Yesterday kicked off at 330am PST, waking up to head to the airport for a 6am Southwest Airlines flight to Burbank. There we waited, and worked, until our next flight which would bring us back home via OAK. I finished the blog post for the Happathon I facilitated in San Francisco, as well as working on the video of the event the night before, which means I was up till 130am.
But I was pumped.
Kristie Wells and I were heading towards the kickoff of Live in the Vinyard as guests of our friends at Southwest Airlines who helped us get Press Credentials, invited many of our industry friends to join us, and gave us the tickets for our Expressions of Love photo contest. It started with a very special opportunity to see the LIve at 35 program first hand that we had come to know so much about over the past year. In short, as a random act of music and delight, guided by their Positively Outrageous Customer Service principles, is to have a singer/songwriter perform a show in the sky for everyone on the plane.
Yesterday, we were fortunate to catch Andrew Ripp perform on the flight from Burbank to Oakland on the Live in the Vineyard co-branded airplane, and more fortunate to get a chance to interview him on the tarmac and get to know him more personally throughout the day/evening. Better still, we saw him perform with some of his friends from Nashville at the Paraduxx winery – one of my very favorite vineyards and winemakers in Napa, well in anywhere. The interview and photos will be coming later this weekend along with photos from performances by Jackopierce, Andrew and Gloriana, who we also interviewed last night before their performance. You may have caught Gloriana earlier this week on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
There is a full weekend ahead, starting in just a few minutes with a Burgers and Bloody Mary competiiton, then off to a private wine tasting tour at Miner and the first night of the big show at the Uptown theatre.
But before closing out this post, I want to once again acknowledge the great entries in our Expression of Love photo contest. Cindi Segura had an amazing photo of her baby holding her and her husband’s wedding rings that just captured the essence of love in spirit, concept and subject matter while also being a great photograph. Her photo, along with the rest of the top ten entries in the contest are below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QJstGe9ej0&w=420&h=315]
But there were also some amazing stories that people shared through their photographs, and we wanted them to be seen as well. So these are the photos that touched us (Kristie and I judged the contest) as true and deep expressions of love. They really tug the heart strings, with entries from a military wife, a brother in law who donated his kidney, to superfans of New Kids on the Block and some amazing couples. These Expressions of Love get more then an honorable mention here, they get our love in return for helping us achieve the underlying goal of the contest – to create more love and to bring more positivity to each of us. Thank you all for participating and sharing so much of yourselves with us.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH6jjmZiZZ0&w=420&h=315]
