The Screaming Viking

The wife and I took the kid to a Taylor Swift concert in St. Paul on Wednesday.  This is the second time we’ve seen Ms. Swift in concert, the first being almost a year ago in Minneapolis.  I’m not a Swift fan, nor am I really a hater…I’m pretty indifferent when it comes to her music.  I don’t need to turn the channel when it’s on…but I don’t go looking for it.  I’m a big fan of seeing concerts, I think they are a great value for the dollar.  For me, it’s different than going places like disney land or something…when you visit those places you have pictures to look at for reliving the memories.  When you go to a concert, I recall those memories very easily when I hear that artist’s songs.  The “feeling” from the experience lasts quite a bit longer for me.  I’m not sure if it’s the same for others.  The kid also seems to get a kick out of concerts.  We’ve gone a couple other places and the only thing that matches the excitement she feels when we hit concerts is going to a water park (that one in the cities was pretty damn cool).

This trip wasn’t exactly a vacation.  We drove down to the cities, hit the concert not long after we got there…crashed out and came back right away in the morning.  It would have been nice to take a little more time and make a weekend of it, but neither the wife nor I have the time to take off right now.  With the move coming up this summer we couldn’t spare the time from work.  It’s a lot of time in the car, and if I had it to do again I would probably chose to skip the concert instead of trying to force a rushed trip.  For the kid I think it worked out O.K., for the wife and I not so much…but it was something for the kid so that’s fine. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past couple of years we’ve been getting the kid a “trip” for her birthday.  Last year we did a taylor swift concert in the cities, for this birthday she wanted to do some water park thing.  Sara looked around a bit and found a decent water park pretty close to the mall of america.  The Fargo school system decided to give the students a month off…so we decided we’d have her pick a friend and take off on the trip of a lifetime!

I was dreading this trip.  Not like you dread Monday…I was flat out dreading it.  Going places with the family is a hit and miss ordeal.  Sometimes it’s fun (vegas was a good time) and sometimes is a problem (lots of trips to the farm).  The huge disconnect the wife and I have over this stuff is how we get going.  I decide that I want to leave town by X time and it’s a ridgid deadline that I get mad if we miss…the wife, on the other hand, views that time more like a guideline than anything else.  In her defense she has gotten way better over the past 5 years.  When we first started this crap, if I said “on the road by 4″ we’d be lucky to get out of town by 7…and that’s with me pushing people out the door.  Now it’s more like 430.  That’s fine…and I need to relax a bit.  Read the rest of this entry »