On Tuesday the 15th of April, we all saw my post last week about the Blood Moon and the full moon occurring in the wee hours of the morning. Later that morning, my mother had the unfortunate incident of slipping on some ice in the parking garage at work and ended up dislocating her shoulder! Ouch!! She is doing alright now and enjoys the comfort of a sling.
On Wednesday April 16, 2014 I attended The National Concert at the Chicago Theater. John and I headed out from the burbs around 4 and drove towards the heart of the city. After arriving, we were waiting for Rachel to get home from work, just hanging outside the front of her apartment, when her roommate Mary walked out the door, thus letting us in. What a pleasant surprise! We started to pregame and did so by watching a National Concert from Sydney, Australia.
We jumped on the L and headed to the city, arriving and meeting up with John's friend.
The theater was absolutely beautiful, and so was the opening band Daughter, not to be confused with Daughtry.
They played a pretty short set, but they did a lovely job. My favorite song by them was Youth, check it out.
We picked up couple of PBR beers to drink during the concert, only $6 a drink, not too bad! The National took the stage and our attention was on them for the rest of the night. They played an incredibly, beautiful show, and did everything perfectly, except play my favorite song, About Today... This being very similar to when I saw Deer Tick and they played everythign except my favorite song Mange. The set list was absolutely phenominal besides their minute mistake to play Wasp Nest instead of About Today, but I will live on. Check out my favorite song About Today, and the whole set list from the night!
A couple of shots from the concert. What a stunning performance! Amazing! It really turned Rachel & I into bigger fans as well. The music is so relaxing and beautiful. Love it.
After the concert, we were feeling pretty hungry since we had not eaten dinner, so we headed over to McDonald's. This time getting barbecue sauce for good reason, the 20 nugs we picked up. Tasty
Thursday morning I took the L to the train and then the train from Union out to my job. Worked the day and the next day Friday, nothing too exciting happening. Since this lack of entertainment I will now give you 2 lists of movies that are supposedly good, but not popular, I have seen a handful, such as Moon, Into the Wild, Lucky Number Slevin, & The Way of the Gun so I can confirm for those!
Nothing really happened on Friday, except I made my team run their butts off and do a bunch of pushups/planks/abs for consistently using foul language and as Will Smith did in the Fresh Prince, causing trouble in the neighborhood. Let's just say they all have a better handle on what is expected now, and I instituted a "no swearing" policy.
I give you a lovely video filmed using a drone, something I am considering purchasing in order to make aerial videos. Pretty phenomenal.
Any of my editor friends, I don't think I have any, will appreciate this video. Great look at an editors life & feelings.
Saturday the 19th of April, 2014 marks Rachel's 24th birthday. I started the day off by coaching my team to a 16-0 win over a new team with a mascot of Penguins. The mascot was awesome, the team, ehh they were new let's just say. Afterwards I headed over to Aurora and filmed AU stomp on Hanover 29-5. I got there near the end of the first and it was 7-1. The division in the D3 lacrosse is crazy insane. The talent pool is so spread and wide with over 200 teams now. Video coming next week.
Birthday Girl with her Cake!
Rachel was busy in the morning doing girl things with her mom, but then I met up with her at her house around 5pm. We watched the Blackhawks blow game 2 of the playoffs against the Blues (gave up a goal in the last 6 seconds to have it tied), and my sister was at the game! Then we watched a variety of TV shows and had a delicious steak dinner that her dad cooked up. We also had some succulent oreo ice cream cake. Yum.
We both were pretty tired from our long days and had to wake up for 7 AM mass the next day, so we called it an early night.
Sunday, April 20th was finally here. The best holiday around, 4/20, not be overshadowed by Easter! It started off with some 7AM mass (aka Church) with Rachel and her family. Afterwards we went back to their house and almost started the house on fire by putting a cinnamon sugar bagel in the toaster. The sugar caught on fire and produced some smoke and flames, but we were able to put it out. No BIGGIE!
In celebration of 4/20. Jcubed's oven is always on 420. Always
I then drove home and then headed to my Grandma's for Easter as usual. Easter was full of great food and great times with the family. Check out this tasty sundae I made for dessert, not to mention baby Sophia in the background! Who now walks around like a boss. Emma and I were basically twins.
Sunday Evening and monday morning I watched 2 Stanley Kubrick films, Paths of Glory & Lolita. Lolita was a very interesting film that documents a man who falls in love with his 13 year old step daughter. Weird!
You know what else is weird, and kind of funny...Led Zeppelin album gets terrible reviews in the Rolling Stone magazine when they first came out.
Have you ever heard of the Loudness War? Very true and interesting concept how "re-issued" music and digital audio files are ruined when the audio levels are raised too high. Check it out because it is so true!
The last thing I have for you is this gallery of a baby baboon and lioness that become friends. Got to love the wild.
That is all for the past week. Headed to Carmel this weekend and have another Deer Tick show on the schedule. Get pumped.
We Out.
Josh