Van Halen Tour Dates

Van Halen finally held their press conference yesterday to announce their upcoming tour. What was originally stated as a 50 date North American tour seems to have been slimmed down to 25 days.

They only released 25 dates and to my disappointment there was no Atlanta show. The strange thing is that there aren't any shows in Florida either so I'm thinking that there will be more dates to come.

The tour opens in Charlotte on September 27th and hits Boston on October 30th, New York on November 13th, and Los Angeles on November 20th.

Tickets for some of the shows go on sale this Saturday.

Look At Me

I did the CNN Passport program a few months back. I got to go to New York and see how things worked up there. So when I got back they asked me to talk about my experience for a corporate video they were making. I actually made the final cut and do I look awful. Look at all that grey!!!

The Chinese Are Trying To Kill My Daughter

The Chinese are trying to kill my daughter with lead paint. Fisher Price recently recalled a bunch of Dora The Explorer and Elmo toys after it was discovered some of them were made with lead paint.

After hearing the story I went right to their website and looked at the toys involved in the recall. Shannon has one of them. It's called the Dora Talking Vamanos Van.

We bought it for her as a birthday gift. She played with it often so I called Erin and had her remove the van from Shannon's play area. Thankfully after receiving the recall information from Fisher Price our toy isn't one of the ones that is affected.

So I put the van back into Shannon's play area when she was upstairs taking a bath. As soon as she came back down it was the first thing she went over and played with.

It's Official...Again

The reunion tour is back on again. According to Billboard magazine and Dawn (thanks for the heads up) Eddie Van Halen is sober enough for the band to finally do the 50 date North American tour that had been rumored for about a year now.

The Billboard report coincides with a news release issued Tuesday by touring company Live Nation and Van Halen saying the band will be making "an announcement of monumental proportions" during a news conference Monday in Los Angeles.

Fingers are crossed that the tour will come through Atlanta. I've seen Van Halen twice, first time with Alice In Chains opening. Never seen them with Roth but I have seen Roth solo during his Lil' Ain't Enough Tour. Trixter and Cinderella opened for that one.

$574.97

$574.97 is the vet bill we just had to pay for yet another operation for Daisy. Over our vacation she had developed some fluid in the inside of her ear. It looked like someone had shoved a water balloon between the flaps in her ear.

So Erin took her to the vet and they said she had an Ear Hematoma and it would have to be drained right away. Not only that but they would have to install a straw in the flap of her ear so fluid can continue to drain a week after the operation.

The operation went fine and Daisy is on the road to recovery. She is acting fine and back to her normal routine of sleeping and eating. This Tuesday the straw comes out and then the next Tuesday the stitches come out.

The biggest pain in the ass has been giving her the antibiotics. We have to hide the pills in food and sometimes she finds them before she eats it. So then we have to try to hide it in another piece of food and so on till she eats it. If she bites into one and shakes her head the powder gets all over the place and it reeks. Yuck!!!!

Back Home

The family and I got back from New York on Saturday. The trip went well with no surprises. While we were descending the plane hit an air pocket or something and dropped a few feet unexpectedly. Erin almost jumped out of her skin and everyone let out a surprised gasp as if we were free failing.

We sat in a row with 3 seats. Erin and I had the middle and aisle and a 20 something woman had the window seat. Once we were allowed to use our DVD player I put on a Dora DVD for Shannon. The 20 something was annoyed as soon as we took it out and asked "if we had headphones for that." I turned down the volume a bit but throughout the flight I'd turn it back up. I'd like to see her get a pair of headphones on a two year old. Not gonna happen.

The people behind us were talking louder than the DVD volume was. Would you rather hear a little bit of Dora or a kid scream and cry the whole flight???

So I was put off with her attitude and hated her the rest of the flight. When she tried to recline her chair and it didn't budge I openly laughed. She tried it two or three times before giving up. Karma is a bitch. I hope it was the most uncomfortable flight she has ever had.

A Small Scare

We are currently in New York visiting with friends and family. I went out last night to a local bar to meet up with a few friends and have a drink or two. Erin went to Port Jefferson to meet up with some friends of hers and have dinner.

Around 9:45pm I get a phone call from my brother in law. Erin fainted in the parking lot and was taken to the hospital by way of ambulance. Her sister, who was out with her, became very concerned and wanted to make sure everything was ok so she called 911.

Erin has had fainting spells in the past but they are few and far between. They have never been anything serious.

I rushed to the hospital to find Erin in the ER. The doctor ordered a bunch of tests and and IV bag. All tests came back fine and after Erin "drank" most of the bag we were discharged. She spent a total of 3 hours there. Must have been a slow night cause all the tests came back pretty quick.

The official prognosis was that she was dehydrated. So everything was fine but still a little scare none the less.