No update yesterday because I never made it into work. I woke up around 9 and decided to call in sick. I guess I had a little too much fun the night before…

Immediately after work I met up with Courtney, her sister and a friend at McCoy’s for some dinner and drinks before the show. I am still in love with this place, it is so good. On to the show. Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers played first. I’ve been hearing lots of good things about this band, especially from my buddy Weeba. He couldn’t have been more right, these guys are good and highly entertaining. They have quickly become one of my favorite new bands. Ari Hest was up next. I’ve seen him before, but only because he was opening for someone I really wanted to see. He isn’t bad, but isn’t really that good either. He falls about right in the middle of the singer songwriter genre, and I am continually losing interest in those types. After that, O.A.R. rocked the place! Each and every time I see them they sound better and better, and that has to be hard to do at this point. I got a shoutout from Marc right before they played “Tonight” which was another good version. During some of the “bathroom break” songs, I talked to Rick at the merch booth for awhile. It was a very good time.

This leads me up to the end of the night. I was out talking to Rick during the encore, and then I had to wait for every person to exit before I could get back into the venue to get my recording gear. I talked to JP the soundman for awhile and then Marc came out and I talked to him and then Jerry came out and I talked to him. I finished tearing down and was just about to head out when Jerry asked if I wanted to get one more beer. “What the heck, I don’t have much to do tomorrow.” :) So I went backstage where all the guys were hanging out and had another beer. I talked to Stephen Kellogg and his cousin Jess for quite some time, they are incredibly nice people. I talked to everyone in the band too, and then before I knew it I had drank a few beers and it was 2AM! So I got a ride home with some girl who was driving Ari Hest back to his hotel and I quickly slipped into slumber. Pretty easy to see why I slept in as long as I did.

So yesterday after calling in sick, I stayed in bed and slept until around noon. Woke up, got Chipotle, and then converted O.A.R.’s set. It was a much needed rest! Kim got back into town last night, and I played hockey later on. Thanks to my mom for buying me some new gloves that I started to break in last night!

Tonight will probably be a dinner and TV kind of night…

So no one is going to a DMB show this summer? I talked to my boy fighty, and he is gonna try for Deer Creek, Polaris and Riverbend. I think I’m just going to buy Sandstone this weekend and then I can always decide to go to more of the shows if they fit into my schedule…

I failed to mention yesterday that I didn’t sleep very well on Sunday night, I guess the weekend all caught up with me. Therefore I skipped the gym in the morning, but I did get out after work and run on the trail outside. That’s right, it was a glorious 70 degrees outside yesterday. It is suppose to be just as nice today. Hopefully I can get out and enjoy the weather before the O.A.R. show tonight! I haven’t been to a show since last year, so I’m pretty excited for the show tonight. If you are heading to the show, you know where to find me (near the soundboard)…

I just realized that tickets for the tour are going on sale this weekend and I have no clue what shows I should be buying tickets to. I’ll likely buy tickets for the Sandstone show since its so close, but what else should I buy? Is anyone going to Deer Creek this year? If you are reading this then you need to post a comment for the shows you are going to buy for…

Let’s see. Friday night we met up with Mike, Jeff, Casie and Jeff’s brother Rob at Tomfooleries for happy hour and also spent some time at the Granfalloon. Everyone had a pretty good head start on us before we got there, so the night was not a very late one. Good enough for a 25th birthday celebration though!

Saturday we spent the afternoon shopping for some things Kim needed to take back to Cincy with her. Before we knew it we were off to the airport. Not sure if I mentioned it before or not, but Kim was heading to Cincy for Easter and staying there until Wednesday. Later that night Mike and I met up with the same group as the night before but this time in Westport. We were at Kelly’s most of the time, although we did go over to Dark Horse Tavern for the late night happy hour.

Sunday I went out to Jeremiah Johnson’s for brunch with Doni, Phil, Doni’s parents and Mike. It was my first time there, although most of the others had been there many times. Great food! I definitely recommend going there if you ever up in the northland. Seems like they too need some work on their website, hmmm…

Dinner last night was awesome! As I mentioned yesterday, we went to a place called Copa Room, which isn’t too far from our place. I’m still shocked that they do not have a website, perhaps we should contact them about that. Anyway, the food was excellent as was the entertainment. Shortly after we arrived, a guy began singing Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin tunes, and he did so very well. Kim got the whole place to sing happy birthday, and we even got a free desert. We will definitely be going back to this restaurant…

Before dinner I opened my gifts from Kim. Since we moved into the new apartment I have been saying that I want to have a fully stocked bar. We’ll Kim definitely brought me way closer to that goal. She got us loads of the essential liquors and mixers, along with a new set of bar tools and a set of martini, pilsner and wine glasses. Oh yeah, she also bought me Playboy, that is Playboy: Bartender’s Guide. I cannot wait to have some people over so we can enjoy all of this! Until then, I’m sure Kim and I will enjoy it as well. :)

I’ve added a new song of the moment, this time from the John Butler Trio. They are from Australia and have had huge success in their native country. They are now spreading their popularity to the US, releasing their first official US release titled Sunrise Over Sea. Download “Zebra,” one of my favorites!

