The day is here! Kim and I are heading to Hawaii later tonight. Our flight leaves here around 10pm, putting us in Honolulu around 5:30 tomorrow morning. This includes nearly a four hour layover in Vegas, where I hope to make a quick buck. We’ll be staying at the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio until Wednesday morning. Though the trip is still business related for Kim, we should have plenty of time to spend exploring the island. Fortunately we have a copy of Oahu Revealed: The Ultimate Guide to Honolulu, Waikiki & Beyond on loan from some family friends. The book has proven very useful for both them and my parents, and I’m glad to have their advice as well. I’m sure I will come back with a ton of pictures and lots of good stories. Have a nice week and go Bengals!

Last night Kim and I attended The Killers concert at Red Rocks once again. The concert started very much like the last one, but this time they decided to keep playing after their second song of the night. They played all of the big hits, which are pretty much the only songs that I really know. The band and mix sounded great, and the show was very entertaining complete with a great light show. Front-man, Brandon Flowers, is a very entertaining performer, much in the same way that Scott from Red Wanting Blue used to be.

We were treated to seats inside the roped off FOH section once again last night. Many thanks to my friend Mike for hooking that up once again. Watching a show at Red Rocks is incredible, but watching a show at Red Rocks from within the first twenty rows is even better. This show may have been our last at Red Rocks for the season, but hitting up six shows this summer was nice. Hopefully we can hit even more next year.

I am now the proud owner of a new digital camera! Feeling often limited by the point and shoot Nikon Coolpix 3200, I opted to buy a digital SLR, more specifically the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I’ve added a couple of new photo albums to the site from my first couple days of using the camera. The first contains photos from the Coors Brewery tour that we checked out on Saturday with our weekend visitors Phil and Doni. And the second contains photos from our day of hanging around our house on Sunday.

So far I am very happy with the results of the camera. Many of the brewery photos were messed up because of the glass that stood between the guts of the brewery and myself, but that’s almost impossible to avoid. The pictures from outside have been amazing so far. I cannot wait to test the camera out in a more scenic location. Fortunately our trip to Hawaii is right around the corner!

For more on the weekend, check out Phil’s blog entry which details the events of the extended holiday weekend.

And just like that, the week is over and I’ll be on my way back to Denver shortly. Our friends Phil and Doni are also on their way to Denver for the extended holiday weekend. It should be a fun one. I hope everyone else has a nice weekend as well.

I played a quick round of nine holes with one of my coworkes last night at Teetering Rocks Executive Links. This is a par three course that has super cheap evening specials. In fact, the cart cost more than nine holes. However, I guess you get what you pay for as this could possibly be the worst place I have ever played. The course had a nice layout, but most of the grass was in terrible condition. I’ll admit that I haven’t played anywhere else in KC this year, so maybe it has something to do with the weather this summer. The greens were in pretty good shape, although the grass was fairly long, but everything else was brown and spotty. Although we didn’t keep score, I played pretty well and consistent. That could be a first for the summer.

Last night I caught another Dave Matthews Band show. This time I traveled out to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (aka Sandstone) with Phil and Doni. I bought a single ticket just a week ago after realizing that the show was during the week that I would be in KC for work. Fortunately, the show wasn’t sold out, and I actually scored a ticket in the lower pavilion, less than 20 rows from the stage. I didn’t actually use the seat, since I met up with another friend, Mike, who had an extra spot in his group.

The show itself was good. Not the best I’ve seen of the tour, but still better than other tours I’ve seen. The extreme heat might have taken a little energy out of the show, from both the band and crowd. It was good to hear Grey Street, Hunger for the Great Light, and my favorite Dancing Nancies -> Warehouse. Phil also got to hear Gravedigger, which was a the top of his list for the show. Overall, I’d give it a solid seven. Maybe with some cooler weather, and a few beers, it could have been an eight. Still well worth the drive out to Bonner Springs.

Full Setlist

Over the weekend, Kim and I participated in a pub crawl along Colfax Avenue, aka Crawling Colfax For a Cause. Some friends of ours put this event together as a benefit for Spinal Cord Injury Patients, and with the help of everyone participating, raised $1300! So we had a great time and helped out a great cause.

The list of bars we hit included the PS Lounge, Goosetown, Atomic Cowboy, Sengers On The Fax, and Rock Bar. It was a great outing as all of the bars were just a few blocks away, and some were even across the street from each other. I think I enjoyed the Atomic Cowboy the most. This bar included a stack of board games as you walked inside that you could pickup and play all around the bar. I really enjoyed watching people throw back a few beers while playing Connect Four or Guess Who.

Hello from Kansas City. I’m back in the office for the week working from a lovely cubicle. Obviously the work setting doesn’t compare to my luxurious home office, but there are a few nice things about these work trips. First, I really enjoy going out to eat for nearly every meal and not having to pay for it at all. It’s also nice to see all of my friends in KC and hit up some of the old stomping grounds like the Brooksider or 75th Street Brewery. However, the weather here just doesn’t compare to Denver. I stepped off the plane and even though I was still inside a jetway, I began sweating immediately. I’ll be here for the week, so if there is something exciting going on, give me a shout.

I’ve been streaming so much music lately that I finally decided to go public with a streaming player I created for oarsa.org. Essentially we had all of these songs available for download but no good way to play them all at once (unless you already downloaded them all). Enter the XSPF Web Music Player, which is a simple flash based player that takes an xspf playlist. Once I wrote the code to automatically generate and update the playlist, displaying the flash player was a piece of cake. I’m not sure how much bandwidth this is going to eat up, so check it out now or you may never be able to. Just follow the oarsa.org link above and click the link on the left menu.

I participated in a live fantasy football draft last night. I am now in three different leagues, two of which are playing for money. I can smell the victories already. One of these leagues is still open to new teams, so let me know if you want to join a league. This one has a $10 entry fee with the top two teams taking the money home at the end of the season. Right now I have Chad Johnson on both of my teams that have already been drafted. Will he make it on a third?