Sunday, May 31, 2009

Hooked on V

Goodness...I have new obsession. Vampires. Okay sorta obsession and it's not new. As I have mentioned I am a Twilight fan and an old school Buffy/Angel fan...well as of yesterday you can add HBO's True Blood to the list. My friend Kristen told me I needed to read the books True Blood was based on and to watch the series when it came out on dvd. I added True Blood to my netflix and even looked into the books. Well yesterday I was lounging on the couch and nothing on tv appealed to me so I decided to buy the first episode of True Blood on itunes and see what it was all about.HOT DAMN...it is an intense, sexy, provocative show. As soon as it was over I was like I need to see more episodes, but I hate buying shows on itunes and then having to watch them on my computer so I went to Blockbuster to see if they had it...sold out. So I went to go buy it...$40, but worth it. I was up til 3am watching the first 7 episodes out of a 12 episode season. I would have stayed up all night if I didn't have Orientation today - yes on a Sunday.

The music, the "world" it is set in, the maturity. This is definitely more adult than Twilight. The "world" it's set in is modern day and that vampires have come out of hiding because scientists in Japan created quality synthetic blood - therefore vampires don't have to kill people and therefore can reintegrate in society. It's really interesting in terms of the politics, prejudices, norms etc. This show is definitely not for everybody, but if it seems like something you'd be into I highly recommend it. I'm looking forward to buying the books series the show was based on...yay summer reading.

I love the song in the opening credits...check it out.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I survived

WOW Camp War Eagle has owned me the past few weeks. We had our retreat then training week aka training 10 days then the first session of camp. I was BEYOND TIRED. Thankfully everything went pretty smooth.

At training I presented on diversity (primarily GLBT students), out of state students, verbal awareness as well as presented a stereotyping activity and a potential roommate ranking activity that I created along with one of the head counselors. I also trained facilitators who will be presented a "learning for life" diversity session to the freshmen. I love that I'm getting to reach out to different populations and educate our other students as well.

I also finished up the out of state student video I had filmed and worked on the past few weeks. I still have some tweaks to make to it, but it went well. I showed it to the camp counselors and the people who came to our "Tigers in a New Territory" presentations liked it as well. This year our staff nametags have out hometowns on it - mine says "Long Island, NY." Yes I know Long Island isn't a town...but I need to take baby steps with people down here. However having NY on my nametag has had a lot of people talk to me which is fun. There were 2 other New Yorkers there, but them were from upstate...lame.

Camp itself went pretty smooth for a first session...I was especially RELIEVED since I made a number of suggestions to change the schedule. The schedule that has been in place worked and was great, but I'm glad we made changes that have to potential to really make things better and stronger.

Somewhere between training and camp I was able to catch up on a bunch of season finales. How I Met Your Mother - legendary as usual. Grey's was really interesting...quite the cliff hanger. American Idol was pretty good...clearly the top 3/top 2/ finale paled in comparison to when David Cook was a contestant, but he did perform on the finale. Cookie sang "Permanent" a song he wrote for his brother who passed away a few weeks ago and all the proceeds from the live version on itunes were going to a cancer research foundation. Cookie was awesome on idol...he is not only yummy, but such a class act. Kris Allen won idol which was quite surprising, but I liked both him and Adam. I'm just glad Gokey didn't make top 2...I'm still bitter than he lasted a week longer than my girl Allison. It's funny I am typing this today when Idol usually is on...I'm lost on Tuesday without it. To occupy my time I'm watching Twilight...somehow I have only watched it on dvd like 3 or 4 times since I bought it in March. I'm pretty pumped for New Moon in November. Agh Edward's "American" accent keeps changing throughout the moving...annoying.

This weekend was a lovely 3 day weekend. Like I said I caught on on tv and sleep. I slept A LOT...like embarrassingly a lot, but then again I don't care I needed it. I wasn't a complete waste I cleaned a lot, did a ton of laundry and did some shopping. Good times.

