James Cochran’s Blog

The wife and I (along with unborn baby Cochran) went to go see Third Day live in Bloomington recently and it was great.  We had pretty good seats which I’ve talked about before here.  Also the opening acts were great.  So great in fact that I picked up Revive’s and NEEDTOBREATHE’s albums and even met the guys from Revive and had them sign their cd for me.

Third Day came out and rocked our socks off as usual.  They played an awesome set.  Speaking of which how about I run down the set list for you here real quick.  I know this has changed in the shows since and they are doing a couple of acoustic songs now but it’s basically the same and what you can expect if you are going to any of the future shows in this tour.

1. This Is Who I Am
2. I Got A Feelin’
3. Tunnel
4. Call My Name
5. Slow Down
6. I’ve Always Loved You
7. Thief
8. King of Glory
9. Run To You
10. Come Together
11. Always Be True
12. Cry Out To Jesus
13. Revelation
14. Creed
15. Love Song
16. Otherside
17. God of Wonders
18. Agnus Dei

As you can see I think we got our money’s worth!  Afterwards we got to go back stage and meet the band along with about a hundred other people.  We did get a couple of minutes with each guy though to say hey and tell them how much we enjoyed the show.  Of course after everyone was done shaking hands we got a picture.  The first one here is while we were talking to the drummer David and the second is us with the band.  Notice how Angi got the guys to sign her “baby bump” instead of anything like a cd or a poster of the band.

Finally, here is a little video post card that the band posted on YoutTube from the Bloomington show we went to.  If you ever have the chance to go see them live you should do it.  It’s always a blast and they know how to rock!

The wife and I visited New York for my birthday.  What led us there was Conan O’Brien.  I’ve always loved his show going all the way back to when I was in high school and would watch him late at night with Andy Richter.  Once I joined the Air Force I didn’t have the opportunity to watch him since I was in England for so long without regular T.V.  See all we had was the AFN (Armed Forces Network) and the six or so channels that came with it.  Every now and again I’d catch him on there since they did play regular shows after all but it was nothing like my regular watching of Conan in the past few years since I’ve been back.

I’ve been home for awhile now and realized that Late Night with Conan O’Brien is going off the air since he is taking Leno’s spot.  For my 29th birthday I wanted to go and see his show.  My wonderful wife called for about a week trying to get tickets when luckily she was able to pick up the last two tickets for the Friday night showing that just so happened to be on my birthday.  How awesome is that?

When we first got there we originally wanted to take a tour of NBC studios but realized that it would be cutting into the time we should line up to see Conan. It was about 2 or so and the line for Conan started at 3. The tour would take 1 hour and 10 minutes and it started at 2:30 so that wasn’t going to work at all.  So we waited and got our tickets and then waited some more to get in at around 4:30.

That’s when the real fun started to begin.  As they were ushering us into the studio someone was handing out hats from L.L. Cool J’s new fashion line (exclusively at Sears) and we were asked to wear them when he came on.  We sat on the right about 3 rows back and all the way up against the wall.  If you haven’t heard it before then let me tell you, that studio is Small with a capitol S.  I had heard it many times before but you actually have to check it out to appreciate just how small it is.  T.V. of course makes it look huge or at the very least much larger.

Once everyone was seated they played some highlights to warm up the audience.  It wasn’t exactly like the video I posted below but it has a lot of the same clips.  After the video one of the extras (and possibly a writer?) came out to do some additional warming up.  He introduced the band and Max and then Conan O’Brien.  He came out and got the crowd going even more which didn’t seem like it would have been possible but he did and everyone was super excited to be there.

I’ll make this brief as it’s more of a had to be there moment.  Conan came out and started dancing with a guy in the audience, we’ll call him Al since I don’t know his real name.  They were dancing for a minute when Al turns around and starts to “back that thing up” on Conan prompting a, “What the hell was that!”  Everyone laughed about it as Conan made a few jokes about the guy and then Conan had the Al stand back up so he could give him a hug.  Then told him to hug the guy behind him which they did.  Then Al was told to go hug Max ending in him getting a signed pair of drum sticks.  Al was only a few seats down from me which makes a me a bit jealous but it was really hilarious.

Then Conan came out and did the show.  What I like most about Conan are the sketches they do.  With L.L. Cool J and Oliver Stone they were short on time but it was still good.  Being able to just go there and see the show live was amazing for a fan like me and I loved it.  If there is a show out there that you love I’d definitely recommend going and seeing a taping of it, it’s an experience you won’t forget.  Check back soon for my post about the next day and the NYC sight seeing.  For now enjoys these videos!

I really just want to plug my wife’s blog here and what she had to say about the ultrasound.  She goes into a lot more detail whereas I just posted pictures basically.  She didn’t have any pictures though.  Maybe we should be a writing team  So check out her post “I am having a Skelator!” and learn all the details I wasn’t able to fill you in on because I’m just a dumb man.

My wife had her ultrasound today and everything looks normal.  We (she) didn’t want to find out the sex of the baby so I guess you’ll all find out in January just like us.  I made sure to drive extra crazy on the way to the doctor to make sure the baby would be awake and it was moving all around and waving and smiling at us.  At least that’s what it looked like to me.  Of course we were able to see the heart much better this time.  It really stands out since it is beating at like 140bpm so you can see it real well.  We saw the spine, kidneys, brain, belly, etc… Two hand and two feet, 4 chamber heart, and like I said, everything seems normal.  So without further ado here are some pictures:

Smiling Face

Face

Face

Feet