Kristin Connell at Paragon tonight

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2005/07/24 18:19 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2005/07/24/442781.aspx

I first saw Kristin Connell when she opened for Jim Boggia in the Green Room, and I even bought her CD Second Chances there since I enjoyed several of the songs she played, and she said most of them were on the CD. I had her autograph it, too -- why not? :-)

Anyway, this talented lady is at Paragon in Queen Anne tonight, where the food is great and the entertainment is free even when it is really good, like when it is Kristin. Highly recommended!

I never did post the story about the CDs that night. Kristin opened the Green Room show (where they have a nice scooter-friendly elevator) and afterwards I bought the CD. I had only $25 on me, but the CD was just $15 so I figured I would go to the bank tomorrow.

But then Jim got onstage and did a great show (he even closed with that hilarious Prince imitation I had heard about but never seen). I wanted to ask him to do Mr. Harris (an Aimee Mann song that he once got up on stage with Aimee to do, the night after I had to leave town), but I lost my nerve and did not ask while he was onstage. After the show I started to tell him this and it turns out he remembered the drive out to the show and Mr. Harris the next night and everything (he even remembered me which amazed me even though he did not remember my name, it was still very cool!).

I decided to buy one his new CD (Safe in Sound), too -- even though his management had sent me one already (I did some stuff with flyers for them), I wanted to give one to a coworker. As a rule I like to make sure more money goes to the artists than to the store, so this seemed perfect. But then I remembered that I only had $10 on me. :-(

But then I found a 5 euro note in the wallet, which is technically worth more than $5 (exchange rate being what it is). Would they accept it? I have known cab drivers to refuse them here, not realizing what they were worth (the ignorance about some things in this country is staggering!).

I kind of wanted to get rid of the euros anyway, since I am back in the US now. But I'll bet you he won't forget the guy who bought his album in Seattle with euros, even if he still doesn't remember my name. Though in fairness he remembered the name of every female in the car from the original trip. Which is probably more gentlemanly than remembering the gentlemens' names, in any case.

Anyway, hope to see you at the show tonight. I promise to give more notice about this sort of thing in the future (nobody reads this blog on the weekends, right? <grin>).

"But then I found a 5 euro note in the wallet, which is technically worth more than $5 (exchange rate being what it is)."

You... ... PREPOSTEROUS :)

It's not just _technically_ worth more than $5, it IS worth more than $5, which is something I need to come to terms with every time I withdraw in euro from my US$ bank account. The last time I did this, I got 50.000 euro in exchange for 60.870 US dollars, and I got fleeced even worse at various times in the past when the exchange rate was even higher.

So no, 5 euro is not just "technically" worth more than 5 bucks. :)

Yes, I know it is.... but there have been times when it has not been since it was first introduced. :-)

When you get into things like Exchange rates that fluctuate daily, it is a pretty technical topic. nd the banks will actually follow that exchange rate, while stores that take both might just keep the rate the same from day to day to avoid the confusion.....

10 years ago the dollar was even lower compared to European currencies than it ever was this year. So back then, the exchange rate between US$ and the precursor to Euro (called ECU) was even more to the ECU's advantage. The strong dollar we observed 5 years ago was due to the technology boom only and was not a natural state of things.

But - sorry, I must say this - calling exchange rates a "technical topic" seems preposterously ignorant. Maybe it doesn't seem to you, but exchange rates influence a very whole lot of things, like what you're able to afford and what you aren't, and which people get jobs and which people lose them. Exchange rates are like the weather and big movements in exchange rates have effects like floods, earthquakes and storms; nothing technical about that.

Sorry to be so preposterously ignorant to you. But I do not have to convert a whole lot of currency and when I do I am not paying too much attention to exchange rates. Yet I seem to survive, even when travelling....

It reminds me of a conversation in a book that went something like this:

* I don't pay much attention to politics.

* You should -- it is at least as important as your own heartbeat.

* I don't pay much attention to that, either.

Whether it makes a person ignorant is an interesting topic to debate, maybe (though I am boring of it rather quickly, which leads me to belief its half life is not so good!).

Of course this whole conversation begs the question of why anyone who find me to be preposterously ignorant would bother reading this blog at all? :-)

"Of course this whole conversation begs the question of why anyone who find me to be preposterously ignorant would bother reading this blog at all? :-)"

Because in most of your other statements you know about what you're talking about more than I. :D

In addition to that, I also find of interest your occasional references about life with MS. I find your different perspective that arises from that interesting.

Hey silverpie,

Possibly. But the Unicode characters generally do not sponsor posts that are about non-international issues (this only became international after the fact, I was just talking about Kristin!).

If I post later on the issue, the euro will undoubtably step up to sponsor. :-)

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