Tomorrow is session 2 of Camp which is Wed-Fri then we have a Sun-Tues session...oh back to back. Another fun Camp thing I did was set up a Camp War Eagle Counselor Alumni group on facebook. Ella and I are all about having a Camp Counselor reunion especially since Camp is in it's 15th year...so we shall see.

Lastly I bought my ticket to Lawnguyland for my birthday. July 27-August 5...that's ONE FULL WEEK. Crazy good times shall ensue...get your party panties ready.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

It's here it's here!

First day of the first session of Camp War Eagle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

M.I.A.

Training Week is here for our orientation team meaning that I get to work at 7:45am and leave about midnight for 10 days....AWESOME. Seriously though, yes it is exhausting, but I love my students and the work that I do. Coffee and laughter will keep me going.

Our first orientation session is NEXT Wednesday..CRAZY!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Wino

With all the David Cook craziness I haven’t been able to really post about my weekend.

Friday night Michelle and I went to Opelika’s Wine on the Tracks Festival. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we figured we’d check it out. There was a wine trail that you had to buy $25 tickets for, well we didn’t want to commit at first so we figured we’d just walk around a little. Basically all the shops downtown were open late and each different wines and snacks in their shops. I hadn’t been downtown much before so it was fun to explore. Michelle took me to this really cute inexpensive jewelry place and I of course bought 3 pairs of earrings!

Well the second place we go into Michelle spots a wine ticket - aka a program you needed to get the wine-just laying discarded on a shelf. Well after a few minutes of waiting to see if it got claimed I picked it up and Michelle and I took turns using it to sample the wine. I wouldn’t call it stealing, but I wouldn’t call it honest either - it was just meant to be. Michelle and I would have just shared a ticket anyway because apparently people who drank at every stop got pretty drunk. I did see a few coworkers who did the entire wine trail that can attest to that being true. Oh and one place had an awesome champagne punch - Michelle and I are going to try and recreate it - yum!

After we had over fill of wines Michelle and I headed to 8th and Rail which was right in the middle of the wine festival for a non-wine drink. I had only been to 8th and Rail once before at like happy hour and it was quite...well tonight it was busy and they have live music it was great.

Michelle and I grab a seat at the bar and grab a menu to decide on what to get. Pretty much everything was going to be a bad choice due to the saying "wine before liquor never been sicker." I actually turn to the guy next to me and ask him what he’s drinking - a white Russian - lame and I told him it’s lame. Surprisingly he was a smart ass and sassed me right back leading to Michelle and me chatting up David for most of the night. I told David about my blog and expect him to become an avid follower! Michelle and I settled on getting Amaretto Sours and I forgot how much I like those. Also at 8th and Rail my coworker Ella and her husband also found us, they were at the wine festival too, but we never crossed paths with them while we were there.

Saturday I was pretty much a waste of life, had a headache as I expected after drinking various types of alcohol. I really had hoped to do an intense spring cleaning in my apartment, but that never happened. I really need to make time this week because orientation training week kicks off on Sunday and my job will own me for the 10 days that follow - but I love my job so I’m okay with that.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Rockstar

**Today is 2 years since Cinco de Masters...aka graduating from UConn with my Masters. Two years of not being a student...weird**

Okay, okay I couldn't wait to post about my David Cook concert, you will have to wait to hear about my weekend tomorrow. Now, I warn you now this is a long and detailed post- mainly because I want to remember every single second of it. Enjoy!

I knew my 3 hour trip to the show was going to be awesome because as soon as I got in my car Come back to me came on, on the radio...the first time I’ve heard it on the radio... was dying. Yesterday was exactly 8 months since the last time I saw David at the AI tour/my birthday and as much as I did enjoy that concert I would have preferred a smaller venue, more David, more songs and luckily I got just that!

