Last night we participated in our first Big Brother/Sister event that didn’t involve the kids. We went to a happy hour at Lew’s with Mike and also brought Christie along so she could get some info on the organization. It was actually a really cool deal. We got free food and free drinks for two hours! There were probably 20 other ‘Bigs’ there and everyone we met was really nice. We’ll have to do more of these activities in the future.

Tomorrow is our big race! We tried to run this morning but I was having some back pains, so we decided to just turn around and spend the morning stretching. I guess we’ll have to ‘carbo load’ tonight and then get up around 6 tomorrow to get ready and head out. The race is part of the Jesse James Festival going on in Kearney, MO. I’m sure that I’ll have some interesting stories from the festival and other events throughout the weekend.

And here’s another update from Gabe, it looks like everything is almost back to normal for them:

It has been about 18 days since the hurricane hit, and life is really beginning to return to normal. I think you can tell from the tone of my first sentence that things are looking up. First, thanks again to everyone who has e-mailed and text messaged. My cell phone sometimes works, but not all the time, so sometimes I can get calls, and other times no. So e-mail is still probably the best way to keep in touch……….

The good news first – I got a job! I am so, so, so happy to report that I am now a Special Ed teacher at Destrehan High School. Today is Friday, my second full day, and I know that I am so lucky to have this job. Not only and I employed again – thank god – but it is a GREAT place to work, and not poor school district. I was in Orleans Parish schools, and those are about the worst of the worst schools – you name it, it is wrong. But this school – a competent administration, gorgeous building, respectful students, great teachers, computers, supplies, safety – it is great. I know I really lucked out and I do not take it for granted. As far as I know, I am the only one of the people from my old school to have found a job so fast. I now work out by Brad’s plant, so it is about a 20 minute commute – very easy. And for those of you that have visited, you know the area around where Brad works can be a little hillbilly……but I am in a little town that is not redneck at all, so again, it worked out.

We are officially at home, and not living there illegally anymore. When we first got home last Friday, we were not supposed to be living there even though we had water, power, and sewage. But they gave us the “all clear” yesterday, so I would say about 75% of my neighborhood is back. That is good. Stores are opening – Wal-mart, Papa Johns, etc. We even have a working gas station! But life is still odd – military planes and choppers everywhere, police and military police everywhere – and we have a curfew of 8:00 pm. Tomorrow I think we might have a little “outing” to Baton Rouge just to go out to eat and maybe see a movie! The things we all take for granted – freedom with our time, etc…..this has just been such an experience.

So that is the news for now, and life is slowly returning to normal, at least for us. Many, many people I know and worked with lost everything, including their jobs. Life is not normal for most people. I know many people have donated to the Red Cross, and I would definitely encourage that, even 3 weeks after everything happened.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally picked up my new iPod on Tuesday night from the GM of the gym. I ended up getting a silver iPod mini from the raffle they had after completing a survery. It appears that apple has just discontinued the minis with their release of the iPod nano. Even apple.com/ipodmini is no longer functional and is redirection to the apple store homepage.

Now the decision becomes one I’ve faced before. Should I keep this or should I sell? It appears that brand new minis are selling for $170-$180 on eBay. I really wish they would have given me a nano instead of the mini. The nano is about half the size of the mini and has even more functionality. It would be even easier to run with, although I’ve heard that you can easily run with the mini strapped to your arm. The downer is that the 2 GB costs $200 and the 4 GB (the size of the mini) sells for $250.

Feel free to toss in your .02

In addition to running the 10K this weekend we are also going to participate in the Walk To D’Feet ALS with Doni, Phil and Phil’s mother. This will be on Sunday morning after a potentially long Saturday so hopefully I won’t have to walk too far. This is for a really good cause though, so I’ll just suck it up. If you want to contribute to the cause, feel free to Sponsor Me and make a donation!

Over the weekend we thought about running but decided to play the previously mentioned game of tennis. Monday morning we were back at it though, completing another 5+ mile run. That will be the last long one before the race and I think we are fairly prepared. We shouldn’t have any problems on Saturday as long as Kim can stay on her feet. She tripped over something during our Monday morning run, but came away with minor bumps and scrapes. I think Susan may join us in the run as well, in addition to Todd who convinced us to run in the first place. I’m sure it will be much easier than I’m thinking it will be.

As I mentioned earlier, I am in three fantasy football leagues. After this weekend I have decided that I really suck at fantasy football. I am now 1-2 in these three leagues, and the only reason I won the one game was that the other team didn’t have any players playing. You have to actually set your lineup for this one league that I’m playing in, it’s a non Yahoo one. The guy I was playing against never set his lineup for week 1, so none of his players earned points. I got real lucky on that one.