Everyone can remember looking forward to their 16th, 18th and 21st birthdays. Those all have (mostly) positive rewards associated with them. So what’s great about turning 25? Perhaps I could save 15% or more on my auto insurance without switching to Geico. Then again I heard that this magic age doesn’t affect your rates all that much. Alright, so now I can rent a car. Wait, I could have done that before. It seems that I can do most of what I could do before, it may now just be slightly cheaper. And to think I could have used that extra money years ago, and now it doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Either way, I’m one year closer to the next great age of 35. At that point I am eligible to be president!

Tonight Kim and I will be heading to an Italian restaurant called Copa Room. I am really looking forward to it! We will carry on the rest of our celebration tomorrow night, since tonight is still a school night…

How could I forget this huge event of our weekend. Kim and I actually made our return to church. Kim’s grandmother always wanted her to go to church, and I guess this is her way of making it up to her. I totally forgot it was the lenten season, so the church was packed of course, but we did get free palms. We are going to attempt to go to a new church every week so we can see what is out there. This week’s target was The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. I guess this church just finished a huge renovation and it looks amazing. Mass itself was rather long, about an hour and a half. Perhaps the fact that they chose to act out an entire reading contributed to this…

So it has officially been spring for a few days now. What does spring bring to Kansas City? Snow! It actually snowed yesterday! I don’t think it has been anywhere near freezing lately, that is up until yesterday. Then we have snow in the middle of the afternoon. It didn’t accumulate to anything, but I still think “global warming” is a bunch of crap. :)

Update to the car situation. I read online that a check engine light could be the result of a loose gas cap. This morning I remembered to check and tighten the cap and sure enough the check engine light did not come on when I started the car. What a relief! Thanks google!

Do you ever get the feeling that car manufacturers somehow program their cars to self destruct immediately after the warranty expires? This is how I am starting to feel. The Jetta has just over 50,000 miles on it and that is when the warranty expired. Since then, we have had a series of problems with the car…

The driver’s door sensor that notifies you when the door is open has stopped working. This is not really a big deal, except for when it used to have no idea if the door was open or closed and would sound its audible alert while we were driving down the road and the door was clearly shut. This has stopped for the most part, and it acts as if the door is always shut even when open. This poses another problem, the tone telling you the lights are still on will now no longer work. I’ve left the lights on a few times already.

Next, the brake lights remained on even after turning the car off. This was the night we took our trip to Costco. We ran through the store quickly, so that the battery wouldn’t die and we wouldn’t be paged over the store’s system. This problem fixed itself on the drive home, and has not returned since.

Now yesterday the check engine light mysteriously appeared. This happened when I was driving in to work, and is still on as of right now. From my experience and from what others have said, this really isn’t that big of a deal. I’m hoping to take the car to some auto parts store in hopes that they will tell me the problem for free. VW wants close to $100 to run their diagnostics.

All of this is happening as the lease is running out, and we are forced to buy the car because of the mileage on it. Guess we will then decide to sell it and get something else, or just keep it and hope these are all just coincidence…

As I mentioned earlier, we headed down to John’s with Amanda, Joel and a few of Joel’s co-workers on Friday night. The main attraction was the Kansas and Bucknell basketball game. Joel is a KU fan and I immediately starting giving him crap. We ended up making a bet; the loser had to take a shot. He gave me 5 points, and later would give me 3 points at half. Well at halftime, KU was up by 3 so we both took a shot. As we all know, Bucknell ended up winning the game. Joel took his shot and I felt kind of bad about it and took one too! I think he will get his revenge the next time I see him since Cincinnati lost as well…

Speaking of which, we spent Saturday afternoon on the couch watching more basketball than I typically watch in a year. Eventually the Cincy game came on, and after a very rough start the bearcats ended up leading at half. We then drove down to one of my co-workers houses for a party. It was billed as a “not your normal pants” party, essentially you had to wear something that you don’t normally wear. Plenty of laughs would be had due to this. Back to the game though, I think the cats played really well up until the last few minutes. From that point on they couldn’t hit a shot and that is when UK’s lead got worse and worse. Another second round loss for the cats, but at least it was a pretty good game…

Sunday we met up with Doni for lunch. Surprise! We went to Jalapenos. :) She gave us a present from Mexico, a bottle of Tequila! I’m sure we’ll be having a margarita party in the near future. From there Kim and I walked around the plaza for a couple of hours and even spent a few minutes with the hundreds of war protesters in the park. Typically there are only a dozen or two of them out every Sunday, but I guess this is the anniversary of the start of the war, or at least that is what one of the participants told us. Before too long it was time for hockey! We won our game, and then headed over to Tanner’s for some wings and beer. When I finally left around 11PM, they were heading to another bar but I knew this morning was going to come early enough already. I resisted their pressure and went home, now it is back to work…