Avalon Hotel Offers Free October Room Night For Unplugged at the Wrigley Ranch

 

Seaport Village Inn has a Limited Time Offer. If you are staying 3 nights over any October JazzTrax Festival Weekend,
Right now get a 4th Thursday Night Seaport Villageroom at no extra charge. With this offer, your overnight hotel for any Unplugged at the Wrigley Ranch Thursday Night will be FREE. To see Mindi Abair, Nick Colionne or Craig Chaquico Unplugged. This Hotel has one of Avalon's most Stunning Panoramic Views across the Harbor and the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

For the first time, TWO ROWS at Wrigley Ranch have been reduced in price to just $99 per person. This special seat price is now in effect for Nick Colionne, Oct. 7th at the Ranch and Sept. 30th for Craig Chaquico at the Ranch. The Unplugged Ticket includes a TON of stuff:

- Dinner in the Ranch Courtyard
- Hors deuvres at the half-hour stop
  at the World Famous
  Airport in the Sky
- Unplugged Concert 'Under the Stars'
- Tour Bus Transportation 45 minutes across the top of the Island
  to the Ranch on far Western Side and return after dark
- Friday Morning Backstage Secret Tour of the Casino including
  on stage in the 1929 Movie Theater and JazzTrax
  Dressing Rooms

Purchase TicketsNow for October's 24th Annual Catalina Island JazzTrax Festival Including Thursday Nights Unplugged at the Wrigley Ranch

 

 

Big Bear Lake is filling up incredibly fast from snow melt from the biggest storm winter in recent memory. That's the Lake the JazzTrax Summer Music Festival will sit upon Father's Day Weekend. Chicago Guitarist Nick Colionne, an avid fisherman is already contemplating casting a fishing rod off the JazzTrax Floating Stage during his festival performance. Amazingly another 5 inches of snow fell on Big Bear Monday April 12th. I had to shovel my way back into my driveway upon return AGAIN just to park the car at home. Hotel rates in June are Incredibly reasonable in the Village of Big Bear. In May just before JazzTrax arrives the Tour de California 2010 AMGEN Bike Race will end at Big Bear Lake, climbing the mountain road from Palmdale on the Backside, ending at Snow Summit, where I skied this morning on what is still a 6-foot snow base, on APRIL 15TH!

Purchase Tickets Now for June's 5th Annual Big Bear Lake JazzTrax Festival!

JazzTrax Guest

Archive Album

 

 

I guess this is my 'blog', or my Twitter. I'm still trying to adjust. I think of them just as my Producer's Notes...

Many know I'm a baseball nut. That the hobby I'm forcing onto my 10 year old son (begun with the opening of the San Francisco Giants PacBell Park in 2000 when he was 9 months old and it was really stupid to take a baby to a ballgame) is going to Opening Day of brand new ballparks. Baseball Ballparks. I've been in 8 brand new parks their first game ever, my son with me at six of those.

 

Earlier this week the Minnesota Twins opened their new Target Field and my son and I were there. Rules include always staying within walking distance of the ballpark, which we did by staying at the Millennium Hotel on Nicolette Plaza so soon as I woke up Sunday, day before the game, there I was jogging around the ballpark at 7 a.m.  taking pictures with no one around. Then you have to throw in an adventure just for the kid. The new Trolley in Minneapolis ends at the Twins new Target Field, just outside the outfield walls. 30 minutes the other direction the other end ends at Mall of the America's. My son insisted, but I was the one wowed. Four floors and miles of every store you've ever heard of. It is the biggest mall in America. And sits right on top  where the Twins original Metropolitan Stadium was. Actually the ball field in the middle is now a pretty cool amusement park. The only remnants remaining of where the Washington Senators moved in 1961 to become the Twins, are  home plate, at the base of the SpongeBob ride and the Stadium Chair Harmon Killebrew hit on his longest home run hanging from a wall in the middle of nothing.  As we got back on our plane Tuesday to return I found myself talking with Harmon Killebrew's grandson who lives in Southern California and just like us had gone back for Opening Day. But the moment came as we waited for our Will Call Box Office Window to open. I got into a conversation with the Father of Slugger Jim Thome, just signed at age 39 to the Twins. We chatted for an hour and you see here the picture of Mr. Thome, my son, and Jim's twin sister

Every kid dreams of being a Major League baseball player, making it to 'the Show'. But there is one bigger dream that I got to experience in that unexpected hour conversation. Being the proud Father of a Major League Player. Mr. Thome told me of the evening after a game, he was waiting for his son in the car in the player's parking lot in Cleveland where Jim played in two World Series, '95 & '97 with the Indians. He tried to circle the lot, but the kids found him and he stopped and signed autographs for 11 minutes. When Thome got to his Dad's car, he apologized for making his father wait. His father simply said, "Jim, those were the proudest 11 minutes I've ever had" ... enough said.