John Tesh Concert

This is the after photo.   Make sure to see the before photo at the bottom of this post.

The concert was excellent. I think it is so interesting to see how artists that have been around 25-30 years change or don’t change.   He has stayed true to his distinctive style while bringing in new elements that make his music grow.

Trivia: did you know he is 6’6″?  I didn’t.

Bob and I have to admit that most of the music concerts we have been to in the last several years and paid $100+ per ticket were ok but we could just as well stayed home and listened to the CD.

Not so with this concert.  The band was John Tesh, a female vocalist, a drummer and two guitar players but the highlight of the night was Breeze Lee.  Click here for a youtube. com view of his performace. What an incridible hip hop dancer.   His moves to the songs was something to give you goose bumps.   I have a whole new appreciation for this type of dance.

The concert had plenty of audience interaction, John Tesh telling stories and explaining he and his wifes Intelligence for Life passion of bringing music to the aging population.  Good variety of music. Auditorium had good acoustics.   Overall I would give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.  Just a little to much “goofyness” and I would rather have heard more of his main stream music and less of the gospel music.   Definitely a night well spent with us leaving  with new things to think about and a greater curiosity about hip hop.   For $12 it was a fantastic value.   Place was sold out.

At the top is the after photo.   This one is the before photo which must be from 25-30 years ago.

I’m sure most of my readers can appreciate what we looked like 25 years ago and what we look like now!

Our social life and making friends

I have written often about our efforts to meet new people and learn about our new community.  Here is what has happened lately.

A couple weeks ago Fay went to Newcomers sponsored trip to Living Gallery and met two new people.

Fay went to the Newcomers Coffee last Monday.  They had a book exchange with proceeds going to charities.  About 50 ladies there.   I saw one of the women I met at the Living Galleries event as well as two women from other events.

The God Committee Play

Bob and I went to one of the most powerful plays we have ever seen at CenterStage in Greenville.

It takes place in a hospital in a meeting room where a group of people meet every week to decide who is going to get available donor organs.

The group the head of the surgery team, another surgeon very obnoxious (think House TV show), another surgeon, a nurse, a psychiatrist, a social worker and a priest who has been a prosecuting attorney for 34 years.  They have to decide which of three people will get the heart that is coming in.   It is done in real time over 70 minutes.  The acting was great and they took a very tense story and broke it up with appropriate humor.

Here is an in depth review not from Greenville paper but still the same play.

http://www.curtainup.com/godcommittee.html

I learned so much about the criteria for people receiving organs and the issues the committees face.

South Carolina just became a part of the national donor registration at Christmas 2008 so even though our new drivers licenses have the donor heart on it we were not registered yesterday but we are now.

It is a play everyone should see.  There are 100,000 people waiting for a tissue or organ transplant and only 14,000 people signed up as donors.

I encourage you to sign up now.   You can learn more at http://www.unos.org/

A 20+ year irritant fixed

Every day for 20 years in our house in MN  I bemoaned how long I had to wait to get hot water to come out of the bathroom faucet.  Same problem in this new house.   It’s just to far from the water heater to the faucet and to get hot water  quickly and so I have to count to 30 and then hot water.  Lots of water waste also.

Our not so funny saying during the move and new house has been “if you don’t like it just throw more money at it” and I finally decided this was worth fixing.  While the plumber was here putting in the new bathroom we had him install a hot water recirculation system.

IT”S GREAT!  We thought they would have to run all new piping.   Not so.   They use the existing pipes and put in this little recirculating gizzmo from Grundfos and you have hot water almost instantly.   If you want cold water it only takes a couple seconds.

Isn’t life great?

John Tesh on April 28

We last saw John Tesh about 15 years ago at Northrup Auditorium and loved it.

I was blown away to see in the Sunday paper that he will be at Furman University, 10 minutes from us, for $12 a ticket or else my other choice is $100 a ticket.  I’ll let you guess which ones we purchased.

