audblog audio post
So, yes, I was in the booth with organist Nancy Faust for the 7th Inning Stretch! She actually invited me in when I was standing outside, just watching!

What an absolutely gorgeous night for baseball. Unfortunately, we have a team that really has our number - the Oakland Athletics. Our two All Star Pitchers - Garland and Buehrle couldn't do a thing to stop[ them, and we couldn't do a thing against their pitching.

This might just turn into a suck-it-up and move on type of weekend series.

(Boxscore)

Transcript:

"So, I had this idea. I'm not really sure how this is going to work out, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Next week, Carol and I are going to be in Las Vegas all week. Carol is working at a trade show - I'm just going along for the ride (and hopefully some enjoyment), but since we're going to be out there it may be very difficult to for me to try to Blog. I'm not sure if the hotel we're staying at is going to have any good Internet connectivity, and dial-up could be a bear.

So I thought maybe I could just find a way to record what was happening and I thought of these little digital voice recorders that happen to have USB interfaces on them, where you can download the individual records in them as WAV files and maybe post them to the Blog and see what people think.

So I thought about that and I thought I'd give it a try next week. Hopefully it'll work out. It could be entertaining - it may not be. But I thought it would add a little more "spice" to a blog entry by being able to hear what was going on.

I normally would use Audblog, but that means I have to use a cellphone and I have to have a good cellphone signal to be able to do it and that could be problematic.

So, look to the blog next week and see if there's any audio entries and see if this actually does work... AND OH BY THE WAY...

I'm talking about this on the way home from work from work today. Yeah, I'm on my way home, the roads are dry, there's not a cloud in the sky - the sun set already though, and I am HAPPY AS ALL GETOUT because I'm just passing my Mobil station and the price of Premium Gasoline - which I use in my car - FINALLY dropped below two dollars and it's at $1.97 and that makes me happy.

So anyway, check the blog next week and see if this works out. "

OK, first of all, please understand that though I may have liked a few of their songs, I can't say I'm a fan. I don't follow the country music scene at all, even though I know they're definitely not "mainstream". So, let's say the "tipping point" for going to the show was that Buffy's company has a suite, and the tickets were available (as no one in the company wanted to go). The suite is a "Penthouse" suite - which is at the top of the stadium. Ever go to a Bulls or Hawks game and have to sit all the way upstairs? This is above that. The suite is on the south side, right in the middle of the stadium (like, at the center line if you were at a hockey game). The opening act was Joan Osborne (of One of Us fame). The audience was respectful and polite even though they weren't there for her. The stage is really unusual - it's built in the center of the stadium, and there's a large center section of the stage, but there's also a "snaky" walkway that wraps all around the main stage, taking up most of the main floor. When Joan was done, the lights came up and they reset the stage.

By now, many of you knew about the little "uproar" over Natalie Maines' statements about being embarrassed to be from Texas, the same state as George Bush, that caused a furor throughout the country music community and actually throughout the U.S. (mostly by those that just understand 1) The First Amendment and what freedom really means, and 2) that "being embarrassed" about your President does not mean you don't support troops that are deployed). Anyway, the songs that were played during the set change were really interesting, and actually comment on the "situation":

• "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" - Tears for Fears
• "Our Lips are Sealed" - The Go-Go's
• "Band on the Run" - Paul McCartney & Wings
• "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" - Tammy Wynette
• "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" - R.E.M.
• "Born in the U.S.A." - Bruce Springsteen

While the music was playing, two things happened. the first was the entrance of lots of fans being escorted into the stage area, filing-in the area between the main stage and the snaky walkway. I have no idea how they got those tickets. It occurred to us that, with the stage in the center of the main floor, how were the Dixie Chicks going to get to the stage securely and safely? Why, Boxes o' Chicks! During Born in the U.S.A, stage hands came out of a tunnel, each pushing one of three large "Star" cases - you know the ones - the crates that are usually used to move and ship equipment. Well, these boxes were like 2' x 2' and at least 5' tall. They pushed them down the side aisle and into the stage area, under the stage. Within a minute, the stage hands pushed the boxes back, a little more quickly as you can now tell that the boxes were now empty. Weird, eh?

