A little update. I’m working as the “Student General Manager” at WJHS, my high school’s radio station. This job pretty much entails doing half of everything. Advertising, fixing off-air emergencies, equipment purchasing and oversight, student monitoring, and several other things. I split the job with our Chief Operator seeing as our completely amazing GM had to get a full-time job. Hey, gotta feed the family right? This sounds great beside the fact that it means I am on call for any off -air emergency at any time. For a student-run station, emergencies can be frequent. Go figure. By the way, all valuable job experience right? Heh, I plan on going to Med School to become an ER Doc. Explain that one to me! I really do love it though; so at this point I’ll stop the whining ;).

So, now it’s college, high school, radio, homework, energy drink promo events (a job I’ll expand on later), and dealing with my o-so-phenomenal sister. All while trying to keep myself on an even keel. Of course that would be easier if I could manage to get on a better, or even non-noctournal sleep schedule.

Here’s to trying!

When I arrived for the concert, the place was being remodeled. The artist performing that night, K.C. Clifford, knew about the remodeling that was going on but didn’t care. She was adamant that she wanted the concert to be at the Blue Door. I walked over the uneven ground on particle boards laid in a path to the door. I was beginning to wonder about how this evening was going to go. I had no idea.

As we sat down for the concert, I was full of anticipation for what was to come. The opening act, 3 Penny Acre, came up on stage and blew us all away. They had new fans by the end of the first song. Everyone knew that the night was going to be fantastic.

Then it was time for K.C. to start. It was time for the performance that I had traveled 985 miles for. See, I had only been to one other performance from K.C. Clifford and that was completely unplugged. That alone was a great enough performance to travel so far for.

The set included all of the songs from her new CD, Orchid, and several other favorites from previous CDs. Considering that my copy of Orchid rarely made it out of my CD player, it was hard not to sing along with her. The songs that I had been listening to for weeks were now being performed in front of me in one of the best venues I had ever attended a concert at.

Now, I want to take a moment to mention the concerts that I have attended. I’ve been to concerts from MercyMe, Alabama, Trisha Yearwood, Alan Jackson, and many others. The venue was always something equivalent to a civic center. Not once did I get chills form the performance given.

Tonight however, within the first 3 minutes I was getting chills from her performance. The venue’s acoustics combined with a truly amazing full band and K.C.’s voice made for a concert that I will not soon forget. As the night continued, it was clear that she really knows her audience. The songs that were a part of the set were songs that everyone wanted to hear. They were songs with a story, songs with undeniable character.

As the night came to an end, I was only missing one song. I thought K.C. was wrapping it up with the fan-favorite “The Barbie Song.” I was wrong. She mentioned that she was going to do one of the songs people really wanted to hear from the previous night’s concert, “Yellow Haired Girl.” This was it, the only song missing. It was time to rock out, then head out. And that we did.

I suggest checking out one of K.C.’s concerts whenever you get the chance. You can find her tour schedule at the newly revamped kcclifford.com.

Needless to say, the concert was worth the trip. The songs from Orchid, along with all of the rest were real; they can hold meaning for each and every one of us.

Orchid, your own studio version of the best concert I have ever attended, was released yesterday. I highly suggest you check it out. You can find Orchid at Blip.FM, CDBaby or on iTunes.

This evening Sylvia received her Christmas gift. The gift happened to be a black 8 Gig iPod Nano. She had been talking about getting one for months. I had already made all of the proper preparations. iTunes was installed, her music was synced up, and the application was hidden in a system folder on her netbook. All she had to do was open it and ask any questions. Or so I thought.

I decided, to make things easier, I would demo the things that she needed to know to use the iPod fully. We went over navigation, the video camera, and iTunes syncing. I was confident that she knew what she was doing.