Hopefully I’ll find some time this week to figure out exactly what went wrong, or search the web for articles to help clue me in. Leave any helpful links in the comments section below…

Friday after work we headed out to Lawrence with Christie. Her sister plays volleyball for Michigan State and they were in a tournament at KU and were playing against KU that evening. Kim’s always been a volleyball player and fan, and I’ve seen my fair share of games as well. Not to mention my career as a volleyball player back in 7th and 8th grades. However, the version of volleyball they played was much different than I remembered. First of all they use rally scoring, which means that a point is won regardless of who served the ball. I guess because of this, they play each game to 30 points instead of the 15 that I am used to. They also play best of 5 instead of best of 3. I also noticed that the ball can hit the net on the serve, I think. The strangest of them all is this new position called a Libero. This is one person on the team who is likely the best defensive person. They are allowed to substitute into the game whenever they want as long as they play the back row. I guess the changes aren’t really that significant and I still could follow most of the game. Michigan State lost the game, but I was told that they won their other two games to take home 2nd place.

From there we drove back to KC, stopping along the way to pick up Joel and Amanda. We then had a little party over at our place. A few of our neighbors stopped by and we actually stayed up until 3AM or so. It was a fun night!

Saturday we were a little slow to get the day started. Kim and I walked down to the Granfalloon to watch part of UC’s loss to Penn State. I’m sure both Amanda and my boss Steve are real happy about that. I then watched some of the other football games and then eventually we headed up to Westport Art Fair with Christie. We walked around the booths for awhile and then chose Harpo’s to watch the Ohio State game. It was a real good game even though Texas won. Oh yeah, Colerain won that high school game against that Texas high school team, Ohio rules! From there we headed to George Brett’s to end the night.

Sunday we woke up a little earlier than the previous day. We played a full set of tennis and actually we both played pretty well I thought. It was way too hot to finish out the match though. I won the first set and probably would have dominated from there. :) After that we picked up Dominique and Bianca and went to a pet store to pick out some new fish for my tank. We settled on about 16 tiny neon tetras. We were supposed to only get 10 of them for $8 but the lady who fished them out couldn’t count I guess. We then played a few hands of cards with them and then had to drop them off so we could get over to Doni and Phil’s. They were cooking up some fajitas along with a tasting of salsas they brought back from New Mexico. The food was excellent and a great way to end the weekend.

I’ve been working on the webserver and a re-designed site in any free time that I have. I’ll spare you the boredom though. Perhaps I’ll have something exciting to talk about after the weekend. Until then, here is another update from Gabe on their conditions near New Orleans. Things are looking pretty good for them…

Thank you all again for all the wonderful text messages, voice mails (when I can receive them) and e-mails. I love you all and appreciate it so much. Keep ’em coming! The internet just came back up today, thank goodness, so this is by far the best way to communicate with me. My cell phone can call out, but I am having trouble receiving calls.

For those of you that are new to my e-mail list, we are physically fine. We evacuated first to Memphis, then when it started going downhill, we went up to Ohio and Michigan. We drove back to Louisiana this past Monday (Labor Day). Jefferson parish, the parish that we live in, was allowing people to go check on their homes for 4 days only, Monday through today. We got into LA late Monday. Driving in was a surreal experience. We got about 30 miles from our destination (Brad’s co-workers and friends of ours, about 40 miles west of New Orleans, near Brad’s plant.) and we were stopped by armed guards and they checked our ids at 3 different points. We were re-routed about 50 miles out of our way because I-10 was closed. There was no gas. There were military convoys, Red Cross trucks huge tour buses everywhere. It was really insane, I don’t think I have the words here to describe it, and it is something I will not soon forget.

We arrived to Bernadette and Chuck’s and collapsed into bed (after about 16 hours in the car.) The next day, Tuesday, we got up at 5:30 to get into Jefferson parish at 6:00 am. We heard the lines were awful, and the parish was open from 6 am to 6 pm. We drove in (no traffic – finally something went right!!). I thought Monday night was a weird experience – it was nothing compared to Tuesday morning. Kenner (the city we live in, for those of you that don’t know, it is a suburb about 10 miles west of New Orleans, about 2 miles from the famous Louis Armstrong Airport) was like I envision Baghdad to be. Completely occupied. Military everywhere. Armed guards everwhere. Destruction – trees down, power lines down, buildings smashed, cars ruined, etc. And strangely vacant, which I think is the oddest thing. We drove in very slowly…….we didn’t know what to expect at our house, we had not heard if we flooded or what. I know I was nervous to see, and I am sure Brad was too.

