In one last desperate attempt to get reimbursed for the camera, Kim wrote a letter to the Hyatt. I would have written it, but a few things stopped me. 1. I’m lazy. 2. I think she can write better. 3. She’s more threatening than I am. All of those meant in the best way possible. Anyway, we sent the letter off a week ago or so and just the other day I get a phone call from the Director Of Security with the Hyatt. He apologized for all of the crap we have had to do before and said he has full intentions of reimbursing us, as long as his investigation is ok. I thought quickly and didn’t say that I was in Weeba’s room, and instead said I was in another friends rooms that weekend. If he found out I was in Weeba’s room at first, and then we all got thrown out of that room, he might be a little hesitant to reimburse. I’ll keep you updated…

I got my new nomad in the mail late last week. No problems with it so far. I also sent the broken one back to Circuit City, so I should be getting that $300+ gift card in the mail soon. If I get my camera from the Hyatt, I’ll have some extra money to play with at Circuit City. If you have any ideas let me know. :)

We haven’t done much of anything so far this week. I was able to run my normal 3 miles yesterday without much of a problem though, so that’s good, I guess. I’ve got hockey tonight, I’m looking forward to that especially since we aren’t playing on Monday’s for the time being. I guess Monday’s will pick back up in a couple of weeks. This week is going pretty fast actually, I just hope the same is true for the rest of the week. I’m really looking forward to the American Royal this weekend!

I get home from work on Friday and Kim instantly has great news. The insurance check came for the break-in, something like $700. Take the $180 we paid for the window out of that, and we still have a bunch of extra money. I’m searching eBay for a new stereo, I’m not really sure what I should get. I’ve been thinking about getting one that is satellite radio ready, just incase we decide to go that route in the future. Problem is those are all the newer ones, and therefore more expensive. Oh well, no rush…

We decided to head down to the Oktoberfest that night. Kim’s friend Amanda that we met up with a month ago or so decided to come along as well. This was more like a carnival than any other Oktoberfest I had gone to before. There were tons of kids rides there. The lines for the bratwurst were longer than the lines for beer. There were pig races. Old ladies dancing on the tables for beer money and then stuffing it down their shirts. Port-o-lets that looked like outhouses. The most redeeming part of the whole event were the fireworks. At first I thought they were just alright. There was no music to go along with it, but then I realized that if there were music I wouldn’t be able to hear the crowd’s commentary. I was rolling on the ground by the end of it…

Saturday we lay low for most of the day. Ended up meeting Mike at the Granfalloon and then walking through the plaza art fair for awhile. Nothing too exciting about the night, besides the Mojito I had from ReVerse. Kim had to wake up the next morning really early to drive to Iowa for a golf outing so it was an early night…

Yesterday I went over to a meat smoking party. The American Royal is this coming weekend so Phil, Todd and their college buddies were warming up for the competition. I had some smoked chicken that was pretty darn tasty. Next weekend should be a good time…

Back to work for this week however…

I have two confirmed referrals for the freeipod, so I cannot give up yet. :) I just found out that the Infone offer is incredibly easy to do, all you need is a credit card. You do not need to cancel the account, just don’t use it and you won’t be charged. In fact I think they give you 5 free trials of it, and also a $10 amazon.com gift card just for signing up. Apparently this offer is only available on the freeipod site during the morning, so check it out then!
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I ran last night and it didn’t feel too bad. Still a little sore in the leg, but I was able to run just under 3 miles, so that’s a good start. Then we made some dinner and tried to meet up with Doni & Phil at the Brooksider, but they had already left by the time we got up there. It was only 8:30, what the heck? :)

This weekend is the Plaza Art Fair as well as the KC Oktoberfest. I’m sure we’ll have a fun one, we just need to keep it cheap, if that’s possible…

