Peter Frampton Live at the Surf Ballroom

Peter Frampton Live at the Surf Ballroom

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for April 1, 2018

I was able to connect with some of my old buddies from Equus recently for lunch.  I hadn't seen most of them since I left the company two and a half years ago, but we picked up where we left off like no time had passed at all.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to see them all more often now that we work closer together.

We went to the Timberwolves game on Wednesday night.  Our hometown team is in the midst of a playoff chase for the first time in like 14 years.  They are in a tie with about 5 or 6 others teams all trying to get in to the post season.  We were there to root them on as they took on the Atlanta Hawks.

It actually ended up being a pretty historic game as Karl Anthony Towns went off the chains by scoring 56 points and 15 rebounds setting a new franchise record for the highest points scored by a single player in a game.  We were so proud of him.  He was on Fire!

Jimmy Butler is still out injured, but he was spreading all kinds of cheer to the team during timeouts.

The Timberwolves won the game by a score of 126 - 114.  It's going to be close for them to make the playoffs.  As of today, they are in the 7th position with only 4 games to go.  There's several others teams with similar records, so who knows what will happen.  Knowing the kind of luck we have in Minnesota, I'm kind of nervous about it but hopefully they'll pull it together and get in there.

On Saturday night, we drove down to Clear Lake, Iowa to meet up with our old buddy, Krazy Kory, for a night on the town.

It's always good to get back to Clear Lake because we always end up seeing old friends.  Like Aimee Minette who we bumped into before the concert.  She actually sold me the engagement ring I gave to Miss Sheri some 24 years ago.  It was great getting to spend some time with her again.

At 7PM we headed to the Surf to wait for the show to begin.  Peter and his band started the show a little after 9 and we were ready to rock.

I can't say I was a huge Peter Frampton fan before the show, but I certainly know his music including songs like Show Me The Way and Do You Feel Like We Do.  We were all singing and dancing along with him and his band while they were jamming out on their guitars.

We stayed up close to the stage and made several new friends around us.

I didn't realize how cool the lighting was until I saw my photos when I came home.  They look very psychedelic.

I think you can even see Peter Frampton's Aura in this one.  Either that or it's a purple haze.

I don't know what kind of instrument this straw thing is called, but it makes some pretty cool effects with his voice.  It sure looks goofy watching him use it, though.

We were pretty close to the stage throughout most of the show, but unfortunately Peter never invited us up there to personally jam with him.  I guess I need to get better with the guitar before I can get that kind of opportunity.

He preferred to jam with his band.  Which I guess I can kind of understand.  These guys were all really good.

There were a lot of riffs, solos, duos, trios, and pretty much everything else that can be accomplished with a guitar.  I was really impressed with the intensity in which Peter performed.  This guy has been doing this for decades, but still came out and gave a riveting performance for the crowd who was loving every minute of it.

If you get the chance to see Peter Frampton in concert, I recommend it.  These guys were a lot of fun.

Here's some video clips from the show.

Dock Dog of Fire

Published on Oct 4, 2014

I got a new iPhone 6 and wanted to test out the slow motion video feature. So I had my Golden Retriever, Sunny, do his patented Dock Dog Dive. I like how it turned out.

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2014 in Washington DC

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2014 in Washington DC

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for July 20, 2014

Microsoft had their Worldwide Partner Conference 2014 in Washington DC earlier this week.  Here's some shots of some of the the sites nearby the event.

The Washington Monument and US Capitol as seen from the plane.

The White House

The Washington Monument

The US Capitol

We were at the convention center for most of the event.

There was something like 16,000 in town for the events.  These are only a few of the tables they had set up to feed that crowd.

I've been selling PCs for a living since 1993, but the times they are a changing.  Microsoft isn't very focused on PCs any more.  They are much more interested in talking about tablets and other devices.

And their phones!  Did you know Microsoft sold phones?  They are actually very cool, but it's been a slow go for them to gain traction in the US Marketplace.

The coolest thing I saw at the show was a 4K Ruggedized 20" Tablet from Panasonic.  Unfortunately there's not much 4K content out there yet, so $6 grand would be a pretty steep price to pay for this today.  But man, does it look sharp!

I enjoyed stopping by the Supermicro booth and seeing what cool new servers they're selling.  They're one of our biggest vendors at my company.

Microsoft provided us with a nice Happy Hour at the end of each day.  This guy seemed to be happy at his job.

The keynotes were very interesting.  Microsoft wants all it's partners to immediately forget about PCs, notebooks, and servers and start focusing on selling tablets and cloud services.  I gotta get on that.

Microsoft entertained us with some incredible musical acts like Gabriela Y Rodrigo.

And Buddy Guy and Quinn Sullivan.

Here's a couple of short clips featuring the music of WPC 2014.

During the oem dinner, it was nice having the chance to catch up with some old friends like Cami and David

.

On the last night I was there, the US Partner team invited all of us to a party at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

I always find it fascinating that Microsoft can rent out a place like the Smithsonian, give guests a bunch of free food and booze, and then turn them loose amongst some of the most rare artifacts on the planet.  Just seems like a recipe for disaster.  Although admittedly, I've never seen anyone be disrespectful to the exhibits.

They had a bunch of neat items on display.

I found the space shuttle stuff to be particularly cool.

The simulator was incredibly fun as it allowed you to chase and shoot down other planes in a cockpit capable of spinning you completely upside down as many times as you wanted.  I was a little sick when it was over, but I shot down three of those bastards!

Best of all, I got to make some new friends like this lady who told me she works for TWA airlines.  I'm not sure if she was serious or not.

I also had a great time with Cole Humphreys from Rackspace.  We ended up bumping into each other several time through the evening and so decided to just hang out and visit the rest of the exhibits together.  Cole was formerly in the Air-force, so he could tell me a lot of things I didn't know about this place! 

Karaoke at the American Legion in Savage, Minnesota

Karaoke at the American Legion in Savage, Minnesota

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for May 4, 2014

On Saturday night, we went to the American Legion in Savage, Minnesota to celebrate our friends, Dan and Jen Walters, wedding anniversary.  They're such a cute couple.

We brought along Grandma Linda for a night of fun and singing karaoke.  Although she doesn't usually sing, we were hoping to get her on stage because she'd be pretty funny to hear on a microphone regardless of what she was doing.

Dan's a really good singer, although usually I've never heard of the songs he sings.  He's a little bit country.  And I'm a little bit rock and roll.

I always like to put Miss Sheri's name on a slip of paper and let her guess what song she's going to sing when she gets up there.  She did some Adele and of course sounded great.  One of these days I'm gonna get her with a song she can't sing.

Jason Hornbuckle showed up to harass my mother.  I always think his behavior should make her offended, but it never seems to work out that way.

I was hoping perhaps Jen could get Jason to keep his hands off my mother, but she was too busy making new friends of her own.

So I did the only thing I could think of and got up and sang LMFAO's "I'm Sexy and I Know It".  I was hoping this would get all the ladies up on the dance floor and start dancing.  I wasn't disappointed as can be seen here:

Later in the week, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a visit from Krazy Kory.  It's been awhile since we've connected, but we always have a good time when we do!