When we got close to our street, things didn’t look as bad, so when we turned the corner onto Idaho Ave, we were so happy to see the street passable. Our house was pretty much fine, thank god. We have roof damage – about 10% of our shingles blew off. Everyone’s privacy fence in probably the whole city, including ours, is gone. We have 10 trees on our property, and not a single leaf left on any of them. Huge branches down – some the size of small trees, and thank god, none on our roof! Also, in the front entrance, the 130 mph wind that Kenner experienced actually pushed water underneath our front door entrance, causing our wood floor to bow and bubble a little bit. It is a very small portion – about 2 foot by 2 foot area. Brad and I have never been happier in our lives – the house was livable, and our property value just went up because our block did not flood. The block behind us did flood – that is how hit and miss the flooding is. I am still shaking my head about this.

So after a campfire breakfast with our insane neighbors who were living there with no power and no water (they evacuated, but came back – don’t ask me, I don’t understand either.), we got to work. Brad got on the roof, and put a tarp where the shingles were missing – the felt was still down so we had no water damage, but he still wanted to secure it. We cleared the lawn of about 200 shingles from other people’s roofs, a garbage can had blown onto our property, branches, leaves, sticks, etc, took the boards off the windows…….and then we had to do the fridge. Remember, at this point we had been gone for 10 days. The fridge had not had power for 9 of those days. Jefferson parish was advising people to dig a hole in the back yard to bury their stale food, because they did not want animals getting into trash cans full of old food. So Brad, the neighbor and his son started digging a hold in our back yard, and I opened the freezer. Oh my gosh – I dont have the words. Let’s just say it was the least pleasant thing I have ever done. Our two neighbors – on both sides of us, put their trash with ours – so we have a little landfill in the backyard. I cleaned the fridge out with bleach, windex, and clorox and you could still smell the rot faintly…………lovely, eh?

After that it was about noon, and we were pretty beat. We finished up, in pretty good moods because Brad still has a job, and we have our house. 2 out of 3 is not bad – I, however, am officially unemployed. I am trying not to think too much about it right now. Besides the obvious concerns about money, benefits, etc, I am really mourning the loss of my life as I knew it. We are going to be living with friends or in Dow housing for at least the next 3 weeks. We have power at our house, but they are not letting people live there because not everyone has power, etc. Living out of a suitcase is exhausting, and living with other people, as wonderful and nice as they are, is difficult. I loved my school. I loved my job, I enjoyed most of my coworkers, I liked working in the French Quarter………my situation now is pretty rotten. I know there are so many other people who have it so much worse – loss of house, life, etc………..but really think about it for a minute – what would you do if you suddenly became unemployed like this? New Orleans Public Schools has told us to file for unemployment – which I have done – which is something I never thought I would have to do. Also, FEMA, that government agency that no one really knows what they do is supposed to cover lost wages. We have flied a claim with FEMA, but who knows. Plus, I have applied for a job with St. Charles Parish, which is where we are staying at the moment, and is about 15 miles from Kenner. Something will work out – it always does, but I have to admit, I have had some moments when I have been pretty down.

Not only am I upset about my personal situation, but I am so upset about the horrific scenes that I am seeing on TV. Life is really weird down here – gas shortages, food shortages (there is food and gas, but there is no selection of food at the grocery store, not much produce, etc) military everywhere. In New Orleans, the situation is so much worse – I am so concerned about my students at school, I know I am going to hear some awful stories……the government’s slow reaction………just everything is so unbelievable to take in. I know so many of you have donated, but if you haven’t and you can – I would really encourage it. Everyone needs help right now – they are so many professionals, just like you and I, who have really lost everything, including their jobs, and need help. The effects of this disaster are just beginning – this is going to affect everyone, and the US economy for a long time. But Brad and I have decided that we are just taking everything day by day – new information comes out all the time, and this is completely out of our control. We can only react in the appropriate and responsible manner, and do our best to help out and to get back to normal ASAP.

That is all for now – I know this has been very long, but there is a lot to tell. Now that I have internet access, I will update everyone regularly. Thanks again for the thoughts, and can’t wait to hear from everyone soon!

We went to the DMB show at Sandstone last night. It was my third show of the tour and one of the bands lasts. I thought it was a good show, not quite as good as the Alpine shows I saw earlier in the summer, but almost any DMB show is a good show. My big complaint was the timing, it was a short show. They got a late start around 7:30 and were completely done by 10:45. With the encore break taken out, that’s at most a two hour set. We got screwed out of a half hour of entertainment! I think Kim actually enjoyed this show quite a bit, even though she claims to not be a fan.

The NFL season starts tonight along with those ever popular fantasy football leagues. I am participating in three different leagues, one of which had a live draft. I actually signed on to my computer that night and attempted to make a few choices but the clock kept running out on me. After a couple of rounds I put it back to the auto pick setting. Some people take this crap way too serious!

