Yet another loss for my adult league hockey team last night.  We are now in dead last place with just one point in four games.  After a slow start, we were able to tie the game at five goals in the third period.  We tied it up despite having numerous penalties called against our team, most of which seemed pretty debatable.  We even had three guys in the penalty box at the same time.  However, further penalties allowed our opponents to take the lead late in the third period.  The final score was seven to five.  Only one of our loses has been by more than two goals, so hopefully we can turn things around and start winning a game or two.

This past weekend was another good one for southern Ohio football, though I didn’t get to watch any of it.  I guess the Bearcats were involved in an exciting shootout with UConn.  UC was able to pull out the narrow victory, 47-45.  Let’s hope the defense steps it up for the last three games.  It all starts tomorrow night at 8pm eastern on ESPN2 as the Cats take on West Virginia.  The Bengals capped it off on Sunday with a big win over Baltimore, for the second time this season.  Who Dey!

I wish the same could be said of my fantasy football teams.  Only one win, and a couple of losses this week.  The win comes in the non-money league.  I’ll blame the poor performance on not being able to update my lineup while in Mexico.  One point of good news is that I am still alive in the survivor league, along with only one other person.  Big decision to make: who should I pick this week.  I’ve already picked San Francisco, New Orléans, Minnesota, Atlanta, Green Bay, San Diego, Philadelphia, New England, and Baltimore so all of those teams cannot be picked again.  I’m leaning towards Miami over Tampa Bay.

Last night I joined a few friends for a concert at the Bluebird Theater. They had already bought tickets, but won a couple of extras so invited me to come along. I didn’t know anything about the bands playing other than listening to a couple of tracks from the headliner earlier in the day. Overall it turned out to be a good time along with a loud and rocking show.

We walked in just as the second opening band of the night took the stage, The Features. This four piece band from outside of Nashville consisted of singer/guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, and drummer. They started out with some loud rock right from the start. We immediately noticed a similar sound as The Killers. They had some pretty strong vocal melodies, along with strong hooks. I was fairly impressed by the band. One thing I didn’t care for were the few times the members of the band would spit across the stage. I can’t say I’ve seen that move in years.

The headliner of the night was The Whigs. Again, the set from the traditional three-piece band from Athens, Georgia started off rocking. I was immediately impressed with the guitar playing and vocals of the front-man. And the drummer was no slouch either, though it took me awhile to figure out why the left-handed musician looked funny to me. The only disappointment for me was that the crowd seemed to thin as the night wore on, thus losing some of the energy that The Features had created. I feel sorry for them though as they missed the best song of the night, which was played last, “Right Hand on My Heart.”

Our celebration weekend for Kim’s birthday started off early with a 5am alarm. We got to the airport and met up with our friends Phil and Doni, who had flown from Kansas City and were on the same flight we were down to Cabo San Lucas. Nothing of note happened on the flight, and we quickly made our way through customs and found our prearranged shuttle driver. We waited for another couple to show up, which they never did, and soon enough we were on our way to the resort, Riu Palace.

We were handed a drink before we could even check-in and I knew this was going to be a great stay. We were able to check into our rooms early, and after dropping off our bags we all met up at the pool. The resort had two large pools, with a swim-up bar close to each. Shortly after our arrival we found our friends Chris and Kelly who came down to Cabo a few days earlier for a longer celebration of their wedding anniversary.

The next few days we spent lounging by the pool, eating lots of food, enjoying all sorts of various drinks, and having a great time. I think this is pretty much what everyone does at these all-inclusive resorts. We never left until our last full day there, when we took a walk along the beach to see some of the oceanfront bars as well as some of the downtown establishments, including Cabo Wabo and Slim’s Elbow Room.

