Surprise success

Sep. 12th, 2025 05:48 am
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[personal profile] christopher575
On June 2, I saw that Nikki Glaser would be playing at the stadium in Everett and asked Garrett if he'd like to go to a surprise show. The last time I asked him that was when we saw Michael Carbonaro in Seattle, and he didn't know who it would be until we drove up to the hotel and saw his name on the marquee of the venue kittycorner from the hotel. I was sure he'd hear about the Nikki Glaser show since she's definitely one of the top names in comedy to ever perform here, maybe even the biggest one yet.

Whoever promoted the show clearly didn't pay for much targeted advertising. I never saw an ad for it and neither did Garrett, and we managed to make it all the way to the stairs leading to our seats before he saw the graphic on the screen.

Nikki Glaser Alive and Unwell Tour

We saw someone he knows from the neighborhood bar as we got in line and he said, "Ready for some laughs?" and I told him not to say any more because Garrett had no idea what the show was yet. That was close.

I'd bought us the cheapest seats on the second level, and when we got there they said everyone with 200 level seats should stop by a table where they were upgrading everyone's tickets to floor level. I guess they just didn't sell enough of the floor and didn't want Nikki and her two openers looking out at an empty floor. I wouldn't say the view was that much better since we'd be watching her on the screen anyway, but there was so much more leg room on the floor, and there was a restroom nearby.

I do wish they'd used the ticketmaster app to take care of the reseating process, though. They probably never thought of how it'd be so much better to get an alert that you could select better seats and be ready with the app instead of dealing with a person who had huge piles of paper tickets to hand out. Thankfully we were among the first people to stop at that table and complete that process.

Our arena is nice and we walked all the way around the concessions level to check it out. The first place we stopped had no wine at all and the stand they sent us to just had one red wine option. I told the guy to prepare for a riot if Nikki Glaser was playing and there was no chardonnay available. He was bummed that the venue hadn't prepared better.

It was such a fun show and I honestly can't believe how good she is at weaving together a nonstop train of thought that works so well. Toward the end she mentioned that lots of doctors and teachers over the years hinted that she might have autism, and that made me realize more autistic people should probably pursue comedy.

Much like with the casino amphitheater, I have a good parking trick for our arena. We decided after it took half an hour to get out of a parking garage when we saw Sarah Colonna that we'd just street park for big shows in downtown Everett from now on. From my recent experience at a new tattoo shop, I knew exactly where we'd find plenty of parking. We ate at home, but next time we have a show there, there are plenty of fantastic dinner choices nearby, too.

Unfortunately that's not the case with the next concert we have planned on 9/27 but that's a problem for another day.

three days in Chicago

Sep. 9th, 2025 09:56 pm
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[personal profile] microbie
I went to Chicago last week for a work conference. The conference is basically (but not officially) run by the Journal of the American Medical Association, which perhaps explains the swanky location: the only Swissotel in North America. There are reminders of Switzerland everywhere: the conference rooms are named after Swiss cities, the bath products tout Swiss herbs, etc. I half expected a Lindt truffle on the bed pillow.

The hotel was shaped like a triangle. Here's the floor plan:
IMG_9791

It was like a Toblerone bar set on one short end. Here's what it looked like from the outside:
IMG_9800

I got really lucky with the weather and the room, which was on the 37th floor. The view:
IMG_9797

The highlights of the trip were seeing friends for dinner each night. The conference was fine, a bit intense (8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for two days and then 8 to 5 the last day). Lots and lots of stuff about AI in scientific publishing, only some of which was interesting. One thing that was nice is that we're starting with a new vendor, and the CEO himself (for some reason) was at the booth in the exhibitor hall. We've been on some Zoom calls together, but I introduced myself anyway. We had a really nice chat, talking a little bit about ourselves and how we ended up where we are. It occurred to me that I have worked for three CEOs in the 20+ years I've worked for my organization, and never have I had a one-to-one conversation with any of the CEOs, let alone a casual little chat about places I've lived and would like to visit. [Yes, I suspect that the CEO was very bored to invite me to sit with him for a spell; let me have my moment.]

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