And until Boot Camp, I would never have considered an Apple computer because I like my gaming too much.

Well today, after much consideration, I finally bought the i-Phone, which is my first Apple product. While I can't yet comment on the phone, I can tell you as a long-time Pacific Bell, Cingular, now ATT customer, I am quite disappointed at ATT's money grab. When I went to activate the i-Phone, I discovered that I had to accept the cancellation of my $6 government discount in order to qualify to use the phone. Given that ATT already requires a 2-year contract and $20+ dollars per month, do you really thing they were going to be hurt by the $6 I'm saving on THREE phones. Yes, that's right! ATT is too cheap to allow a $2 per phone discount to stay in place, even though the net cost of the i-phone is $300 plus $480 ($20/month x 24 months).

While I probably would have benefited more from a smart phone to replace my PDA, I couldn't fathom spending $44 a month on a data plan in addition to the voice plan. Thus, even though I think ATT is a greedy corporation, I have to admit that the data plan seems fairly reasonable. Of course, the data plan is very limited as the phone cannot be used for much other than surfing the web and email, whereas smart phones can be tethered to a laptop to serve as a modem. Either way, I'm satisfied as I'll be able to check email and Blackboard while on the go to keep up with my online classes. In addition, it was time for an ipod, so the i-phone met two needs.

Negligent in My Blogging

I seriously doubt that many people follow my blogs, but if anyone does I apologize for the lack of posts over the past 4 or 5 months. As you might imagine, I've been a bit preoccupied with work and this summer with "daddy duties." Since my son, Brady, wont begin daycare until August and with my wife, Sheri, back to work, I've been playing Mr. Mom for the last several weeks. However, I hope to post several posts over the next week or so.

Upcoming posts will include my review of my self-built Media Center PC I've been using for the past year and a vacation review of Disney World. Other travel-related reviews I've written in the past can be found along the right-hand margin of this page.

Three Hours of Sleep I'll Never Get Back

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been taking advantage of the midnight showings of this summer's blockbuster movies as my son, Brady, and wife, Sheri, are asleep at that time; thus, my father- and husband-related responsibilities are not being neglected. Of course, there is additional loss of sleep, so the movie has to be quite good.

The movie I was most looking forward to this summer, in part due to the hype of the trailers, was Transformers. I'll admit that I grew up when Transformers appeared as toys, competing with GoBots, and was one of the dominant cartoons on television. I even had a number of the Transformer toys, including Optimus Prime and Starscream. And of course, my friends had various versions of them as well. And since the only movie to date was a cartoon version, I was quite excited that a live-action film was being made.

While the movie was fair and one that is enjoyable to anyone looking for a shoot-em-up flick, I must say that I was disappointed in the film overall. In my opinion, it failed to stay true to the cartoon storyline, the storyline I grew up on. Instead, the storyline was disjointed with all the Autobots and Decepticons going after one item, the Allspark. Rather than showing how the Transformers evolved, Optimus Prime spends five minutes providing a narrative.

Now, I must say that the midnight show drew a lot of fans. The theater was packed, and the audience cheered upon the lights dimming. The audience also cheered when Optimus Prime appeared for the first time, and applauded when the film was over, much like one would see at a Starwars screening.

Fortunately, I also saw Live Free or Die Hard, also known as Die Hard 4.0 in Europe, the week before at midnight. While the audience was much smaller, I must say that this 4th Die Hard movie was everything that I expected it to be and more. While I admit that I was not a fan of Die Hard 3, I really enjoyed the first two Die Hard movies. However, I think this is the best to date as you have a known character, the introduction of several new characters, and all the action and suspense that one would expect from a Die Hard film. Thus, I was completely satisfied when I left this movie, realizing that the 11 bucks and loss of 3 hours of sleep were worth it--not so for Transformers.

Of course, I could always go to Krikorian Theatres' "Mommy Movie Mondays," which I've taken advantage of several times, but I didn't want to wait to see the movie, nor did I want to be interrupted from the action by having to tend to Brady during the movie.

Pride of Aloha Review

I've had a couple of people asking me to post my January 2005 review of the Pride of Aloha, so here it is: http://members.cox.net/drlc/POA%20Review.pdf

While this review was posted on Cruise Critics, the posting on that website is incomplete.

What I've Learned in Two Weeks as a Parent

The following are a few discoveries I've made over the first two weeks as a parent:

• Coolers are king.
• Keeping a cooler on the nightstand to store bottles for 2:00 a.m. feedings will make your life a lot easier so you don't have to go far when hunger hits your newborn.
• Keep diapers everywhere.
• While changing tables might be nice, they are often inconvenient in terms of their location. If you live in a two story house, keeping a diaper station downstairs as well as upstairs will make your life a lot easier. In addition, it's useful to keep diapers near the bassinet if your newborn is sleeping in your room.
• Use a light that can be dimmed.
• The last thing you want to do is turn on the lights in the middle of the night to check on your newborn, to change his or her diaper, and/or to feed him or her.
• PDAs are useful in keeping track of feedings, diaper changes, etc.
• While this may sound trivial, the first thing your infant's pediatrician will ask you is how much he/she is eating and how many diapers you are changing on a daily basis. He/she will also want to know the content of those diapers. Further, you may enter a new parent coma, which will impair your ability to remember anything usually resulting from too little sleep. Thus, if it's not written down, you might not remember it at all.
• Don't believe size tags in infant clothing.
• Even though Brady was an average sized kid in terms of weight and length, all of the "newborn" clothes are still way too big. "Onesies" work well and we swaddle for warmth. Anything else they'll end up swimming in. I've also found that I like Carter's clothing the best and have found that they run large.
• A digital camera is your friend.
• Keep a digital camera in your diaper bag so that it's always accessible. Take pictures everyday and take more than you'll need. You'll be surprised at how quickly they grow and change. And since they're digital images, there's no cost for the ones you choose not to print.
• Make triple prints of all your photos.
• You'll want to keep a set for yourself and the grandparents will likely want a set as well.
  
• A good office chair may be a better bet than a rocker or a glider.
• Everyone raves about using a glider to calm your infant and/or for breast feeding, but my wife found that my ergonomic office chair worked best for her as the chair can be custom adjusted in all ways (e.g., height, tilt, arm height, etc.). You can't do this with a glider or a rocker. In addition, the chair swivels, so you can still use the chair to sooth your infant.
  
• Learn to swaddle.
• Nothing calms Brady more than being swaddled. Waffle style receiving blankets work best as they can be pulled tight, but they leave waffle marks on your newborn's skin. While they do sell swaddling sacks, they may be too large for your newborn.
• Your legs make an excellent cradle.
• If you're sitting in a recliner or on the bed, cross your legs at the ankles and use the space between your legs as a cradle. This way, your newborn will be close to you and you'll be able to see him/her clearly. However, keep in mind that he/she will be too far away for him/her to see you clearly.