Rocking Hard & Sweating Harder at the 2026 Yacht Club Music Festival

 

Rocking Hard & Sweating Harder 

at the 2026 Yacht Club Music Festival

Todd Swank's Diary Update for July 19, 2026

Monday night started the week with an adventure alongside some of the Oracle Minneapolis team and our friends at Apps Associates: an Al & Alma’s dinner cruise on Lake Minnetonka. I hadn’t been on one of their boats in probably 25 years, certainly not since the Vikings made them famous with the Love Boat scandal. Our trip was much more respectable, unless something happened after I went home that nobody has had the courage to tell me about.

Thursday night we were supposed to take Sue and Ron Korkowski for a boat ride, but we woke up under a thick blanket of smoke from the Canadian and Minnesota wildfires and briefly had some of the worst air on the planet. Naturally, it cleared up by the time we would’ve launched, but we’d already bailed and redirected to P.F. Chang’s in Maple Grove. Nothing says fearless outdoor adventure like gourmet Chinese in air conditioning.

Friday brought Miss Sheri and me to our second music festival in less than a week: the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival on Harriet Island in St. Paul. We probably wouldn’t have bought tickets had we known temperatures would hit the 90s with a heat index over 100. My concert hair hats usually turn my head into a tiny convection oven in normal temperatures, so this one had my skull baking like a Costco rotisserie chicken.

Despite the fancy name, Minnesota Yacht Club has very little to do with yachts and a whole lot to do with bringing arena-sized rock shows to Harriet Island. Launched in 2024 by C3 Presents, the team behind Lollapalooza, it expanded from two days to three after its first year. By 2026, its third summer, it featured 30 artists on two stages with no overlapping sets and about 35,000 people expected each night along the Mississippi River. Not bad for a club that never asked to see my boat.

We went with our good friends Joel and Jen, whom we hadn’t seen since their wedding in Destin, Florida. They’d attended Yacht Club the past couple of years, and after seeing their Facebook photos, Miss Sheri and I decided they were having entirely too much fun without us. So this year we crashed their party, because friendship is mostly about letting someone else discover the fun and then inviting yourself along.

We planted ourselves in the middle of the park so we could see both stages, although one definitely won the battle for better sound and sightlines. I didn’t recognize most of the bands or songs, so it felt like a full day of waiting for everyone’s one big hit. Then Marcy Playground played “Sex and Candy,” and I finally started grooving. At my age, that’s less a lifestyle than two separate things I’ve been forced to cut back on.

We lasted about five hours before the heat finally beat us and we bailed before the Lumineers. I was genuinely disappointed I didn’t get to yell “Ho! Hey!” with 30,000 sweaty strangers, but that regret disappeared the second we reached the car and the air conditioning hit us. Turns out my favorite headliner was a Kia Telluride set to 68 degrees.

Saturday night I took Miss Sheri downtown Minneapolis to the Orpheum for something wicked. Unfortunately for her, I meant the musical. Neither of us had seen the stage version before, although we’d both seen the movies, so I was ready for a little Glinda vs. Elphaba action. Nothing spices up date night like witches, betrayal, flying monkeys, and a couple thousand people silently judging which witch deserves the better song.

Once the curtain went up, it was easy to see how Wicked has attracted more than 70 million people, earned over $6 billion, and collected 100-plus awards across 16 countries. That isn’t a musical résumé; it’s a hostile takeover of theater. Between the massive sets, costumes, flying monkeys and powerhouse witches, the hype suddenly made perfect sense. Wicked really was wicked.

Quite honestly, I really liked it. Like most musicals, I would’ve preferred a little less singing and a little more dialogue, but the story was excellent. I grew up fascinated by The Wizard of Oz, and Wicked fits beautifully alongside it while giving everyone’s motives a clever new spin. Highly recommended for anyone who, like me, has a 14-year-old girl trapped inside just waiting to be inspired.

@toddswank 20 minutes until I get to see Wicked for the first time! #wicked #theater #emeraldcity ♬ original sound - Todd Swank

MJ and the Western Conference Finals

 

MJ and the Western Conference Finals

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for May 26, 2024

Our tour through various sectors of the medical industry continued this week when I met with the Urologist to address some kidney stone issues I've been having.  I had a procedure called a Cystography on Wednesday morning which is basically a probe being inserted into the only exterior opening of the urinary tract I had available.  It wasn't a pleasant experience.  The good news is they didn't find anything concerning, but the sphincter between my prostate and bladder has been violated in a way that I'll remember for a long, long time.