As I was walking to bed I heard “Andrew, how do I play a song on here?” I knew that she had the iPod plugged into the computer, so I walked in to help. She was using the iPod as a kind of remote to try and play music in iTunes. I asked where she actually wanted the music to come out and she decided she wanted to listen on the iPod. At this point, she was getting frustrated and I was trying not to burst out laughing. I told her to get as far through each menu as she could, and then I would help her. She made it to the songs menu, and then tried to scroll by what I can only describe as gently caressing the select button. I then showed her how to scroll and asked myself how on Earth she got this far. She scrolled through and selected the song. Finally, the song began to play. I said goodnight and began to walk to bed.

The song was coming out pretty loud. For those of you that don’t know, the iPod Nano now has an on-board speaker. When she mentioned the song volume, I made the mistake of asking if she had her headphones plugged in. She said yes, and that they had been plugged in the whole time. I told her to use the scroll wheel to change the volume. At this point, the volume increased to a level too high for even the greatest headphones, much less iPod headphones. I walked back in and found that her headphones were plugged into her netbook. I told her to plug them into the iPod and that they were in the wrong device. She laughed at that one. As I looked over, she was trying to insert the headphone plug into the poor iPod’s camera lens. I then demonstrated the proper headphone jack, only after freaking out because she almost destroyed the camera’s lens.

As I walked out of the room again, she said that she wasn’t a good night learner and that we may have to go over it again tomorrow. I am sure that tomorrow will bring new abuse for this poor iPod, seeing as we haven’t even looked into the radio feature. I guess we shall see. Wish me luck!

Tweetie for iPhone has already been called the best Twitter iPhone app by most of the blogosphere, but I am going to put in my two cents worth. Tweetie is an all around good app, and is very stable and sleek.

In my opinion the interface is airy but still packs a punch as far as functionality. One of the coolest features not including its Twitter capabilities, is the fact that it is integrated with instapaper. This is a great feature even though I have not yet used it.

I really enjoy the fact that I can view TwitPic images without going to the webpage. This makes viewing them a lot less distracting. Not to mention the fact that it still has its own browser built in!

Since it has its own browser built in, I can view webpages within the app and not lose my place within the Twitter stream. But, I cannot just skip over the main feature, Twitter itself. Tweeting from this app even seems simpler than with other Twitter apps out there. Not only can you retweet, but you can also tweet in the landscap keyboard mode!

These compliments are quite mixed and given in no specific form, but they are the best things about the app.

I would most definitely suggest this to anyone looking for a good Twitter app for the iPhone. Check it out. It is most definitely worth your $3. And, with three themes to choose from and multiple ways to share tweets, you will never get bored!

I was recently given the ifrogz iPhone 3G case as a gift from a family member, and was thrilled with it as soon as I opened it. Of course, it was black and orange so what do you expect?! The first thing I noticed was that it was very sturdy. I previously had been using a rubber cover, mainly to avoid scratches. This was decent also but that is for another review.

The sturdiness worried me at first. I don’t want a case to make my phone look bulky. I really like the look of the iPhone without a case, and in fact preferred it that way. The case was in two pieces, the larger one being orange. The bottom was black. The two pieces slide onto the phone and interlock, giving it a very secure but not damaging fit. This was yet another thing that I liked.

The previous rubber case would pick up lint from my pocket, causing dust buildup inside the case. This actually caused scratching on the phone’s corners. I did NOT want this to happen again. Thinking about this I hesitated to put the case on my phone. Finally I broke down and put it on.

In the next few days I noticed that the phone didn’t slip out of may hand anymore. This would obviously extend the life of the phone. I was beginning to love the case.

Something like a month later I decided to remove the case and see the damage. There wasn’t any! No dust had made its way into the case. Better, yet there were no scratches on the back whatsoever. Great case!

In summary:
I would suggest this case to anyone who asks about it.
It protected my phone in an exceptional manner.
It is so cool looking you won’t want to take it off.
And finally, It is a great buy for the price! (In my opinion.)

Where else?

That made my night!