Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Jess' album is out today
Jess' CD, Nothing Fancy is in stores today!
You can buy it on iTunes by clicking here and is in major retail chains across the Country!
To think that Jess was in the studio 3 YEARS ago recording the album and that it's just come out today!
I'm very proud of Jess. She's incredibly talented, hard-working and grounded.
I'm an incredibly lucky guy!
You can buy it on iTunes by clicking here and is in major retail chains across the Country!
To think that Jess was in the studio 3 YEARS ago recording the album and that it's just come out today!
I'm very proud of Jess. She's incredibly talented, hard-working and grounded.
I'm an incredibly lucky guy!
Labels: jessiefarrell, music, nothingfancy
Saturday, September 01, 2007
What a weekend
I just have to say how proud I am of my wife, Jessie Farrell. She played in front of 30,000+ people in Moncton, NB tonight where the headliner was Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Tim & Faith flew in on their private jet from Nashville for the show. Jess' travel story? A tad less relaxing:
Jess left early Friday morning from Vancouver and arrived several hours later in Montreal for a connecting flight to Moncton. About half-way through the flight, Jess noticed that the plane made a sharp U-turn and shortly thereafter, the flight attendant announced that one of the two engines had failed and that they were going to try to make it back to Toronto. All the while, the incredibly panicked flight attendant encouraged/instructed everyone to remain calm.
They landed on the Toronto airport tarmac with precautionary firetrucks lining the runway at the ready and then had to turn their attentions to how they would be able to get to Moncton in time for their show. Somehow, Jess managed to get the last remaining seats on a flight from Montreal to Toronto and then Toronto to Moncton flight for early this morning. I wish I could tell you the saga ended there.
Upon arriving in Moncton, it became clear that Air Canada had lost all of the band's clothing and gear. So began another mad dash to the local mall for Jess to find something to wear, meanwhile the band had to borrow gear and equipment from other musicians and performed the show in their shorts.
All of that said, the show was - thus far - Jess' biggest show ever and she tells me it was incredible to perform in front of so many people. Later, Jess stood backstage just a few feet away as Faith began her performance. A real thrill!
I normally don't share too many aspects of my personal life on this blog but I can't resist talking about how proud I am of her!!!
Jess left early Friday morning from Vancouver and arrived several hours later in Montreal for a connecting flight to Moncton. About half-way through the flight, Jess noticed that the plane made a sharp U-turn and shortly thereafter, the flight attendant announced that one of the two engines had failed and that they were going to try to make it back to Toronto. All the while, the incredibly panicked flight attendant encouraged/instructed everyone to remain calm.
They landed on the Toronto airport tarmac with precautionary firetrucks lining the runway at the ready and then had to turn their attentions to how they would be able to get to Moncton in time for their show. Somehow, Jess managed to get the last remaining seats on a flight from Montreal to Toronto and then Toronto to Moncton flight for early this morning. I wish I could tell you the saga ended there.
Upon arriving in Moncton, it became clear that Air Canada had lost all of the band's clothing and gear. So began another mad dash to the local mall for Jess to find something to wear, meanwhile the band had to borrow gear and equipment from other musicians and performed the show in their shorts.
All of that said, the show was - thus far - Jess' biggest show ever and she tells me it was incredible to perform in front of so many people. Later, Jess stood backstage just a few feet away as Faith began her performance. A real thrill!
I normally don't share too many aspects of my personal life on this blog but I can't resist talking about how proud I am of her!!!
Labels: jessiefarrell, moncton, timandfaith
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Made my first goal!
It's a beautiful day here in Vancouver, the Canucks won game 2 against the Ducks and I've reached my first goal in my fundraising drive for Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre.
In less than one week, I have raised over $1,100! What's really special for me is that I've received donations from a few total strangers! I have no idea how they found my GiveMeaning page (perhaps through the blog?) but really want to wish a special thanks to those people!
Another bit of personal news. My wife, Jessie Farrell has her first Country single (Let's Talk About Love) on the radio across Canada and though it's been playing for only three weeks, it's already at number 20 on the Canadian Country charts! And the single can be downloaded on iTunes!
It's a very exciting time for the both of us!
In less than one week, I have raised over $1,100! What's really special for me is that I've received donations from a few total strangers! I have no idea how they found my GiveMeaning page (perhaps through the blog?) but really want to wish a special thanks to those people!
Another bit of personal news. My wife, Jessie Farrell has her first Country single (Let's Talk About Love) on the radio across Canada and though it's been playing for only three weeks, it's already at number 20 on the Canadian Country charts! And the single can be downloaded on iTunes!
It's a very exciting time for the both of us!
Labels: fundraising, givemeaning, jessiefarrell, vwsac, walkamileinhershoes
Friday, March 16, 2007
Home sweet home
As many of you know, I have been traveling across Western Canada to meet with local charities, students, youth groups and others interested in bettering their worlds (plural because a lot of our worlds are quite different from one another).
Kamloops, Kelowna, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Brandon. Unfortunately, we couldn't fit any cities in Saskatchewan in this trip though I really want to travel to Regina to understood the poverty crisis in a certain part of the city which - according to some accounts - is now worse than that of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
I had intended to blog from every city but I have a legitimate excuse: My wife. Now before you take me to task for being so totally lacking in chivalry, please allow me to explain myself. My wife, Jessie Farrell, is a country musician who was recently signed to Universal Music. She was given the opportunity to open for Emerson Drive who are currently the top-selling country band in Canada. And of no coincidence, her tour stops were in Kamloops, Kelowna, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Brandon. Being the opening act on any tour is by no means glamorous. While Emerson has a great tour-bus and a dressing room full of food and drink, Jess has a rented minivan and sometimes a bottle of water.
