The day is here! We’ll be heading out to Wakarusa (the first time) after work tonight. It’s a shame I don’t have an extra vacation day that I could use tomorrow, but that’s life. At least we will get the tents setup and our campsite ready so we don’t have to do it after work tomorrow, this way we can go straight in and join the party.

I’ve actually been taking a lunch break the past couple days. Yesterday I took the car over to a local Midas station to get it inspected. After almost two years of living here in Missouri, we are going to get Missouri tags put on the car. In order to do so it has to pass an inspection. Let me tell you that this is much easier and cheaper than the E Checks that we are used to in Ohio. I did have to wait in the lounge for a half hour or so, but it only cost $12. Now we have to fill out some forms and take them in to get it titled and licensed.

Today my mission was simple; I needed a rain jacket of some sort for the weekend. It’s looking like I won’t need it, but I’d rather be safe then sorry. Kim suggested I go to Target since that is where she picked up her latest jacket. I walked into Target and headed right for menswear. I walked through aisles of shorts and t-shirts, but no outwear. I gave up and called Kim to see if she had other ideas before heading over to Dick’s. She suggested a department store, so I then drove over to Kohl’s. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside a Kohl’s store before, so I immediately asked for assistance from an employee. She directed me to the outwear section, but it was all warm weather clothing. I gave up on this store and drove over to Dick’s. I figured they would have an entire section, but I guess it’s just the wrong season. I managed to find one clearance rack that had a few varieties, but only one that was less than $50. I finally settled on the cheap one on the rack even though it’s like sea green. I’m hoping it doesn’t rain all weekend so that I can just return it and pretend I never bought something of this color.

So I keep talking about this weekend, but haven’t really mentioned what we are doing (unless you read the comments from yesterday). Kim and I are heading to the Wakarusa Music & Camping Festival. This is similar to Bonnaroo, which just happened this past weekend, but on a much smaller scale. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing though. Smaller bands with smaller crowds, seems like a good idea to me. There is still a ton of music going on throughout the weekend, pretty much around the clock entertainment. And then there are all the activities that normally come with a state park. I’m sure it will be a busy and fun time!

We did not go out shopping last night since we decided that we pretty much have everything we need besides some food that will need to remain cold. We have now borrowed a couple of tents, I have a couple of canopies that I borrowed from my parents, a couple of borrowed coolers and a couple of bag chairs we bought before last weekend. I do need to pickup a rain jacket just to be safe. The forecast is actually looking really nice from now through the weekend. I hope that it stays that way.

After work last night I stopped at the local VW dealer and picked up the part that was going bad in our car, a brake light switch. I guess these things are constantly going bad in VW’s and there is even a recall out on some of them but not for our car. Anyway, the switch cost around $17 but to have them install it would have cost at least $60 and perhaps more than $100, depending on the amount of labor. I then went to the hardware store and picked up a package of bits for my little drill costing an additional six bucks. With all the necessary equipment and a great set of directions, I successfully replaced this switch in 15 or 20 minutes with no problems at all and it only cost a little more than $20!

Mike came over and we cooked up some chicken parmesan along with pasta and sweet potato fries. It was quite the meal and I think I might still be stuffed from it. After that we checked out some of our camping supplies for this weekend and then headed to bed. I think we are gonna go out and buy some more supplies tonight…

After work on Friday Kim and I headed to our local Target to pick up some supplies for the weekend and also for this coming weekend. We bought some cheap bag chairs, a new flashlight & lantern combo, some buy spray and some other stuff. From there we headed to Doni & Phil’s to have some drinks and play some cards. We decided on Pitch, a game that Kim and I are picking up on pretty well. I still don’t think it is better than Euchre though.

Saturday morning we woke up fairly early so we could get out to Salina, KS for the Smoky Hill River Festival which VACO was playing at. We met up with Steve Christy at our hotel and shortly after were on our way to the show. Salina is not a very big town, but the festival was packed. Either everyone from Salina was there or there were a ton of out-of-towners in attendance. Either way this is a pretty well planned event. An $8 button gets you unlimited access to the park and festival, and you can bring your own cooler in. We took advantage of that and brought something like two cases of beer in. I believe we got there around 2 and VACO first played at 3. It was hot and the local freaks were out in force (check out the pictures). We saw VACO play two sets that day and although they were short they were a bunch of fun. The festival was over by 10 I think, but we left shortly before then. We headed back to the hotel and were out around midnight. It was a fun day!

Sunday we woke up to a rain filled day. VACO was supposed to play again that day at 4, but we left town before they started. The rain was showing no signs of stopping and there is very little cover near the stage they were playing at. We hit some nice storms on the way home but made it back eventually. It would have been an even scarier drive if we would have realized that our brake lights weren’t working. Yeah, you read that correctly. We have yet another problem with the car, but again I think this is something I can do myself pretty easily. Perhaps I should consider a career move though.

Delhi (a Cincinnati suburb on the West side of town) made national news on my way into work this morning. Apparently 22 year old Joseph Mundy was arrested a couple nights ago, charged with drunken driving while on a riding lawnmower. Here is the good part, “Police say he and a companion drove the mower down the middle of Covedale Avenue.” Two people were riding on the mower?!?!?! How exactly did that work out? Were they both in the seat or was the other one hanging on the back? I give the guy credit for not driving his car though, especially since his destination was three miles from his home. I guess there are a few smart people on the west side.

Full story

We didn’t get a chance to play any Cincinnati related games and Christie is leaving today. I guess we’ll just have to wait until July when both of the new trainees start. Tuesday night we did absolutely nothing, I guess we were a little worn out from the previous night’s adventure. Last night we went to spinning again which seemed to be a little harder than last week. Even Jeff (the instructor) said it was a workout. From there we had dinner and watched the storm that lasted until around 10.

