Extra Ticket = Extra Entertainment

I will do just about anything for entertainment these days - what is wrong with me??

I am going to see Wilco again – this time they are coming to Salt Lake City. The concert sold out really quickly and luckily I was able to get 4 tickets on the first day. I figured Debbie could find someone to go with her, but it turns out that nobody else really likes Wilco enough to go. So, we asked around and most of our friends either can’t go or want more than 1 ticket.

So, I decided to check out craigslist and see what they were going for. I paid $28 each for the tickets and most of the listings had tickets for sale for at least double or even up to $100 for 1 ticket!! So, I could either choose to try and sell the ticket to some jerk that had $100 or just sell it to someone who wanted to go really bad. You might think I am stupid for selling it for less in this economy, but I went with option B. So here is what my listing said:

I have 1 EXTRA ticket for WILCO at Red Butte Gardens

I have 4 tickets to Wilco and only need 3. I will accept the best offer. Please email me your offer and/or sob story of why you need to go to this show and I will let you know.

Here are some of the emails I got. It starts out boring and then picks up some steam…


"$50 what your ad advertises.
Sent from my iPhone" – What does this even mean, there is no sob story, are you just bragging that you have an iPhone and I don’t??… yawn!


"Yes I am interested, how much are you willing to sell for." – But WHY are you interested?? Are you dying and this is your last wish, do you want to propose to your girlfriend at the show, did you try out for the band and almost make it?? I need to be entertained!!

"Do you still have that ticket available? I am flying into SLC on Monday next week and would love to see the show." – zzzZZZZZzzzzzzZZZzzzz...C’mon people!!

"I would love to see the show but have little money for entertainment lately. I am however a licensed massage therapist of 8 years. If you or anyone you know could use some therapy I would love to share my trade… and have an office in Murray. Thanks. Hope to hear back from you." – Getting warmer, but still boring…

"You see, my situation starts wayyy back in 1984 (the year i was born), or maybe even 1976 (the year my oldest brother was born), depends how you look at it. But Wilco wasn't even a band at that point? I know. But we were siblings at that point. And we have been ever since. And I'd like to think we'll remain so for forever. That's where you come in. My brother (now 32) has seen Wilco perform live 6-maybe 7-times. And, while attempting to discuss this with me recently he became rather frustrated at his lack of appropriate words and my lack of understanding (he's got a masters degree in creative writing so he's got reason to be frustrated) and, after some thought, said — 'you just don't understand me as a person if you haven't seen them live.' I froze. Was this the end of everything we'd been building for the last 23 years? Were all of his instructional mix cds and you know, changing my diapers and motivational sit-downs for not? It all came down to this? See Wilco or say goodbye to my brother forever? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need to see Wilco Live. For me, for my brother, for my mother, for the world. What I'm also trying to say is that I work hard but I don't have tons of money, you know. So like, whatever you're willing to do for me as far as saving my family, would be great. I mean, $50 is reasonable. I could do that. Because everyone else is asking for more and I just don't have more. Did you already sell this ticket? Did I just spill my soul for nothing? Please let me know. I'm sorry this is so long but I felt it necessary to include a few details" – Now this is what I am talking about!! Now we’re getting somewhere!!

AND THE WINNER IS…

"Hello-

I will buy that ticket for $40, because my story is worth 10 bucks.

NOW for my sob story portion of the e mail:

I live in Japan which is great-but day after day I am subjected to AWFUL J-POP boy bands. Please see the attached you tube vid for an example. It will change your life. This was number 1 on the charts a month or so ago:

Check It Out Here

Between that and the karaoke culture here I am in serious need of Wilco...STAT. Anyway, I will be coming home to Utah this Thurs. I have never been able to see Wilco because they were always sold out in Chicago (where I previously lived)...To add to it, my friend who doesn't live in Utah anymore will be in town for just a few days with his new wife that I haven't had a chance to meet and they have tickets (yay) but didn't get me one (boo)

So you have the opportunity to supply me with a ticket to see Wilco and my long lost friend. Either that or I'll have to wait for them not to be cool anymore and go on a never-ending tour of Japan (You get points if you know my "This is Spinal Tap" reference) and will cry myself to sleep at night to the sounds of this youtube clip."

--HURRAY!! Now this is what I am talking about! Great story, offered me less than $50, included precious YouTube link and made a Spinal Tap reference. How am I not friends with this chic already?? She is coming over to pick up the ticket on Saturday - maybe I will get a picture and put it on the blog... or not.

