"Charlie Bell & The Icemen" Concert Tour Begins!!

The first Concert of "Charlie Bell & The Icemen" went very well and was well attended as far as concerts go for that area. There were over 100 in attendance, we sold several "special edition" CD's and had 10 pre-orders for the full CD at 20 € a pop.
One of the organizers/workers of the facility told my Manager that they have had some big name Finnish stars to give concerts at that hall a with an attendance of 10 to 50 people. Having over 100 was a very successful event.
The producer had been sick right before Easter and was behind his schedule about 3 days so the full CD was not ready. He made the decision to do a special edition of 4 songs for 10€. If a person pre-ordered for the full CD they took their names to mail it to them and gave the special edition for free. This special edition was for that concert only and will not be available for any other concert - maybe as a promotion for getting future gigs, but not for general population. So right from the start, the Lord has created this "special" thing. I hear "eBay auction"; right up there with "a pork chop half eaten by Elvis" (smile)...
The other detail that the Lord saw fit to take care of was for this 1st concert, the color for the hall is PURPLE!!! my favorite color. And of course I wore purple for the concert...
There have been many news articles - I can't even keep up with them now.I also found out that I have been "googled" Do a search on Charlie Bell and the Icemen and hits will come up (in Finnish of course) of concert dates, locations, and articles. I even have a blurb in the Blues News Magazine publication - a big deal here in Finland
It's getting warmer and staying lighter much longer (6 am to about 9:30 pm). We have started our last 6-week school period. School is finished by June 2nd. The rest of the summer will be traveling for concerts and sightseeing.
Hope all is well with everyone. Have a blessed week.

Walking In A Winter Wonderland

Well, let it snow! let it snow! let it snow! It has been "dusting" on and off the last 4 days, but today there are really big flakes with ground cover. It's about 2 degrees C (35 F) and it's coming down quite steadily. But all is well. We are coming to the end of this school 6-week period. I have 2 big meetings this week - parent meeting tonight (Wednesday) and a "Board" meeting Thursday with students going to CERN (Switzerland Physics Camp) April 20-27. An information meeting to ensure that everyone knows the expectations and agrees to them. They will also be discussing other student trips - London (to study Renaissance, theater, art) and to Holland - student cross-cultural experience. The Dutch students will come here in May. This last Jakso will be very busy. It starts with my 1st concert on the "Charlie Bell and The Iceman" Finland Tour this Sunday and is to coincide with the release of my new CD - how exciting and a miraculous answer to prophecy. I have about 29-30 lesson per week, Cern next week, one of the course is one developed as a Mathematics Economics class. Everything will be in English and I plan to invite speakers from the community to talk about business and economic issues they deal with on a daily basis here in Finland. That of course will be in Finnish - unless the speakers want to work their English as well. I will have articles and simulations. I appreciate my Ohio colleague - Mickey Tomasovich for providing me with materials form which to develop the course.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

A Great Birthday!!

WoW!! What a blessed and wonderful surprise to have received a box of “delicious” birthday cards for my birthday. My church sent me a box of cards and well wishes from some of the members. I had enough cards to begin opening 2 each day for 9 days before my birthday and then opened 7 ON my birthday. It was a great time of anticipation to read them each day.
I had a nice birthday celebration at the school. They had some great cake and took lots of pictures. The students made me a card and they all signed it. It was beautiful. They put the picture of me blowing out the candles on the cake on their school’s web page. What a surprise for me to get to work the next morning to open up my e-mails and see that picture! Go to http://lukio.pyhajoki.fi/ and take a look (among other pictures of school activities).

If anyone stateside wants to call me, you can use the # 330-871-4811. It has a 330 area code so it will only be at a rate like calling to or in Ohio and not as an international call. It will come through my computer. If I’m not at home, it will go to my voice-mail and I’ll call you back. It’s a really cool system called Skype (http://www.skype.com/). It’s free to talk “computer to computer” and very inexpensive for me to call land lines. I recently read in Time or Newsweek that the creators of Skype sold it to eBay for 2.6 billion dollars. They are now working on this system called Joost to get TV onto the Internet.

I spent the birthday weekend in Kestilä doing the final phase of the vocal studio work for the CD. I am doing some checking on locating a CD packaging/distribution place in the states so that I don’t have to purchase and ship from here. The CD’s will be a lot more expensive if I ship from here. I went to Oulu (about 1 hour North-West from there) for a newspaper interview about the CD and concerts; went to the movie theater to see “Mr. Beans Holiday” movie, then back home to Pyhäjoki (the previous week I saw "Dreamgirls"). The band and I will begin our concert tour Sunday April 15th. There are 11 concerts planned so far with another 3 or 4 being negotiated.

This 6-week period of school will be over April 15th. Then we begin our last 6 week period with a June 2nd graduation date. I will be going to Switzerland April 20-27 with some of the students for a Physics Camp in Geneva. I am really looking forward to that. I haven’t been to Switzerland in 17 years – great to be going back for a visit.

Well, the snow has begun to melt, the frozen rivers are starting to flow, and it’s finally trying to look a little like spring.