Thursday we left work early and headed to St. Louis for another show. This show was at one of the coolest venues I have ever been in, the Fox Theatre. It seats just over 4000 people between the main floor and a huge balcony. The truly amazing part is the architecture on the inside of the building. It is very detailed and well maintained, unlike many other older theatres that I’ve been in. The show did not disappoint either, it was probably the best one out of the three so far. We met up with my friends Josh and Dani, who live in St. Louis, and they were gracious enough to give us a place to crash.

Before heading to bed, we did go out after the show for a couple drinks. The bar was called Pin-Up Bowl and is a martini bar and bowling alley in one. A pretty interesting but really cool idea. Hopefully we can go back again sometime, I heard it’s on of Josh’s favorite bars!

We woke up pretty early on Friday so we could get to Cincy at a decent time. After dropping a few things off to Kim’s family, we headed down to the hotel to get checked in. We had a number of rooms at the hotel, and a pretty large group of people. Of course the partying began almost immediately. The show that night was good, although I was expecting the crowd to be larger than it was. The setlist was the best I have seen in awhile, maybe because some of us help write it. :) It was pretty cool to be watching O.A.R. play in a big arena, even if only half of it was being used.

After that show, we headed to the viper room for the after show with Ordinary Peoples. I hadn’t seen OP in a long time, so it was nice to get the chance to catch their show. We didn’t make it through the whole show, but from what we were there for, it was a blast!

Saturday we woke up and got ready for the wedding. My buddy from college, Nick, was getting married to his long time girlfriend, Jessica. We drove out to the church in Middletown, and somewhere along the way lost a bunch of time. We walked in 20 minutes late and somehow the mass was almost over. It must have been the fastest catholic wedding ever, 40 minutes and everything was done. From there we headed to the reception. It was nice to see so many people that I haven’t seen in a long time, some of whom I had forgotten about and vice versa.

We went to Rock Bottom later on in the night and met up with some of the O.A.R. fans, my parents, and some others. Good times, good beers! From there we headed up to Mt. Adams and into Longworths. It was a good night out, but it didn’t help us stick to our plan of leaving on Sunday at 9.

We actually left Cincinnati on Sunday sometime after 1. The drive was miserable, but the weekend was well worth it!

We went to another O.A.R. show last night, this time in KC at Memorial Hall. I’ve never been to this venue before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s an older building in Kansas City, Kansas, that is actually named ‘Soldiers And Sailors Memorial.’ It was built in the 20s I believe, and I don’t think any work has been done to it since then. Actually it isn’t that bad, it just has that older building stench to it. The sound was alright though, which was a little surprising, since I’ve been in similar places that had horrendous sound. Overall the show was good, and I got to scratch another song off of my list of songs not heard live.

I’d write more, but I’m only working a half day today! We are off on a road trip, which will lead us to two more O.A.R. shows and a wedding for an old friend of mine. It should be quite the weekend. The next update will be on Monday, after we return to KC.

Our entire volleyball team was finally complete last night. For the previous three weeks, at least one core team member has missed the match. With everyone there, we had our best matches yet, against one of the best teams we have played. What’s scary is that somehow the other team is in last place, they must have a tough early schedule. We won the first and last games, and probably should have won the middle game, but all their stupid rules kept getting in the way.

There is the rule that if the ball is hit more than once on your side, then one of those hits must come from a girl. The sad part is that the girls are the best part of our team. They should make a special rule that at least one guy must touch the ball. Occasionally Pavia will hit the ball to me, in the net, and I have no choice but to hit it over. These plays are illegal according to the above rule, but when you see the play, it’s clear that it should be legal. We stink. :)

So our team is now 6-6 and sitting in 6th place. In the next two weeks we are playing both of the teams that are tied for 4th place with 7-5 records. Hopefully we can knock one, if not both, out of those positions! Check out the full schedule and results here, once again our team is Dig This.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I put my pictures from the O.A.R. show up on the site. There are a bunch of good ones, so check them out!

Here goes another exciting sports update. Kim told me that these are boring to read, but honestly I don’t have much else to write about currently. Monday nights are usually either dedicated to a late night hockey game, or just sitting around the apartment watching TV and recovering from the weekend. Last night was one of those hockey nights.

Our team is not playing very well right now. Yeah, we had a pretty bad goalie, who let in some soft goals, but we didn’t score nearly enough. I was on defense again last night, but managed to get one of the three goals that we scored. So far we have only beat one team in the league, and we’ve beat them a couple of times. Hopefully we play them again soon.

My fantasy teams are looking better though. I won two of the three, and the one that I lost was only by five points. I did play a couple of the wrong players in that loss though, so I guess doing my own picks isn’t any better than using those fantasy advice sites. Maybe this week I’ll use a combination of both. As of now, my record stands at 18-9, still winning 2/3 of the time.

Friday night we went out to dinner for Kim’s birthday, just a couple of days early. We headed over to our favorite Italian restaurant on the plaza, if not in all of KC, Figlio. The dinner was great, the wine was good, everything went well except for one little incident involving Kim, a bottle of olive oil, a smashed wine glass, and my own dirty clothes. You may have to user your imagination a little bit, but you should get the idea. From there we went reVerse for a couple of drinks to finish off the night.

