Top 5 Concerts

I was talking to a buddy of mine about the best concerts we have seen. Thought it would make for an interesting blog post. Here is my list, after some careful deliberation...

#5. Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge. I'm not singling out a particular show. Any one from 2001 - 2003 is on my list here. But one of them for sure makes my top 5. The music, venue and the whole camping experience during my college years is a great memory.

#4. Paul Simon at the Paramount, Seattle WA in 2000. Sat in the front row...of the orchestra pit. Literally leaning on the front of the stage, and shook Paul's hand after the encore. Seeing those songs performed that close was great.

#3. John Mayer at Richards on Richards in Vancouver, BC in 2001. It was awesome to see him before he made it big in a pretty small club/bar, just after Room For Squares was released. There were probably 500 people there or so, and you could walk right up to the front of the stage.


#2. Dave Matthews performing solo acoustic at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, WA in 2002. It was a 2 hour set of just Dave by himself in a very private setting. Acoustics are amazing in there. Dave played a 5 song encore with a 15 minute story mixed in there as well.

#1. U2 during their Elevation Tour in Vancouver, BC in 2001. Could have swapped in their Vertigo Tour show in Seattle, WA here as well but the 2001 show was my first time seeing them live and is deserving of the top spot. U2 may be the best live show of all time.

Honorable mentions (great artists/shows I have also seen):

Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Jason Mraz, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Maroon 5, Mat Kearney, Glen Phillips, Ben Folds, Ben Lee, Death Cab for Cutie, Green Day, Matt Nathanson, James Morrison.

I am headed to Coldplay at the Gorge in July and have a feeling that might crack the top 5. We will see...

Site Review

Paul, a buddy of mine getting his MBA, recently completed his first website as part of a homework assignment. When I recently saw him, he asked me for my humble opinion...

While I absolutely love the My Way page, I have to say I was not overly impressed with the home page, even with my expectations going in. Here are my thoughts:

1. Looks like Paul was going for the simple approach of completing this assigment. And thats great. So many sites have done simple well. Take Google or Craigslist. Problem with Paul's site is that it doesn't do simple well. It looks like a first website. Borrowing a simple look and feel from someone else would have worked well, and been maybe even faster.

2. We are in business school now, not elementary school. We need some originality. Where is the catchy name? Where is the logo? "Paul's home page"? How long did it take to come up with that one? A little branding would go a long way.

3. Again, back to business school. The internet is a place where money can be made. Even though this is just a first website, lets get some advertising on there, some sponsorships, to bring in some money. Who is opposed to making a few bucks while doing your homework?

I always try to let my actions do the talking, not my words. So I took my own advice here and applied it to Paul's site.

I give you ... www.pauggle.com

Rule of 3

I have been consulting for Microsoft for the past several months in the Windows Azure space. Recently I have been meeting with some folks to help define some best practices for building applications on Windows Azure. One of the people I have been working with is J.D. Meier. He has a couple of great blogs: a MSDN blog and one called Sources of Insight.

I read a recent post on http://www.sourcesofinsight.com/ that I thought was really good. It was about the Rule of 3, and how to apply it to short term and long term goals. Check it out if you get a chance.

On a different note, a friend of mine was asking me to blog about his new website. The creative juices are flowing. Stay tuned...