Better late than never

It seems like I have a problem in following up on the concerts that I have been going to see this year.

Without a doubt, the Van Halen concert was my favourite concert ever. The seats that were 10 rows from the stage and about 20 feet from the runway that extended into the floor seat area helped a great deal, but just seeing one of my favourite bands of all-time, playing with their first -- and best -- singer, David Lee Roth was exhilarating.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Jonathan knew most of the songs and we sang along to a few of them together. The atmosphere of the show was thrilling and I was able to get about 170 photos and 20+ minutes of video (the entrance, first song, drum solo and 2 guitar solos) on my camera.

There was a brief crazy moment, when I got into a bit of a scuffle with some drunk guy who insisted on falling on top of me while mistakenly trying to get in my seat. I dealt with hom and then turned back to enjoy the show, then waited for the punch or knife to my back. It never came, but you don't know about these things when they are happening. I later saw him in the row behind me, a few seats over. I guess he did have a ticket for a seat, but his drunkenness got in the way of being able to count to eleven (his seat was in row 11).

We had a good time visiting Cheryl's aunts and uncles, who were all nice and friendly (this was my first time meeting 3 of the 5 of Cheryl's mom's siblings). The weekend went by so quick, although I am glad we stayed until Monday to give us that extra day to visit with family.

I posted a couple photos on my Facebook page. I don't want to put a lot of them on the internet because they are for my enjoyment, not for some stranger to re-produce them for a profit. Let me just say, there are some pretty good shots among them. My favourite is the photo of Eddie leaning on his son Wolfgang as they play together. You can tell that Eddie loves his son very much and he told us himself that night that he loves having Wolfgang in the band.

If you can do the thing you love for money AND have your family work with you, can you ask for anything more?

T.O. Twice in 3 months!

Follow up on our trip to Toronto to see The Police:
- Good concert, although this experience taught me that if one is going to fly to another city to see a concert, the concert tickets are only a fraction of the total cost of the trip. Therefore, it makes sense to pay extra to get good seats.

- Philson and I enjoyed our brief visit to Toronto, including Philson's first visit to the CN Tower Observation Deck. It is freaky to stand on a glass floor at 1,122 feet above the ground! Fortunately, the glass floor can withstand 595 psi pressure, so there was no need to worry. It is counter-intuitive to look past your feet down to the earth over a thousand feet away!

- We shared a hotel room with Dave Dawood and we three were the youngest people in the hotel pool when we went there and generally horsed around, much to the chagrin of the older patrons.

- Philson and I saw the Blue Jays from great seats behind home plate, thanks to Dean (who couldn't join us due to double-booking himself).

- We had breakfast with an old friend of mine from Sigma Chi - Sully Ahmed. Sully is doing well, has a beautiful little daughter and works for Apple. It was great to see Sully after so many years.

- We saw a disturbing scene on Yonge Street as we walked to our hotel. An obviously mentally disturbed man was sitting against a building across the street. At first glance, he appeared to have a red long-sleeve shirt on under his white short sleeve shirt. Then we realized he was slashing his foreamrms to the point of being completely bloody from his elbows to his wrists. Philson and I kept an eye out for police to tell them about this man, but he got up and walked away, behind the building and out of our view. Philson had never seen anything like that before and he was shaken up by the experience.

- Philson and I went to both Hard Rock Cafe's in Toronto. We watched batting practice from our table in the Skydome HRC, which was fun. At the other HRC on Yonge Street, we took advantage of the deal they offer on HRC glasses by purchasing a beer in the signature pilsner glass. Philson paid for the glass and I paid about two bucks for my beer! I saved about five dollars versus buying the beer alone and the glass in the souvenir store. Every little bit helps!

- Porter Airlines is the best way to fly to Toronto. You land at the City Airport, they provide a shuttle bus to Union Station, plus you get free booze and food on the plane as well as in the terminal while you wait for your flight! How cool is that? Air Canada needs to take a page out of Porter's book and remember the the passengers are the reason that they are in business, not the shareholders.

On Friday, Cheryl, Natalie, Jonathan and I are flying to Toronto (Air Canada, since we are using Air Miles)so that Jonathan and I can see Van Halen in concert.

Van Halen-with-David-Lee-Roth Van Halen.

I am so excited! They are one of a handful of bands who I absolutely want to see in concert and I didn't think it would happen because of the band members's internal fighting over the years. So it turns out 2 of my must-see-before-I-die bands -- the Police and Van Halen (the others are AC/DC, U2 and #5 changes between Beastie Boys and James Taylor, believe it or not) are both touring this year, so I get to see two shows in the span of three months.

I will post again after we return!