The trip to Athens seemed to fly by because I was so excited to get there, I played all my 85+ David Cook songs for Michelle to familiarize her a bit more. Got to the Venue that had a big marquee that had "David Cook" on it (don’t worry I took pics and will post them all soon as well - well my friend Michelle took pics with my camera because I am terrible at taking pics at concerts - thanks Michelle!). The venue was TINY...like small club with a tiny "pit" a back bar and a balcony. There were lots of people in grey ribbons.I wore a grey shirt to show some support. We got there a few minutes before Ryan Star took the stage - I managed to get in about 10 people away from the stage to the left of center (great spot). Ryan Star was waaay more Rock/Screamo than I expected. He dedicated his song "Breathe" to David Cook - Check out the song- touching lyrics. Ryan also said that he was going to donate all proceeds from tonight’s record sales to Adam’s charity. Ryan all around rockin’ guy.

So then the next 20 minutes after Ryan were getting the stage ready and the Club played music over the speakers.well about 5 minutes before David took stage Foo Fighters "Hero" came on...I started to tear up - I felt like it was serendipitous or something to be played since David played and dedicated that song to Adam during the AI tour. So finally the lights go down and Madonna’s "Like a Virgin" plays and all the guys take the TINY stage. David comes out in a VEST (I love him in a vest) and his black knit cap he’s worn on stage before. Luckily when he takes the stage the audience goes WILD - I was screaming my head off - the audience has whole was vocal, but they didn’t seem to be having as much fun as I was having.

As David was strapping on his guitar (His beloved white AC guitar that I was hoping he’d play since he didn’t use it when I saw him on the Idol tour) David kind of took a moment to himself to look toward heaven and like put his hand to his mouth to collect himself and to send some love up to Adam. David and his band (I’m not gonna lie - I was SOOO focused on David I barely paid attention to the other guys) ripped into Heroes and David sang most of the song looking up to the heavens and probably collecting himself...luckily the audience was showing him a lot of love. During one part of the song the lyrics say "I'm exactly where i want to be with you and you alone" he showed the audience some major love right back.

Immediately after Heroes they ripped into "Your Only Honest When Your Sleeping" - I was super excited to hear such a gem (it's a song he wrote a few years ago, but never released). I knew the chorus, but I wished I knew more of the song well. During YUHWYS David took off his hat and exposed his yummy locks for the rest of the night. BTW it was about 1000 degrees in there and David even made mention about how sweaty he was later in the set.

So after YOHWYS David finally stopped to address the crowd- except for the fact that we were going insane- claps, screams, whistles etc. He just stood on stage soaking it all in...it literally went on for like 2 minutes. He finally had motion for all of us to settle down (I have a pic of it). He said that if we kept up the energy than “"we were going to have a great time tonight" David then took time to thank all of us for our support and he said he didn’t mean concert tickets and cd sales. David never directly mentioned Adam or why he chose to not cancel dates (I read his DCO blog when I got home at 3am).

Then they launched into Mr. Sensitive - it’s a song I like, not love - but for whatever reason I teared up. His vocals were ridiculous all night...he had such a growl about him last night...so sexy. Then David bantered about how so much of the crowd had glow sticks and he hoped we had a synchronized routine we were going to do. David also said that Joey and some crew members were saying filthy inappropriate things in their monitors about the glow sticks (I can only imagine).

David then said he was playing a song that didn’t make it to the record and I just about died from joy right then and there. He launched into "Souvenir" and I really lost it. That song has quickly become one of my favorites (esp thanks to the youtube video wear he yanks his shirt to show his tat). Well I was one of about a handful of people there that knew ALL THE WORDS! I was the only one in my vicinity and I SWEAR TO GOD HE SANG THE LAST FEW LINES RIGHT TO ME - LIKE FULL ON EYE CONTACT - to the point where other people said something about it to me after. Magic...Magic. The concert could have ended right there, but instead he wanted to play another favorite of mine to make me melt completely.

David they asked who in the audience was in a couple and people cheered and he said "well this song isn’t for you." He asked who was single and people cheered and dedicated this song to us. Then they unleashed and HARD ROCKIN ’version of Kiss on the Neck. David growled through it and the first time he go to saying "Kiss on the neck" he like rubbed his neck - SO HOT. Well right before the end of the song they continued playing KOTN instrumentally sorta and David told us they were fooling around with a little mash up type thing on the bus that they wanted to try...so then David goes into a verse from "Hotel California" HOLY GOD!!.HOT, HOT, HOOOOT. Apparently Andy was supposed to come in with vocals and didn’t so David like laughed and we all cheered before they went back into finishing KOTH.

