Concert, Lacrosse, and House
So if you didn't feel the urgency from my last post, if the Glow in the Dark tour is in a city near you, RUN, don't walk, to get tickets and go see it. The show was friggin' amazing. I'll start with my gripes, but trust that they were few.
Lupe Fiasco had a 15 minute set. Fif-friggin'-teen! Which means that, with the traffic on the way to arena, we arrived in time to hear him from the parking lot. BOO. Disappointing, but not earth-shattering, since I was fortunate enough to see him before at Artscape this past year. Gripe #2 is directly related. Kanye ended his set with Touch the Sky, which would have been the PERFECT opportunity to bring Lupe back up for his verse. I realize, however, that based on its placement in the song, Lupe performing his verse would have meant he got the last word at Kanye's concert, and I'm sure there's no way Ye was having that, so it wasn't to be.
The concert was at the Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion out in Raleigh, which is an outdoor ampitheater. We (me, Lindsey [our graduating grad assistant] Jessica [the grad next door] and Tim [our incoming grad assistant]) got the lawn seats.
So the first act I got to see was N.E.R.D. Lindsey and I went closer up to the front amidst Pharrell's frantic shouts for us to come down and part with him. We both had a "you might be a programmer when..." moment when he started shouting for folks to "ignore the phyhsical limitations of the seats" and we got more nervous than excited.
Rihanna was the artist I was least excited about seeing. Nothing against her, but the other artists on the bill (Lupe, N.E.R.D., Kanye) were all among my favorites, and she just wasn't. She definitely did the damn thing though, and it made for quite an entertaining show.
Then the main event. Kanye's set was literally out of this world. His premise was that he had crash landed his spaceship on a distant planet and needed to find the energy to get home. The description far from does it justice however; you've truly got to see it. The set is insane, the transitions and entire premise are clever, and the entire show is Kanye up on stage spittin' for over an hour with a live band backing him and little else but his "spaceship". Like I said--GO SEE IT!!
It's the lacrosse tournament. I ranted about some of the inequities of the selections here and here but I was beyond that and ready to enjoy some lacrosse. UMBC was unseeded and matched up in the first round against UVA. After pondering going up there for the game, I instead got a group of folks together to watch the game at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was a helluva game, but we ended up on the short end of the stick. Still, there's plenty more action these next two weekends. And I feel like I've been doing my part to spread both lacrosse and UMBC wherever I go--I had 2 people ask what/where UMBC was when we were at B-Dubs, and that's not the first time I've had the chance to spread the word.
And finally--we had our walk through of the new place today. in just over 13 hours, we will go to closing. Shortly thereafter, we WILL be homeowners!!
Lupe Fiasco had a 15 minute set. Fif-friggin'-teen! Which means that, with the traffic on the way to arena, we arrived in time to hear him from the parking lot. BOO. Disappointing, but not earth-shattering, since I was fortunate enough to see him before at Artscape this past year. Gripe #2 is directly related. Kanye ended his set with Touch the Sky, which would have been the PERFECT opportunity to bring Lupe back up for his verse. I realize, however, that based on its placement in the song, Lupe performing his verse would have meant he got the last word at Kanye's concert, and I'm sure there's no way Ye was having that, so it wasn't to be.
The concert was at the Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion out in Raleigh, which is an outdoor ampitheater. We (me, Lindsey [our graduating grad assistant] Jessica [the grad next door] and Tim [our incoming grad assistant]) got the lawn seats.
So the first act I got to see was N.E.R.D. Lindsey and I went closer up to the front amidst Pharrell's frantic shouts for us to come down and part with him. We both had a "you might be a programmer when..." moment when he started shouting for folks to "ignore the phyhsical limitations of the seats" and we got more nervous than excited.
Rihanna was the artist I was least excited about seeing. Nothing against her, but the other artists on the bill (Lupe, N.E.R.D., Kanye) were all among my favorites, and she just wasn't. She definitely did the damn thing though, and it made for quite an entertaining show.
Then the main event. Kanye's set was literally out of this world. His premise was that he had crash landed his spaceship on a distant planet and needed to find the energy to get home. The description far from does it justice however; you've truly got to see it. The set is insane, the transitions and entire premise are clever, and the entire show is Kanye up on stage spittin' for over an hour with a live band backing him and little else but his "spaceship". Like I said--GO SEE IT!!
It's the lacrosse tournament. I ranted about some of the inequities of the selections here and here but I was beyond that and ready to enjoy some lacrosse. UMBC was unseeded and matched up in the first round against UVA. After pondering going up there for the game, I instead got a group of folks together to watch the game at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was a helluva game, but we ended up on the short end of the stick. Still, there's plenty more action these next two weekends. And I feel like I've been doing my part to spread both lacrosse and UMBC wherever I go--I had 2 people ask what/where UMBC was when we were at B-Dubs, and that's not the first time I've had the chance to spread the word.
And finally--we had our walk through of the new place today. in just over 13 hours, we will go to closing. Shortly thereafter, we WILL be homeowners!!