Our beloved Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Denver Nuggets in a crazy Game 7.  It gave us the opportunity to attend Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.  Avery hadn't been to a game with me in awhile but jumped at the chance to join me for this one.

The Wolves had a regular season record of 3-1 vs Dallas, but Luka Doncic wasn't playing during two of those wins.  Minnesota wouldn't have that benefit going for them this time around.

Kyrie Irving has had some erratic seasons the past few years, but everything has been going great for him in Dallas this year.  He was on fire on this particular evening.

I noticed Mark Cuban and his family about 30 rows in front of us. Mark started in the computer industry about the same time I did so I've been following him for about 3 decades now.  I've always been a fan of his, but tonight we'd be rooting for opposite teams.

I enjoy watching the various celebrities.  It's always fun to see who Alex Rodriguez brings to the game. 

Everyone is worried about Justin Jefferson not signing his contract extension with the Vikings yet, but I've seen him at several games so he seems to spend a fair amount of the offseason in Minnesota.  Maybe he's just that big of a fan of the Wolves?

This being the Western Conference Finals meant that the NBA crew from TNT were at the game.  For some reason they brought Draymond Green which is an odd choice considering he was suspended earlier this season for putting our center, Rudy Gobert, in a headlock.  When Avery and I walked up on the crowd, we heard them chanting "Draymond Sucks" so I captured this video:

@toddswank Draymond Sucks! Round 3 Game 1. Wolves fans letting TNTs newest analyst how they feel about him! #draymond #nba #timberwolves #minnesota ♬ original sound - Todd Swank

 

Our seats were pretty close to Shaq and team so I kept sneaking pictures of them.  I bet they're a fun crew to hang crew to hang around with.  We have so much in common.

Charles Barkley made headlines this week complaining that their show is coming to an end since TNT is losing the NBA after this season. I'm betting one of the other networks will figure out a way to pick them up for next season.

The game was very exciting!  It was back and forth all night and the home team was putting up a heck of a fight!

Our superstar, Anthony Edwards, wasn't quite right unfortunately.  We'd grown accustomed to seeing perfection from him, but his shots just weren't falling.  He ended up going only 6 for 16 in the game. 

 

I was excited to see that Montell Jordan was there to entertain us at half time.  It was fun to see him show the crowd "This is How We Do It!"

In the end, Luke and Kyrie would prove too strong.  Irving finished the game with 30 points and four assists. Doncic logged 33 points, eight assists and six rebounds.  Dallas won the game by a score 108-105.  We will see if Minnesota can get another home playoff game this year.  They also lost Game 2 and 3, but I'll be there for Game 5 if it happens!

On Friday night, we went to the Orpheum to see MJ the Musical.  Our good friends The Browns and Zitzewitzes were happy to join us!

It was a great show!  It basically is a concert featuring a couple dozen of the King of Pop's hit songs, but there is also a story line which highlighted his life.  They showed young Michael and the Jackson 5 conquering Motown and addressed a few of the controversial aspects of his life.  But not all of them.

  I loved the music and really enjoyed myself.  

It was a Thriller of an evening!

Oracle Cloud Day 2018 in Dallas, Texas

Oracle Cloud Day 2018 in Dallas, Texas

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for December 9, 2018

I flew down to Dallas for a couple of meetings and a chance to attend Oracle's Cloud Day event at the Hyatt Regency next to Reunion Tower.  That's a big ball in the sky they have up there.

The cloud day event was a productive one.  I met with customers and colleagues while also experiencing keynote speakers and hands-on labs for some of Oracle's latest and greatest technologies.  I love technology so always have a great time at events like these.

Oracle's CIO, Mark Sunday, gave one of the keynotes and talked about how Digital Transformation is changing society and businesses and is generally making the world a better place to be for all of us.  He also talked about how Oracle has transformed our operations from on premise technologies to the cloud which is a pretty impressive accomplishment for a company with 137,000 employees.  Quite a fascinating talk.

