The good news is you have delirium

I’m a big Sam Roberts fan. He’s just a solid Canadian rocker, and I expect him to be rocking around for a long, long time.

Not long ago, he was playing a show at a local wine festival. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, so I was pretty bummed about that. So when I heard he would be playing another show in Chatham (about a 45 minute drive from Windsor) in November, I knew I had to get tickets.

The show was this past Monday at the River Rock Nightclub. I went with my friends Dave and Jon. As we stood in line waiting to get in, we couldn’t help but notice this dirty, creepy, old guy behind us. He just didn’t look like he belonged. He started behind us, but as time went on and the line shuffled forward, he seemed to sneak to the side of us and eventually in front of us. We didn’t say anything, but maybe we all felt our wallets were safer with him in front of us.

We found ourselves a great spot on the upper level near the bar. The opening act was another Canadian band called The Stills. I thought they were pretty good. I just found the vocal mics may have been too hot because a lot of the words sounded distorted. Too bad that didn’t really get addressed. Well, until Sam came out. He sounded much better.

Of course, Sam has a new record out called “Love At The End Of The World,” so he played a lot of new stuff. And that was fine with me because I think the new album is great. And he played some of the earlier hits like “Brother Down” and “Where Have All The Good People Gone?” Then they did their fake good-bye before returning for an encore, which actually lasted another 3 or 4 songs, so it was a great show, but I couldn’t help leaving a little disappointed.

They didn’t play what was probably the song that really launched them onto the scene, which of course is “Don’t Walk Away Eileen.” I’m sure after 6 years, it might be driving him a bit buggy, but hey, fans expect it. It reminded me of the time I saw The Tragically Hip in Michigan when “Music At Work” was released. They didn’t play “Blow At High Dough” OR “New Orleans Is Sinking.” That was just so wrong. If The Rolling Stones can still play “Satisfaction” some 40 years later, I think Sam (and Gordon) have to give people what they want.

But hey, it was a great show. On the way home, Dave, Jon, and I sang every classic rock song that my Sirius Radio threw at us. I thought our best effort was “These Eyes,” the classic Guess Who song.

Great night.

This year’s WEVA Expo is being held at the Grande Lakes Resort in Orlando, Florida. I am very excited to get down there and learn some new tricks.

Not being from around Florida, I’ll need to hop on a plane and fly there. Ah, but where to book a flight, and when?

For last year’s expo in Las Vegas, I used Travelocity. It was a rather simple and painless process, and at a great price.

But…

Then my friend told me about kayak.com. It searches around 140 different sites for the best prices.

Beautiful!

So I found a place to book a flight, but pricing changes all the time, so which day of the week is best to book? From my research, I would say Tuesday.

Depending on the day, the best price could be as high as $269, but I’m happy to say that my Tuesday booking set me up with round trip airfare from Detroit to Orlando for $214.

So, the other day I installed some extra RAM into my Mac Pro computer (two sticks of 2GB RAM). Originally, I put one in each riser. After rebooting a couple times only to see that the new RAM still didn’t register, I googled some instructions and discovered something.

Anyone who owns a Mac Pro should know that RAM must be installed in pairs, but what you may not know is that the new RAM must also be installed on the same riser.

There are two platforms of RAM in the Mac Pro called risers. They are generally referred to as the upper and lower risers.

If you install one stick of new RAM on the upper riser, and one on the lower, the computer will not recognize it. They must be next to each other on the same riser.

I’m a very friendly, easygoing person. Cool as a cucumber, you might say. But everyone gets upset every now and then, even me.

If you have an appointment with someone, anyone (doctor, vendor, friend), and you can’t make it for whatever reason, you call. You call because it’s the right thing to do. After all, who wants to sit around, waiting, and wondering, will my contact show up? Especially in business, where time is money.

Within the last month, I’ve had two contacts (prospective clients) that were no-shows for scheduled appointments.

Not cool.

I’ve had people run late before, but this was new. 

The first one never answered the phone when I called, or returned any of the three voicemails I left. What’s up with that? At least have the courtesy to explain what happened. Maybe they booked with someone else, maybe I was out of their price range, or maybe they don’t even want a video anymore (silly goose!). That’s cool. Sure, I’d appreciate the business, but I won’t kick up a fuss if you don’t want to book me. I’ve got plenty of other bookings to tend to. But not showing up and then completely ignoring me? Totally unforgiveable.

At least the second one answered the phone and said they’ll re-schedule. Whether they actually do re-schedule or not, who knows? I’ll give that person the benefit of the doubt for now.

If you can’t make a meeting, call, it’s that simple. If you don’t, remember that there is something in life called Karma, and it might be late sometimes, but it always shows up (unlike some people).

There, that should cover my angry ranting for this year. Back to butterflies, peaceful rivers, and a light breeze blowing through your hair.

I recently finished a project for United Communities Credit Union (UCCU). The UCCU is made up of two divisions: the Woodslee Credit Union and the Heartland Credit Union. Therefore, the project was shot in two locations: the nearby town of Essex, and the not so nearby town of Clinton (about three hours northeast of Windsor). It was pretty far to go, especially since the actual shoot probably only lasted about half an hour, but I had a good time and I was not alone. My friend David, who also works for UCCU, accompanied me for the journey and took on the role of co-pilot.

There seems to be an unwritten rule that says, the smaller the town, the more obscure the name of said town. Am I right? Locally, we have towns like Puce, Ruscom, and Staples. Staples is so small their sign should read, “you are now entering AND exiting Staples.” As David and I made our way north of London, we passed through many small towns with great names, but our favourite by far was definitely Nairn. In fact, Nairn has become part of our daily vocabulary. For instance, now when I’m speaking with David, I sometimes call him by his name but I will also refer to him as Nairn, especially when he is talking smack. I will say something like “now you listen here, Nairn” and then he knows I mean business. So, congratulations Nairn, you’re someone! The runner-up was Birr.

As we passed through each new town in the greater Exeter-Clinton region, I noticed one thing that remained the same. There was an abnormally large amount of buildings with yellow brick. This was especially true amongst the churches, but it definitely applied to the average home and place of business. It took a while for me to catch on, but when I did, I had to mention it to David. As I witnessed more yellow brick, I laughed more and more. I think I went a little crazy for a minute there, but I did eventually regain my composure. There’s nothing wrong with yellow brick, it just kind of had that eerie “twilight zone” feel to it. I mean, why would you want yellow brick for your house when all your neighbours have it? It was everywhere! I will have to visit again to solve this mystery.

On our way back, we stopped for dinner in Strathroy. What’s strange about this small town is that they have every major fast food franchise (McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC), yet only one local restaurant, called Johnny Bucks. So that’s where we went. The service was good and the food was great. We got to talking to our waitress, explaining where we were from and what we were doing and how we laughed at small towns like Nairn. Guess where she was from? Yup, Nairn.

Nairn, what would I do without you?