We all want to party like a rock star…well most of us. Since we can’t all be rock stars why not be their personal bartender? Kid Rock is teaming up with Jim Beam to give you the opportunity to pack your bags and hit the road with Kid Rock for three tour stops this summer, experience a one-on-one bartender training from Beam’s Master Mixologist and earn a $10,000 salary package.

You can enter Jim Beam’s Mix for Kid Rock Contest to compete for the chance to be the rock star’s personal bartender during his “Best Night Ever” tour. Click here for more details. Just imagine working for Kid Rock on tour during the after party. This is one opportunity you can’t pass up!

Watch the video below as Kid Rock offers you the job of a lifetime.

Jim Beam recently gave us the opportunity to make a Bold Choice, and with your help, we selected a mission to dive the Great Barrier Reef. It was an amazing, fantastic, extra-superlative experience that’s hard to put into words. Here’s my attempt to some up this once-in-a-lifetime slice of awesomeness.

When Captain Cook first smashed his ship on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1700s, he probably didn’t realize that he was hitting an underwater structure the size of California. I mean this is the largest thing ever created by living beings on this planet. It’s over 130,000 sq. miles of non-stop life blooming in every direction.

The whole thing is just one big submarine playground of fractal aliveness. Soft coral, hard coral, schools of neon fish, stingers, sea turtles, giant clams, sea snakes, sharks… the Great Barrier Reef is like the largest, most elaborate/expensive fish tank you’ve ever seen. And you can see the thing from outer space, man.

During my SCUBA and snorkel dives, it’s like everywhere you turn there’s some sort of otherworldly creature occupying the same space as you. You’ll see fish that resemble small dogs. There are spectacular tree branches of purple coral and underwater formations that look like tiny human brains. You’ll see jumbo versions of cellular structures like mitochondria the size of your kitchen table, ribosomes bigger than a Smart Car or a person-sized Golgi Apparatus just chillin’ out. It’s really a trip.

So reefs have been around for 100s of millions of years, but the Great Barrier Reef is only about 500,000 years old. The dive guides claimed that the Great Barrier Reef is responsible for producing 25 percent of the world’s oxygen. I’m not sure where that figure comes from, but when you see the saturation of life that exists just a few feet below the surface, you’ll believe just about any stat they throw at you. I mean, just look at this stuff:

[View with PicLens]

The Great Barrier Reef is a system of about 3,000 distinct reefs that hugs the northeast coast of Australia. We used Port Douglas, which is about an hour north of Cairns, as our base of operations for the dive trips. We took a trip on the Calypso tour which was not-overbooked and included three great dive spots full of colorful coral. We also took a trip on Aristocat, which was borderline-overbooked, but still amazing. I saw more sea life at the Agincourt reef spots we visited with Aristocrat, but the coral visibility was better with Calypso.

This spot is truly one of the great wonders of the world. If you have the opportunity to visit the Great Barrier Reef in person, I highly recommend it. I chatted up a sea captain who had last visited the Great Barrier Reef in 1986, and he said that the reef you see today is nothing compared to the scenes you could witness back in the day. I tend to believe him. I’m not sure what’s going to happen once the source of 25 percent of the world’s oxygen population becomes endangered, but either way, go visit the Great Barrier Reef while you still can. If you take a long time to schedule your trip out here, it might not look the same when you arrive.

Anyone who I’ve talked to who’s been to Australia has sold me hard on the idea that it’s an amazing place. I was able to visit Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland in the north during my trip, and I was impressed with everything. The cities are fun, the women are gorgeous, the beer is tasty and everything just appears brighter, bigger and more vibrant.

When I was first approached about the Bold Choice opportunity, I was definitely excited, but I didn’t know what to expect. After experiencing my Bold Choice, I have to say that I feel more fired up about life and I have an extra layer of happy memories that I’m going to carry with me for awhile. I want to thank Jim Beam for making this great experience possible.

A couple weeks ago, we posted about our partnership with Jim Beam and our participation in the Jim Beam Bold Choice campaign. It’s a pretty exciting opportunity, man. Jim Beam is giving us $2,500 to experience a Bold Choice that we’ve always wanted to make. I narrowed down the options to three Bold Choices, but it’s up to you, loyal reader, to vote on which Bold Choice you’d like us to experience.

The first option was diving in the Great Barrier Reef. I hear it’s on of those must-do bucket list time things, and I’ve always wanted to go to Australia to check out the largest reef system on the planet.

The second option is to hike a volcano in Hawaii. This probably won’t entail any sort of life-threatening close distances to actual lava or anything. I just think it’d be fun to see the fury of Mother Nature’s wrath all up close. Plus, I’ve never been to Hawaii and I always wanted to check it out.

The third Bold Choice option is a combination of skydiving in Austria and experiencing Oktoberfest. Seems like a pretty sweet pairing of things I really want try. I mean flying in Austria and checking out the Alpine scenery while freefalling from the clouds sounds amazing. The added Oktoberfest bonus is just another bucket list style item that I’d love to cross off my Bold Choice checklist.

Thanks to everyone who already voted. We’re going to tally the final votes up at the end of the week, so there are only a couple more days to chime in with what you think we should do! Just use the email form below and let us know if you want us to choose option 1, 2 or 3.

We’re partnering up with Jim Beam on a really cool initiative called the Jim Beam Bold Choice Campaign. Basically, MANjr was selected by Jim Beam to act as a Bold Choice blog partner. As part of the campaign, Jim Beam is providing me with the means to make my Bold Choice dreams a reality. I should disclose that the opinions expressed on this site are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments. Jim Beam is just hooking me up with the chance to make a Bold Choice and write about it.

Here’s a well-put take on the whole Bold Choice idea, courtesy of Willem Dafoe:

So what sort of Bold Choice am I going to make? Well, I narrowed it down to three options which I’ll outline below. It’s up to you, loyal readers, to decide which Bold Choice I end up going with. Here’s what’s on the table:

Diving in the Great Barrier Reef

I’ve always wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef up close. The world’s largest reef system is a World Heritage Site and it’s visible all the way in outer space, man. There are nearly 3,000 individual reefs and 900 islands that make up the 130,000-mile plus Great Barrier Reef system. It’s off the coast of Queensland and pretty much any photo you take can be licensed as a default desktop background. With coral bleaching, climate change, overfishing, pollution and such, this natural wonder of the world isn’t going to be around forever. I’d like to check it out before it’s gone.

Hiking a Volcano in Hawaii

I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I hear it’s awesome. Trekking up a volcano or checking out some massive craters created by Mother Nature’s fury sounds like a damn good time to me. Plus, a little bit of beach time and relaxation never hurt anybody.

Skydiving in Austria and Attending Oktoberfest

Austria’s a good-looking country. You got the old imperial center of Vienna and panoramic Alpine views all rolled up into a country that’s slightly smaller than the state of Maine. I think it’d be fun as hell to jump out of a plane and check out the view at 10,000 feet or so. If I survive that, it’s off to Oktoberfest to enjoy some celebratory brats and brews with red-faced folks in lederhosen.

These are the Bold Choice candidates that I have to work with, but the decision is up to you, MANjr fans. Drop us an email below and let me know which Bold Choice you’d like me to make. I promise to write all about it with photos and good stories.

Thanks again to Jim Beam for including us in this sweet campaign. I have a chance to try out some once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and I can’t wait to see which one I end up enjoying. I’ll keep the voting open for a couple of weeks and let you guys know which Bold Choice wins out on September 30.