We actually did go out last night! After work we got some Guiness and Harp to make half and half’s at home. Yum! After dinner it was off to O’Dowd’s with Amanda. The bar was setup for a huge party. They had taken over part of the street with fences to make room for me people, and they even had the roof top deck open. We choose to spend most of the night on the roof, mostly because it was so crowded inside. We mix and mingled and even got a free Jager Bomb from some Texans. Kim opted not to take one, and I should have done the same. I always forget that I don’t really care for either of the ingredients. It’s hard to refuse free drinks though. One thing that bothered me is the lack of green beer, I never saw it once yesterday…

March Madness has begun. Did everyone see the bearcats? I didn’t get to watch, but I listened online thanks to WLW. Minus a few minutes, it seems like they played really well and Iowa didn’t stand a chance. Next up for the cats are another group of cats, the Kentucky Wildcats. I believe that they haven’t played since 1990, but when they do play it is always a big game. I cannot wait until Saturday. Currently I am 11 for 16 with my picks, I picked these losing teams: Alabama, Penn, Pitt, Creighton and UTEP. Two of those were sweet sixteens, oops!

Tonight I think we are heading to John’s Big Deck with Joel, Amanda and whoever else. If you are in KC, come on down. We should be there around 7. As for the rest of the weekend, I’m not sure what all we are doing besides watch the game tomorrow…

A quote from Kansas City’s own Irish Fest:

The Irish were Kansas City’s largest immigrant group ever. According to the U.S. Census, one out of every 10 people in the metro area has inherited at least a pint or two of Irish blood.

I say, pint of blood or pint of something else. It is unbelievable the number of people here who take off work for St. Patrick’s Day, or the day after depending upon your method of celebration. I guess this is the way Cincinnati would be if Oktoberfest was on a weekday, but that isn’t a holiday. Anyway, I hope that our lameness does not take over and we at least go out and have one green beer or one lovely pint of Guinness…
Eddie O’Paff

Since Kim has been back we haven’t done too much of anything. She has been tired from her lack of sleep while in Cincy. We caught up on a few TV shows using our ReplayTV that we have grown to love so much. Perhaps we are just saving up for tomorrow being that it is St. Patrick’s Day along with the start of the NCAA Tournament.

Speaking of which, my picks are in for our work pool. I have the bearcats taking it all in a victory over Louisville. Dreaming big I know, but at least it is different that the rest of them that have been turned in. The owner’s family all have Oklahoma and Oklahoma State doing something. Everyone else has UNC, Duke, or any of the other standard picks. I’m going out on a limb, and hopefully it works. Nobody is going to pick any Conference USA teams to do anything here, so if they do more money for me! I think I’ll be using the same picks in all of my pools, just to make it easy and consistent. If I find an easy way, I’ll put them up here for critiquing…

I’m going to try and get a Missouri drivers license today. I keep forgetting or putting it off and my birthday is quickly approaching, which is the day my Ohio license will expire. Wish me luck on the “signs test.” :)

If you don’t already know, and I’m sure many of you do not, DMB is going to be releasing a new CD on May 10 called Stand Up. The first single titled “American Baby” was played via America Online last night, and I have added it as the current song of the moment. I haven’t given it too many listens, but it doesn’t sound too bad, check it out for yourself. Hopefully this does not turn into another Everyday that this song kind of reminds me of. What am I saying? I’m sure it will be a great disc that will not disappoint!

Edit: I just wanted to clear up the big mistake I made earlier. The new song is called “American Baby.”

For the weekend Mike and I pretty much moved into Geoff’s place. Yeah I finally realized that he spells his name Geoff and not Jeff. More on that in a bit. I stuck around work a little later than usual on Friday so that I could head off to happy hour with a few people from work. Definitely a good start to a weekend with little planned. From there I headed off to Geoff’s place stopping to get some dinner on the way. We had a few drinks at his apartment and before too long we were off to Harpo’s in Westport. The bar was more packed than I have ever seen it, I guess because of the Big 12 tournament, even the outside was a sea of people. Not my ideal environment but it was a pretty good time regardless…

