Fourth of July Weekend

I know, I know...I've been a bit tardy in updating the blog of late, but I'm trying to make up for it now!

I took a few days vacation last week, and thus had a nice looooong Fourth of July weekend, which was great! I went home to see the fam for a few days - mostly to see my father, as my mother was in the throes of Wimbledon watching (a British holiday, natch. *grin*)

Dad and I ate at my favorite Japanese restaurant, wandered around Sam's, went shopping for shoes, grilled out, bought fireworks, went to pick out a new van for the parentals, and even went to the driving range to hit golf balls!

Clearly, I'm a bit out of practice, but didn't utterly embarrass myself. ;-)

We went over to Don and Michelle's for a raclette, and set off our fireworks, which were very pretty - and no brothers-in-law were harmed during the setting off of fireworks. :-)

After the weekend, it was time to head to Bloomington to see Jen, Jason and Sean, and to get goth-pretty for the Nine Inch Nails concert at Deer Creek.

After the concert, we crashed in Bloomington, had a tasty cookout at Jason and Sean's, I got to see Layne (who turns 2 later this month!) and then it was already time to come home. What a great weekend...

And the NIN concert...Oh.My.God.

Trent was ON IT, people. He was energetic, the crowd was amazing, the set list awesome, and Trent was quite the Chatty Cathy. There were even fireworks afterwards!

What an AMAZING show.

Highlights from the show:

*Trent telling us what an AWESOME crowd we were
*Trent's 4 foot vertical jump during Down In It
*Trent calling out the security guard during the show
*Getting to hear Non-Entity live
*Trent promising a new album and a new tour in early 2007 (wheeeeee!)
*Fireworks after the show
*Laughing at Jen as she sat down during Hurt
*Trent exclaiming "What the fuck was THAT?" during THTF when someone threw a pair of granny panties on the stage (which Aaron later put on his head)
*Aaron's signature guitar destruction at the end of the show

Funny story from the show:

Because we had lawn seats, we grabbed a blanket to take in with us to sit on. As we were walking up, we saw an attendant inform other people we couldn't take in blankets. I went and (very charmingly, and with much cleavage) asked about the no-blanket deal. He told us no blankets - people in the lawn have gotten *ahem* fire-y with blankets in the past. He offers to take us in his golf cart back to the car, which we gratefully accept. We drop off the blanket, and he offers to run us back to the gate. We're thinking...cool, back to where he picked us up. But no....our prince drove us right up to the ticket booth. I felt like royalty, especially since it was 870345 degrees outside, and I was wearing big boots. What a prince. :-)

Setlist:

1. Somewhat Damaged
2. You Know What You Are?
3. Terrible Lie
4. March Of The Pigs
5. Something I Can Never Have
6. Closer
7. Burn
8. Gave Up
9. Help Me I Am In Hell
10. Non-Entity
11. Only
12. Wish
13. La Mer
14. Into The Void
15. The Big Come Down
16. Suck
17. Down In It
18. Hurt
19. Final Solution w/ Peter Murphy
20. The Hand That Feeds
21. Head Like A Hole

(more photos here)