Eighties Night with Electric Avenue

 

Eighties Night with Electric Avenue

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for June 5, 2022

My buddy, Jimi Gilbertson, asked Miss Sheri and I to join him and his friend, Teri, for a night of eighties music.  We were happy to oblige.

Prior Lake Horse & Hunt Club has been hosting a bunch of interesting acts lately.  They have a nice tent set-up outside so people can spread out, enjoy some cocktails, and listen to good music.  

This was Electric Avenue's first performance in the state of Minnesota.  They were really good and played a unique mix of eighties song that I can't say I've heard many other bands perform.  

On their website, they describe themselves as follows:   

We don’t get to repeat even one minute of our time here, but what if you could relive all the youthful energy and sonic celebration 

that was 1980s New Wave & FM Radio Pop: right here, right now? Every sound. Every nuance. Every time.

Jimi always makes the evening extra entertaining.  He had the bright idea to bring along several decks of cards which he proceeded to hand out to everyone in the crowd.  He told them he was doing a drawing for Brett Michaels tickets.  He forgot to mention that the tickets were already used from a concert in 2019.  I thought when the manager and two security guards asked him what he was doing that it would slow him down, but nope.  He assured them he wasn't charging any money for the drawing and that seemed to ease their concerns.  Unfortunately he didn't get to deliver the punchline after asking the band to announce the winner of the drawing and they seemed to miss the cue.   But it sure added a little extra excitement to our evening in any case.

On Saturday, we headed to Best Buy's headquarters to attend Minnebar 16.  Minnebar is the nation’s largest and longest-running technology unconference. Like other unconferences (or BarCamps), Minnebar is a user-generated conference that is participant-led. There are no keynote speakers or formal workshops, and all sessions are led by people from the tech and business communities. We were excited to get our Learn On.

We attended a few sessions including this one on 3D Photography.  It was an interesting overview of the history of the technology covering everything from the Viewmaster to Virtual Reality.  

Our favorite session was Misconceptions of MVP (Minimum Viable Product).  It covered many of the concepts discussed in the Lean Startup and we found it interesting learning strategies for launching new products.  We sure know how to have fun on a Saturday!

We also enjoyed exploring Best Buy's headquarters and snacking on the free food provided by the event's generous sponsors.  Good times.

Saturday night we connected with our good friends, Dan, Jackson, and Andy, for a little fishing excursion on Prior Lake.

This was the second time I had Andy out fishing and the first time he was shut-out.  I'm not saying he did too much better this time around, but at least he caught one!

The highlight of my trip was seeing an albino squirrel on the shores of Candy Cove.  I haven't seen one in my yard for a year or two now, so it was good to get a glimpse of one again.  They're my favorite.