David looked like he was tired and a bit drained - but still as good looking as I hoped. He said mentioned his race yesterday and everyone cheered. He said he’d only gotten bout 6 hours of sleep in 2 days and Joey cheered and David looked at him like WTF- okay let’s cheer for being sleep deprived haha.

Next was Declaration and again David looked up towards to the heavens a few times. Despite the fact that he obviously was thinking of Adam, he really connected with the audience as well. He worked the stage...pointed to people’s signs. Made sure everyone was up and clapping. He also took some one’s camera and took some video/pics of Neil during. Also might I mention that his new Eagle tattoo is YUM - I saw both the Eagle and the AC tats a few times. I didn’t get a good view of the eye on his wrist tat.

They next did "Lie" which is also a favorite and David got like superior lighting for this song. He sang a few bits of the song with no music all, just him making love to the mic. His talent is breath-taking and his MOUTH is beautiful.I’ve always loved his mouth and just seeing it up close in action- wowz.

David then said we seemed like a hard rock crowd and how they were debating on the bus when they were making their set list if they were going to play Man in a Box or Little Lies and he said we seemed like a Man in a Box kind of group and we all went crazy. David is like there’s one guy in the back who I’m sure is like "Darn, I wanted to little Lies" (and David did it is a slightly gay type voice that was hilarious) and David is like that guy by the way is (insert name) our sound guy - who then David gave a thumbs up to and the sound guy gave one back. Hot damn Man in a Box was yummy - I love that David and band decided to ROCK tonight. I think it was good for David’s morale...I’m sure it was cathartic for him, but at the same time he did look like he was happy and where he needed to be - surrounded by loving fans singing his face off...seriously that boy SANG HIS FACE OFF...I think he sang my face off as well haha.

Come back to me was next and David was saying how he dropped 2 singles last month and this was one of them and he mentioned the video and how he got to kiss the girl from Disturbia and laughed. Then went on to say something about having a "long and fruitful relationship with his fans" but at first his said fued-ful and he was like "I didn’t mean fued-ful I meant fruitful, fruitful." Come back to me was also really strong - he just seemed so on his game tonight which is so hard to believe considering the circumstances and not having seem his family in a few days. He is such a professional and a class act...but I already knew that.

After CBTM they left the stage and obviously we were all chanting for an encore and they came back out and ripped into Light On. Again during LO David looked up to heaven - esp during some of the more poignant lyrics. I not and huge LO fan, but again David just OWNED it and the band really rocked out.

Someone threw a shirt on stage and David looked at it and told us it said Rock (but he said Rock is such a funny like heavy metal way). David again thanked us all for coming out and said this was their 2nd new single and to all call the rock stations and request it. Their final song was an intense growly/throaty version of Bar-Ba-Sol that had me squealing like a school girl. I loved all the youtube videos of David’s live version of bar-ba-sol, but this was out of control. They were rockstars in that moment...I hope David does a more "ROCK" album next go round because they all really seemed to enjoy themselves tonight playing such a ROCK show. As the song wrapped David threw a ton of pics into the audience and lingered an extra minute on stage just to soak in all of our love before heading off stage.

I did go to the buses and there weren’t a ton of people...the guys were already on the bus and we saw joey get off and go back in the venue, but after 25ish minutes and waiting and seeing food get brought onto the bus I decided it wasn’t meant to be and I still had a 3 hour drive home. So I don’t know if the boys came out or not and I kind of like to think they didn’t and that David got to recharge his batteries after giving so much of himself to us on stage.

I made it back at 2:30am central/3:30 eastern - I was back and forth btwn time zones. Despite being INSANELY tired I still found the energy to look through my pics and check out DCO last nite. So I am at work and running off about 3.5 hours of sleep, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. Amazing show, amazing night, amazing guy.

