1/28/2007

Well, it's Sunday night and it's late and I'm sitting right next to Brian on the couch, both of us with our laptops on our legs, typing and watching the movie Jarhead. It's actually pretty interesting, and as an added bonus, I'm getting to see a lot of Jake Gylnthleahl's man parts. His weiner, if you will. And the F word is used probably every other sentance.
So it's a good little Sunday night movie.

Let me tell you about my trip.

Wow. I always dread this trip, cause I'm retarded and cannot leave the safety of my familar Omaha homestead. But I got on that plane, bound for Anaheim CA. Kind of a rough start because the Dad-man I sat next to had I think, drank the whole bar before he got on our 10:15 am flight. And of couse, midway to Vegas, he got sleepy and his head definitley leaned on my shoulder for most of the flight.
No matter, because I definitley managed to take some sweet out-the-window shots:


After a quick stop in Vegas (my first time) I played a few rounds of slots (just kidding) and jumped back on a plane to the trusty Hilton in Anaheim. My room kind of totally caved into the middle. I think that might have been because of an earthquake, but anyway, the first night had me at the Marriott where I enjoyed a nice Editor's Choice/advertisers banquet. It was awesome. Got to meat many of my advertisers from France, Germany, Yamaha, and Boston. I just felt so good. Good to connect, good to see what they looked like, and good to feel like what I do, matters.

After the night was over, I went up to my hotel room, and ordered room service like a big girl:


The next day, I hit the show. I went from having 4 inches of snow on the ground, to no jacket required. (Side note: right now in the movie, Jamie Fox is right by a large bon fire, shirt off, in the middle of a dark desert, sweaty and shooting a machine gun into the air.) Every morning, I would go down to get a venti starbucks. I'd wait about 30 minutes for it in a line that held 70 or so people. Then, I'd walk out of the Hilton over to the convention center:


There are about 80,000 people that attend the NAMM music show each day. It's not open to the public, people. But it's heaven. It's huge. And you can't even possibly cover the whole show in 5 days. You walk in, flash your badge, angels sing, and all of the sudden, drums are playing, guitars are blaring, people talking, music everywhere. Everything is hustle and bustle. You see a lot of men in suits, but you also see like Marilyn Manson freaks walking around.
And boobs. Walking boobs. Here are some of my favorite shots of the first day:




(Ha. Doesn't this look real? Actually it's a huge poster. Psych.)

Then I went back to my room. And learned a lesson. Never ever wear BCBG high black heels to the tradeshow.
I know, they are awesome while you are wearing them. They are comfortable all day long, you look so fine, and they make your outfit. But then, you get back to your hotel room and your brain catches up with your retarded fashion idea and you realize your feet look like this:

Yeah. Smooth move, Jenn. Let's just say all shoe possibilities went out the window for the remainder of the trip.
I basically wore cool shoes when I came to the booth in the morning (crying out inside) and then went to look around the show, first going to the bathroom to change into my tennis shoes. My kicks.

The next two days of the show brought out the famous people. They were all over the place. Booths bring the rockstars so that more attention will be drawn to their booth. Or some bands just walk around because they are checking out all of the products. Or some people are playing concerts and whatnot. So here they are:

This one is for you Laura and Mom. My anual picture with Rick Springfield. Famous for the smash hit, "Jesse's Girl". Also, my family knows him from his award-winning role on General Hospital. Of this, I wasn't aware.
Mom says he's on drugs, and Laura now owes me her first born.

Next, the famous guy from Anthrax. More importantly, he is the dude regularly featured in all of the VH1 "I Love the 80's" specials. I wanted to touch the beard.

Here is the drummer for System of a Down. This was really cool since they are one of my favorite bands.
He signed my poster "Jennifer, you rock my face off" at my request.
Nevermind the fact that I look like I'm about to go to church in my cardigan.

Jim Marshall. He's the man that created Marshall amps. Brian plays one, so I was going to be a good wifey and get a signed poster for him. Little did I know, Jimmy would ask me if I had a camera. He wanted a picture. He's 85 and can barely talk. So he squeezed me close and had his little assistant man take our picture.
Then he gave me a HUGE juicy kiss on the cheek. Yep. I'm probably never washing my face again.

Ah, Bootsie Collins. I don't know. I was scared.

Next comes the Dean Markley booth. We were directly across from them. They are a huge string manufacturer and their booth is basically bigger and better than my house. It's 4 levels, complete with a sound proof recording studio in the middle. And offices on top. But they were great because they brought in a ton of famous people every 30 minutes.

Like, say, Randy Jackson.

So I always kind of kept my eyes on thier booth for my blog's sake. So I could catch jems like this:

Yeah, I don't know. He apparently plays for the Misfits. I told him I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING CRAZY for the picture. He made me put on his nasty B.O. glove and then he proceeded to strangle me, all for the sake of the camera.
I think I'm bothered for life. I hope you're happy.