Another year another trip to NYC for the weekend after Thanksgiving! I just booked a flight to go back for the annual OAR shows in NYC. Last year was too much fun not to do it again. I’ll be flying on US Airways, my first time using them. Reason is that they were the cheapest. I got a flight for $225 that goes out of Columbus, OH into NYC and out of NYC into Indianapolis, IN. This works out great since I’ll be in Columbus on Thanksgiving with Kim’s family. Then we need to be driving back to KC on that Sunday, so Kim can just pick me up in Indy and we’ll continue on the way. The only part that doesn’t sound fun right now is the 11AM flight out of NYC. Maybe we should just stay up all night. :)

I’m leaving work now and heading to the gym. I’m gonna attempt my first run since I quit last week. Hopefully these new shoes help out…

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this earlier. VACO‘s new CD is out! I believe you can find “Ok To Go” in stores like Best Buy all across the country. Be sure to pick up a copy. I’ll put a song or two in some upcoming songs of the moment…

So the window was replaced in the car, and I put the factory stereo back into the car. This ancient piece of hardware is equipped with a cassette tape player and no CD player. We picked up a few tapes from the flea market later in the day, just to have something to listen to.

McGonigles was skipped since we ran out of time. Instead we went to Gates for dinner. You have to have KC bbq if you come out here right? :)

Last night we went spinning since my hockey game was once again cancelled. We are playing tonight instead. Two nights of hockey in a row! So after spinning I attempted to fix the car speakers. I tried to take off the entire interior door panel but was unsuccessful when the door handle baffled my mind. I struggled with the window crank for awhile, and even woke up my dad for any pointers. After messing with it for a few more minutes I finally realized that you had to squeeze a ring together and then slide the ring away from the handle. This then allowed for the handle to come off of the post. I felt like I just solved the rubix cube, well until the handle gave me a fight. It then got too dark out and I was too frustrated to get anywhere. So what do we do? We have Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber come out today to fix it. Tweedle Dumb was the guy who originally came out to replace the window, and he brought along his partner Tweedle Dumber this time. Tweedle Dumb apologized for not hooking the speakers back up and started taking the screws out of the door panel. I figured he would have taken the window crank off and then showed me how to get the stupid handle off. Well he didn’t, he just took the screws out, and felt around inside the door. He said that he didn’t disconnect anything. I assured them both that the speakers worked before the window was replaced. Then Tweedle Dumber decides that it could have been when the CD player was installed that the wiring was messed up. The wiring wasn’t messed up, and why would it work with one and not the other. He then shrugs and says he doesn’t know anything about electronics, just windows. Haha, I tried not to laugh and told them that something must have gone wrong. Finally, after what seems like half of the day, Tweedle Dumb feels a loose connection and pushes the two pieces together. Click! Wow, it works now, amazing. It really only took less than half an hour, but I swear it was longer. At least I can now listen to my new CC Music Factory and Color Me Badd tapes through all of the speakers…

Biggest news first. The car was broken into two nights ago. Window was shattered and they didn’t open the doors at all to prevent the alarm from going off. They got away with the stereo, some miscellaneous CDs, and my stack of shopper discount cards. A guy walking his dog later found the shopper cards and our woodside ID’s, so I got all of that back. Among the CDs was Marc Broussard’s new disc, so he is gonna be blowing up in the ghetto shortly. Kim had a CD book filled with her “chick music” that is now gone as well. Thanks! :b So we filled the police report and called the insurance. They sent a guy out and he found over $1000 in damaged pieces on the car. There are few scratches on the outside and inside of the door, but I think we can work those out our self. So after the $500 deductible and the $180 new window we should actually make a little money out of this deal. We’ll have to get a new stereo, but that shouldn’t be much more than $100. Progressive loves us…