I stayed at the same hotel as the event which was the Hyatt Regency Dallas.  It's right next to the Reunion Tower also known as that great big ball in the sky.  I love going to the nineteenth floor, standing at the railing and looking over it to freak myself out.  It's hard for me to stand there staring over the edge because I think it  would be just so easy to slide right over it and plummet to my death.  I would never do such a thing, but it's hard not to think about it when looking over the railing.  I have a weird brain.

The best part of visiting Dallas is having the opportunity to see much of my family who live down there.  My sister, Tracy, her husband, Dave, my niece, Bailey, and my niece, Mallory and her family, all came to Village Burger to meet me for dinner on Wednesday night.  It was so great to see them.  I hadn't seen Mallory's kids in awhile and they've all grown so much and are so well behaved!  It was really nice connecting with them all.

On Thursday night, I connected with my old mentor at Oracle, John Eder.  John and I worked together for a year and a half before I took on my current role.  He is a 20 year plus veteran salesperson for Oracle and I learned so much from him on how to be successful in enterprise sales.  It was great spending a few hours with him catching up on the good old days of 2017.

I came home Friday afternoon and had to jump back in the car to go out for the night with our good friends, the Zitzewitz Family.  They're such an attractive family that we try to spend as much time with them as we can in hopes some of that rubs off on us.

We were actually in St. Paul to go to the Ordway to see the new production of Elf The Musical.  We were on the edge of our seats with anticipation for an opportunity to spend a few hours with Buddy the Elf.

Our seats were on the railing of the balcony, so I had to spend a few more hours wondering what it would be like to fall from this distance.  It wasn't nearly as far of a height as I was seeing at the hotel, but it still would probably hurt pretty bad.  I just keep wondering what if I have some secret bouncing ability that I don't know about?  It would be sad if I didn't ever get to use it.

The play was fun, but ultimately not as funny as I was hoping it would be.  We are such big fans of the movie so had very high expectations.  I guess it's just not easy to be as good as Will Ferrell.

Back home, we are excited to have Luke home from college for winter break.  He wanted to take Blue for a walk out on the lake now that it's frozen.  My mom and sister were really worried about us going on the lake, but I promised them I'd have Luke go out there first to make sure it was safe.

Blue was so happy to finally get to go for a run and chase the ball.  He's really sick of winter already because we tend to choose staying inside rather than bundling up and going out adventuring.  We need to get better at that.

The critter watching around our house has been fabulous.  The birds and squirrels seem really fat so we've been wondering if we should keep filling up the feeders or not.  I think we will keep doing it.  They can lose weight for New Years.

The 2018 Minne Mini Robotics Tournament

The 2018 Minne Mini Robotics Tournament

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 18, 2018

I spent much of the week in Kansas City along with my team attending a very intense & powerful sales training.  We worked hard and played hard together.

On Saturday, I attended the 2018 Minne Mini Regional FRC Robotics Tournament.  The tournament consists of 36 robotics teams from Minnesota & Iowa competing in a game called First Power Up.

Basically each match consists of 2 alliances with 3 robots per side competing to score points by performing various tasks including lifting large blocks onto a scale to gain control away from the competing alliance.  It's 2 minutes of chaos on the field and a lot of fun to watch.

I was one of 8 judges observing the tournament and interviewing the teams to determine which ones would win various awards for showcasing talent in engineering, spirit, and gracious professionalism.  It's hard to judge because there are so many worthy teams to be considered and a ton of great kids.

It's also fun spending time with my fellow judges.  These are a bunch of great guys.

After the tournament we went out to dinner with the Korkowskis and one of Sue's best friends from childhood.  We had a nice dinner before heading back to the high school for a late night event.

We went to see the Prior Lake High School performance of Sister Act.  If you haven't seen the movie, the story is about a night club singer who witnesses a murder and has to go into hiding so she pretends to be a nun in a local convent.  Hilarity ensues.

We were there to support Grace Korkowski who was one of the nuns.  It was fun seeing her sing and dance throughout the various performances.

There are a lot of talented performers at Prior Lake High School.

There were more than 120 students involved in the production which seems pretty crazy to me.  That's a lot of kids.  But you could totally see the amount of passion and hard-work they put into the production.  It was a phenomenal show!