So here we were leaving Kamloops at 2am leaving for Grand Prairie (about a 9 hour drive). As soon as we pulled into each town, I would begin my day of meetings and presentations and then as my regular day would come to a close, I would then start my second job as Jessie's "Roadie" which would keep me on my feet until we loaded into the Minivan headed to the next city overnight.
The Emerson tour ended in Calgary last Saturday so we drove from Calgary Sunday afternoon back to Vancouver. We arrived (thanks to daylight savings and the roads being closed due to avalanche warnings) back in Vancouver on Monday morning at 5am.'
This week has been exceptionally busy not only catching-up from being on the road but also because we're preparing for what is a whole new version of the GiveMeaning.com website. I had hoped that it would be launched yesterday but the tech gods have not been smiling on us. It's now a certainty it will be sometime next week and I can't contain my excitement! We've been working on it non-stop since last September. I'm proud of what we have now and while there is plenty that was innovative about our use of technology applied to the charitable sector, this is the first time where truly innovative technology is being built and applied to the GiveMeaning site. You'll see what I'm talking about next week and hopefully agree with me!
I'm now here in Victoria bringing our "Party Pig" a massive bamboo version of our cardboard "Pig-e-Banks" for a fundraising event in support of Village of Hope a project on GiveMeaning benefiting women in Rwanda. I've been here all day for a variety of meetings today and at lunch, walked into a White Spot (for my American friends, I can tell you that White Spot beats In-&-Out burgers by miles) which I remembered from my childhood. I remembered being about 9 or 10 with my family eating a "Pirate Pack" at the exact same table as I was at today. It was an unintentional nevertheless much valued trip down memory lane.
I popped-in on the folks at Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Center, a great organization that uses GiveMeaning's personal fundraising pages for its annual "Tri-athalon of Compassion" and also met with Rumon Carter a very dynamic guy who used GiveMeaning last year quite successfully and has started a new project that is close to getting enough votes to start fund-raising.
This post is getting quite long and I haven't even talked about the highlights of the tour. I'll do that in a separate post over the weekend. It's now time to get going to the fundraiser. Please keep your radio stations tuned to your country music station and listen for "Let's Talk About Love" by Jessie Farrell!
Kamloops, Kelowna, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Brandon. Unfortunately, we couldn't fit any cities in Saskatchewan in this trip though I really want to travel to Regina to understood the poverty crisis in a certain part of the city which - according to some accounts - is now worse than that of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
I had intended to blog from every city but I have a legitimate excuse: My wife. Now before you take me to task for being so totally lacking in chivalry, please allow me to explain myself. My wife, Jessie Farrell, is a country musician who was recently signed to Universal Music. She was given the opportunity to open for Emerson Drive who are currently the top-selling country band in Canada. And of no coincidence, her tour stops were in Kamloops, Kelowna, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Brandon. Being the opening act on any tour is by no means glamorous. While Emerson has a great tour-bus and a dressing room full of food and drink, Jess has a rented minivan and sometimes a bottle of water.
So here we were leaving Kamloops at 2am leaving for Grand Prairie (about a 9 hour drive). As soon as we pulled into each town, I would begin my day of meetings and presentations and then as my regular day would come to a close, I would then start my second job as Jessie's "Roadie" which would keep me on my feet until we loaded into the Minivan headed to the next city overnight.
The Emerson tour ended in Calgary last Saturday so we drove from Calgary Sunday afternoon back to Vancouver. We arrived (thanks to daylight savings and the roads being closed due to avalanche warnings) back in Vancouver on Monday morning at 5am.'
This week has been exceptionally busy not only catching-up from being on the road but also because we're preparing for what is a whole new version of the GiveMeaning.com website. I had hoped that it would be launched yesterday but the tech gods have not been smiling on us. It's now a certainty it will be sometime next week and I can't contain my excitement! We've been working on it non-stop since last September. I'm proud of what we have now and while there is plenty that was innovative about our use of technology applied to the charitable sector, this is the first time where truly innovative technology is being built and applied to the GiveMeaning site. You'll see what I'm talking about next week and hopefully agree with me!
I'm now here in Victoria bringing our "Party Pig" a massive bamboo version of our cardboard "Pig-e-Banks" for a fundraising event in support of Village of Hope a project on GiveMeaning benefiting women in Rwanda. I've been here all day for a variety of meetings today and at lunch, walked into a White Spot (for my American friends, I can tell you that White Spot beats In-&-Out burgers by miles) which I remembered from my childhood. I remembered being about 9 or 10 with my family eating a "Pirate Pack" at the exact same table as I was at today. It was an unintentional nevertheless much valued trip down memory lane.
I popped-in on the folks at Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Center, a great organization that uses GiveMeaning's personal fundraising pages for its annual "Tri-athalon of Compassion" and also met with Rumon Carter a very dynamic guy who used GiveMeaning last year quite successfully and has started a new project that is close to getting enough votes to start fund-raising.
This post is getting quite long and I haven't even talked about the highlights of the tour. I'll do that in a separate post over the weekend. It's now time to get going to the fundraiser. Please keep your radio stations tuned to your country music station and listen for "Let's Talk About Love" by Jessie Farrell!
Labels: canada, emersondrive, givemeaning, jessiefarrell, tour
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