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A Gold Record for ApologetiX?
Mon., Nov. 7. 2005 10:28pm EST
Just about every kid who's ever strapped on an electric guitar has dreamed of having a gold record, the award given by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to recognize an album or single which has sold half a million copies.
Well, we finally got one. Of course, we don't do anything the way everybody else does, and this is no exception.
Here's how we got our gold record: The "gold" comes from Fort Knox, where we just booked a "record" third military-base concert in 2005. Until this year, we'd only played one military base, Fort Benning in Georgia in March 2003. Then, this past June, we played Abederdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and followed that up with an October concert at Fort Bliss in Texas.
We're scheduled to play Fort Knox Military Base in Ft. Knox KY on December 3. It's a free concert, but unfortunately it's only for the military base and their families.
Here are five fun facts about Fort Knox from the United States Mint's website:
1. The amount of present gold holdings at Fort Knox is 147.3 million ounces. Opened in 1937, the depository's highest gold holdings was 649.6 million ounces in 1941. No gold has been transferred to or from the Depository for many years, except for small quantities used to test gold purity.
2. The gold is held as an asset of the United States at book value of $42.22 per ounce.
3. A standard gold bar measures 7 inches x 3.625 inches x 1.75 inches and weighs approximately 27.5 pounds.
4. The depository was built using 16,000 cubic feet of granite, 4,200 cubic yards of concrete, 750 tons of reinforcing steel, and 670 tons of structural steel.
5. In the past, the depository has stored the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, Lincoln's Gettysburg address, three volumes of the Gutenberg Bible, and Lincoln's second inaugural address.
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