Thursday, October 29, 2009

This Is It



October 28, 2009 at 9:30pm my wonderful boyfriend, Carmund, and I started viewing one of the most amazing documentaries of Michael Jackson ever...well, in my opinion. The movie, Michael Jackson's This is It, was absolutely amazing! How often do you get to see behind the scenes footage of the greatest entertainer to EVER live when he's rehearsing for the biggest concert ever?! We know of his controversial personal life but I'm not going to go there. That's a horse of a different color and I want to reflect on the positive things. Let's get a little insight into the amazing massiveness of Michael Jackson.

We all know him as the cute little lead singer in the boy band Jackson 5. In 1971 he began his oh so successful solo career. In 1982 he came out with Thriller which to this day is the best selling album of all time!! We can't forget all his other very successful albums Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995). He was groundbreaking with his music videos, or as I like to call them music movies, on MTV. Michael Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He has multiple Guiness World Records including "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time" - 13 Grammy Awards, 22 American Music Awards, 17 number one singles, and many more! Amazing, right?!!

Now back to facts about his concert. Michael Jackson's last concert was HIStory World Tour in 1997. This is It was suppose to be very significant for him. The plan was to have a series of 50 concerts held at the O2 Arena in London (capacity of 23,000) beginning in July 2009 and ending in March 2010. Here are a "few" fun facts about the announcement of this concert and how much Jackson was truly loved:



-Jackson's official website allowed fans to register early for a "pre-sale" draw.
-Some fans had difficulty applying, as the website could not deal with the large number of registrations—reportedly up to 16,000 applications a second. (That's insane!!!)
-In the space of 24 hours, nearly a million people from around the world registered for pre-sale tickets, enough to fill the venue 50 times over.
-Tickets that had not even been printed were selling on auction website eBay.
-Sales of Jackson's albums increased following the press conference. Overnight, sales of Off the Wall rose 200%, Bad rose 110%, Dangerous rose 165% and Thriller 25 rose 155%. (Crazy!!)
-The two day pre-sale began on March 11, and 40 extra dates were added to meet high demand—five of these dates were reserved in their entirety for the public sale.
-More than 1.5  million fans caused two sites offering pre-sale tickets to crash within minutes of going online.
-In the space of two hours, 190,000 tickets were sold.
-Two million people tried to buy pre-sale tickets in the space of 18 hours.
-It was announced that Jackson would break the record for number of shows performed by an artist at a single venue, which had been set by Prince, who hosted a 21-date residency at the same arena.

Okay, okay, okay I could go on and on about the awesomeness but see he was still a very prominent icon in spite of the negative things that swirled around his personal life and death. If you haven't noticed I am a BIG fan! The movie showed the rehearsals for his final concert. I won't spoil it, because you should really see it but this man was a genius of his craft. He knew exactly what he wanted and what would work for him and his fans. He was going to perform all of his very popular songs. He had some of the best dancers on stage with him as well as singers and musicians. The stage setups were elaborate and reflected everything Michael Jackson was and wanted to be.

Unfortunately, Michael Jackson left us entirely too soon. On June 25, 2009 Jackson collapsed at his rented mansion in Los Angeles. It was only a couple of weeks before he was to go on tour.

I truly recommend you go and see the movie rather you were a die hard fan or someone who just simply admired him for his work. Regardless, there's no denying his significance in popular culture. It is definitely shown in the movie how great of an artist Michael Jackson was. Go see the movie and then let me know what you thought of it.

PS. Much thanks to Carmund for getting me tickets before I even asked about it. I enjoyed every minute with you and love you very much!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

In a hurry?


I was driving back to work today from home (on my lunch break) and got caught at a light. As the lights are about to change a firetruck is starting to come from the opposite direction with lights and sirens. My light turns green and at first I was about to hurry and go (just to pull over and wait for the truck to go past), but I decided that wasn't the smartest thing to do and decided to wait. Well, the guy behind gets totally upset that I didn't go and bangs on his steering wheel and starts flailing his arms around. I assume he didn't want to sit at this green light and wait for the firetruck to come pass us.

I started thinking about how much of a hurry we are in as a society and how selfish we are. Whenever I see emergency vehicles rushing to the rescue I always try to say a short prayer for the person/people in trouble. This guy who was totally upset that I didn't go should have been praying instead of getting upset. For all we know it could have been someone he or I knew in trouble.

