Today Susan, Uncle Michael, and I took aidan. to see his first moe. show (my 42nd). They played an outdoor afternoon show in Mt. Olive, NJ at Vasa Park. It’s a rare occasion to see the boys play an afternoon show without a festival (especially in NJ), so we had to take advantage. Aidan was sporting his brand new moe. shirt that I picked up at the Stone Pony show on Friday night.
We started off with a few Italian subs from Dante’s in the parking lot and then hit the show. This venue is definitely family friendly. We got settled in our spot about 5 minutes before moe. took the stage to tear things up. This was one of the best shows that I have seen. Aidan was lucky to get such a good show.
Since moe. still has a relatively small following, they make announcements when people attend X number of shows (usually 1, 25, 50, 100, etc), birthdays, etc.
al. announced aidan’s first show! Check out the video below!
2007 brought some interesting challenges and adventures for Susan and I. As the year comes to a close it’s time to recount some of those items and some of the interesting number
The year started off a little slow with a fun trip to NYC to see the amazing Les Paul play guitar at 91 years old! This was followed by a trip to Redmond for a few weeks to participate in testing out some new products.
February brought an opportunity to go to St. Thomas (US Virgin Islands) for work. Susan and I took a few days off and made it a mini-vacation. What a great time of year to head down there as it is cold in the north east. This was followed by a NASTY cold that kept both Susan and I bedridden. The end of the month and into March was a stressful time at work as we struggle to patch computers for the Daylight Saving Time (DST) changes in the US. There were many a sleepless not and countless man hours dedicated to the effort. After the DST fun, I had an offsite in Las Vegas. It was nice to relax for a few days.
June brought a unique opportunity to deliver a workshop in Asia for other Microsoft employees. I tacked on two weeks of vacation and Susan came with me for 3 amazing weeks in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. (check out the blog posts from June and July for more details)
In July we went down to North Carolina for a week at the beach with Susan’s siblings and her dad and Julia. This was followed by a trip to Seattle for Tech Ready 5 and time in Colorado seeing friends and a moe. show. I also got to see my first rodeo and first time in Wyoming. The remainder of July and August brought countless hours of relaxation at Susan’s mom and Tommy’s pool.
The end of September and early October Susan had a conference in Huntington Beach, California. I tagged along and was able to meet up with my cousins that I haven’t seen in 18 years! We celebrated our 1 year anniversary out there as well.
Later in October Susan had another trip in Denver. The Colorado Rockies were playing in the World Series and it was a crazy time. We spent time with friends and visited Rocky Mountain National Park again.
November was a life changing month. It started off with my father and I going to our first Devils game at the new arena in Newark. Also, I turned 30 and we went to Paris and Amsterdam to celebrate. (Thanks Mom and Dad!!!) I saw my 30th moe. show on my 30th birthday. As if Amsterdam wasn’t enough, Susan had planned a surprise birthday party for me when we got home.
Rounding out the year, December was busy with the holidays. We had our annual Toys for Tots party which was our most successful ever! I spent time in Burlington, Vermont for work under 2 feet of snow and enjoyed every minute of it. The end of the month was spent with friends and family and brought everything back into perspective.
2007 was a great year and I look forward to 2008 being even better! Let’s take a look at the numbers (in no order):
1 – the Anniversary we celebrated this year
6 – countries we visited
4 – National Parks visited
30 – the birthday that I celebrated this year
13 – moe. shows I saw this year
over 7000 – pictures taken this year that we are still sorting out
42 – hours to return from Asia (Chiang Rai to Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur to Dubai to New York)
9 – babies born to friends and family
6 – Blue Whales spotted on our trip in California
88 – nights spent in Marriott hotels this year
$520 – worth of toys collected from our annual Toys for Tots party which was then matched by Microsoft!
Last night Michael and I went to NYC to see moe. at The Fillmore NY at Irving Plaza. The show was amazing as always and the boys brought on Dicky Betts (formerly of the Allman Brothers) for most of the second set.
