suacoustic

So the weekend was a blast.

With two kids, it is sometimes difficult to find time to reconnect with your spouse - but we did have a great Saturday this past weekend. Started off with two good movies, shopping and dinner in Jonesboro. The latter part of our day found us at the 501 Club in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Being a (somewhat active) musician, I find it difficult to pass up the opportunity to go see live music. In recent years, the gigs are fewer and further between than they used to be, so we took the opportunity to have a few drinks and see what was happening with this duo from way up north in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Lucas Cates Band - really the stripped down version of the band in the form of an acoustic duo (Lucas Cates and Kenny Liesner). I didn’t like everything they did, but I really enjoyed the show and support live music/ artists trying to play music for a living - check out their website and see what you think.

Just a quick note on ordering flowers since Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.

I’ve worked in the floral industry for my entire post-academic career - that would be approximately 12 years - and I’ve seen many changes in the floral industry during that time. I’ve also worked for employers that support both camps in the floral industry: the real, local florists and the order gatherers.

I’ve worked with computers and the internet for a very large part of my day for the past 15 years since I started my studies in technology and would rather order online than call and talk to someone or walk into a store if I can help it: the online floral order gatherers make it very attractive sometimes with price discounts and pretty promotion pieces, but I feel it necessary to let you know what some people have received and come to expect from ordering from the online order gatherers such as 1800flowers and Proflowers.

Check out the Proflowers video here.

2008-05-07 Update:  Proflowers pulled out the big gloves and sent a cease and desist to the florist that posted the ‘uboxing of proflowers’ video…  I guess they really felt the sting from this video that they were (and still are) providing inferior product than any reasonable real, local florist could.   Regardless, the YouTube video is gone now so I’ve modified the link to the Florist Detective site that explains what happened in more detail, but congrats to the florists that help to raise awareness by working together to shed some light on this large order gatherer and their practices.

After watching, just remember to always order from a real local florist in your area.