"You're so smart you could have been a school book"

If you lived in north Georgia during the '80s and '90s and you liked oldies music you listened to Fox97. That's exactly what I did and I think listening to the oldies during junior high instead of the current popular music (grunge) influenced who I was and still am. My love of oldies still continues today even though Fox97 and its well known DJs Randy and Spiff have long since been removed from the radio dial. While I enjoyed the music I heard for the most part I didn't know who the performers were but thanks to a NBC miniseries which I've seen on VH1 a couple of times I learned that many of the best songs were by The Temptations. Today I had the chance to see The Temps in concert with the NC Symphony and it was great.

I was originally supposed to go with Tech Emily but her grandmother fell ill so she traveled to GA to visit with her this weekend. Scrambling to find a concert buddy my sister suggested one of her friends from high school that goes to Duke, Daniel. So Daniel it was and we had a great time. The concert began differently than what I expected with the first half being part of the "pops" series during which the symphony performed on their own, Rossini's La gazza ladra (The Theiving Mudpie), Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" from La Gioconda, Anderson's "Belle of the Ball" and "Blue Tango", and finally Rogers' Slaughter on Tenth Avene from On Your Toes. Yeah I didn't recognize the titles of the pieces either but I gaurentee you've heard at least two of them before - look them up.

After intermission the Temps arrived on stage to "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey). They opened with a medley of songs and I wasn't immediately impressed thinking they'd blown their voices from years of performing but they quickly warmed up and put on quite the show. Unfortunately only one original member remains, Otis Williams, and he has been keeping the Temps alive for 46 years (very impressive). They performed several songs I recognized but quite a few more that I didn't but most in the audience did. I was surprised by the crowd too, which was mostly white baby boomers but there were also quite a few younger people as well.

As for the performances, all around it was a great show and I'm glad I went. During the first half of the show there was a noticable electronic beep that was consistent and very distracting, probably a smoke detector or something with a battery dying. I reported it at intermission but during the Temps set it didn't matter as they were loud enough to drown it out. My complaint about the second half was that the backup band was amplified too loudly and I couldn't hear the orchestra as well as I'd hoped. Even with those two complaints it was a great show with enthusiastic performers and audience. I highly recommend getting to see The Tempations if you have the chance. Now I just need to see the Beach Boys in concert.

Here's a camera phone shot from our seats preconcert


Here's a video of "My Girl" (They encouraged getting phones out and calling somebody during one song to share the music)

Congrats!

It's a two post night in honor of my sister accepting a job with Bank of America! She'll be working in Charlotte at the headquarters as a Middle Office Analyst which supports the higher level banking operations. It sounds like a great training program for a couple of years in which she'll rotate through 3-4 different areas of the company. She's still planning on going to to med school but this job will allow her to make some money and gain instate tuition with the hopes of going to UNC. Of course, if she ends up liking banking she'll have a great headstart. After her graduation on June 1st she's going to Honduras for a month to do some medical mission work. Big props to her!

I Want to Watch the Game

I really don't like ESPNU mainly because I can't watch the Tech vs. Wake game on TV because only the sattelite services carry it.

In other news, this week has flown by, it's hard to believe tomorrow is Thursday. Last weekend I went to Elon to the G-units for the weekend to visit with them and my dad that came up to visit. It also worked out that Melissa and her family stopped in Burlington on their way to DC and Williamsburg so we hung out for a couple of hours Saturday night at a really neat Starbucks that used to be a bank and still has the vault which now has chairs and tables inside.

This week has flown by thanks to being busy busy at work. For the last few weeks we've been working on an application for $50 million of New Markets Tax Credits for the upcoming funding round. The application is due next Wednesday and the push is on. It's nice to have something to work towards that is a great learning opportunity and will help finance some amazing adaptive reuse projects throughout the southeast. The downside is that we put all the work in on the application but won't find out until probably late summer or early fall if we get an allocation. Last round submitted in Sept 2005 we were awarded but I think we have a great chance this go around.

Who wants to...

Pretty much everyone that reads this is not in Raleigh but if you're interested in coming to visit, I want to go see the NC Symphony Pops with the Temptations next weekend. There are concerts Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon. Here's the website with more info.