Check out the complete setlist. During the announcement portion, Al mentioned that it was Michael’s 25th show. Check out the video below.
Yesterday marked the end of our first international moe. tour. The shows were amazing and the Melkweg is certainly a great venue to see a show. Hopefully they will be returning next year so I have an excuse to go back as well.
Before the show, Susan and I walked to the Van Gogh museum. There were certainly some incredible pieces of work and some bizarre ones. After going through the museum Susan and I decided that we prefer photography as an art form over paintings. I think the recommendation of visiting a coffee shop first might have helped us enjoy this a little more.
Today Freek (pronounced Frick), a friend of the family, drove us around Holland to see a few sites. Our first stop was Madurodam, which contains scale models of several important sites throughout Holland. The detail of the models is amazing. From the flying buttresses of the churches to the ladies in the windows in the Red Light District, not a single detail was overlooked. This is actually the only place you would be able to take a picture in the Red Light District and get away with it. The airport has planes that move, the canals have channel locks that open and close to let boats pass through, and even a fire fighting boat that extinguishes a burning barge. This is definitely a must see if you are in the Amsterdam area.
After Madurodam, we went to Museum De Cruquius which is an old steam driven pumping station. It was here that we learned that the windmills used in the Netherlands were to pump water into various channels to prevent flooding. The museum was closed for the winter, but Freek had a friend at the museum that arranged a private tour for us. From the pumping station we made a stop at one of the channel locks to watch boats pass through. The Panama Canal is on my list of things to see so this was quite interesting.
Thanks Freek for a great day!
I received an e-mail from a friend from work, Michael Piar, that he was going to be in Amsterdam visiting his sister. We will be meeting up with him later tonight to check out the nightlife in Amsterdam!
Today is my 30th birthday and Susan and I made the trek to Amsterdam to see moe. at The Melkweg (The Milky Way). This was my 30th time that I have seen moe. Also, since we are in Amsterdam, the time difference is 6 hours ahead of Eastern time (where we live) so adding that to a normal day give me a 30 hour birthday!!!
Getting to Amsterdam was a bit of a challenge. We checked out of the Hilton in Paris this morning at around 7:30am and attempted to get a taxi to Gare du Nord train station. Since the transit workers are on strike, taxis are very limited. There was a very long line and we waited almost 45 minutes. Being rush hour, there was a good amount of traffic, but we managed to get to the train station in time to catch our train.
We pulled into Centraal Station in Amsterdam around 2pm and took the tram which dropped us about 2 blocks from the Marriott. We dropped off our luggage and headed over to The Melkweg to pick up our tickets for the show. They told us that will call didn’t open until 8pm, so we just walked around the shops in the area.
Since we are staying at a full service Marriott, we had access to the concierge lounge and went up for hors d’oeuvres. International Marriott’s tend to offer a little bit more at their concierge lounge than US based ones (at least that has been my experience). This one had beer and several liquor choices which were free. In the Marriott locations that I have stayed in the US, this was completely honor bar where they would charge it to your room. The concierge lounge was full of US travelers, some of which were here for the Cannabis Cup this week. We met a few people that were going to the moe. show as well.
We headed over to the Melkweg a little after 8pm and picked up the tickets without any issues (thankfully ). Since the show didn’t start until around 10pm we went to an Irish pub around the block called Hole in the Wall for a few drinks.
Upon entering the Melkweg we met 2 guys from Massachusetts who went by the names of Stosh and Penguin. Something tells me that these were not their real names. Stosh bought me a shot of Jameson for my birthday. Thanks man!!
The show was one of the best moe. shows that I have seen. It was incredible! This was the first time in 23 shows that I didn’t go to a moe. show with Michael. Susan and I had an absolute blast which ended with a great rendition of The Ramone’s I Wanna Be Sedated. Check out the set list. After the show, Al Schnier announced my 30th birthday and 30th moe show!! Check out the video below.
Thanks Susan and moe. for making my 30th birthday absolutely amazing!!
