Even the most prepared woman in the world would have to have everything go right to pull this off and especially to make it a surprise. But, she had no idea that after she sent out the invitations and set the date and location (Sky Ranch) that her hard drive would crash beyond repair and within days would have to move our entire life in order to sell the house. She was totally lost and wanted more than anything to make me happy on this occasion. You'd have to really think about a time when I had a birthday party in my life. I run from them so it wasn't as if I was begging for it. OK, so there was my 40th and my brothers can tell you what happened on that day. I can't remember it.

In any case, as the video tells, I inadvertently discovered the "surprise". I had to tell her and when I did it was the biggest disappointment of her life and at the same time the greatest relief of her life. She now had me to help put on the show and to communicate with the players. I am not a control freak or anything. When it comes to these things it was so easy for her to suggest things while I put the entire format together in a day....fixed and permanent!

She was trying to figure out how to create a slide show from the hundreds of pictures she had and had not even begun with less than a week to the event. We didn't have the money and it would've been a rush job to get it done by an outsider. Earlier in the week I received an incredible gift from my youngest brother Michael who managed to remaster about 100 old Brothers Kingdom songs that had just been digitized from old and weakened reel to reels. What a gift!!!

I started weaving the old songs into a Brothers Kingdom slide show before I knew anything about a party. Christine was so happy that I had already begin some kind of a slide show and asked me to create the rest of it for the party. That Brothers Kingdom slide show was inserted into this video segment. Sooooooo, in all humility, I created my own friggin tribute video!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? It's true. It made Christine very happy and relieved!! Get off my back!!

Now, here's the funny part. Because the move forced Christine to find another venue with almost no notice she found that the Capitol Theater had a cancellation at the last minute and was available. A few weeks earlier we were invited to an amazing slide show of a good friend's (Michelle Self) son's hike of the Appalachian Trail. It was held at the Capitol and I said that one day I would love to have a concert there it was so spectacular. Great thinking baby! That was the biggest surprise of all, believe me.

In any case, now that everything shifted to the theater it required a lot of preparation with technology from DVD's, to music segments, video segments, live music considerations, and video streaming. She was completely at a loss and was soooo happy I could take that off her shoulders. But, in the rush to make it work I was only able to make two test runs. In both cases the slide show I created worked fine.

Wouldn't you know that the night of the event, of all the things that could possibly go wrong it would end up being that darn slide show. I felt so awkward doing it anyway and then when it played it only showed the top half of the slides which meant all the little comments that appeared on the BOTTOM of the slides that were created in sequence to tell the story, could not be seen.

Instead here I was, already embarrassed to have to play a tribute I created for myself and then the story wasn't told at all. People said they got the story anyway but that was impossible. The story was scripted to have well timed punch lines at specific moments. There were slides that gave sweet love to Chris that I really wanted to surprise her with. Those things would've set a different tone in motion for everything that followed when I took the stage. None of that was seen. I was horribly embarrassed AT MY OWN PARTY BECAUSE OF MY OWN TRIBUTE VIDEO PRODUCE BY ME!!!! Is that stupid or what?

So, when I created this series I did not play the video as it was filmed on the screen. Rather, I played the one I created and uploaded it directly so you could see it as it was intended. I hope you don't mind and I hope you understand my self-indulgence. After all, you know the last thing I would ever want is to have any control over what is said about me...........