Sorry for the lack of content, but not much has been going on. A summary of my last couple of days:

Work. It has been really busy for a number of reasons. I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked about Raji before, but she has been working for our group since sometime late last year. Well she left a couple of weeks ago for vacation and was going to use all of her vacation days. She was supposed to be back to work last Thursday and as of right now she is still gone. An entire week later, and she still isn’t back to work. Sounds to me like we are going to be short staffed until another person is hired. She mostly tested the easier things for us, but still that all adds up. Another reason is that my boss is going to be gone all of next week. If you remember the last time he was gone I was super busy doing both my normal job and his. Typically there is a calm before the storm, well not in this case. We are trying to get everything ready so that I won’t have to do his job next week and I can just do mine. Anyway, it’s been busy around here…

A New Jersey man has been accused of driving while intoxicated while resurfacing the ice of a local rink. “Authorities say John Peragallo was drunk when he drove the four-ton ice-cleaning machine at Mennen Sports Arena in Morristown on Sunday.” Now seriously, how fast can those things really go and was anyone (other than this guy) in any danger of being injured? This story seems even more ridiculous than the last.

Full story. Thanks to my brother for digging this up and sending it to me.

Last night Mike had us over for some of his homemade spaghetti sauce. We brought the bread and wine and had ourselves a little feast. It was really good and I’m glad I got to take a big container of it home. It looks like I’ll have lunch for a week or so once I finally run out of leftover pizza.

I noticed a large rise in hits yesterday and tracked it back to my blog entry on Wakarusa being posted on themusicneverstopped.net and jambuzz.com. I guess I’m somewhat of a published writer now. Welcome to all my new visitors, enjoy your stay and feel free to check out my pictures of the festival.

We aren’t heading to Austin City Limits after all. We were close though. What they did was called out a couple of names and then those people picked a key and attempted to open the lock on a piece of luggage. They called one name and then called out Kim’s name. She was second in line and somehow the first person in line won. Everyone thought it was rigged, but even if it was the first person was picked out of a hat and won fair enough. Oh well, we got a couple of really big schooners of beer and half price appetizers out of the deal! From there a group of us all gathered over at Doni & Phil’s for a few rounds of late night cornhole. That’s right, I finally got to play! In fact, playing cornhole was about the only thing we did all weekend.

Saturday we had another gathering of people over at our apartment for some more cornhole. Mike came over first and then Amanda and Joel. We started playing around 4 or 5 and only stopped once for dinner and then played until it was dark out. A few of our friends from our building also joined in on the fun. Our neighbor Nick played a few games, as did Andrea who now lives in our old apartment and her boyfriend Chris. It was a nice day full of fun!

Yesterday we relaxed at the pool for a couple of hours and then later in the night watched Coach Carter and ate some pizza. I thought I was going to play hockey, but the zamboni broke again. I really didn’t feel like playing anyway, so that worked out. Kim and I both thought that the movie was good. We struggled to pick something out at Blockbuster, especially since most movies were completely rented out from the weekend. I was pretty happy with our final choice though.

Oh yeah, our eBay auctions were a big success. They both ended last night while we were watching the movie. Once it was over I checked on both of them and realized that we did in fact just make $500 (well actually only $497 so if you want to PayPal me $3 I would complete my goal). We’ll have to remember this for future southwest reward flights.

As mentioned yesterday, we now have a couple of items up on eBay. The first is my free iPod shuffle. At first I thought about keeping this, but after it sat unopened for a couple of months we realized that we didn’t need it. It will likely sell for around $130. We are also selling a Southwest Airlines reward voucher. Actually we have to sell the accompanying drink coupons and throw in the reward voucher for free. We realized that we aren’t looking to book any flights on Southwest anytime soon, and even if we were they wouldn’t cost anywhere near the $350+ these are getting on eBay right now. Both auctions are ending on Sunday night, so if all goes as planned we will have around $500!

Tonight we are heading to Johnny’s for another Planet gathering. Kim qualified for a trip to Austin City Limits that they will be giving away tonight. Wish us luck!

I’ve added a track from Matisyahu to the song of the moment section, download “King Without A Crown.” He played one of my favorite sets while at Wakarusa. I would definitely recommend seeing him if you get the chance, it was one of the most interesting shows I’ve seen based purely on looks. Based on sound, it was an incredible show that I’m glad to have taped. If you want a little taste of the show, check out this performance from the Jimmy Kimmel show. I’ll try and get some other tracks up soon from some other new favorites of mine at Wakarusa.