But then, kinda the best part was when I was waiting in line to meet Dio (for Brian and Tenacious D purposes) and out of the corner of my eye I see someone familiar. Ah, I burst out of line once I realize that this has suddenly turned into the best day of my life. Screw Dio...

Yes, I know he looks like a rapist, and there I am again in my churchgoing cardigan, but holy crap that's Daryl Palumbo from GlassJAw and Head Automatica. The dude that's on this blog, bottom left-hand corner. Favorite singer. Favorite bands. I think I totally flattered him and he totally waited for me while I trotted off to get my camera.
Then he gave me a huge hug, which means, basically I'm not washing my body for the rest of my life.

So other than that, each day was filled with the show. At night there were various parties and concerts and dinners. I also spotted The Donnas, Natalie Cole, All America Rejects, the Orange County Chopper motorcycle guys, Billy Joel, and even THE RIPPER. He plays for The Misfits and he was walking past our booth when he stopped and our conversation went something like this:
ME: (scared)
THE RIPPER: Those eyes! How I can I not be drawn into those deep blue eyes!
ME: (pooping my pants)
THE RIPPER: Look. Look deep into my eyes. Your eyes are like the window to my soul. They are like a fire and I am a mouth, drawing to your flame.
ME: (ah....)
THE RIPPER: Come Here..
This is where he puts his whole palm on my forehead and pushes me back pretty hard.
THE RIPPER: You haven't seen the last of me.

I think the best part of the trip is when I discovered that Taylor Guitars were going to have Coheed & Cambria playing an hour-long acoustic set. Ah, when I found this out, I booked it to their room upstairs, sat through a two-hour long guitar set by some Church dude that wrote inspirational instramental music. Snore. But by God, if that didn't mean I had reserved my front row location. By the time Coheed came on, I was so close I could have reached out and touched them.


It was so beautiful and cool. I filmed the whole thing on my digicam.


And then I'm home. I cannot express to you how tired I was at the end of this trip. But seriously, this trip made me feel so excited to be doing what I do. I love my work. Although stressful and sometimes aggrivating, I love this job.

Tomorrow, Brian and I are going to the KU/Nebraska game in Lincoln. Basically it's like watching a game in a high school auditorium. I'm proudly wearing my Jayhawk T-Shirt, so take that all you dirty Huskers.

1/12/2007

Praise the Baby J, it's Friday.
This next link is dedicated to you, Court.
Since you seem to have a "thing" for disabled figurines and "all things disabled".

(this is so messed up.)

So I've kind of been sick as a dog these last few days. Maybe a week. I can't remember ever feeling this sick.
I also conveniently had to go to KC for work, to learn how do to more work, which kills me.
So while in town, I hit up the doctor for some horsepill-like antibiotics and also participated in a slight fever.

Bright spots of the trip: lunch with CLC, visiting her bomb place of employment that I dream about every night,
eating 50 bagels a day because somehow Omaha hasn't felt the need to sell bagels, got fitted for the b-maid dress
(my size was off the charts!), and spent a little time with Sue and her new toilet.

Finally got my personal e-mail down from 147, to a manageable 24. Planning on watching TV until my brain explodes this weekend. Also gearing up for CA on Wednesday. Big shout out to Martin Luther King for the day off work on Monday.

Say a prayer for my Aunt Barb. We just found out she has stage 3 breast cancer.
It's a horrible thing and I can't get that out of my head. Pray hard.

On a side note, I've been sweating while I sleep lately.

1/06/2007

Let's talk.

Seeing as it's been a full month since my last post, and that's mildly pathetic, I will pack this post full of posty goodness. A lot has been going on and last time I checked, Thanksgiving and Christmas didn't go by in the blink of an eye. I used to remember when I was little how me and my sisters would wake up on Christmas Eve day and totally chalk full the day of little plans to make the day go by so fast so that it could be Christmas. Like, wake up at 7, play the Girl Talk boardgame for an hour, watch Girls Just Want To Have Fun (that would eat up around 2 hours), go play with the Halls for an hour, etc. God, can I just go back to the time when my biggest concern was could we squeeze in an hour of coloring in coloring books in order to put us right up to dinner, and then church, and then bed and then presents.

Ok, that quite possibly could have been the world's most GAYEST paragraph ever in the history of my blog. I'm blogging, partly because I'm famous, and partly because I'm really pumping back up about this blogging thing. Steph JC's blog is making me jealous, and I need to just write more in general. Is there anyone out there that would like to pay me for blogging? Like that's all I would do. Blog, and you pay me. A lot, so I can buy cool things and live stress-free and lovely.

So, let's see. Christmas. Brian and I went to OP for a week and it was truly the best. I was really missing the fam. We rolled up in the new Commander and I think my Dad almost licked the entire exterior. He loved it, and I loved him loving it.

Gramma was in town. Boy did she bring it. On her lap harp.
She plays the heck out of "Go Tell Aunt Roady" and tells us we're all "so beatiful".