BLOG about a BLOG

I have been reading a pretty funny blog lately - its very sarcastic and may be offensive to some, but I find it refreshing. The web address is http://seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com/ - if you have ever lived in Utah county, especially in the vicinity of BYU, I think you can relate. This blog is written by some unknown genius and it pokes fun at the LDS mommy blogger culture. I love all of the references to lip gloss, Breaking Dawn, and Cafe Rio! You might want to start at the beginning of the blog to understand what is going on. The blog starts out like this:

"Hi everybody!!! My name is Tiffany/Amber/Megan/Nicole and I am married to Jordan/Jason/Wes/Taylor, and we have non-stop fun all the time and are LOVING married life! We are super busy but we still love to make time for fun stuff and we just love being married and living our awesome lives. I LOVE crafts (especially Stampin' Up! and homemade jewelry) and he loves sports. I went to hair school/teach 2nd grade and now we are going to law/dental/business/medical school! So hard! But being in law/dental/business/medical school is really fun for me because there are tons of wive's clubs like bridge club, book club, walking club. Pretty awesome! Love you guys!! If you have anything you want me to blog about, puh-LEASE let me know"

LOVE IT!!

Top 7 Bands of June 2008

I have been posting about exercise a lot lately, so I thought I would change the pace a little and talk about music. I change favorite bands every few months, so I thought it would be fun to talk about the music that I’m into right now. Ten years ago, this list would have been a lot different. I don’t have any bands on this list that would have been in my top 25 (ok, maybe Radiohead). So here is the run down of my Top Seven bands right now and why I like them:

1. Wilco – They have been at the top of the list for a few months now. I first found out about Wilco in 2004 when they came out with an album called A Ghost Is Born. I didn’t really like this album, so I assumed I didn’t like Wilco, but after listening to 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, I listened to some older stuff like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and I was in love! I saw them live in Colorado and will see them again on August 18^th at Red Butte Gardens in SLC.
   

2. The Shins – I found out about the Shins from the movie Garden State as I am sure a lot of people did. They have excellent lyrics and really cool layers of guitar. Here are some lyrics from the song Pink Bullets:
   

“Cool of a temperate breeze from dark skies to wet grass
we fell in a field it seems now a thousand summers passed
when our kite lines first crossed
we tied them into knots
and to finally fly apart we had to cut them off”

3. The Postal Service – This is a band that started with two dudes sending CD Roms back and forth in the mail aka the band name, The Postal Service. One of the dudes, Ben Gibbard is also the lead singer in another band that I love called Death Cab For Cutie. This band rocks some sweet techno beats with old-school video games sounding electronics and then cover it with really cool lyrics that just nake you sing along.
   

4. The Killers – “Somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year. It's not confidential, I've got potential.” –Enough said.
   

5. Radiohead – I never get sick of Radiohead. Their new album In Rainbows is the Radiohead I love – mellow and rockin’.
   

6. Lucinda Williams – Another oldie but goodie. I have really been digging her live stuff lately. She has this amazing old country voice – kind of like if Allison Kraus got drunk and rode a few roller coasters.
   

7. Feist – I first heard Feist on a iPod commercial. I had to know who it was after seeing the commercial a dozen times. She writes very catchy and danceable music.
   

Honorable Mention – M. Ward – This guy is a really good singer/songwriter. The only reason he didn’t make the top 7 is because I am still listening to his albums and falling in love with them. He will most likely make the top 7 in a month or so.

2555 Calories Per Day

I looked at an email today that had a formula for a BMR (base metabolic rate). The newsletter said, “Your BMR is the number of calories your body burns in a day when operating at absolute minimum capacity. Basically, imagine sitting on the couch all day. Your BMR, then, is the number of calories your body burns just to maintain your heartbeat, digestion, respiration, tissue repair and other organ functions. That's it.”

I don’t know how accurate this kind of stuff is, but I have been curious lately about how many calories is too much or too little for me in a day. I don’t think I am dedicated enough to carry around a calorie counting book with me everywhere, but I definitely need to work on portion control. Here is the formula for BMR:

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )

My BMR is 2060. So basically to maintain my current weight (which I do not want to do) I could sit on the couch all day and eat 2060 calories.

So then you figure our how many calories you are burning each day by using the Harris Benedict Equation:

Harris Benedict Formula

To determine your total daily calorie needs, multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows:

1. If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
2. If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
3. If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
4. If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
5. If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

I figure that right now I am about a 3-4. I exercise moderate/hard 5 days a week. So I take my BMR (2060) and multiply it by 1.55. So now my daily calorie intake to maintain my current weight is 3193. So I found some more information on how to figure out how many calories are too little/too much to lose weight:

“If you want to lose fat, a useful guideline for lowering your calorie intake is to reduce your calories by at least 500, but not more than 1000 below your maintenance level. For people with only a small amount of weight to lose, 1000 calories will be too much of a deficit. As a guide to minimum calorie intake, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that calorie levels never drop below 1200 calories per day for women or 1800 calories per day for men. Even these calorie levels are quite low.

An alternative way of calculating a safe minimum calorie-intake level is by reference to your body weight. Reducing calories by 15-20% below your daily calorie maintenance needs is a useful start. You may increase this depending on your weight loss goals.”

If I reduce my caloric intake by 20%, this means I can eat 2555 calories a day to lose weight. If I go with reducing the number by 1000, I can have 2193 calories per day and still lose weight. Seems a little complicated to count calories, but at least now if I go to Wendy’s for lunch and have their southwest taco salad with the works, I know that I’ve eaten 650 of my daily calories.

