Today, it’s time for the first free Ozzfest.

It’s exciting to see Ozzfest kicking off the tour in our backyard. Not literally, but only about 30 minutes from our office, the White River Amphitheater is hosting the inaugural Ozzfest 2007 show. Earlier today, I dropped off our 17 year old son and his friend. I’m curious if they will be able to bag the ticket upgrades, but they have row 11 seats otherwise:

[Sharon] Osbourne told Billboard.com that about 3,000 tickets for each of the 24 shows — which begin Thursday in Auburn, Wash. — have been held back in order to provide upgraded seating for fans. Those will include reserved pavilion locations and even some seats that are actually on the stage.

Nice!

Later tonight will be picking them up which involved some planning. We had to work out a strategy to get around the likely parking lot crowd tonight. From our 2004 Ozzfest experience at the same locale we learned it can take well over an hour just to escape the parking lot, so if anybody else is picking somebody up at today’s Ozzfest anyway, I’d recommend planning something with Google Maps on a side road. Those in attendance will be able to walk faster than the cars leaving.

There was a short period where it looked like I might be going when our son’s friend couldn’t go, but a couple days ago he called to let us know he wanted to go. Glad to see they can go.

The weather isn’t as blistering today as it was yesterday, prompting us to head for the nearest pool, but it’s still muggy and uncomfortable. We stopped by the nearby pool and spa store and perused their list of overpriced pools. We found an above ground pool at Coscto online for $599 that looked promising but had a 2-3 week wait.

Don’t have a ticket to Ozzfest in you area, and would like one? One of Ozzfest’s sponsors Monster Energy Drinks still has some scant few tickets floating around:

go out and find a specially marked 4-pack or 8-pack of Monster Energy drinks. Each package contains a code for a pair of tickets that must be redeemed through the Monster Energy Web site. One tip floating around is to check with retail stores in smaller towns, which will sell out of drinks more slowly.

As I write this the band Mondo Generator is gearing up for their 20 minute set. Hope all those attending Ozzfest this year have a great time.

• Shocking the pool, clearing the film
• Pool 2008 almost didn’t happen
• Enter pool maintenance guy
• Wii Forecast Channel looks just like TV weather forecasts
• Around the roach motel pool in a minute
• Original Black Sabbath lineup complete — with Ward on drums — for Ozzfest