You know you are getting older, when your musical heroes appear equally on the covers of Rolling Stone and Modern Maturity. I've always had decent luck in securing a ticket for something I've really wanted to see locally. Even my mom was emboldened with some benign coolness as I had a test the day Bruce Springsteen tickets went on sale in 1980. My mom took mine and my friends money and went up to National Record Mart and scored first row golds. Couldn't do any better than that in days of yore. In fact I think it set a precedent for shows that I really wanted into the next generation. I took my lovely eldest daughter to her first major show the last time U2 deigned to come to Buffalo. On the ticket, behind the stage didn't sound promising, but since they played to whole arena, every few songs my daughter borrowed my phone to tell people she was "this close to flippin Bono!"

If you are over 35, you remember cueing up for tickets on Delaware Ave or one of the record stores (remember them?), but it has gotten more complex and incredibly more expensive in the age of these here internets. Inflation and greed made my $5.00 ticket to my first Bruce show seem downright quaint. Witness the shenanigans of Live Nation and Ticketmaster as well as Tickets.com., where you get assessed double digit "convenience" charges for tickets you can run off your home printer. The upshot of this is I've gotten very picky about venues as I ease into late middle age.

To see Neil Young at an actual concert hall seemed like a worthwhile opportunity. The pricing structure for Shea's seemed kind of odd. It was a little strange to see 69, 99 and 149 dollar seats in a building so compact. For 69 dollars, you would have the abilities to spit on the people who paid 70 dollars to sit 70 feet closer. That irony should strike some. Despite a little shock at $150 price tags, I thought it might be worth 69 bucks to see ole 'weird Neil. But, it ain't to be. Despite being armed with a decent internet connection and speedy cell phone, I could only watch as the retail tickets disappeared 5 minutes into the on sale time frame.

StubHub had some that had only been inflated 2-300% from the original selling price within 20 minutes.



Sorry, Neil, guess I'm sitting this one out. Heart of Gold was on tv last night. I think it was foreshadowing. Ticketmaster, Live Nation, Tickets.com? This thing of yours ain't working for us working folk, but since profits are higher than ever before for you guys, I guess you really don't care. Good luck with that merger.

From the Buffalo News Photo Blog over the weekend



Peter, that is seriously a great picture.

I've been meaning to for work for sometime and also since I'm still 12 in other respects. Typed in in estrip.org and of course screwed that up, but as a result found out that estrip.com is for sale. Iphone....teaching the fat fingered something knew all the time.

This is seriously some too much time on your hands programming, but my inner 12 year old thinks it's bitchin.

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Been missing the sound of the water. Hope Spring is about to do its thang. Wandering in the Saturday sunshine at the Marina.

You never stop getting tested. Been camped out at Women and Children's Hospital during the first part of this week. Going into last weekend, my older daughter was complaining of a sore throat that was funky enough that we took her to the Dr's office on Saturday morning. It was promptly diagnosed as Tonsilitis and Antibiotics were prescribed. We took her home and got her settled in and she took her stuff saturday.

Sunday she was having a tough time getting them down. She got herself dehydrated so the doctor said time to quit fooling around. To alleviate that, the solution was to head for the hospital and the safety and comfort of hydrating IVs and a liquid form of the antibiotic to chase stuff away. Her mom stayed with her Sunday night and I did the job Monday evening (getting a little old to sleep in a chair, but you do what you do). We got her back home Tuesday night, where she is recovering and should be ready to greet the world once more. But you fall back into roles pretty easy. My ex and I were never shy when it comes to speaking up. I'm pretty sure there is a file on us at Sisters from when Number One Son was born. The staff mentioned a painkiller to ease the tonsils. It wasn't administered right away. So, my former spouse looked at me on Monday night and said: "Pardon me, I'm going to have a Aurora Greenway moment (Shirley McClaine in Terms of Endearment). Painkiller was delivered straightway. I laid out the kids dentist office for trying to give us a hard time for missing an appt for number one son on Tuesday morning. Medical staff is insanely great, it's the administrators who need to be incorporated in health care reform. I never looked up from a chair before to discover we were in the middle of rounds.

She is 18 and you are in charge of that point. While we were getting checked out in the INT ward. I couldn't help but laugh a little when Mighty Daughter said her Mom and I could speak for her.Things you'd never thought you'd hear, right? Right up there with hearing her say "Mommy" or "Daddy" without it being ironic.

I had to do a sponsorship presentation for work mid-day on Tuesday. At that point, we engaged the grandparents for a little help. I did most of the prep work last week, but nothing like addressing the hierarchy of one of the local health care providers on sleep that was mostly a series of short naps. Between that and the amount of coffee I had, I must have sounded like the fast talking guy from the American Express Ads. It must have worked because they signed on for two years.

So, I'm glad for the warm weather and pending weekend. Mike needs a beer.

It's a nice idea. Number One Son and I headed out today to partake and see what there was to see. Lot of folks trying to fit in places not entirely made for crowds. I still think there might be a person trying to get their stroller through the slush by the broom ball court.

The ride down the skyway, it was fun for the bragging rights, but required me to make like fred flinstone starting the car to make the final assault. My camera died so no POV pic there. Ice maze has only one exit and with so many folks, it felt more like a long line to someplace else but we made it out.

Some Broomball was being had and they were mostly splashing water on each other. All the snow is really wet and in need of a little powder for things to get pretty again.

So, it was fun to explore, but the beer tent and all the smokers are pretty predominant.












Took a couple pictures through the rained on ramp to my parking space, just because it looked kind of cool.

If you go tomorrow, car pool and park in the Bisons ramp, just $5 and plenty of space, cheaper than train tickets.