Section 334.

Section PR2 seats.  Kings win, 1-0.

My first show in Las Vegas.  Jennifer and I were in town for Frozen Fury, and these guys just happened to be playing the night before.

Thrice’s new album  Major/Minor just came out last week, so I was looking forward to this show.  The opening band, Moving Mountains, played a nice set, but it was short — only about 20 minutes. Thankfully that was enough to hear their closer Cover the Roots, Lower the Stems.  After their set, we sat outside and skipped the next two openers.  While out there, we had a friendly chat with MM bassist Mitchell Lee and let him know we enjoyed the show.

We returned inside for Thrice.  They played a handful of new songs in their set along with a nice mix of older tunes. The unfortunate story here was that the venue’s security were dicks. Despite the club billing itself as the Hard Rock cafe, anything close to moshing was not tolerated and offenders were harshly escorted out by these meatheads. It’s Thrice…a band with some pretty hard songs and so accordingly people moshed during the likes of Cold Cash and Colder Hearts.  The crowd snuck in some appropriate enthusiasm while security was occupied with others, and I was happy to see that.  The experience leaves me questioning a return to this venue, but anyway….it was a good show and we were happy to open our Vegas trip with some live music.

FYF Fest was an all-day festival show held in downtown Los Angeles.  Well, it not only “was”, but looks like it “is” just that — this was the eight annual show.

I caught performances by Off!, Japandroids, the Weakerthans, Kid Dynamite, the Descendents, and the Dead Milkmen.   My highlights were the Descendents and catching the Dead Milkmen play the song Punk Rock Girl….with my punk rock girl.

I can gripe about the prohibition of ins/outs and absence of hand-washing facilities, but eh…that’s just something I should keep in mind for the next festival-type show. I don’t remember those issues affecting my many previous Warped Tour excursions, maybe I’m just getting old and fussy now.

I enjoyed the show and I’d have paid admission for the Descendents alone, the other bands were a bonus.  I dug a couple songs by Japandroids and had fun hanging with rock n’ roll friends.

My lovely girlfriend surprised me with a visit down to LA on my birthday weekend.  As this was quite unexpected, I sure didn’t have any plans for the following day.  So we looked around online (thanks LAWeekly.com) and saw that John Williams (the composer behind scores from famous films such as Superman, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars) was playing the Hollywood Bowl that Saturday night. The show was sold out, but undeterred we checked on StubHub and CraigsList for some seats.  We found a post on CL, and turns out we were the first ones to inquire about the reasonably-priced tickets for two pretty good seats right in the middle.  We drove down to El Segundo, made the transaction with a friendly lady who just couldn’t make the show that night, and were on our way.

After we arrived at the Bowl, we checked in on FourSquare (social media couple here) and saw my buddy Aaron was there. And that right there is the primary point of 4SQ…to see where your friends are maybe even make some connections.  We liked the show, and although I was bummed to not hear the full Superman theme song, I enjoyed hearing familiar tunes from E.T. and Star Wars.  My highlight of the show was when Mr. Williams first showed and took us through the opening minutes of Indian Jones and the Last Crusade — the twist was that we only heard the dialogue and sound effects, none of the music. He then replayed the scene and had the live orchestra play the accompanying music.

And now a look at the summer semester. The interesting thing about it is that despite only having two classes (versus the three in spring), I felt like this semester was the toughest one yet.

CMGT 540  Research Methodologies

I expected this class to be a look at best practices in research and plenty of practice in that field.  And that’s pretty much what it was.  Heath Row, a Research Operations Manager at Google, taught the class and did a fine job for what I think is the first time he’s headed the course. Most every class broke down as a lecture the first hour, then a guest speaker the second, and a continuation of the lecture the third hour.  Assignments were usually straight-forward and I’m proud to say I did not suffer from the recency effect a class-high two assignments.  In other words, I got a silly certificate twice for turning in my assignment first that week.  We had to choose a research topic early on and despite having some initial second-guessing on that topic, I stuck through with a decent one related to what will be final project for the program. The session in the library helped point me to the many research databases available to the USC student.  EMarketer is one of my favorites, but I just need to remember these resources are available and to take advantage of them while I can.  I’m also now a fan of qualtrics.com for online surveys — they break down the results well and even offer cross-tabulation. The final paper here wasn’t exactly cinchy, but I am not the better student for knowing how to handle a research literature review (or even what one is) and how best to tackle my next research assignment.

This class met on the Westside as did a class of mine last semester.  I didn’t mind going over there again…traffic wasn’t ever much of an issue coming from the Valley, and parking was always readily available.

MKT 530 New Product Development

I had an elective option over the summer and figured a bit of business might help.  This APOC program really is about marketing, even if indirectly, so why not take a marketing course at the prestigious Marshall School of  Business? Not only that, one that focuses on new product development — the exact thing we’ll be doing fall semester with our final projects. And taught by the Dean of the B-School, Professor Badame. First, the good: this course presents proven methods for going about the NPD process and taught me ways to go about it strategically, rather than haphazardly. And that’s something I knew existed, but this cleared the picture for me. Also the occasional guest speaker, as well as case studies, gave me some interesting insight into both NPD success and failures. The moral of the story here? Have a comprehensive NPD plan and follow through diligently and that makes success a whole lot more likely.  Obviously I just over-simplified a complex process, but that’s the gist of it. And now the bad.  The class was four hours long.  That’s just brutal. Sure we had a 10-15 minute break nearly half-way through, but still.  Also, as a communications student, and far-removed from my business school days at CSUN, I had to play a bit of catch-up on all the business jargon and concepts thrown around.  Finally, I’d have preferred a bit less pontification and closed discussion (asking questions looking for a specific answer and ignoring everything else) in the class and a bit more flexibility and conversation in the teaching.  Maybe my CMGT classes have spoiled me a bit in their relatively casual styles. I can appreciate this class for what it taught me and for reminding me I don’t mind some business in my education/work, but I certainly don’t want to remain solely in that field.

This class was held on campus in Popovich Hall.  I liked that building, it’s very, well, business-like (yes, it’s home to the Marshall School of Business). The little cafe in there has decent food and it’s a short walk away from the parking structure.

This was a great show. A sold-out crowd nixed initial plans of sitting upstairs for the performance, but that was for the best. I ran into some friends and enjoyed the pit with a good crowd and great setlist. Faith restored in fun Alk3 shows? Check.

Setlist: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/alkaline-trio/2011/troubadour-west-hollywood-ca-5bd0b368.html