Today I had lunch from one of my favorite lunch time eateries, Einstein Brothers. I got my all time favorite sandwich, the Club Mex, which includes roasted turkey, smoked bacon, pepperjack cheese, ancho lime mayo and veggies. I also had a sample of new garlic and cheese pizza bagel, which was really tasty. I’ll be on the lookout for those in the future. Anyway, I am still puzzled as to why this restaurant is not open longer in the day. I would love to pickup dinner from there time to time, especially when Kim is out of town, but at the latest they close at 5pm. It similar to Chick-fil-A being closed on Sundays. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

I think I spoke too early yesterday. I woke up to around a half foot of snow on the ground this morning, and it isn’t showing any signs of slowing down! There goes all the flowers that have been blooming lately. On the plus side, we have plans to snowboard this weekend which could be our last time of the season. Fresh powder will definitely be a bonus for us. It is currently 28 degrees outside, welcome back to winter I guess. The funny thing is that weather.com is still reporting high pollen counts for our area. It also says there is a chance of thunder this afternoon. Is this the apocalypse?

With spring upon us there is one thing I cannot wait to do, play cornhole. I’ve already seen the boards out at one of friend’s parties here in Denver, but I haven’t busted out our boards yet. Before I can do that the boards need a little work: maybe some new tops, and the legs definitely need to be reattached. Anyway, I wanted to post a link to Cornhole “The Movie”, the mockumentary that is scheduled to be filmed in June 2007. For those in Cincinnati, this may be your chance to be a movie star! Thanks to Amy for the heads up on this.

We spent this past Friday night at Dave & Buster’s for dinner, drinks, and the best part, video games. We ate dinner first and decided to make it simple and eat at the restaurant inside D&B. The food was actually really good, but maybe a tad on the overpriced side. Service was good too, despite the fact that Kim later told me they were supposed to bring me a birthday treat, which they never did. If it involved singing and such, then I wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.

With our bellies sufficiently stuffed, we headed off to the game room with a stop along the way for some drinks. Is there anything better than playing games with a drink in hand? I think I won just about every game we played. It must have been all of the training from my brother when we were growing up. Air hockey was a little closer, but I still managed to win the majority of the games! It was my birthday after all (well close enough). The final game of the night proved to be the most interesting, Derby Owners Club. The premise is simple, you train a horse to win races, but it was surprisingly addictive and equally as expensive. I really enjoyed training “Mr Ed” to not finish in last place.

We celebrated my birthday this past weekend with days full of college hockey action. Denver hosted the west regional for the NCAA tournament at the Pepsi Center. The first game of the weekend started early Saturday afternoon and featured the Golden Gophers of Minnesota and the Falcons of the Air Force Academy. This was the first tournament for Air Force and they were a huge underdog as they took on the number one seed in the region. What Air Force may have lacked in experience and size, they made up for with smart play and high endurance. With most of the crowd behind them, Air Force had the lead for most of the game. That was until the last four minutes or so, when Minnesota scored three unanswered goals to win the game 4-3.

The second game of the afternoon featured the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota and the Wolverines from Michigan. This games was much different than the first. In the first period of the first game, only one goal was scored. In this game there were seven goals in the first, including two from Michigan within the first minute of play. The second period featured five additional goals. Things started to slow down a bit, but Michigan still managed to score another two goals within the first minute of the second period. Going into the third period, North Dakota had the lead 7-5. During the break the screen showed that the record for regulation goals in a regional game was 13. Obviously everyone thought that this record was going to be broken, but the third period was much different from the rest of the game. Only one goal was scored in the third period, and North Dakota came away with the 8-5 win.

Sunday’s game was between the winners of the previous day’s games. Minnesota and North Dakota are no strangers to each other. They play in the same conference in the regular season, the WCHA. The teams played twice during the season and North Dakota won both. They also played a game in the conference tournament with Minnesota winning that one in overtime. Everyone was expecting a great game of hockey, and that’s what we got with another game ending in overtime. Things were tied 2-2 at the end of regulation, but North Dakota eventually came out on top once again nearly halfway through the 20 minute overtime period. With this win North Dakota moves on to the Frozen Four and will face Boston College.

