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.

I’ve been following an upcoming ballot issue in Cincinnati that would require a full election for any passenger rail transportation projects or improvements. Though this may seem like a good idea, the language of the amendment would require a vote for ANY decisions, regardless of where the funding comes from. I agree that a vote would be needed for any projects that would require an increase in taxes, but that is not what this amendment is about at all.

The proponents of Issue 9 seem to be swaying voters to their side by saying that the amendment will help to stop a proposed streetcar line connecting downtown and the University area of Clifton. If the amendment passes a vote would then be required for the streetcar, which will not require a tax increase, as well as any other rail transit opportunities such as the 3C rail system linking Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati. With so much government funding available at this time, it seems crazy that Cincinnati could miss out on so much by not allowing the elected council members to do their jobs. Each time a costly vote is required, the city could be passed over for federal funding and be left stuck in the past.

After living in Denver for nearly three years I am a strong believer in rail transportation. Denver has a very nice light rail network that links downtown to various suburbs and is still growing. The west corridor is currently under construction and there are plans for the system to extend to the airport by 2015. I use the light rail often for commuting to and from work, as well as for heading into the heart of downtown for entertainment. After relying on this system for so long, I would find it very hard to move back to a city that doesn’t have such a system.

I firmly believe that all of those who are voting in Cincinnati next week need to vote no on Issue 9. For additional reading I suggest starting at the Cincinnatians for Progress website, as well as CincyStreetcar Blog, and CincyStreetcar.com.

We are in the middle of the largest October snow storm in Denver since 1997. I measured 16 inches in the backyard this afternoon and when it’s all over we could add another 3 to 6 inches to it. It started snowing late Tuesday night and hasn’t really stopped since then. Last night, while out shoveling a path for Kim to walk on when she got home, I built a snowman. Some pictures of the snow are below.

Shoveling last night and my snowman.

The backyard this morning. My snowman collected lots of snow overnight.

Snow up to the garage window!

The Equinox is buried even after Kim’s later arrival last night.

Faceless snowman after more snow today.

The grills and trash cans are buried in snow.

18 inch mark is in red. Coming up on 2 feet!

Crazy snow drift on the shed.

All of this snow reminds me that I need to invest in a sled. We are about a mile and a half from one of the best sledding hills in town. I really considered going last night, but I feared the Jetta wouldn’t make it in the snow. I love seeing all of this early season snow as it can only mean good things for the ski slopes up in the mountains.

Last night, despite the threat of an incoming storm, I headed out to the Bluebird Theater to catch a show.  It was my first solo show in many years, though I’m no stranger to going alone to shows in the past.  I really wanted to see the opening band, The Alternate Routes, who I hadn’t seen in years.  I found out that it was only going to be the front-man of the band playing, as the other band members were still stuck in California waiting on replacement parts for their tour van.  I decided to head to the show regardless, figuring it was only $15 and I could always leave when I wanted.

I arrived just in time to see Tim, the aforementioned front-man, take the stage.  I had forgotten how powerful his voice was, and despite playing solo he was easily able to hush the rather large crowd.  I was happy to hear song after song of material that I was very familiar with from their first album, Good & Reckless & True.  After four of these older songs, Tim invited a crew-member from the headlining band out to play guitar on a track from their latest CD, A Sucker’s Dream, titled “The Future’s Nothing New.”  While the guest, Toby, played guitar Tim commanded the microphone while playing a tambourine and amplified toolbox.  Yes, you read that correctly, he used a toolbox as a percussion instrument.  There are a number of videos on YouTube of this if you want to see what I mean.

From there, another guitar player by the name of Johnny sat in to play another new song, “On and On We Whisper.”  Johnny was the guitar player for the next musician Serena Ryder.  With two guitars on stage Tim was obviously singing the vocals, but he was also playing a small set of drums.  Though I’m not as familiar with the new songs as I am with the old, and I prefer the older tunes, this was an interesting way of seeing the new stuff for the first time.  On their last song of the night, Serena Ryder also joined the stage to sing along, while her bass player and drummer joined in as well.  This just confirmed that I really need to see the full band perform again sometime soon.

Though I was mainly there to see The Alternate Routes performance I decided to stick around for the other bands.  Next up was Serena Ryder, who I already mentioned above.  She started off her set a cappella, and though I immediately felt how strong her voice was, it almost reminded me of Amy Winehouse.  I’m glad to say that the rest of the set was far from that, and was much more rock and roll, though maybe a bit too twangy for my tastes.  Still she commanded the crowd and it was obvious how much the ladies in the room loved her performance.

The headliner for the night was Needtobreathe.  I was only familiar with their song “More Time” as it gets fairly regular radio play.  I admit that I do enjoy the song, and I was happy that they played it early in their set.  I stuck around to see what I would think about the rest of their material and I must say that it’s almost as if they have an identity crisis.  Very few of the songs featured the harmonies that I enjoyed on “More Time” and often the band drowned out the vocals completely.  This was not what I was expecting from a southern rock band from South Carolina.  Before the show I was worried about being bored from a slow performance, but it was pretty much the opposite, and I wished they would have turned down the amps and let the vocals shine through.  Again the fairly large crowd appeared to enjoy the band much more than I did.

Another great weekend in football!  The University of Cincinnati keeps on rolling, and they easily beat the Louisville Cardinals on Saturday, 41-10.  Despite this win, the team was somehow dropped in the BCS standings to #8, down from #5.  They remained at #5 in the AP poll, which obviously makes more sense to me.  I guess as long as they continue their undefeated season, I don’t really have a reason to complain.  The Bengals also manhandled the Chicago Bears on Sunday, 45-10.  It was definitely a happy weekend for Cincinnati.

My fantasy football teams continue the winning tradition, at least in two of my leagues.  I did lose in one league, after having a week with a number of my good players on bye weeks.  I should be able to bounce back this coming week.  I’m in 5th place in a couple of my pick’em leagues, and winning another.  I also am still alive in the survivor league, along with all 5 teams from the previous week.  And finally I moved up to second place in the salary cap game.  This is amazing as I was definitely one of the worst players in that game at the start of the season.