Our cruise on The Rock Boat has officially been cancelled. We were supposed to sail on the Carnival Sensation, but that ship (along with a couple others) will now be docked at Galveston to house some of the victims of the hurricane. I am happy that Carnival made the decision to help out as best as they can. In addition, I am actually fairly relieved at this point. It was becoming a pain to make new plans for a new port and probably would have cost us more money. Now we suddenly have 4 vacation days back and a whole bunch of money. Well we don’t have the money yet, but we will eventually have a full refund from the cruise.

Midwest also just announced yesterday that they will give a full refund to anyone who had booked a flight to New Orleans before October 30. This is nice because they don’t fly too many places and we aren’t really sure what we are going to do for vacationing.

Let the planning begin…

Friday was a bit of a relaxing night. We rented a couple movies from blockbuster and cooked a pre-made pizza. The movies were alright overall. The first, A Lot Like Love, is a romantic comedy that was actually fairly entertaining but very forgettable. I struggled to come up with the title of the movie just now until Kim reminded me that Ashton Kutcher was in it and then I used the IMDb to come up with the title. It’s not a bad movie but not really good either. The second movie was Friday Night Lights, a movie that I’ve wanted to see for awhile. I’ve heard comments about it being the best sports movie of all time, which I now feel is not quite correct. It was a good movie and definitely more entertaining than the first movie, but I’m still not sure why a movie (and previously a book) was made about this team. They lose to state championship in the end! I really like how the movie displayed the towns addiction to their high school football team. The team that wins the state championship game in the end is Tyler Lee High School from Texas, the same team that Colerain (Cincinnati school) will be playing this coming weekend. This game features last year’s Ohio state champ versus last year’s Texas state champ, I’m curious to see what happens…

Saturday we woke up early to participate in a tennis clinic of sorts at the gym. It actually went much better than I was expecting and our team even won the competition, despite having both Kim and I as part of the team. Afterward we were treated to a free brunch which included your choice of bloody marys or mimosas. From there we hit up the pool for an hour or two and then headed back home to unwind for a bit. We had plans to go to the Irish Fest, but we never quite made it out the door again. Instead we watched a few college football games and then called it a night.

Sunday I almost died. We ran over six miles in the middle of the afternoon. If it’s up to me, I will never run that far after noon again. It felt pretty good to actually make it that far, that is after I finally caught my breath, 30 minutes after the run was over. I only have to run this far one more time for the actual race. From there we watched The 40 Year Old Virgin with Ashley. This was actually a really funny movie. I almost hit the floor laughing on numerous occasions. I don’t know if it is as good as Wedding Crashers, but it’s definitely a close race. Afterward we went to O’Dowd’s and met up with Todd for a few rounds. It was nice to sit on the deck and as an added bonus, it wasn’t packed! From there we finished the night off at Tomfooleries with Mike.

Monday we had breakfast at the Corner Restaurant in Westport. It was really good, I highly recommend this place! After that we went out and played nine holes of golf with Mike. I think we all played really well actually. Much better than any other time we’ve played that course. From there we picked up Dominique and Bianca and took them around to do some errands with us. Once we got back to our apartment we cooked chicken kabobs on the grill and made brownies for desert. The food was great and I think everyone stuffed themselves. After dropping them back off at home, we went over to Mike’s place to watch part of a football game and to play a game of Euchre with Christie. It’s was a busy day as you can tell.

It’s been a real slow day in blogger land today, very few of the blogs I read have been updated today. Everyone must be getting an early start on the holiday weekend. I, on the other hand, have nothing planned really and am stuck at work until around five. I’m sort of glad that I’m not traveling though with gas prices the way they are. I filled up the Jetta after work yesterday and it almost cost me $40! If I would have waited until today it definitely would have cost me over $40. The price jumped from $3.05 after work to $3.19 on my way into work. I never really paid attention to prices that much before, but that has changed.

I’ve been looking at all of those new websites out there designed to save you money at the pump. The first was GasBuddy.com which will redirect you to another site with information specific to your area, for me it’s MissouriGasPrices.com. I’ve already registered and have started entering prices for stations on my route to work and also starting using their fuel logbook, which is used to track your fill-ups.

The next site I visited was GasPriceWatch.com. I attempted to register to be a “spotter” but haven’t got the confirmation email yet. Although this site doesn’t seem to be very user friendly, there is tons of data. With a little work this could easily be the best site out there for this use. The ‘My Route’ section would be reason enough, but of course it is not yet functional.

The last site I found was mywikimap.com, which is targeted at more than just gas prices, although this is their focus right now. It’s a combination of google maps and user submissions for gas prices. It is easy to see where the cheapest gas would be on your route home, now they just need to get more data on there. For me all the reports were in Overland Park and were days old.

I’m not sure if any of these sites will really ever catch on, but with the way prices are rising right now, I wouldn’t be surprised.