Speaking of the storm, what’s the deal with the weather here? It seems like every day has a storm at some point. It could be a super sunny day with highs in the upper 80s and then all of the sudden it starts pouring. Just look at the forecast. I’ll be happy as long as the weather doesn’t ruin either the festivals this weekend or next.

The Pig-Fest evite is going to go out soon! If you want to see it immediately, be sure that I have your email address. Otherwise I’m sure I’ll post a link to it when it’s up.

We stuck it out in the office yesterday and I’m happy to report that it is no longer 100+ degrees in here. In fact it is almost on the chilly level that it typically is. I need a weather person in the office so they can tell me how I should dress for the day at work.

Last night we finally got to see Todd’s new apartment on the plaza. He is much closer to us than he was before, but it took us like two months to finally see the inside. Cool place with a nice view of the plaza. Mike came along for the trip as did a new friend of ours named Christie. She is one of the new trainees that will be starting work at Kim’s office in the next month or so. She is from northern Kentucky so she already knows the ways of euchre and cornhole. In fact I’m hoping to get a game of either of those in before she leaves town, maybe even both!

I guess I forgot to make an entry last Friday, as you know it was a pretty busy week. Last Thursday night we saw Tanner play again, this time at Old Shawnee Days. Tanner and band had a much longer set to play and filled it with old songs, new ones and a bunch of covers. It was a fun show and I finally got to record something again.

Friday at work must have flown by and then from there we headed to Doni & Phil’s. We brought over a frozen pizza and a couple six packs of beer. We were Gabe’s babysitters for the night. If you didn’t already know, Gabe is their newly adopted pit bull. While enjoying our wonderful dinner and drinks we watched White Chicks which was actually entertaining at times. I wouldn’t go out of your way to see it, but if it’s on TBS one day you might enjoy it. We also fell asleep on their couch watching Caddyshack. Who would have thought that they would be out past midnight?

Saturday we walked down to Panera on the plaza and then came home to take care of some stuff. Kim watched recorded Oprahs while I worked on the new PC (aka Skinnyboy). Phil had it named FatboyII to go along with his Fat Boy Phil enterprise. As of today I have Windows XP SP2 installed as well as apache. I still have to install php and mysql and then I’ll have to move everything over. The two machines are communicating well except for this one small issue. While on Skinnyboy I can see my old machine (aka Ringo) but when I try to view the shared files I’m told that I don’t have permission to access Ringo or something like that. I may edit this later with the real error message. Anyone have any ideas? I have not spent too much time on this though, but I’m curious if I upgraded Ringo to XP from 2000 if it would then work. Anyway, back to our exciting day. From there we made dinner and Mike came over after a little bit. We had wanted to play cornhole all weekend but could never get together enough people to play, and the weather never really cooperated. So instead we did a “Power Hour” which involves a shot of beer every minute for an hour. I think Mike and I each finished off just over six beers in this short amount of time. I never actually did one of these while in college so I guess it was about time that I did, but I don’t plan to do it again. :)

Sunday we went to the driving range and hit some balls. I think we are actually getting better at this goofy game, but we’ll have to see about that the next time we go out to play nine holes. From there we did our standard trip to the grocery and followed it up with another trip to Doni & Phil’s. Mike was there watching Gabe, so him and I switched out the legs on their set of cornhole boards. We also put our set of boards in our car and took them back to our place. As we were carrying them back to our apartment a girl said something to the effect of, “That’s a really fun game.” We got to talking with her and she recently moved into our old apartment #3. Sounds like we may have found someone to join in our cornhole games!

Today I took the Jetta into VW to get a recall service performed. Kim had setup for me to get a rental car, but the guy said it would only take 10 minutes to install a new switch, so I just waited. Sure enough the car was back to me within 10 minutes. It now makes a much quieter clicking noise for the blinkers. All was going well until I got in here at work. I quickly realized that something was wrong, the damn air conditioning is not on. It must be 90 degrees in my office right now and we are still here. Someone mentioned leaving at 10AM if it isn’t fixed, so we’ll see what happens.

I cannot believe it’s Thursday already. Four day weekends rule!

I survived spinning class last night, it was actually easier than I remember but still a great workout. Our favorite instructor Jeff was happy to see “The Buckeyes” again as he calls us. He too is from the great state of Ohio. Kim is trying to convince me that we should go back every Wednesday now that hockey is over.

Later in the night I worked on setting up a computer that Phil gave me to use as a webserver. I got my old computer and this one setup on a KVM switch so I could control both of them with just one keyboard, mouse and monitor. I then set them both up on the same network so I could do some file sharing. Now I need to get an internet connection to it and staring installing the software I need for the server. Thanks Phil!

Last night we had our meetings with Greg and Tonya from BBBS. I think these home visits are setup just to see where you live and get to know a little about you. Sounds painless enough and it was. Once again we were told that we cannot have one child together, but perhaps a brother and sister combo or maybe we’ll just have one of us do it and the other can tag along. We simply do not have the time or resources to spend with two separate kids when they want you to spend 2 to 4 hours a week with them. It wouldn’t be fair to us or the kids. Anyway, we have to wait and see if we are approved and added to the system first. We should know that within a week and then from there we wait until they think they have a match for one of both of us.

Work was so busy yesterday now that I am doing my job along with lots of things that my boss Steve usually does. The day did fly by though so I guess it wasn’t really a bad thing. My day today is moving right along again, so hopefully I’ll be out of here before I know it! We may be making our return to spinning classes tonight, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers. :)