We’re going to Miami! – Day 1

9:39 AM
The day has finally arrived and the band is off on its 30-something hour bus ride to Miami to support the OU football team and to have some relaxing time off in South Beach. I am mostly packed but I think I will do one last look-through to make sure I have everything before I leave in 20 minutes. I'll try to update the blog at least once a day because I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff to write about while I am gone.

2:04 PM
Riding the bus is soooo much fun but we did get our per diem of $40 today and a personalized BCS National Championship luggage tags. They are pretty cool and I’ll have pictures attached later. Right now we’re stopped outside of Shreveport for a driver stop/bathroom break. It’s always interesting to figure out the logistics of moving 300 some-odd people halfway across the nation – in busses. Everything we do is planned down to an exact science but the question is, how well will we stay on schedule—I’ll keep you up to date on all the drama that unfolds…

6:35 PM
First food stop of the ride – West Monroe, LA. I went with a group of seven people to an IHOP that was painfully slow. The waitress was a female version of the Soup Nazi and it didn’t make the service any better. Apparently there was only one cook on duty when we arrived and some of the Pride kids didn’t even get their food until 10 minutes before the busses left. Somehow, my table was the first table served even though we were not the first to be seated. A cold front seems to be following us – when we got off the bus here it was warm and humid but by the time we left IHOP it was cold and windy – feels kind of like the weather in Oklahoma! We have a long drive left in front of us, about 24 hours or so until we get to Miami but our next stop is Tallahassee, FL. Oh and by the way, we are actually a bit ahead of schedule—for now at least.

Snow in April--in Texas, Football, and DRM less music

Today's Weather (4/7): High of 46 F with chances of snow. This is April, when was the last time it snowed in Texas at this time of the year?Well, this is some pretty crazy weather for Easter weekend. I'm back home for the holiday and luckily I don't have much to do besides relax.

OU is having their "spring" football game today in Norman and I know last year that it attracted 20,000 people. That's gonna be 20,000 really cold people today good thing I decided not to go. Although, I would be really interested to see the quarterback battle again. From what I've read in The Oklahoma Daily, OU's student newspaper, Sam Bradford has the edge in the competition but freshman phenom Keith Nichol is pushing hard at the starting job. The Running Back position is stocked full of amazing runners. Allen Patrick, the experienced senior who filled in when Adrian Peterson was hurt last year did an awesome job. Then we have DeMarrco Murray, another freshman phenom who has had some long runs in spring practice looks to be the next Adrian Peterson. Okay, enough about Oklahoma football for now--for those of you who don't really care.

The other day I talked about iTunes taking the DRM out of their music catalog (Link). I would like to encourage everyone to purchase at least one track from the store. This will show Apple that the consumers really don't like DRM and soon the price of the tracks will fall. DRM music tracks may cost less but they also limit who can buy the tracks. Right now, only iPod users can put iTunes music on their MP3 players but without DRM anyone can buy music and put it anywhere they want. Un-DRM music also makes it easier to share a couple of tracks between friends instead of them being locked out. So once again, if everyone could just spend $1.30 on a DRM less music track (not to mention the quality of the music has doubled!) Apple would reduce the price and other online music stores would take the DRM out of their music. One day it will happen, lets make it sooner rather than later. If you want some more information about this situation, check out Boing Boing's article here.

-Jamie


EDIT: News was released today that Microsoft will be taking the DRM out of their Zune music store! See, its already happening! (Link)