April is my favorite month!

You might be sitting there and thinking to yourself, "Why would he be talking about April right now?". Well for a wide range of reasons, April is my favorite month. First and foremost it was the month that I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the 18th). Secondly, my beautiful wife (Michal), and I were sealed in the San Diego Temple (the 2nd). Thirdly, Coachella is in April.

Now for those of you who don't know and or have never heard of Coachella, it is the best music festival in the United States....possibly the world. Since 1999,except 2000, it has been held at the Empire Polo Fields in Indio California. It is constantly hot and dry, this is the desert after all, but let me tell you it is an amazing experience. It's something that is very hard to describe, it's just one of those things you have to experience for yourself.

The first year that I went to Coachella was in 2011, and I did so without my wife (needless to say this did not turn out for the best). I did however go with her brother,one of our brother-in-laws and my wife's cousin. It was an incredible lineup. Here is the poster for that year:

Now, let me tell you, we stood up for 8 hours straight to see in order: Interpool, The Black Keys and Kings of Leon. So to have the opportunity to see those bands we had to stand thru a late Celo Green and a Lauryn Hill set. It was worth every second of pain and near heat-stroke. I also got to see Mumford and Sons from the rail (the very very very front) as well as Arcade Fire, it was magical. (I still have the ball I caught). Sooo many more things happened that trip and I am thinking that might be a whole other post. 

I digress, so my wife and I skipped 2012 (we sold our tickets) in the infamous 2-Pac Hologram year.  We did however go last year, and this time we had a whole gang .We brought 2 of her sisters, their husbands, her brother and his girlfriend. It was a blast and a great time was had by all. Here is the poster for last year: 

Now it might look like much but the undercard for last year was stellar. One of my favorite things about Coachella is the discovery of new artists. Oh boy did I find a gem last year, Lord Huron. These guys are amazing and play just great music. Here is a sample of one of their more well known songs.

This year, we found out about the payment plan option they offer once a year. This happens about 3-4 weeks after Coachella, and basically you put 10% of your ticket down ~$37.50 and pay monthly payments until December. This worked out amazing for us, and put a lot of pressure about if we would even get tickets at all. So, needless to say I have been a very frequent visitor to all the Coachella forums to see all the gossip. The usual trick to guessing who will play Coachella is who is going to be touring or released an album recently. So my big guess this year was Pearl Jam (which is Michal's #1 all time band). I had hopes for other bands, like HAIM, and my new obsession Chvrches...maybe even Kings of Leon again. Well I'll let you see how my guesses fared....

This year, I would have only guess Arcade Fire as a headliner. However, the undercard is OUTSTANDING! Saturday, to me is worth the price of admission. I am already worried about all the possible conflicts. I mean look at the just sheer number of quality acts: Muse, Skrillex, Pharrell, Lorde, Foster the People, MGMT, Empire of the Sun, The Head and the Heart, Cage the Elephant, City and Colour, Chvrches, Dillon Francis, The Naked and the Famous. AND THAT'S JUST SATURDAY!! Are you kidding me! 

I am pumped to say the least.

Welcome to 2014.

For many of you, hopefully, you have no idea who I am or what I am about. That's ok, we're here to learn together. Here to learn about me, about you and about the world around us. Sounds interesting right? Well I hope so; at least that's the point of this whole thing.

As the end of 2013 approached I had the impression that I should be putting my ideas down. Sure everyone has ideas and gets excited about things, but I rarely share them even with my wife and the very, very few close friends that I have.  So one of these ideas popped into my head, "Why not make a blog that you write in everyday, call it 'Bailey 365' or something clever like that!". Well I then thought, "everyday seems like a lot, I better do it once a week, then it's 52 entries. That'll be a lot more manageable and I'll have more things to talk about."

Which then lead me to a conversation with my wife where she told me, "Just right as much as you can but write at least once a week." Perfect compromise! So that's the plan, write and share as much as I can over the next year. It won't be easy for me but I am going to give it my best shot. Hopefully you'll stick around and see what happens next.