My "Softer" Side

Who is this man I'm standing next too? Does anyone know? Well, many of you probably do not know who he is but that is OK. This is Jim Brickman. I am probably one of his biggest fans and I had the opportunity to meet him about 2 weeks ago. I can't tell you how excited I was and pumped to meet my first "famous" person, (at least famous to me).


I have to tell the entire story. When I was 15 years old I first experience his music. I took the sheet music to my piano teacher and told her this is what I want to play for my recital. Well, for my 16th birthday my parents wanted to take me to his concert, he was performing at the Amarillo Little theater. I was so excited!!! However, the tickets were sold out so I opted to sit at my piano, play all of his songs I knew, and cry......Just kidding, I don't remember crying, but I was an emotional teenage so you never know.

Well back in November I won tickets to see him perform in Lubbock. Me, mom, and Lori (pic above) drove to Lubbock for his 8:00 concert (mind you Lubbock is a 2 hour drive, that is how hard core I am). We ate, rushed to the concert and was blown away at the beautiful Christmas songs he played, as well as friend he brought along. David Klinkenburg is a fiddle player and was outstanding!!! (google him and you will understand why). The concert ended at 10:30 pm and we drove home. I got to work the next morning at 7:00 and did not stop talking about Jim the entire day (I drove my co-workers nuts!)

Feburary rolls around and I see that Jim is coming to Amarillo to perform. I was beyond excited! The next thing I know is Lori is calling me a telling me that the radio station is giving away tickets again. I was all over it but the kicker was it was a raffle. You had to listen to their radio station everyday to get the "Mix artist of the day" to get points so that you could "buy" tickets for a chance to win 2 tickets, VIP pass to meet Jim, a T-shirt (yippe!?), and his new CD (they were giving away 5 packages so surely I had a chance). I was so determined to meet Jim Brickman that I recruited a co-worker and Randy to help me win these tickets. Everyday at 8:20 we listen for the "Mix artist of the day", logged on to earn our points and then purchased our raffle tickets. We did this religiously for an entire month.

It was the day of the concert and I had not heard anything announcing who had won the prize package. The next thing I know is Luci (the co-worker) runs up to me a said we won the prize! I was so excited!! I sit down and I get a call on my cell and guess what?! I also won a package!!! I was SOOOOOO excited!!!! So Luci and I won a total of 4 concert tickets, 4 VIP passes to meet Jim, 2 t-shirts, and 2 CD's!!!!! I had to find me something new to wear! I was going to meet JIM!!!!!!! I was even more excited because Randy was going to get to go with me right? No, unfortunately Randy was swamped with homework that had to be turned in that night and did not have time to go. That is why Lori is in the picture with me and not Randy! But I was very happy Lori and I got to spend that time together. Luci and Kay also came since we won 4 tickets and I think that they really enjoyed it, but not as much as me of course. It was a wonderful concert and Randy will be going with me next time.

You can go to Jim Brickman's website to hear a sample of his music. One song he wrote that everyone is probably familiar with is "Valentine" sang by Martina McBride.