Compared with the resort we stayed at in Playa del Carmen a couple years ago, I think the food was better this time, as were the pools.  I thought the other resort had better rooms, though these at the Riu are still pretty nice.  We didn’t really spend much time outside of the resorts, but from the little that we did I would have to give the advantage to Cabo over Playa del Carmen.  It was a great trip and I’m sure that the others with us would all agree.  Thanks for helping us to celebrate Kim’s big day.  Some pictures of the trip are below, and be sure to read Phil’s recap of the weekend.

We are back from vacation, but my blog is not.  Kim is officially in her 30’s, so let the countdown begin until my big day.  I’m hoping to get some pictures up by tomorrow.  For now, back to work.

Over the weekend, I also organized a surprise birthday party for Kim, who will be turning 30 on Friday.  My mom helped me to come up with an idea where we would take Kim’s youngest brother out trick-or-treating, while family and friends gathered at her parents house for a party.  We had a great time trick-or-treating with Nick, and had a wonderful surprise party for Kim afterward.  It was such a great party that a group of us managed to see two o’clock twice that night.  Kim’s parents also helped put the party together, so I owe a lot of the credit to them.  Some photos from my mother are below.

In celebration of the big birthday, we are heading down to Cabo San Lucas tomorrow morning.  Joining us with be our friends Phil, Doni, Chris, and Kelly.  You may recall that we headed down to Mexico to celebrate Doni’s 40th a couple of years ago, so they are heading down with us to help celebrate Kim’s 30th.  We are staying at the all-inclusive Riu Palace through Sunday.  Again, I’m not sure if we’ll spend much time outside of the resort, but I picked up a few guide books to read on the flight down tomorrow morning.  So long until Monday!

Another good week in football.  The University of Cincinnati notched yet another win against Syracuse on Saturday and have moved back up to #5 in the BCS standings.  I still think they can climb even higher if they win out, which will give them big wins against #13 Pittsburgh and formerly ranked West Virginia, who just lost to South Florida.  It is surely going to be an exciting time and I hope they make it to another BCS bowl.  They played in the Orange Bowl last year, and I’m hoping for something different (and easier to get to) for this year.

Fantasy football also treated me fairly well this week.  I won in two of three of my leagues.  That puts me in 7th of 12, 4th of 8, and 7th of 10.  Still somewhat middle of the road.  I’m hoping to get some good streaks going as we start heading into the second half of the season.  I continue to do well in my pick’em leagues, as well as the salary cap game.  And one of the five teams that was left in the survivor league chose wrong this week, leaving just four teams left.

One last thing, I had another hockey game last night and our team finally scored a point.  We finally started playing as a team, though we still have lots more to do.  Our passes definitely looked better than in past games.  We ended the game tied 3-3 and went into the best of three overtime shootout.  Unfortunately, none of our shooters could get a goal a our opponents got one to end the game.  It looks like we play the last place team next week, so hopefully we can get a win.

Once again we were back in Cincinnati this past weekend.  This time we were not there for a wedding, and were able to do things on our own time.  This helped to make one of the best weekends we’ve had with our families in a while.  We started off with the Run Like Hell, which is a costumed 5K run including part of a cemetery along its course.  Kim’s family help to put together a team for her cousin who has Cystic Fibrosis, “Running for Patrick.”  They ended up with 40 or 50 people participating in the race all with shirts on for our team.  Patrick was able to come down to watch the race and hang out with his family and friends during the before and after events.

As far as the race goes, it is a very hard course filled with hills, most of which are up-hills.  Kim and I started near the front of the pack with my dad, her brother Chris, and cousin Betsy.  We started off on a really fast pace, and by the time we had reached the graveyard we were already split into smaller groups.  Kim really was moving on the course, as she wanted to beat her younger brothers, and somehow my dad was able to keep up.  I couldn’t keep that pace and decided to run with Chris.  Betsy was just behind us and that was pretty much how we finished.  According to our timing chips, Kim and my dad finished at 26:15, while Chris and I finished at 26:54.  Kim managed to just squeak into the top 50 women runners and was rewarded with a very nice commemorative shirt.  It was a good run and a great thing to be a part of.

Below is a side-show of my mom’s pictures from the event.