The move has been pretty stressful on us so far, even though Kim’s company is taking care of many of the details. This weekend we needed to get our minds off of it for a little while, so we took a little road trip. I’ve often found that nothing clears my mind like a little time out on the road.

We woke up fairly early on Saturday and decided to make the drive down to Branson, Missouri, the “family-friendly Las Vegas.” It has this nickname because of the many shows that take place on the strip along with the flashy lights and slow moving traffic. What they don’t tell you is that it’s a retiree’s paradise. They bring the elderly folks in by the tourist bus load. I’ve never seen such a slow moving city in my life!

We got into Branson just before dinner time and quickly decided to head down to a local Italian restaurant called Rocky’s. We attempted to drive down the strip to get all the way to the historic Branson downtown, but quickly detoured around the traffic on one of the outer routes. Luckily our dinner tasted excellent and arrived very fast. From there we decided to head back to our hotel and relax for the evening. The traffic we experienced earlier was enough to make us hide in our room all night long.

Tomorrow I’ll give you day two our adventure…

Branson on Dwellable

Is anyone watching the Amazing Race this season? I’ve been trying to keep up with it and last night I watched the most recent episode. I’m sad to say that Kentucky, one of my favorite teams from a previous post, was eliminated from the race. I knew they weren’t going to win, but they were fun to watch in the meantime. There are only five teams left and one of them is a team that I said to look out for in that earlier post, Tyler and James. I really think that they have a legitimate chance of winning. They just need to watch out for those beauty queens.

While we were in Denver last weekend, we attended the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Expo and bought our Colorado Passes. They were pretty pricey, in my opinion, but this allows us unlimited access to Keystone, Breckenridge, and Arapahoe Basin all season long. It also gives us 10 days to use at Vail and Beaver Creek. From what I’ve heard, this is the pass to have!

Now all I need is some snowboarding equipment. I’ve always rented in the past, so I need the full package: board, bindings, and boots. Is anyone looking to get rid of some? Or do you know where to look for good deals? I’m already keeping my eyes on Craigslist and a little on eBay. I’d like to see what I’m buying in person though, if at all possible.

A recent combination of two of my favorite things, music and the internet, recently went into “public preview” mode. Haystack.com is a social networking site for music lovers. There are only 600 or so artists on the site currently, but I’m sure that number will be climbing high very quickly. In the end, the hope is that users can easily find new music that appeals to my tastes very quickly, while the artists can share the advertising revenue generated by their content.

This sounds like a great idea in theory, I’m excited to see how it all works out. Check it out for yourself, here is my personal page.

We celebrated Kim’s birthday up the road from our house at a place called Boozefish. We have often heard about this wine bar and have walked passed it many times, so it was nice to finally drink and eat there. Luckily we arrived shortly before happy hour ended at 6:30 and were able to take advantage of the selected half price bottles.

Another thing that was really nice is that we had the whole place to ourselves. I’ve seen this place packed on the weekends before, but last night not a single person was inside except for a couple of excellent servers and cooks.

Kim chose the Shoofly 2005 Aussie Salute and the Mediterranean hummus platter, while I chose the quesadillas. I would highly recommend their quesadillas with chicken added into them. The hummus platter was also very good. As for the wine, it was well worth the $15 that it cost us. I hope to return to Boozefish sometime in the near future.

We spent the weekend house hunting in Denver. My parents joined us for the marathon search and for good times in the mile high city. The majority of Saturday morning and afternoon was spent touring 15+ different properties in various neighborhoods near downtown. Ideally this is where we would like to end up, someplace near the Highlands or Uptown area are at the top of the list.

It still amazes me how much more places are selling for compared to Kansas City. Our house would easily sell for over $200,000 in a similar location in Denver. Monthly rental fees don’t seem to be too bad, but I don’t think it would be possible for us to rent again after owning a house of our own. As of right now there are a couple of town homes that interest us more than anything. We may have to raise our price limit a little to see what else that brings us. Keep your fingers crossed…

PS Happy 27th Birthday to Kim today!

We dined at Planet Sub for lunch today. Since moving to Kansas City, this has become my favorite sandwich place of all time! I absolutely love the Green Turkey sandwich: Turkey, Bacon, Cream Cheese, Guacamole, Onions, Sprouts, Tomatoes, Salsa. Yum! There are tons of other great sandwiches though. Luckily for me there is a location in Englewood, Colorado (near Denver) so I’ll be able to continue to enjoy Planet Sub after the move.

I met up with a group of friends at Davey’s Uptown last night for the Steve Poltz show. A guy by the name of Billy Harvey opened the show and was very similar in style and sound to Poltz. I heard that he is (was?) the guitarist for Bob Schneider. I would try to confirm that, but both of their websites are extremely difficult to navigate. Sure they may look good and are fun to play with, but it shouldn’t be hard to find the info that many people will want.

Anyway, the show was great, as usual. Billy Harvey put on a short but sweet set and later shared the stage with Poltz on a few songs. I’ve seen Steve Poltz a few times before and I’ve always left the shows in a great mood. He is one of the most entertaining performers I have seen and that was definitely true last night. At one point he sang an impromptu song about one of the individuals in the small crowd, KCTV5’s Sophia Wharton, after finding out that she was a local news anchor. The rest of the night was full of requests from everyone in the room, almost all of which were played. It’s nice to see a small and intimate show from time to time, and luckily for me Steve Poltz shines in this environment.

If you didn’t already know, we are moving to Denver sometime in early 2007. Our house is now officially for sale, we have a sign in the yard and everything. Feel free to spread the news if you now of anyone who is looking for a home in the West Plaza area of Kansas City. You can see photos and more details on both ShawGroupHomes.com and the Reece & Nichols website.

In case you are wondering why we are moving, Kim was promoted/transferred to the Denver office of her same company. Obviously it will be a little hard to leave some of the things we have in Kansas City, but we are both looking forward to living in Denver. One things for sure, we’ll be able to snowboard way more than before! If things work out for me, I may be able to continue working for the same company that I currently work for. If not, it’ll be back to the drawing boards for this guy…

Happy Halloween! I want to pass candy out tonight to all of the little kids, but I’m not sure what the trick-or-treating hours are. Actually I’m not even sure if there will be any kids around our neighborhood. This is the first year that I will actually be living in a house that isn’t my parents. Previously I always lived in an apartment, besides that year I spent living near the University of Cincinnati campus. Trick-or-treating there involved kids asking for beer.

I asked Dominique and Bianca what time trick-or-treating was and they just told me that they went when it was dark out. Thanks to the recent time shift it was dark outside around six last night when I left work. Maybe they are right. Does it start at six? I guess I will find out tonight…