We need to stop and check ourselves. We are always in so much of a hurry that sometimes we don't stop to cherish the little moments we have in life. When troubles do arise what do we do? Do we pray, do we get upset, or do we ignore it? These are all things we should think about. Look at who it all affects.

Just a constant thought I'm having right now. I'm definitely feeling convicted to do some self reflecting.

Oh yeah, we actually made it through the light after the firetruck went past us. Which leads me to another thought, when we wait and be patient good things happen. What difference would it have made for us to go through the light just to still sit and wait for the truck to pass versus us sitting at the light and waiting for the truck to pass. Good things come to those who wait...


Thursday, October 8, 2009

Old blog draft I found


It seems that back in January (Jan. 7th, 2009) I started a blog about being single and never finished. Didn't realize that this website keeps a draft for you and then you can go back and finish it later. Boy oh boy, the draft seems so funny now. Here's what it said:

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This is has been on my mind for quite some time especially lately...singleness. Hmmmm, I like to think of myself as the typical girly girl that can totally create an "estrogen cloud" (a coworker made that up) when we're discussing babies, guys, fashion, or little juicy stories. I played with Barbies growing up and didn't want to do anything that would make me sweat! Ewww...still don't want to but for different reasons (I think it's called laziness). LOL Anyway, that means I dreamed of having a big wedding and a big dress and it would just be the best day ever. Don't get me wrong, I do still want that day to exist but instead of a big dress I think I want a very hot and sexy dress. This is all being written to say that last year I soooo wanted to start dating with the hopes of getting married soon. Well, apparently that didn't happen. It was like as soon as 2009 came I really realized that I LOVE being single. That was also brought on by spending a week and a half with my sister, brother-in-law and their 5 kids. lol I told them that the kids are 1. the perfect birth control 2. makes me appreciate not having children 3. makes me appreciate being single.

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Now I've been dating for 6 months (not really a long time but long enough) and my views have definitely changed a bit. I was recently inquiring of God as to why women want to be married and have children. I think just about every woman has had that desire at some point in her life. Come on, we all use to play house and we would always have a husband and a bunch of kids. In my house playing days we would always, and I do mean ALWAYS, make a special trip to Disney World. LOL Anyway, I realized that that's how God made us. When God created Adam he could have left it at that...Adam, animals, and God. Noooooo, God said that Adam shouldn't be alone. Well, Adam didn't know what loneliness was but God created Eve just for him. It's in our nature to not want to be alone and to feel loved from someone else. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have a husband, children, a huge wedding, a big ring, blah blah blah.

I think I'm rambling now. I find myself thinking about these things now that I'm dating with the strong possibility of marrying this man. Good feeling...

Monday, October 5, 2009

Flowers galore!

A week ago today my incredible boyfriend showed up at my job and surprised me with six bouquets of flowers! It was the sweetest thing. It was our 6 month anniversary and he wanted to do something special for me. I remember him vaguely mentioning the week before that he was going to embarass me but I didn't think much about it. So, here's how it went down...

I was at my desk doing work (duh, I'm at work) and my cell phone rings. It's Carmund calling me to tell me to come downstairs. I was a bit nervous, because he normally doesn't do things like that. He's showed up at my job several times before with flowers but it's been after work. Anyway, I go out into our parking lot and there he is with a dozen red roses. I hug him and give him a kiss.



Then he runs off to his car, which was parked at the end of the lot, and then reappears with another bouquet of flowers this time there were sunflowers. I hug him again then off he goes to come back with another bouquet of fall colored flowers. He stood there and said, "Happy Monday, Babe!"




He runs off again and comes back with yet another bouquet and a bag. It was a bouquet of gerbera daisies and in the bag was a nice vase. Of course, this whole time I'm thinking how in the world am I going to have vases for all of these flowers and one vase isn't enough. My only option is to keep them at work and use the vases we have there.



Anyway, he runs off yet again and comes back with a bouquet of gladiolus flowers...so pretty!





We hug again then he runs off one more time! LOL This time he comes back with a bouquet of yet another fall colored flower scheme.



He was so cute doing all of this. I could tell he enjoyed himself very much. After he leaves I go back inside the office and realized that I have to cut the stems of all the flowers and find vases for them. Now the "real fun" can begin. I spent the next 30-40 minutes cutting stems and trying to figure out which vase would work best for each bouquet. I ended up combining 2 bouquets together. I took them all by my desk and spread them vases around the room so that everyone could enjoy the love. :-)

I feel so blessed to have a man who is thoughtful and romantic.