They open the show with Goodbye Earl, which gets the crowd going. (I love that song - it's just twisted). The thing that really got me (being the geek that I am and I still have an entertainment streak in me, not to mention a stage crew streak as well) was that snaky walkway. It turns out that it's made out of bright LED displays that accept video feeds! By using colors, animation, and video, it added a ton to each song. I was really impressed. The 8pm show, with Joan and the Chicks, ended at 11pm. Carol & I stuck around and watched the crew strike the set (since we didn't have to vacate the suite for an hour after the show, though we eventually wandered out and on our way home.

The show was good and entertaining. Two complaints: 1) being in a Penthouse suite really takes you away from the crowd and you feel a little "disconnected" instead of being part of the experience. 2) being in a Penthouse suite also means there are no speakers pointed your way, so you get a lot of reflection and echoes.

OK, now here's a little something extra and I'm praying I don't get into trouble...

I brought my Canon PowerShot S230 Digital Elph to the concert (they weren't allowing "pro" (SLR) cameras, and for some reason, when security "wanded" me, it never picked-up the camera in the pocket). Anyway, it's only got a 2x zoom, trying to get a tight shot on any of the performers was impossible. Now, I've "experimented" with a poor-man's telephoto lens that "sort-of" works under the correct circumstances. A low light situation like a concert is not one of those.

What I do is take the camera, zoom in all the way, and place a pair of binoculars in front of the lens. There's a lot of issues with this. First of all, alignment is critical - being off a fraction of a degree and the image drops off, both in sharpness and brightness, not to mention actually being off-line enough and lose the image either partially or completely. Trying to keep the alignment - holding the binoculars in one hand and the camera in the other is damn near impossible. In low light situations, you'll only get blurred images due to the decrease in light hitting the lens (going through the additional optics) as well as the "jiggling" between both devices by hand.

Now, the other thing that the S230 does is video. I can get 320x240 pixel image at 15 frames per second, with (poor) audio. The camera only shoots for 3 minutes in that setting ( I have no idea why). The resulting AVI files are over 20Mb for the 3 minutes.

So here's where me getting into trouble probably comes in... To show you an example of the positives/negatives that the binoculars have... I have two video samples for you!

Joan Osborne - One of Us - 3 minutes - 320x240 - 15fps - 22.9 Megabytes
Dixie Chicks - Goodbye Earl - 3 minutes - 320x240 - 15fps - 25.31 Megabytes

Now be quiet and don't get me in trouble!

This morning, after all of the rain, Carol and I head into the city to pickup Barry & Buffy to go to the Field Museum to see a special exhibit - Baseball As America. It's a traveling exhibit from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum that's there from February 8 to July 20, sort of to coincide with the All-Star Game. It's the first time that some of the artifacts have left the Hall of Fame for a tour. This was a wonderful exhibit. A must see for any baseball fan. It'll be touring the country for another 2 years, so see if it's coming anywhere near you (If you're in NY or LA, you're out of luck - you missed it). People spent a long time at each exhibit piece looking, reading, talking. They just soaked it in. I can't tell you how many men I saw there that, at one time or other in the exhibit, were wiping their moist eyes (myself included). It really showed how baseball mirrors life in America. I just can't say enough about the exhibit.

We didn't stay too long at the museum. The sun had finally come out and we took a walk around the Museum Campus. Though the sun was out, the breeze off the lake made it feel a little chilly.

We then drove to Stanley's Kitchen & Tap on Lincoln for dinner. We're talking "comfort food" here - fried chicken, pot roast, meat loaf. A great bar, too. (A very large whiskey selection).

Then it was back to B&B's to discuss our Florida Trip. We'll be in Orlando for a week starting June 21. We wanted to make some dinner reservations for some specific places (like Emeril's Tchoup Chop). Then we were off to get home and collapse.