Please keep Kim and her family in your thoughts and prayers.  Her last surviving grandparent passed away over the weekend at the age of 84.  As Kim often said, I wish I could have met her before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  From what I’ve heard, she lived a wonderful life, which was even evident to me in the few years I knew her.

DIERSING Lucille (nee Vetter), beloved wife of the late Elmer Diersing, dear mother of Jim (Susan) Diersing, John (Diane) Diersing, Mary (Chuck) Hais, Jerry Diersing, Carol (Joe) Ransick, Joe Diersing, Jay (Denice) Diersing, Betty (Mike) Tepe and Jeff (Sarah) Diersing, dear friend of Maury Drummey, grandmother of 27, great-grandmother of 7, sister of the late John Vetter and Betty Nolte. Died Saturday, March 06, 2010 age 84 years. Visitation will be held at Bayley Place Wednesday 12 noon until time for the Mass of Christian Burial at 1 PM. Burial St. Joseph Old Cemetery. In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 4420 Carver Woods Drive (45242) or to Bayley Place, 990 Bayley Place (45233). Condolences may also be expressed to the family online at www.rebold.com.

Thank goodness! It’s been a busy week. Fortunately it was fast as well. Hope everyone has a good weekend. More from me next week.

I just wrapped up another uneventful trip to the dentist, which is a good thing, right?  I had a quick cleaning and evaluation with no problems found.  I really like this dentist that I’ve been seeing for the past year.  The office is pretty much a two women shop, obviously one is the dentist and the other is just the receptionist.  That’s right, there are no hygienists in this office.  Instead, the dentist is the one who actually cleans teeth, while doing the evaluation at the same time.  So rather than just seeing the dentist for a few minutes at the end of your appointment, you get to spend your entire visit with one.  I think this leads to a great quality of care, not to mention that she is really nice and efficient.  If you are in the Denver area, I highly recommend seeing Pamela Rotwein.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season.  Traditionally, it is the day to officially give something up for forty days.  Unfortunately I don’t have any good ideas for myself.  I can’t think of too many vices that I could easily do away with.  I don’t really snack or eat chocolate.  I’m not a big soda drinker and haven’t been drinking caffeine much at all recently.  I feel like those are the big items that most people usually fall back on, but none of them really apply.  A cousin of mine is giving up alcohol, but I’m already drinking much less than I had previously.  I don’t really want to cut it out completely, especially with my 30th birthday falling before Easter.  So, does anyone else have any good ideas or want to comment on what they are giving up?  I haven’t eaten meat today, which is not normally a tradition I take part in.  Maybe I’ll actually give up meat on Fridays for once, though that’s a bunch of pizza between now and Easter.

Over the years I’ve become accustomed to receiving a rather large tax refund check around this time of year.  Last year, after filing our taxes, I went along with Turbo Taxes suggestion to rework our W-4’s so that we neither owe a large amount or receive a large refund.  The theory behind this is that we get to keep more of our earnings throughout the year so that we can invest it ourselves.  Well, it actually worked.  We will likely owe around $200 to the federal government, while our state refund will still be a few hundred bucks.  The question now is where exactly did all of that extra money go throughout the year.  I’m not really sure that we have much more invested than we normally do.  I guess we should put more of each paycheck aside this year so we can really see the difference it makes.

In less than two months I will be turning the big 3-0.  To celebrate the big occasion, Kim and I just booked flights to Phoenix for a long weekend.  My parents and my brother have also bought flights and will be joining us.  In addition to Phoenix we hope to see the Grand Canyon, Sedona, and catch a spring training Reds game.  I’m still in the very early planning phases for our stops, so any advice is greatly appreciated.  In addition, let me know if you’d like to join us and I can pass along our travel details.

For the second year in a row, we are not traveling for Thanksgiving.  We will instead be staying in Denver with lots of fun activities planned along with some work around the house.  Should be a busy weekend.  I hope everyone out there has a nice turkey day and long weekend.  I am likely signing off until Monday…

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!

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.