the most fun AND worst night in recent history

So I went to see Matt Wertz Friday night. It was a good show. It was with a couple friends plus a couple of their friends. You know how it is. The only problem was sitting back at the bar the whole time. I'm a fan of Matt Wertz but I don't know his songs well enough to where I would have enjoyed being down on the floor by the stage. And everyone back by the bar were talking louder than usual. I understand it's at the bar in the back and some talking. But there were some points where I was like- what are you doing at a live show at the House of Blues? A lot of people were not even paying attention at all to Matt Wertz and talking the whole time- rather loudly I might add. wtf. Why not go to a bar that is playing pre-recorded music?

Afterwards I went to a bar were my buddy Jimmy was performing with his band. That ended up turning out to be a lot of fun, but insane. The band was good and it was a good time, but ended up drinking too much alcohol and alcohol I shouldn't have had. I was in pretty bad shape and it took a whole day to recover but it was a fun just being with so many of the Sony guys outside of work.

Give Me Your Eyes music video

I first heard this song at work.  One of my bosses, Jeff, had this song on a compilation CD he makes frequently.  I loved it almost right away and asked him who it was by.  He said it was Brandon Heath, after mistakenly telling me Carolina Liar (hehe, sorry Jeff)!  But anyways here's the video for the song, which is also really cool.  And apparently, I'm still supposed to check out the band Carolina Liar...

Brandon Heath - Give Me Your Eyes from Brandon Heath on Vimeo.

Minnesota visit

The Twin Cities were pretty awesome. I arrived Sunday night and just chilled with Kasey, Ben, and Kasey's parents. Monday I had a lot of downtime but then I met up with Kasey, Ashley, and Stephanie for dinner right across the street from the Target Center. Ashley's friend, Andrea, also came later on to join us. After dinner, I said bye to Stephanie, then went to the Fray show with Ashley and Kasey. We were actually the first ones in our box seats. Eventually, Shera, Heather, George, Brett, and more people arrived for the show. Sovady was also at the show with some of her friends but she was able to stop by the box seats for a visit.

The show was good. Mae was really good, although not too many people were into them. It's hard being the opening band. OK Go was really good live. The Fray performed pretty well but the crowd didn't really move too much in general, for any of the bands.

On Tuesday, I got to talk with Kasey's mom for awhile. It was interesting hearing about their family and where she went to high school. Later on in the afternoon I went to see Katri at Bruegger's Bagels, and then to REI to hang out with Katie O. It was good to see these friends. I'm glad I caught Katri at work, because otherwise, I would not have seen her during my visit. Katie hung out with us that night though. We had dinner at Kasey and Ben's and then to Friday's for some drinks. Catie and another friend of Ben and Kasey's also joined us.

Wednesday morning, I met up with Ashley again at Caribou. We got around to talking about volleyball and I mentioned I had one in my car, so we went back to Ashley's house and peppered for a bit. Her friend and temporary roommate, Brett, also joined in for awhile. Fun times. I started my drive back to Chicago hot and sweaty.

blessings

p.s. To show how much of a genius I am, here is a good quote I made. When I was visiting Katie and REI, she tried on some shorts that she was going to buy. "What do ya think?" she asked. "They're pretty good," I replied. "A bit outdoorsy though." Yeah, I called something from REI "outdoorsy." I'm a genius.

another update

I just realized I haven't done an insight or personal development blog in awhile. I'll have to do that soon.

I've been able to see more out of town friends recently. Kelsey was in town from Grand Rapids, so I got to hang out with her and Lois for awhile. We ate at Potbelly's (so good!) and Lesley randomly came in with one of her friends, so I got to talk to her for a bit too. It's always good to see Kelsey. I consider her one of my heroes. Her life up to this point has been very atypical and she's always up for the next adventure life is going to take her. She's done a lot already.

Tiffanie and Gabe were also in town for an extended weekend. I went up to Zion to hang out with them at this big family picnic. It was fun.

Even though it was Memorial Day, I started working for threadless again for their new sale. I've really been starting new jobs recently on weird days. Threadless on Memorial Day. CNSCCC on Easter. What can you do?

Last night, I got to hang out with Owen (another Cornell friend) and meet his girlfriend, Rissa. Owen's always been a cool dude and Rissa is very sweet. I actually had to ditch them for a couple hours to meet up with Matiss and see Erica perform at the Hot House- which was awesome. But afterwards, I met up with them again to go to a bar in Oak Park with Peter, and meet up with David and Ashley. It was like a mini-Cornell reunion!

Coming up...tutoring Steph again tomorrow. Her algebra final is Thursday! Please pray that she does well. Also first game in our summer volleyball league is this Wednesday. Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day!

blessings

Normal visit, cont'd

Yep, I'm a little overdue for this continuation of my last blog. A week and a half ago I made a visit to see some friends for a couple reasons. 1) It was Jill's birthday so I thought I'd surprise her. And 2) It was the last Monday night (supposedly!) that Molly would perform at NV Lounge before going to CO for LT this summer, so I thought I'd go see her do that.

So I guess I didn't surprise Jill because she knew I was coming, but I did trick her with when I was coming. She had to close at Starbucks on her birthday (Sunday) and then open the next morning. Lame. I told her I would get there on Monday then and take her out to eat for dinner. I ended up on the road later than planned (as usual), but eventually made it to Starbucks with Molly to surprise Jill.

Monday was a lot of down time. Basically, I was just waiting around to take Jill out to dinner. I ended up making it to both Jill's and Tracy's Starbucks, then went to Panera for awhile. After Jill was off work we went to her place to chill, then Molly met us before going to Ned Kelly's for dinner, which is a decent steakhouse.

After that- more down time until NV Lounge. I eventually ended up back at the guys' house with Molly and met a few more people, including Gina and Katie. We were going over different songs to do that night, and glanced over More Than Words by Extreme. Before you know it, Molly was singing it and I was accompaning her on guitar.

NV Lounge was a good time because there were a lot of cool people there. I finally met Chris Pond, who didn't show up last time I was out there. I also met Katie and Meagan out there. David, Amber, Katie, Nate, and more people made it out that night (sorry I can't remember everyone's names!) Tracy performed (after much pleading ahead of time by me). Chris did some songs. Molly did some songs (including More Than Words). Then they closed at 1. Lame. But it was still a lot of fun.

I ended up sticking around all day on Tuesday, which meant a bunch of time at Panera again! I almost got to hang out with Leslie but she was uberbusy. I picked up Gina and a couple other ISU students for a Cornerstone home group BBQ at the Pastor Mike and Michelle's house, where Molly has been staying the past few months. Good times, but I had to leave early so I could actually get back to Chicago at a decent time.