I have to admit that a visit to his web site leaves me totally confused.   I guess he is my answer for everything?  Do I buy Amway, do something for pets?   He needs somebody to sort out his life or at least his website.

Hope we like his performance better then I like his web site.

Stay tuned.

What’s new at our house?

Last weekend we unpacked or found places for the remaining 40-50 boxes that have been sitting in the middle of the workroom floor.  That felt REALLY good.   It has been driving Bob nuts that he hasn’t been able to find his tools.

We have carpet in the rec. room, half bath down there got done today and electrician comes next week to do his work. We did great on craigslist.com for the bathroom cabinet down there.   We got exactly what we wanted and it was $235 not $700.  We also found a mirror to put on it but don’t know if that is still available.

I have my plants out on the patio on the lower level by the hot tub.  Will snap a photo of that pretty soon to show you.

We hired Craig, the young man I told you about, for about 20 hours and he got all kinds of little and big things done and that really helped Bob a lot.

Bob’s mom and sisters come for Mother’s Day so we want to have it all ready for them.

MN Visitors

Our MN neighbors Lee and Anita came to stay for a couple nights last week.  They were on there way to St. Petersburg.  We had a great visit and enjoyed showing them both streets of Travelers Rest and the beautiful downtown Greenville.

We spent all day at the Biltmore Estate and Gardens  and winery in Asheville.  We toured the 8000 acres, 75,000 sq. ft. house with 250 rooms.   It is the largest single home in the US, built in 1895 by the Vanderbilts.  We got season tickets because you could easily spend several days there. It is a place we think most people that visit us would like to see.  They have a really interesting winery that you can visit and do wine tasting and you don’t need to pay admission for that.

There spring flowers, especially tulips, were in bloom.   Enjoy the photos.

Greenville SC voted top Micro City of the Future

I’m pretty proud of my new home.   I did a great deal of research before we picked Greenville as our best place to live.  Every week I run across something new to love about being here.   It is not all great, Greenville County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country but it is a city with a plan.

This is from yesterdays paper.   Read more about North American Cities of the Future by clicking on this link and then download the pdf file.

Greenville is the top North American city of less than 100,000 population in terms of prospects for economic development and business expansion, a global magazine says.

The city ranked No. 1 among fDi Magazine’s “micro cities of the future” for 2009-10, based on several criteria, including economic potential, human resources, cost-effectiveness, quality of life, infrastructure, business friendliness, and promotion strategy.

The magazine, which follows issues that concern foreign investors, says in its April/May issue that Greenville has the top economic potential of any North American city of its size and the second-best business climate behind Wilmington, Del.

Nancy Whitworth, Greenville’s economic development director, said Monday the ranking recognizes the community’s work to ensure the city’s reputation for a good business environment, particularly international investment.

Hank Hyatt, the Greenville Chamber’s vice president of economic development, agreed. “We already have a strength in international investment in the Upstate, so again this just continues that story,” he said.

The magazine said its judging criteria for economic potential included population forecast, unemployment rate and foreign-direct investment, including projects within the high-tech service and manufacturing sectors.

South Carolina’s unemployment rate reached 11.4 percent in March the highest it has been in the state, according to the state Employment Security Commission. Greenville County’s jobless rate climbed to 9.6 percent from 9.4 percent in February, but the county remains one of the state’s best counties for employment.

It’s green

I don’t mean I am being earth ecological green.

I don’t mean it is spring and everything is growing and green.

I mean there is green pollen on everything!   I love to have my windows open and it certainly is warm enough to do that but if I do we have green dust all over.  It seems to be a little better now so I hope I can spray off the porch tomorrow.   Fortunately this pollen doesn’t seem to be something that we are alergic to.  That was last month’s pollen!

I don’t think they have cotton wood trees around here so at least we won’t have that all over.

Spring Flowers

The azaleas are blooming here and they are the most brilliant red and hot pink I have ever seen.   The wisteria (purple flower whose flowers look like lilacs except they are a vine) is above the azaleas.  I believe I read that azaleas grow wild here.  They really take your breath away.