Justin Timberlake at Mohegan Sun | Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 10:29AM
On Saturday Jill and I headed over to Mohegan Sun for the long-sold-out Justin Timberlake concert. I had gotten tickets as a gift for Jill, and with all the school work that has been piling on her recently, the timing for a little getaway was good.
The concert (and Mohegan Sun in general) was fun. The concert was Pink up first, and then Justin. Timberland was there well, which was neat. Overall it was pretty good. It was way too loud though, that's for sure. My ears were ringing (not good) for hours after the concert, and Jill's ears were still ringing yesterday afternoon (really not good). But yes, the million young girls in the audience seemed to enjoy it.
After the concert we stayed over at Mohegan Sun. I thought room was nice. It was clean and comfortable, and had good views of the water. The complex as a whole was a little too smokey for me. Plus with the shows going on and it being the weekend the place was packed. All of the fine dining was booked unfortunately -- I had wanted to try the Chinese place, Bamboo Garden.
The seats we had were very good -- maybe 20 feet from the stage, at stage level. I took three videos on my phone that show how close we were... you won't be able to hear much in them, but here is Video 1, Video 2 and Video 3.
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The Colbert Report |
Friday, March 23rd, 2007 at 10:18AM
"It's the first day of spring. Birds and bees, wait 'til you're married. This is The Colbert Report..."
Wednesday was a fun day. Tuesday night we headed up to Chelmsford, MA so we could make it into Boston early in the morning. Around 7a we went to Logan Airport, caught a slightly-delayed JetBlue flight to New York, and then hopped in a cab to Times Square. We all walked around a bit (by "we all" I am referring to Jill and I, as well as her brother Jon and her Mom Nancy) and then ended up at Carmine's for lunch. The food there was great, we got a few big dishes to share, including a pasta dish with brocolli, a salmon and seafood dish, and a chicken parm dish. All the food was very good, and we also got a chocolate desert that we shared.
After lunch we walked down to where The Colbert Report tapes, which is the building where The Daily Show used to tape. The Daily Show is two blocks southeast now. When we got there (two hours before the doors opened) the line was already about 30 people long. But apparently there are two lines (one for people with tickets, one one for people without) and once that got sorted out we were 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th in line. After two long hours of waiting outside in the freezing cold we were let into the building.
Once inside the day seemed to fly by. We stood around for a bit and then got let into the studio. The audience is broken into two bleachers, and we were on the left set (when facing the stage) of bleachers, in the second row. On TV the studio looks a lot bigger, but there is only room for about 100 people, and the bleachers are only about 20 feet from the desk Stephen sits at. A standup comic came out to warm us up, and he was very funny. I wish I could remember his name... Pete something?
Stephen came out to do the "toss", which is when Jon's show ends and Stephen's show begins, and they do their 30-second back-and-forth bit. Even though the shows are only taped two blocks apart, the "toss" is done via satellite. Usually they do the toss before the show and nobody gets to see it, however when Jon's taping runs long they do the toss live in front of the audience. It was neat, especially because during the break before the toss they had a conversation about the previous night's show where Willie Nelson was on.
Once the show got started it went by very quickly. The 30 minute show (really 22 minutes) was probably taped in 45 to 60 minutes. They did my favorite segment, Better Know a District, and I also enjoyed the guest. It was University of Maryland professor and author of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, Benjamin Barber. When they filmed Stephen's usual jaunt between the news desk and the interview area they did an audience an shot from the boom cam, and if you look very closely you can see Jon at the far right of the screen.
The taping ended around 8p and we headed back to the airport and caught another delayed JetBlue flight back to Boston. That was an awesome day, and I can't wait until June when we go see The Daily Show tape!
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Cruise Pictures |
Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 12:14AM
Allright, the cruise pictures are up!
http://www.jeffwilhelm.com/?p=pictures&loadyear=FamilyCruise2007&page=1
Short summary: Miami Air is the worst airline ever, St. Thomas / St. John are still the best islands ever, between Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Carnival, Carnival is my least favorite, and I'd like to go to San Juan again to see more.
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Happy Valentine's Day! |
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 4:44PM
OK, time for an update on what's new since the last one, which was a month ago!
Let's see... most of the last month has been spent at the Providence CoLo, getting it ready for the equipment migration. We have some stuff running there now, but after the three migration phases in March are done we will have a lot more -- over 150 servers. It's a big move for us, since our equipment has always been within a minute walk, in the same buildings in Wickford...
On January 27th I had lunch with Sean in Connecticut, which was nice. We hadn't seen each other in a little while, and we'd both come to the realization that unless we scheduled something, we had a better chance to seeing each other in Florida or something than we did up here... Then on the 28th we had dinner with Heather at The Melting Pot. I'd never eaten there (although I had eaten at a similar place in Denver) and the food was good, and unique. :)
At the end of January I was down in Fort Myers in meetings, yesterday and today I was down there again. I was lucky to make it home though -- Steve and David are stuck down there still and coming home tomorrow. As I was waiting for my flight (delayed a few hours) they were cancelling flights left and right. The flight wasn't bad at all, except the last 15 minutes or so were a little bumpy.
February of course brings Jill's birthday, our anniversary (five years!) and then the old standby Valentine's Day. Jill got lots of flowers, tickets to the sold-out Justin Timberlake concert at Mohegan Sun, and a hotel room there for the night. Lucky her!
But lucky me too... Jill got me for Valentine's Day not only an ice cream scoop in the shape of a heart (ahh, she knows me so well) but also two ice cream bowls and some ice cream. But the best part was four tickets to a taping of The Colbert Report in March!!!! I am so excited for that -- I've always wanted to attend a taping of that and/or The Daily Show. :)
Other than that, nothing else is really new. Jill's busy as ever with grad school, but almost done! Unfortunately in order to be done she has to have enough hours, finish her classes, and pass all of the exams they throw at you. Then she has to get certified for the state, and then has to do a 9-month placement with someone certified to take on these placements. But still, almost done!
Allrighty, back to work for me... have a few more emails to get out before I call it a day.
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