May 2008 Recap

Things I am proud of:

I went to the gym every Monday – Friday in May except for one

I have been eating less and thinking about what I am eating more

I got desperate and ate a Totino’s pizza one night but then threw up (I am proud of that because my body rejected it)

I get out of bed easily in the morning

I haven’t had a regular soda other than on a free day and I have been drinking very little diet soda

Working out is the best part of my day

I have more energy

I have lost about 7 pounds

I have better posture

Things I need to work on this month:

I need to drink a lot more water

Some free days have turned into more of a free weekend – I need to have more willpower

I need to eat more breakfast and less dinner

I need to work out one more day a week - either Saturday or Sunday

I should start walking and running rather than just doing the stationary bike

I need to eat less candy – eat it only on the free day

I need to be eating more protein like protein shakes and cottage cheese

I need to eat better carbs like brown rice and more whole wheat

I need to eat more breakfast and less dinner

I should start walking and running rather than just doing the stationary bike

In general I need to work on eating better, not just eating less

Animal Planet, Eat Your Heart Out

I was out walking around on Sunday morning at the Cougar Ranch and I found a really weird baby snake. I had my camera with me, so I filmed it a little bit. The video isn't very great because I was a little freaked out about seeing a snake. I was deathly afraid of the snake because of its bright blue tail and everyone knows bright blue = poisonous or pretending to be poisonous, so I didn’t want to get to close. Also, the thought of getting bit by a baby snake at the Cougar Ranch brought back haunting memories of my Uncle Dale and his close encounter with the legless kind. My adrenaline was definitely pumping as I was trying to remember if I knew how to tie a tourniquet in case I was bitten by this deadly reptile. So here is the video, I added some Steve Irwin (crocodile hunter) audio to make it more exciting (so turn up your speakers):

Everyone back at the cabin was wondering what the snake could be. We went back to the scene of the crime and we couldn't find it anywhere. We decided to google it when we got home. I just happen to work across the hall from a bug/nature/reptile/snake enthusiast named Neil. He is a beekeeper and loves spiders and snakes and pretty much anything gross. I told him about the snake and he got pretty excited and told me to bring the video in and he would look at it. He said there were only 31 species of snakes in Utah, so we could figure it out. He asked me if it had legs and I said – uh, no, it was definitely a baby snake. He went back to his office and within 5 seconds sent me an email with the following picture:

It is a western skink, basically a lizard. It must have had the tiniest legs because I didn't see them at all!! I felt kind of dumb for freaking out about the snake. Ever since talking to Neil, I was dreaming about discovering a new species of snake and naming it after Kurt Cobain or something really cool like that. A girl can dream, can’t she? It was just a lizard, but a pretty cool lizard as far as lizards go.

17 Hours in Grand Junction

So a couple of weeks ago a hair-brained scheme came to me. I love the band wilco. Randy and I discovered them sometime last year and just can't get enough. They have been on a world tour promoting their latest album Sky Blue Sky. - and when I say world tour, I mean everywhere in the world BUT Utah. I check their website semi-frequently to check for tour dates and I saw a show in Grand Junction on May 8th. EUREKA!! I also saw a show for August 18th at Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City. EUREKA!! Well, a normal person would be thrilled that the band was coming to their state and just leave it at that, but that would be a normal person. I immediately called Randy, and called Randy, and called Randy, but he finally answered and said, I gotta go, I'll call you back. DANG IT!! I needed to buy tickets fast and look for a hotel and coordinate with work, etc. So, I text messaged little Debbie to see if she was in and she was. So I figured out all of the details and verified with Randy that I was not insane and bought 3 tickets, booked a room at a bed and breakfast and told work that I would be gone all day Thursday, but would be back in time for a 4:00pm meeting that I had to attend.



We left Orem on Wednesday at about 1:30 and arrived in Colorado at about 5:30. We checked into the Willow Pond Bed and Breakfast and rested for a few minutes before grabbing dinner and going to the show. The theater where the show was being held only sat about 1400 people, so it was the perfect size for a really good concert. Wilco played some of our favorites from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as well as a lot from Sky Blue Sky. They also played a lot of songs that we had never heard. I like going to a show where they actually improvise and play obscure songs that they want to play rather than just what the record label tells them to play. The crowd was great - a lot of them were drunk and just having a really good time. I think non-Utah crowds are better than Utah crowds any day and its not just the drinking - I think people just know how to listen to a band and how to appreciate the music more in other states. It is hard to pinpoint exactly, but I've seen this phenomenon several times. After the show, we went back the B&B and slept.



In the morning, we had an amazing breakfast of vegetarian chorizo breakfast burritos and good conversation with some other guests from British Columbia who were there to mountain bike. we checked out and went to a few music stores in downtown Grand Junction and then we hit the road so I could make it back in time for my meeting. It was a whirlwind trip, but one I will never forget!! And the best part it, I am buying my tickets to see them at Red Butte on Monday morning - WOO HOO!