In other news, check out the real life Jurassic Park in this CNN article: "Frog in amber could be 25 million years old"

Leaving with a Smile

The past two days have involved dropping my Explorer off at Capital Ford, getting a rental car for the day (thankfully they have an inhouse Enterprise), and picking up my Explorer. On Tuesday I took my Explorer to the shop to fix two problems: 1) it's been making a loud humming noise when going straight and turning left but it would go away when turning right and it was getting very annoying and 2) the four wheel drive lights have been flashing.

The first problem was diagnosed as a broken left hub and bearing assembly which is kind of what I thought so I told them to fix it and hoping that would fix the four wheel drive as well. I picked up the Explorer Tuesday afternoon and it was like night and day driving as the noise is completely gone! Unfortunately I turned on 4wd Auto and the lights started flashing again. Arghhhh. I immediately made another appointment for yesterday.

Yesterday I dropped the Explorer off before work and got a rental car. The service manager recognized me and helped me immediately and appologized for not fixing both problems after I explained to him how I was pleased with the hub repair. Since I was carless again I rented another vehicle and the Enterprise guys were great as usual and even recognized me. Yesterdays repair was a new front speed sensor which only controls the four wheel drive, so I thought about not fixing it but decided what's the point of having the capability if you can't use it. I returned to Capital Ford after work and as I walked into Enterprise and chatted to one of the employees as he checked out another customer and the guy who helped me during the morning walked in and greeted me by name which was very impressive and I told him so. I then headed to the service cashier and she said, "You're back again?" I must leave an impression. I explained that not all of the problems were fixed but I was happy with one of the repairs. I also asked if they'd cover some of the cost on the rental car for the second day since they didn't fix all of the problems and she told me that I'd have to talk to the service manager. I went over to him and asked him about it and apparently I should have told him I was renting both days but he pulled up my order without any fuss and reduced the labor billing rate and it ended up taking more off the bill than my rental for the day! This was on top of the 10% discount you get for renting if you're car is in the shop. I was very pleased and thanked him for the great customer service and the repairs.

It's not often you get great service, especially leaving an auto repair shop. I walked out of the service department with a smile on my face.

If you're in the Triangle I highly recommend Capital Ford for all of your Ford product repair needs.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day to you and your's.

In other news, last night I went to my third Cane's game of the season with my boss, our company president, a developer, and a banker and had a great time. It also helped that the Cane's won.

Quotation

I read this in the N&O's Living in Style magazine over the weekend and really like it.

"Great things are done when men and mountains meet..." - William Blake

I'm going to have to find out more about this William Blake guy.

Things That Make You Go Hmm...

Do you ever wonder who came up with certain things? In the mens restroom at work a new air freshener was installed a week or so ago replacing the previous normal bathroom air freshner smell. The new canister is cucumber melon. How did somebody think of combining those two scents to make an air freshener? It smells good but it's a just a weird combination.

No Whammies!

If you didn't watch the Tech vs. NCSU game tonight you missed a good one. State quickly jumped out to 19-4 lead but we slowly pulled within reach before the half with a phenomenal 3/4 court shot at the buzzer by freshman point guard Javaris Crittenton. What a boost going into the locker room! Tech's second half intensity was great and the short bench of State definitely played a factor. I wish we could put a whole game together but I'm glad to see us finally overcome a huge deficit for the win. We needed this one.

Here's the shot!

Weekend

Well I had a good post typed up about last week and the weekend but IE screwed up and I lost it (queue "get a mac" chorus). Here's the summary of the busier than normal week:

Monday: Tech Club Officers' Meeting
Tuesday: Tech vs. Wake in Winston-Salem
Thurday: Snow!!! ULI event and Hurricane's game
Saturday: Laziness and basketball watching. Tech vs. Clemson (good guys won) and UNC vs. State (bad guys won). I hope Tech can get on a roll now.
Sunday: Grandparents and watched Duke lose to F$U. Then went to the Chalmers to watch the Super Bowl. We didn't really care who won but were pulling for the Colts. The commercials were "ehh" and not very impressive. We liked the Cary-filmed Doritos commercial, the Snickers kissing mechanics, and the best was the Garmin Map Monster. We also loved the local Cheerwine commercial - "Northerners Hoarding our Cheerwine". It's not often you hear people get called Yankees on tv. Click the title for the video.

Snow! View from my office.


Canes Game