One record was set during the weekend. The three game combined attendance of 33,549 set an NCAA regional attendance record. I was glad to be a part of it all.

Last night I cooked up what could be my favorite pasta sauce yet. I found this recipe and pretty much followed it exactly. The sauce might have got a little dry before adding the cream and vodka. I had to run out to the liquor store since someone drank all of the vodka! This was also my first time using heavy whipping cream, and I must say that I’m a big fan. The sauce doesn’t have a strong tomato taste, but it’s there. It’s not very spicy, but there is a kick to it. I loved it and will definitely be making it again in the future. Next time I think I’ll add some garlic as some of the reviews say. Maybe even get crazy and try to get some chicken in somehow.

Is anyone on Twitter? I’m not sure that I completely understand the concept of this website, but according to them, “Twitter is a community of friends and strangers from around the world sending updates about moments in their lives.” It’s like a mini blog, or maybe an instant message to the world. It has many similarities to MySpace, but instead of conversations with one friend, you can have conversations with all of your friends. I think the site could be pretty useful, but it will take some time. If you want to check it out, here is my profile. Be sure to “follow” me.

If that doesn’t interest you, maybe this will. There is another Woot-Off going on right now. If you need a reminder of what this is, here is what I wrote the last time. I haven’t bought anything yet, but I will definitely be watching closely.

I’ve found a sandwich place in Denver that I really enjoy. The Spicy Pickle first opened in Denver in 1999 but has been expanding not only in Denver but across the country. I see that they are opening a location in my old stomping grounds near the University of Cincinnati. Their menu combinations are endless and they have so much to offer. I’ve eaten there twice and I still feel like there are a ton of things for even a picky eater like myself to try.

So far I’ve had the Sausalito Bandido panini and the Santa Cruz sub. Both sandwiches were excellent, I would highly recommend either of them. And the pickles that come with each sandwich are incredible. They are definitely a little spicy, but I feel that it is just the right amount of flavor. The next time I stop in for lunch, I’m thinking of trying one of the Pizzettis, probably the Sonoma or the Aztec.

With our early spring comes what experts are calling a pollen superburst, meaning that trees, flowers, weeds, etc are all going to pollinate at the same time. Typically there is a sequence with trees pollinating first, then flowers, and finally weeds. I can tell you that I am already starting to feel the effects of this allergy season, even though I’ve been taking Claritin pretty much year round. Today I am fairly congested and have the occasional sneeze. I know that my allergies are throughout the spectrum: lots of tree pollen, and a handful of weeds. The superburst could definitely spell trouble for me. Fortunately working from home allows me to stay inside all day if I want.

I bought tickets for what I thought was a Rose Hill Drive concert a month ago or so, but what we attended last night was far from a normal show of theirs. I realized before going that it wasn’t going to be a normal show, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what it was. We arrived at the Boulder Theater about twenty minutes after the doors opened, grabbed our tickets and headed inside. The show was general admission but fully seated, so we found a couple of seats in the third row and patiently waited for etown to begin.

Accord to their website, “etown is an exciting weekly radio broadcast heard from coast to coast on NPR, public and commercial stations. Every etown show is taped in front of a live audience and features performances from many of today’s top musical artists as well as conversation and information about the world around us.” The show is not aired live, it is edited and then aired about a month afterward. I will have to find out when this episode will air.

Along with Rose Hill Drive, this show also featured Ruthie Foster, which I felt was a very interesting combination. Rose Hill Drive is a power trio of young musicians who play primarily rock music. I was not familiar with Ruthie before this show, and even though I later thought that she was really good, the combination of folk (her) and rock (Rose Hill Drive) was a little strange. The transition was made a little easier as Rose Hill Drive opened up the show by playing a couple of acoustic songs. I’ve never seen them play acoustic before and I really enjoyed it, especially the stripped down version of their song “Cool Cody.”

I think in total we saw Rose Hill Drive play about six or seven songs, which was a lot less than I was hoping for. I could have done without all of the interviews that host Nick Forster conducted, but I guess that is an essential part to the radio show. I don’t know if I will go back to see one of these performances taped live, but maybe the finished product is worth listening to on a weekly basis on the radio. I’m not sure since I’ve never heard an episode before. It wasn’t completely bad, just very different from a normal show.