Besides that this weekend has been great. We picked up Eric and Nick from the airport and later headed to Tomfooleries on the plaza. I think this is my favorite place on the plaza. Late night happy hour from 9 until close has $1.50 domestic pints, that’s pretty hard to beat anywhere. The food is also excellent, skillet pizzas are the greatest! So we stayed there for an hour or so, and then came back to the apartment to play darts for the rest of the night. Yesterday we had to hang out for awhile until the window was replaced, but once that was all taken care of we headed to Westport. We went to Harpos because it was a nice night out and their back deck is pretty hard to beat. There was a three piece cover band playing Coldplay as we walked in. Sounded pretty good, but then they took a break after it. We hung out there for awhile and watched two full sets from these guys. Pretty solid as far as covers go, and there was even an original song that I enjoyed. Problem now is that I cannot find out who it was. At first I thought it was local guy Ryan Patrick Imming but I don’t think he plays with a band at all. He also has covered OAR and the frontman here said they like OAR but don’t do any covers. Don’t you think you would say your bands name at least once in 3 sets of music? I know I would, and plug a website too…

Today I’ve been sitting around in my new running shoes “breaking them in.” I think we are gonna head to McGonigles in a bit to pick up some meat to grill out tonight. Our visitors are heading out tonight around 8, so I guess we should get moving…

So I almost quit running last night, forever. I’ve had problems with my IT band as I’m sure you are aware. Well I wasn’t enjoying my run from the beginning, so when my knee started hurting at 2 miles I quit. I was swearing off running forever, so Kim made me go to a running shoe store. This is a different place then where we bought my last pair of shoes. They make me take my shoes off and run on their treadmill. So I take my shoes off and immediately the chick says “Woah, you have the flattest feet ever.” Well is that what the problem is? I’m just not built for running? I think that is what I was hoping for. :) Instead, she has me run on the treadmill and video tapes it. Then they play it back on this TV right above the treadmill. She must have had some idea in her head as to what I would look like running, and apparently she was totally off. I guess I’m neutral as far as my foot goes, meaning I don’t pronate, which isn’t very common. She immediately tells me the shoes I have are wrong, and starts the whole fitting process. I run in 2 new pairs of shoes and they see slight improvements I guess. Anyway, I end up buying a new pair of shoes for like $90. They are a trail running shoe, but I guess they will be fine for me to run anywhere with. The name is Montrail (click for a pic of my shoes). I guess this place is willing to do whatever it takes to get the pain away. I can keep coming in and running on the treadmill and trying to make it all better. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to that pub crawl. We were at this store for like 2 hours. I was ready to pass out…

Two of Kim’s cousins are flying in today to visit for the weekend. Hopefully we find some good things to do!

Spinning was fun. The instructor (Jeff) was happy to see “the buckeyes” as he calls us. Kim is somehow buckeye #1 and I’m #2, what’s that all about? I think I’m a much better spinner. :) I forgot how much of a workout that was. He had us turning the resistance up so much my wheel stopped. I had to start all over at one point. It’s not one of those super sweaty workouts, like running is, but it is a longer workout.

After that we cooked chili with ground turkey. I’ve never cooked ground anything, so that was kind of interesting. I still couldn’t eat the chili plain in a bowl though, I had to put it over spaghetti just like my skyline. I guess I’m a weirdo, but I find it hard to eat something I don’t like just because it was made with turkey, which is something I do like. I don’t eat turkey burgers, never have and I don’t want to try one either. The thought of eating a burger does not appeal to me, so I’m not going to eat a burger. Once I got it on spaghetti though and topped it with a bunch of cheddar it wasn’t that bad. I had a couple bowls of it actually. I just found the whole thing kind of strange, but I bet this won’t be the last time we make it. Kim really enjoyed it…

There is supposedly a blues pub crawl in westport tonight that we might go to, that is if we can find any info on it. I’ve been googling for hours over the past day and haven’t found anything. Little help anyone? :)

My hockey game for tonight was cancelled because the Zamboni is broken. Guess what that means? Kim and I are going to do the spinning class once again. It has been over a month since we last went, so hopefully it doesn’t hurt too bad. I hope that our favorite instructor Jeff is going to be there, then it won’t be so bad…

Last night was run your butt off then eat mexican night. That about sums it up. Although lately I have been having pains in the back of my right knee when running for awhile. It’s the same leg that had the IT band problems, but I’m not sure it is related. Kim says my hamstrings are just too tight…

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