As I said Mike and I essentially moved into Geoff’s place, so it isn’t surprising that we woke up on the couches of his apartment on Saturday. I did leave for a little bit, to get cleaned up, have some lunch and pickup margarita mix and tequila. We decided that we would drink margaritas and watch basketball all day. Eventually we had to get out of the apartment before we all dozed off, so we took a cab over to Lucky Brewgrille. Geoff’s girlfriend Casie (I think that is how she spells it) works there and then from there we would attempt to go bowling. That didn’t work out though, instead we picked up some Taco Bell and a movie to end the night with…

Again we woke up on the same couches at Geoff’s place, this time we decided that it had to end. We headed to our apartments, where I finished up some cleaning and before too long it was time for lunch. I met Doni and Phil over at Jalapeno’s! From there I got a haircut and then I was off to the Brooksider to watch more basketball. After a couple hours there it was time for my hockey game. The game ended in a tie, which was pretty good considering we only had 2 subs for most of the game. I then had some Chipotle and before I knew it I was dozing off on the couch, thus ending my weekend…

Kim will be flying back tonight after the funeral…
HAIS Mildred M. (nee Doyle), beloved wife of 64 years to Charles Hais. Loving mother of Carolyn (Doug) Otto, Peggy (Ron) Fleming, Chuck (Mary) Hais, Susan (Tom) Cupito and Jodi Hais. Devoted grandmother to 20 favorite grandchildren and ten great grandchildren. On Friday, March 11, 2005 at 85 years of age. Visitation on Monday at B.J. Meyer Sons Overlook Funeral Home, 4841 Glenway Avenue (next to St. Teresa Church) from 9-10 A.M. followed by Mass of Christian Burial at St. Teresa of Avila Church at 10:30 A.M. Family requests memorials to St. Rita School for the Deaf, 1720 Glendale-Milford Road, Cincinnati, OH 45215-9983 or Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, 2880 Boudinot Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45238.| www.bjmeyersons.com

I just got off the phone with Kim and her grandmother passed away earlier this morning. Continue to keep her entire family in your thoughts and prayers…

I have a new baby cousin on my mom’s side of the family! Emma Grace Busch was born at 11:44AM yesterday, the second child for my Uncle Andy and Stefanie. Elizabeth aka Big “E” was born in August of ’03 and now we have a Little “E” as well!

I’m not sure what is wrong with my site right now, but you’ll notice that the blog is missing the entire layout. Hopefully I can fix that sometime today. edpaffjr.com should be working again for most of you, I hope. This is back on my home computer, I haven’t had time to play with the new host that I bought.

Edit: I looked at the blog issue and cannot figure it out. Does the layout display normally for anyone out there using edpaffjr.com and not edpaffjr.oarsa.org? Respond back with comments…

Yesterday turned into a crazily busy day. I stayed at work a little longer since I had some stuff to do and with Kim gone there was no reason to rush home. When I finally did make it home, I quickly cooked up some pizza rolls and attempted to fix my web server. My hockey game at 7PM was quickly approaching, and I still had to stop by Doni and Phil’s to feed the cat. Somehow I did all of this and made it to the game “right on time!”

After my game I returned home to a funky smell coming from the apartment. I opened the door and realized that a bottle of wine had somehow exploded all over the kitchen. The bottle didn’t explode, just all of the liquid inside. I guess in my rushed state I left the oven on and this somehow caused this incident. The wine rack sits above the stove, on top of the fan. The bottle was opened a day or two earlier but as always we recapped it and put it back on the rack. I guess the heat from the oven somehow caused too much pressure, forcing the stopper out and then the entire bottle of wine. It took nearly an hour and a half to clean up, and that is why I missed the gym this morning. Anyone have a better explanation? I should have taken some pictures of the mess…

I apologize for the down time once again. It is all being caused by my router, which somehow thinks my computer is virus infected and then it limits some of my programs access to the web. I’ve contacted three or four different Netgear support people, most of which can hardly type in English, with absolutely no help at all. Ideas anyone?