Saturday we headed up to Ames, Iowa to see O.A.R. I bought tickets the day they went on sale, and lucked into a couple of front row center tickets. Our friends Steve Christy, Courtney, Stacy, and Tarah all made the trip as well. The show was definitely a good one, and the venue is awesome! I should have some really nice pictures from our seats, that I’ll try to get online soon. I saw O.A.R. play at this venue back in 2003 during the spring break trip, and once I saw the date I knew that I had to go again. We hit up a couple of the college bars before and after the show. It was well worth the 4 hour drive.

Sunday, after a stop at Famous Dave’s for lunch, we got back into town just in time for my hockey game. We lost yet another game, but I think I played one of my better games of the season. We have another game tonight, and one our forwards might miss it, so maybe I’ll get to play forward again. This was not a terribly exiting birthday for Kim, that’s why we went out on Friday. For a few months she will once again be older than me. :)

Kim returned to KC yesterday afternoon from her work trip to Charlotte. At some point she must have decided that the rabbit’s ‘allergies’ were a bit too much and she called a vet. As a little background, the rabbit has been sneezing for a few months and lately has developed sores around his nose that we were attributing to his scratching. Anyway, the vet told her that rabbits don’t have allergies and that he probably has an infection that he cannot fight off himself. She decided to take the $70 plunge and take him into the office for an evaluation.

I’m told that the $70 wasn’t just for a visit, but also to cover the medications. Amstel got a shot of antibiotics into his system and some drops that we have to apply to his nose a few times a day. I don’t think they even had to numb him before getting the shot, the giant dogs in the office likely sent him directly into shock. The most surprising thing is that the doctor diagnosed him as having syphilis. Yeah, you read that correctly.

At first I wasn’t sure how that could be possible, since he has been a solitary rabbit since he was tiny. But after doing some research, he does have many of the symptoms of the disease:

• Lesions around the nose and/or mouth: check
• Sneezing: check
• Lesions around the genitalia and/or anus: Uhhh… I haven’t checked

Finally one article I read said that the disease can be maternally transmitted, so I guess that’s the only explanation. Hopefully he will be all cleared up in a week or two.

Last night I went to see Matt Nathanson along with Matt Wertz in Lawrence. Earlier in the day I was a little reluctant to go, but I was convinced by several people to go. I hitched a ride over with Courtney and along the way we picked up a friend of hers. We met up with Beth and a new friend Emily, who was generous enough to give me a free ticket to the show.

There actually was another act opening the show, but we arrived too late and missed her. We saw about half of Wertz’s set, which I thought was pretty good. I’ve heard some of his music before, just never seen him live. Nathanson put on a good set, mostly with a full band, and rocked the place. The turnout was much better than the last time he played the Bottleneck, so that was a nice bonus. Overall I am very happy that I went to the show. I could have used a little more than four hours of sleep though.

The setlist for those that care:

Wings
Then I’ll Be Smiling
Sad Songs
Lucky Boy >
(I Want You To Want Me – Cheap Trick)
Princess
Bent >
(Such Great Heights – The Postal Service)
(Improv Funk Song)
Lost Myself In Search Of You
Stay
Angel >
(Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes – Paul Simon) >
I Saw >
(Trip Through Your Wires – U2)
Fall To Pieces
Church Clothes
(I Want It That Way – Backstreet Boys)
(Since U Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson)
Little Victories
Lose Yourself – Eminem
Detroit Waves
Laid
Answering Machine
Encore:
(Anyway You Want It – Journey)
(Dust In The Wind – Kansas)
Suspended

From a bad (fantasy) sports update to a much better sports update. Late last night we had yet another volleyball match. If you remember from the previous two weeks, in each of those matches we lost two of the three games played. Last night we seemed to finally figure it out though and we won two out of three games. We started out a little rough, losing the first game, with yet another addition to the roster playing for us. But from that point on we dominated the match!

I was going to write this update much earlier this morning, but I was waiting for the league to put up last nights results along with the standings. ‘Dig This’ is now in sixth place, up one spot from last week. Our overall record is now 4-5 and our next match is against the last place team in the league. Look out!

Typically Tuesdays are when I rejoice and realized that I’m not as bad at fantasy football as I once thought. Today is not a typical Tuesday though. I sucked this week, although I guess I only lost by a few points each time. I lost two of the three games but I probably could have won both of those if I had played the right people. Maybe I shouldn’t listen to those ‘expert’ sites that tell you who to play and who not to play. This week I’m going to make all of my own picks, or at least try to. My overall record is now 16-8, meaning I am down to only winning 2/3 of the games played.

Last night I worked on a new e-commerce type site for a guy at Hot Records. My buddy Mike has been working at their office for a few days now, and this guy Victor asked him if he knew anyone who did websites. Thankfully my name was mentioned, and we are now trying to figure how to get it all running. I’ve never done anything that required credit card submissions before, so this is a big learning experience. We are still hoping to set it up without using a site like paypal, but in the end we might have to. Anyway, last night I put together an idea I thought of earlier in the day. It seems to be working good so far, but it still needs some work. Feel free to check it out and provide any feedback.