Also in attendence was Uncle Kenny. He always wanted to leave the house.
And he's hairy. And one time, we found him out, in Barnes & Noble, doing a little light reading:


So I basically increased my young-adult obesity courtesy of mom's cookies, turkey, ham, and Laura and I's daily runs to Bagel and Bagel. It was awesome. Got to raid Paper Source with Steph JC and Laura areola. Also got to chow down on some of the best queso with K Pro. Then came Christmas. HARD.

No one knows how to do Christmas better than the Halls. Seriously. I love our Christmas's. They are slow, we hand out presents one by one, everyone watching everyone to see what they opened, speech's by my dad when he hands out our last big present, tears when we remember grandparents, pride when I give my sister's their special gifts that I picked out so perfectly, and awkwardness when I realize that Laura doesn't wear a bra under her thin T-shirt.
In front of the family. And she's shakin' like two big old balloons in a hurricane.

But honestly, Laura saved the day. She's great.
Might I add that me and Steph and her played a mad round of Mall Madness. Remember that one?

There is a sale at the FASH-ON-Boo-TEEK. Steph kept trying to steal from the bank, and I just really enjoyed how you could just move to the bank, stick your card into the slot and it would tell you that you could take $100 and go shop.
Christmas brought me a sweet Green Bay Packers Pen (straight from Lambau) that Dad told me, shined the Packers emblem out of the top. I also got a white rocking chair for our front porch, Martha's Home handbook, Desperate Housewives season 2, an Elsie Flan scrabook challenge masterpiece, gift cards galore, moon-boot slippers, cool kitchen towels, some black and white pictures by Steph, and a lot more loot. One of my favorite gifts was this:

It's a 3 foot by 4 foot wall calendar from crate & barrel, modeled after a famous one in an art museum that I don't even now about. It's in my office, in all it's glory. It looks so awes and it mainly just adds to my BAMFness.

And here's Brian being all dainty in a red bow. I'm so happy he's mine.


So when we were all getting our big gifts and Dad was making us cry with his speeches, I was waiting.. watching.. as Gramma opened her new Coach purse and yelled, "OH! IT'S A GUCCI!!" and how mom opened her new Coach purse:

and she cried. and Steph opened up her new Ipod, and Kristin opened up her new digital camera, and Laura (bless her heart) opened up her new Coach purse. Then, Dad forgets my speech, and hands me my present. Which turns out to be a coffee maker. Last time I checked I already had a fine one, but that's cool. There's always next year.

As I type this, I'm on the couch, in my beloved "Tony the Pony/Holy Rollerskate" T-shirt, watching the Chiefs in their playoff game. It's sick. And not the good kind of sick like those Staten Island girls in MTV's "True Life: I'm a Staten Island Girl" documentary. We haven't scored a first down the whole game. But thanks, cause we've intercepted 3 throws. And the coaches look like twins. And we missed a field goal that my 81 year-old Gramcracker could have kicked in.

So on comes New Years.
In case you hadn't heard, we had the party to end all parties. It was a month in the making and I couldn't wait. To finally have people over to show off the house and my unhealthy, cheesy cooking. Here's us at the local Hy-Vee, spending a lot of money.



All in all, I would say it basically ruled. We had so much food, it was hot all at the same time, good friends that would travel 5 hours to party during the midst of a blizzard,

chiuaua's pooping logs on the stairs bigger than their bodies, girls in dresses and dudes in ties, some girl that someone brought that locked her upstairs in my bathroom with the runs, and then later surrounding the toliet with my bathroom towels, and enough Ham leftovers to last us until 2009.

Oh, and because Joe always feels the need to drink out of my Pottery Barn cheese dome, Bri and I gave him a newer glass for Christmas.


Steph, here's the food you missed:




And here, is the party animal.


Thanks to all who came.
Sincerely,
The Lovers

So that pretty much covers the holidays. Now, let's talk about my two new major obsessions.
1.) HU HOT. By far my most favorite place to eat on earth. It's a mongolian deal where you fill your bowl with raw stuff and noodles and goodness and then pour in the sauce and then hand it to the grill boy who throws it on this huge circle grill while you wait there for it and drool. And you can go back AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT. Brian took me out on a little date last night and we ate there. Yum in my tum.

2.)
Ah.. why hasn't anyone notified me that this is the greatest show to ever be viewed by my eyeballs. LORD. I just finished season 2 on DVD. Meanwhile, I've been DVR'ing all episodes of this year so I'll all ready to be up to speed. At first I didn't think I would like it. I'm not for those Emergency Room Hospital dramas. Because immediately, I think that I have cancer or some weird eye disease. But now...now i want to move to Seattle and work in Seattle Grace. And put on my scrubs in the locker room with George and Izzie, and re-incarnate Denny (because that is totally unfair) and also kill Callie Torez because I hate her. Seriously. I was born to watch this show. I was immediately hooked after the two-parter featuring a bomb. That was the best hour in television. I can't get enough. Like drugs.

Well. I'm sicker than a dog. I sound like a man. And work is killing me for a bunch of reasons.
But in a week or two, I'm Anaheim CA bound to meet some rockstars.