Kim went and got new Missouri license plates for the car yesterday. Hopefully no one steals our tabs, although I’ve yet to put the plates on. Perhaps I’ll do that tonight. We also have some more cleaning up to do from camping and a few things we want to put up on eBay.

Obviously I had Chipotle for dinner last night. Doni and Susan came along with Kim and me, even though their diet should probably tell them not to. We had our burritos and a drink and were off to a free concert that was being put on by 97.3 The Planet. The band was Low Millions, who has had two songs played regularly on the station for a couple of months. These two songs aren’t bad even though they sort of fall into the whiney brit pop that has been invading the airwaves recently. The more recent one titled “Statue” is much better in my opinion, and was the closer for their short set. I do have a few complaints about this band though. They try way too hard, their actions on stage are a little over the top, and apparently they sound checked for almost twice as long as their set was scheduled to be. The singer either wants to be Prince or thinks that he already is. I found it no surprise that the first artist listed in his musical influences was Prince. If you think of Prince and how he acts, you’ll kind of get an image of how this guy was. The problem is that Prince is actually good. Needless to say, I won’t be paying money to see this band.

Our high temperature today is in the lower nineties. We also have our first ozone alert of the year. I guess it is going to stay this hot at least through the weekend. Should make for some interesting cornhole matches. Weeeeee!

My pictures from Wakarusa are up. I tried to avoid taking pictures of bands, although I had tons of them when I went through the last night. I ended up deleting most of them because they were mostly crappy and not very entertaining.

Today is the start for a free burrito promotion at chipotle. Basically you need to buy a burrito today and then you can go in anytime before Sunday with your receipt from today and get a free burrito. I know where I am heading for dinner tonight!

Wow, what a weekend! On Friday we got back out to our campsite pretty quickly. We had dinner and a couple of drinks and were then on our way to see some bands. The first act we saw was the North Mississippi Allstars. It was my first time seeing them, but I’ve always heard great things from my friends. Good news, they did not disappoint us. We then headed over to another stage to check out Ozomatli. Their set was supposed to start while NMAS were on stage but it luckily for us it didn’t. This was an awesome show, I even think I caught Kim dancing a couple of times. I’ve seen them before and was happy that I finally got a chance to see them again. We then caught a little bit of the String Cheese Incident on the first stage and headed over to see Chubby Carrier. The lady I share an office with said to check him out and I’m glad we did. That pretty much wrapped up our Friday night since we were both pretty tired from the week.

Saturday Mike met up with us fairly early and the party quickly started. Before too long we were back at the main stages to check out Mofro, Rose Hill Drive and then the John Butler Trio. I was pretty impressed with the first two bands for not knowing much about them. I was very happy to finally see John Butler. The day was off to a great start. After those sets we went back to camp for some dinner and to refill on a few beers. Kim opted to stay behind at camp while Mike and I headed out for some more music. We caught some of Wilco’s set and then wandered over to see the end of Gov’t Mule. At this point the stages were pretty crowded with something like 30,000 people now at the festival. We then watched Matisyahu and his hasidic reggae. Probably one of the most interesting bands I have seen, but it was really cool. Definitely something you have to see for yourself. After that set Mike and I walked up and down “Shakedown Street” grabbing some grilled cheese sandwiches and even helping sell them for awhile. Next thing I know the sun was peaking out over the tree line. I couldn’t believe how late it was so I went back to camp to sleep for a couple of hours until the heat would wake me back up.

Mike left fairly early Sunday morning and then we packed everything up into the car. I was a bit worried that all the stuff we brought wasn’t going to fit in the car, but luckily it all did. We caught a few more sets of music from ProtoKaw and Xavier Rudd. Then we went over to see Matisyahu again so Kim could experience the show. The heat from the day was really getting to me and so we decided to head out a little earlier than I would have liked, but I had definitely got my money’s worth at that point. All in all it was a really good time and I would definitely do it again. Maybe next year it will be Bonnaroo, we will see…

Either I’m sick or the pollen count is really high today. Not much I can do about it now except pop some more pills and head on our way. We did get our campsite setup last night but did not get a chance to see anyone play. We are packed and have everything waiting at home so it can be put in the car and we can leave. On that note, I’m heading out of here. Hopefully I come back having nothing but good things to say…