Mr. & Mrs. Link

So tomorrow morning, I skydive for the very first time.  I’ve always wanted to do it, but it is a weird feeling. I’m excited because I love the freefall feeling. My favorite rollercoasters are the ones with a big drop. I’m also scared because, well, I’m jumping out of an airplane. Jed’s done it before and he assures me that he didn’t die, so I’m quite optimistic about my chances. Also, apparently Perris is one of the major sites in the world for skydiving. They even have a large windtunnel for “indoor” skydiving (which I’d also like to try sometime). My step-dad Kevin and Jed are going, but my mom is going to stay behind with my new baby sister Savannah (aka Woojie) and wait for the call to find out if we are okay after the jump. I invited my sister Monique but she was er… washing her hair…and rearranging her furniture, and some other stuff… Next time, Mo. If there is a next time… stay tuned.

The new campaign for Sony TVs goes something like this:

The people who are recording and broadcasting sport events are using mostliy Sony cameras – so logically you should use Sony TVs.

Right?  Well, let’s put aside the fact that the logic doesn’t stand here, this represents the reason I have finally said goodbye to Sony as a brand.  And I had some brand loyalty.  The first computer tower I bought was one of the first VAIOs.  Three VAIOs, at least three complete car stereo systems, a TV, mp3 players, cameras and a lot, lot more.  I did the math once and I spent almost half of my discressionary money while I was in college on Sony elecronics.

But eventually, I got sick of that fact that if you buy a Sony camera, you have to use a Sony memory stick which can only be read on a Sony computer with Sony software bought from a Sony store.  I wanted choices.  I wanted my Sony gear to work with any computer.

So long story short, the fact that Sony is suggesting that the quality of my sports-watching experience is somehow diminished if I am not viewing it on a Sony television is presumptuous and insulting.  If Sony was smart, they wouldnt’ be suggesting to everyone out there who bought non-Sony goods that their cable company is delivering them a second-rate product.

/rant.

A few days after Phantom, we headed down to the Verizon Center in DC to cash in Mrs. Link’s birthday present, tickets to see John Mayer’s Continuum Tour with Ben Folds. Mrs. Link is a huge John Mayer fan but she’d never been to see him. I had heard that he played a mean guitar.

I bought tickets on eBay and they were supposed to be front row right off the stage. The tickets included an explicit statement that cameras were allowed, so I was excited to bring my big ol’ camera to take some concert shots. As it turned out, not everything was quite as advertised.

When we got to the venue, they searched my camera bag and notified me that “professional cameras” were not allowed. They defined “professional” as any camera that had a detachable lens. Flattered as I was, I wasn’t really pumped about their demand that I check my camera in an expensive locker for the duration of the show. And so, banking on the stupidity of the average person, we tried a different approach. I took the lens off the camera and stowed it separately from the camera. No modular lens, no “professional” camera. We never got to try our strategy out though since they didn’t even bother to check our bag at the next entrance we tried. The seats weren’t quite first row either. That is to say, we were the first row in the stadium seating off of the main floor, so no one was really in front of us but we weren’t on top of the stage either.

The show was really good and Mrs. Link loved it. Ben Folds was amazing – the guy had a ton of energy and played a lot of different instruments. He also danced on top of his piano. Mayer was, in fact, very good with a guitar. All the 13-year-old girls loved him and Mrs. Link didn’t mind him that much either if you know what I mean. Overall, it was a fun night.

A little while after that Chris, Mrs. Link and myself did our final hike before the great summit of Granite Peak. It was a little trail along the Potomac River called Billy Goat. The trail follows a tow-path (which is a pathway that was once used by mules to tow barges up the river channel through a series of locks) for a mile or so and then up and down over the rocks on the banks of the river. There’s not a lot of vertical challenge, but we did all 3 paths so we covered some good distance.

There was one place in particular that involved scaling a rock face on a diagonal fault.  It wasn’t too difficult, but it was the toughest part of the hike by far.  The fault wasn’t wide enough for people to pass, and when we got to the bottom, there was a large group descending from the top so we had to wait.  The last lady in the group, a middle-aged  Cuban woman provided one of the more memorable quotes of the summer.  In a thick Cuban accent: “Ooh, if my mother could see me now, she’d say look at that Cuban billy goat!”

As days go, July 21 was pretty action-packed.  We woke up bright and early to drive up to Ohiopyle to conquer the Lower Yough River.  Then, after hurrying home, we got dressed up and drove down to The Kennedy Center – DC’s premier theater of the arts – to catch The Phantom of the Opera.

The evening was put together by the USC Club of the Nation’s Capitol largely because a Trojan Alum named Kyle Barisich was in the show and able to hook us up with House Seats and a backstage tour.  Kyle was in the ensemble, and was the understudy for the leading role of Raoul who sings “All I Ask of You.”

Our seats were amazing.  We were front and center about 7-10 rows back (not too close which strained the neck, but close enough to see details in costumes).  Those were the best theater seats either of us have ever had.  The show, of course, was fantastic.  The amazing thing about Phantom is that it’s staging and effects have not changed since 1986, and yet the story is still powerful and the music is beautiful.

After the curtain fell, the USC group met up with Kyle and he escorted us backstage where we got to see the show behind the scenes.  Of particular interest to us were the costumes – the dresses that Christine Daaé wore were more detailed than it was even possible to see from the audience – the wigs and the props.  We got to get up close and personal with the chandelier, as well as some of the props from the underground river scene.

It was really a night to remember.  Fight on!

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