He is just so yummy and there are already a ton of videos from last nite on youtube...I'm loving it!

Monday, May 4, 2009

The Show Must Go On

I am in complete disbelief, but David Cook isn't cancelling tonight's show. I assumed he would and then when I didn't see any updates on his website or the venue's site I started to look into more and all the fan pages were saying how it was still on and someone saw him at the Atlanta Airport. I kept trying to call the venue and kept getting busy signals, but it finally went through a recording was playing saying that tonight's David Cook show IS STILL HAPPENING. Shock. I am shocked, but excited. Maybe the show will be therapeutic for him, wow tonight is going to be memorable.

I had a post about this weekend that I was working on when I got through to the venue so you will have to wait for that til tomorrow as well as a full concert update that I'm sure I'll have by Wednesday.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

AC

I just found out that David Cook's older brother Adam passed away this morning. Adam had been battling brain cancer for 10 years, but was able to get flown out to see David perform on American Idol last year. David is known for having the initials AC on his guitars as well as on a tattoo. Despite Adam's death this morning he still was the grand marshal and ran in Washington DC's Race for Hope today and gave a touching speech.



I am sure that my David Cook concert that was supposed to be tomorrow will be rescheduled at some point. David had cancelled a few tour dates in late March because Adam has taken such a turn for the worse and my thoughts and prayers are with the Cook family. My heart hurts for David and his family today.

Here are the lyrics to 2 songs David wrote about Adam as well as the songs

AC - written when he was still with his band Axium

You must understand I'd take your place in a heartbeat
You can't comprehend what watching you does to me
I can't comprehend the kinds of feeling inside of me
You must understand that this is all so new to me

Please know I love you and I miss you anyway
I'm coming to grips with what you deal with everyday
You're always on my mind

I can't seem to find my own sense of disregard
Lord knows I'm hurting for you
I feel so benign not having control of this
But I'm here through your malignancy

Please know I love you and I miss you anyway
I'm coming to grips with what you deal with everyday
You're always on my mind

Please know I love you and I miss you every way
I'm coming to grips with what you deal with everyday
Everyday

Please know I love you and I miss you every way
I'm coming to grips with what you deal with everyday
You're always on my mind



Permanent - Written for his 2008 self titled debut cd

Is this the moment where i look you in the eye?
Forgive my broken promise that you`ll never see me cry
And everything, it will surely change even if i tell you i won`t go away today
Will you think that you`re all alone
When no one`s there to hold your hand?
And all you know seems so far away and everything is temporary rest your head
I`m permanent

I know he`s living in hell every single day
And so i ask oh god is there some way for me to take his place
And when they say it`s all touch and go i wish i could make it go away
But still you say
Will you think that you`re all alone when no one`s there to hold your hand?
When all you know seems so far away and everything is temporary, rest your head
I`m permanent
I`m permanent

Is the moment where i look you in the eye?
Forgive my promise that you`ll never see me cry

Friday, May 1, 2009

Friday Five

1. I had to get my car serviced this week after a light came on a few weeks ago and I brought it to Toyota and they said they needed to order a part. So this week I took it in and feared how much it was going to cost me. Turns out it cost TOYOTA! My $924 repair was covered by was warranty...how awesome is that.

2. Going to a wine festival today after work with my friend Michelle. I do miss the Wichita Falls wine festival...good times.

3. I ordered faculty/staff season football tickets this week - let's hope I get a pair - I think my chances are good since we aren't expecting a great season.

4. WTF Private Practice...too many cliff hangers on your season finale yesterday. Total bullsh*t

5. I have been busy filming and editing a video to be played at an out of state student session at orientation - it reminds me of the rush to finish the "Wish I had known" video before training at the Q...tear.

BONUS: DAVID COOK CONCERT ON MONDAY...I CAN'T EVEN HANDLE IT. My HEART RATE JUST ABOUT DOUBLED JUST TYPING THAT.