Luckily I’ve signed up for a killer deal on webspace at DreamHost, $9.24 for an entire year of hosting! What you have to do is signup for 1 year at $9.95 a month. Eventually you will get to a checkout screen, and there you can enter the promo code “777” which will take the total to $9.24 for an entire year of service. Not $9.24 a month, which would only be a savings of 71 cents, this is for the entire year, a savings of near $100! There are no catches that I’ve seen so far, and I have friends who have been customers for years. If you need help in the registration process just let me know. Will I ever use this space? Who knows. I actually would have started using it today if I could have downloaded all my files from my computer, but unfortunately even I could not get on…

Enough about site stuff, there is more serious news. Kim just flew back to Cincinnati this afternoon because her grandma was rushed to the hospital. Please keep her and all of Kim’s family in your prayers…

Last night I went to my first show in almost a month with Kim and Amanda. Tanner Walle played over at O’Dowd’s for about an hour or so. It was an acoustic show with Mike. He finally got copies of his new CD, and I finally have one in my hand right now. As I mentioned before it’s a solid disc, and I recommend picking one up! I’ve added a new song of the moment from the CD titled “Madeline.”

My mom has her pictures from their trip online already. There are over 100, so it could take a little time to get through them all. I think I only took like 20 pictures and I don’t even have them up yet. Must be nice not having to work yesterday. :)

Friday after work we headed up to the airport to pickup everyone up. From there our first stop was Tomfooleries in the northland. A little bigger than the plaza location, but the two bartenders working were guys I had seen at the plaza numerous times before. Actually one of them is the one that always remembers Todd for his whiskey addiction. No Irish Ale on tap, but of course they had Wheat for everyone to enjoy! After dinner and a few rounds we headed to our apartment. I gave a brief tour through Westport and The Plaza, but it was a little too dark to get the whole “feel.” We all got a pretty good night of sleep in preparation for a busy Saturday…

First up on Saturday was the Boulevard Brewery tour at 11AM. Its great the way they left you see everything that goes on, much better than that other brewery in Missouri. And of course you get numerous samples of their beer. They had seven different choices. All four of the year round brews, Irish Ale, a trial called Saison (I think) and a version of the porter with a touch of whiskey. The last mentioned sounds interesting, but it was really quite good. I think the brewers just got a little bored one day and decided to mix it up. After leaving Boulevard, it was decided that we needed to get to a sports bar so we could see the end of the Dayton and Xavier game. Unfortunately for Tim, Dayton lost the game, but at least we found a place that had the game. Cincy played later on in the day so we decided to stay and watch that one as well. A better result for everyone with the Cats winning the game. Another nice thing was the Granfalloon had Irish Ale on tap! We played a few games of pool, a round of golden tee, and visited with old neighbors from Huntsville (The Reynolds) who now live in Overland Park, KS. Before we knew it, it was dinner time and we were still in the same seats. Our friend Jeff came down, along with Joel and Amanda. Eventually we had spent a little too much money, so we headed back to our apartment for some cards. I didn’t have as good of a streak as the last card playing day, in fact I don’t think I won a game. Oh well, it was a very good time!

Sunday we all we are a little slow getting up, but eventually we started my tour of Kansas City, v2.0. First stop was the Liberty Memorial. My brother quickly pointed out that you could actually go to the top of the monument, so we did. Pretty cool view for a cheap price, I think my mom got some good pictures. From there we drove by Union Station and then headed of to the stadiums. Next up was Independence, MO where we saw all of the Truman sites and noticed the large number of churches in the area. I’m gonna have to ask Susan more about this. We then drove through Swope Park on our way over to the Brooksider. Everyone wanted to see the place that is talked about so often. We then ended up at Gates for lunch. They were out of burnt ends for Tim to try, but I think everyone was happy with what they got. We then toured Overland Park a little bit, stopping off at the Kansas store that we frequent so often. I showed them the sprint world headquarters as well. Tim’s one request was to go to Kansas and we made it, haha. It was getting close to my hockey game time, so we made a quick stop over Kansas Speedway, one of my dad’s requests, and then headed up to the rink, thus ending the tour. We seriously drove around the city for like 4 or 5 hours, but it was fun. Kim had to take them back to the airport while I was playing hockey. Our game started off pretty rough but we ended up in a 5-5 tie. What a weekend! I should have called in sick today because I am really dragging. Only 7 more hours…