The factory is silent. Its assembly line stands motionless. Somewhere off in the darkness, a buzzer sounds. One by one, lights begin to flicker and illuminate on long-unmanned diagnostic panels, giving a sense of enormity and complexity and scale to the machinery. The low hum of power supplies warming up comes next, followed by the higher and louder whine of turbines and electric motors. A whistle sounds, and one by one, employees begin to file in and take their places at the controls. Purposed for a single task, whose time has now come, the factory slowly comes to life...

Monday, March 2, 2009

Baby's First Concert!


One of the first things I learned upon moving to Charlotte is that the metro area is prone to overreaction when it comes to snow. All week, we've been bombarded with "STORM TEAM CHANNEL 37! GET READY TO BE BURIED ALIVE IN THE SNOW FOR A MONTH! THE DEADLIEST BLIZZARD IN OUR PLANET'S HISTORY IS ON THE WAY!" We tend to ignore such hype, as it rarely leads to anything. Besides, it's March for God's sake... we haven't gotten snow this late in the year for nigh on a decade!

Well, the meteorologists were right this time, and last night found me and Kathy trekking through fairly heavy snowfall to the other side of town to see Ben Folds at Ovens Auditorium. We haven't been to a show in YEARS and the one day we decide to attend one happens to be one of the only days of the year we actually get snow. Seriously, what are the odds of that? (side note: traversing slick roads and playing "dodge the idiots who think they can drive in snow" is not a lot of fun for me on a GOOD day, so you can imagine what adding a six-months-pregnant wife to the equation did for my blood pressure.)

Luckily, once we made it to the show, it turned out to be well worth the hassle. The house was still about 3/4 full, which, given the weather, was pretty astounding. The atmosphere was akin to being at a highly anticipated film at midnight on opening night. Knowing that everyone there with you had braved hellish conditions along with you granted everyone a strange sort of kinship. The audience was singing along with every song, in some cases louder than the band. It was pretty amazing stuff.

And our little girl seemed to enjoy it as well. Kathy noted several times that she was bouncing happily around in there.

The trek home was less treacherous, since most people in Charlotte are home and in bed before midnight on a GOOD Sunday. And now we'll have a story to tell our daughter some day about her very first concert. Hopefully she will be born with great taste in music (like her mom!)
by at

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousMarch 3, 2009 at 4:38 PM

    Stay warm!!! Hopefully she has good music taste... I remember all the stuff you used to make me listen to growing up.... :p

    ReplyDelete

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