Trip Around The Sun

Yesterday Kris and I went out to a concert at Miller Park. It was Kenny Chesney’s “Trip Around The Sun” Tour. On the bill were, of course, Kenny Chesney, but also Old Dominion, Thomas Rhett, and a new artist by the name of Brandon Lay. I am not a huge fan of Kenny Chesney although I deo like his last two albums, and since I had always heard people saying that a Kenny Chesney concert was like the country music equivalent to a Jimmy Buffet show I thought we would give it a try.

First off, I don’t know what a Jimmy Buffet show is like, I have only heard stories, but I was expecting some sort of drunk-fest. It wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, people were tipping back drinks, but I didn’t see any falling over drunk people; it was more like having a good time with a few drinks. And even though it was the end of April, it was only about 39 degrees outside, so think you Milwaukee for putting a roof on the stadium.

The View from Our Seats

So the first guy up was Brandon Lay. He came out to some AC/DC, Hells Bells. Nice touch! His show was all pretty upbeat and I would classify it is country music with a touch of pop. I really thought he had a great voice and I enjoyed his music. I give him a thumbs up. When I went to look for his album/music, he doesn’t have any out. He has a few singles on iTunes, but that is it. Hopefully he gets a full album released soon, because a couple of the songs I liked are apparently not released.

Next up was Old Dominion. They have apparently been on tour with Kenny Chesney for two years. Sounds like they are his permanent opening act. I have heard several of their songs on the radio, and generally didn’t have much of an opinion of them other than I didn’t hate them. There is one song for sure I am not really a fan of, but I can’t remember the title. Overall, they were pretty good too. They played in the late afternoon sun coming thru the right field side windows, so they were all wearing sunglasses. Combined with the music, they gave off a vibe of sort of a late 70’s/early 80’s “cool”. Again, the music was very good. They didn’t have a whole a lot of interaction with the crowd, but still gave the impression they were having fun playing, and the crowd was having fun as well.

Thomas Rhett is someone that the girls like, I think more because he is young and cute. His show was good as well. I was surprised at how many songs of his that I knew. It must have been that I have heard them being played by the girls in the house. He did a little more interacting and talking to the crowd than Old Dominion. He also looked like he was having a good time performing, then again, who wouldn’t? His video board had some really nice photos during “Life Changes”.

Finally, Kenny Chesney came on. He did a pretty solid show. My one question is how can you name your tour the “Trip Around The Sun Tour” and then not play “Trip Around The Sun”? Kenny Chesney was very high energy. I get the feeling that he loves to perform. He had both Old Dominion and Thomas Rhett come out and join him on stage for songs, as well as David Lee Murphy who came out for two songs; maybe it was three? Kenny Chesney played straight thru for a good 90 minutes or so, not so much as stopping to take a breath except for when he brought out the other guys, and when he introduced his band. He had a pretty wide set list too; stuff from several albums.

So my take away from the show was it was good. I give it a thumbs up. Not sure if I would go back and see him again for what the tickets cost. Maybe if it was summertime and we were able to spend the day tailgating and having a good time before the show.

Training

Today when Kris goes into work she is going to be working with one the dieticians in her department to go over what she does with her cancer patients and how she and the dietician are going to update her responsibilities in the area. From what I am told by Kris, since she can’t do most (if not all) of what she would normally do with her patients, it sure sounds like she is going to be “training” the dietician in the procedures in the cancer care wing. It reminds me very much of what was going on a couple of years ago when Disney was taking advantage of the H1B Visa program to hire foreigners to come in and replace some of their employees. And then the current employees were expected to train their replacements before being let go if they wanted to receive their severance. Small consolation, right? I may be wrong, but this is exactly what it smells like to me.

Saturn In La Crosse

Over the weekend I decided to let Sarah take her car back to school for the rest of the semester. There are a couple of reasons we never had her do it before. First, she tends to beat the hell out of her car. Try as I might, I can’t seem to get her in the mindset that because it is an older car, she really needs to baby it. With the small leaks, and other engine issues we have had, I just worry that something is going to go wrong, and I won’t be around to help her take care of it (see the New Year’s Day incident). Second, it is a long drive to LaCrosse. Granted, it should be able to make it there no problem, and she has driven it to visit her friends before (Oshkosh and Whitewater) but that was only an hour or so away, not three. And third, it’s a V-6, which just burns the gas! And with gas prices climbing, I worry that she will spend all her money gassing it up.

But on the plus side, I didn’t have to drive her back (6 hours round trip not including stopping for gas or eating). And that also means I don’t have to go pick her up at the end of the semester. I just pray that she is careful with it! See you in a three weeks Sarah!

Cabinets

I believe that all the checks have now been ticked in the kitchen remodel, we have ordered the cabinets. I am going to try and install them myself, so we paid an extra few $$$ to have my measurements confirmed. I thought that the peace of mind that will be generated by knowing I won’t have to worry about fitting something into a space and being off by ½ and inch cannot be overstated. Whenever projects like this are planned, I think of an episode of “Renovation Realities” (or maybe it was “First Time Flippers”) where the homeowners had purchased a floor to ceiling cabinet and when it came time to put it into place it turned out that the overall height of the cabinet was ¼” too tall for the height of the room. Not having to worry about something like that is huge!

The one not so good thing is that we are going to need to end up returning the sink. While it would have been nice, if we had kept the farm sink, it would have required a lot of modification to the cabinet in order to get it to fit properly. With my luck, I would have ended up destroying it during the modification process, and I wasn’t about to pay someone to do the modifying. So we decided on just getting a standard cabinet and then we’ll have to find an undermount since that will fit the cabinet. I’m a little bummed out because the features on the farm sink were starting to grow on me. Maybe we can find a standard one with similar accessories.

We should have a couple of weeks before the cabinets come in, so I have a little bit of time to get some other things done before I have to go whole hog on tearing everything apart. But once they get her, it’ll be game on

Home For The Weekend

Sarah decided to come home for the weekend this week. All of her roommates were coming home and she really didn’t feel like sticking around in LaCrosse by herself, so she came home with them. I’m not sure exactly what she is planning on doing, because there is really nothing going on and none of her other friends are home. I do think that her boyfriend is planning on coming home so she’ll probably spend the weekend hanging out with him. But she’s home.

I think that we are going to let her take her car back to school on Sunday, because her roommates are going back at around 11:00 AM. Her boyfriend invited her to come along with his family to the Brewers game which starts at 12:30, so if she takes her car back she can go along. She will also be able to drive her boyfriend back to school so he doesn’t have to take the Badger Bus, which is a win for him. And the win for us is that we won’t need to waste a day driving up to get her in a three weeks when her finals are over. I just hope that the car holds up. It worries me that she’ll run into a situation like New Years and she’ll be stuck someplace.

Flooring

Since we got the sink, and we have had a sample of the cabinet color and a couple of vinyl flooring samples for a while, today was the day we officially ordered the vinyl flooring. We are going with a vinyl plank, that clicks and locks in place, a lot like the laminate floor we have now. The difference is that this flooring has a cork back so we wouldn’t need a pad under it, plus, it is about half the thickness (if not more) of the current floor. I just hope I calculated everything right so we have enough, and I hope I can get it all installed by myself without any problems. Next up, actually going and getting the cabinets ordered, and then I think the kitchen remodel will be all set!