First off, my apologies for not being active on the comment sections of the blogs I regularly visit. This weekend was one of the busiest I’ve had in a long time. It seemed like once I was finished with my day to day stuff at work on Friday, it was just full speed ahead for the entire weekend.
The first stop on this seemingly non-stop tour was the Alameda County Fair. My co-worker (Carolyn) and I were scheduled to introduce Smash Mouth at 6pm and 8pm that night. I was able to get my daughter Maya and her friend Jackie (left) into the park for free (Yay!), but after that it was a 4 hour marathon of first hosting a “Name That Tune” game the station rolls out in the summer, and then introduce the band. The game Carolyn and I hosted is called “Winning Songs,” and it’s pretty fun when it’s not 100 degrees outside (which it was that day). After that, it was the hustle to get backstage and try and meet the band before going out to introduce them in front of a crowd that had been baking in the sun for about an hour before the show. We didn’t get to meet the band at the 6pm show, but at the 8pm show, Steve Harwell (Lead vocals) walked by and I introduced myself and Carolyn. He was very nice and agreed to pose for a couple of pictures — one of which is below. The 8pm crowd was really stoked about seeing the band, and I could really feel the energy as I walked on stage with Carolyn to do our intros. Now I have (very small) sense of what a band goes through when they get in front of a crowd that wants to see them. Since KKIQ is the local station in the area, there were a lot of listeners in the audience and their cheers were pretty genuine when we came out. But what really made the experience really great for me was seeing J and Maya in the audience jumping up and down and clapping when we were on stage. 🙂
After the second show, Carolyn split for the evening and I met up with J Maya and some other friends like “E” and Cherry from Cherry Extract (left) to walk around the fair, eat crap, see farm animals, and, yes, see who won the best blueberry pie. Overall, it was a great way to start the weekend. I really didn’t mind working ’cause it was a fun event (Hey, I got to meet some pop stars!) hang with family and friends, and just enjoy the fair for all the large and small things it had to offer.
Saturday: HOT AS HELL with another 100+ degree day. So, what do you do when it just blazing outside? Sure, you guessed it: make Russian food in
 
a kitchen with no A/C! Long story short, Maya’s school had a fundraiser, and one of the auction items was a cooking lesson by her teacher who is originally from Russia. We bid on the item with 2 other families and won. It was pretty interesting to see how simple (yet tasty) the dishes were and there was plenty of alcohol to 
keep the good times going. After a few hours of cutting, mixing, pounding, baking, frying, etc., the fruits of our labor were finally ready for eating. I was so hungry by the time we sat down to eat, that I wolfed down my food and filled up fast. But it wasn’t that “good” full feeling. I felt bloated and kind of gross. All that breaded food that was liberally oiled and buttered, Vodka, Russian wine (think of spiked fruit punch), and the high heat was a bit much. By the time I got home, I just wanted to sit on the couch with the A/C blasting (which I did). Finally, I crawled upstairs, got ready for bed, and passed out.
Sunday: Breakfast with a former student who just graduated from UC Davis in International Relations. He’s a very bright guy who wants to work in the international political realm. However, those jobs are not easy to get when you have a B.A., and he doesn’t want to go to grad school (yet), so for the time being he’s trying to get a job working for political campaigns. He wanted a letter of recommendation (which I’m happy to write!), but it was quite touching that he wanted one from me.
I was supposed to go and jam with Ravi (and others) at our practice space (known as the “Jambox”), but I wasn’t really in the mood to pound on the drums for 3 hours in 95 degree heat, so I called him to say “I’ll pass.” He had another drummer there, so it wasn’t a big deal if I didn’t show.
Overall, a great weekend! But I need a couple of days off to recover… 🙂
-PK
P.S. Jefito is settling into his new digs on the east coast! He’s got some new songs from the “KBCO Studio C” collection on his site now for downloading, but he’ll be back into regular blog mode very soon.