We have a meeting with a Big Brother Big Sister person in a couple Tuesdays. I guess we’ll find out then what situation will work the best for us. Speaking of meetings, that pretty much sums up my last few days. We had a full staff meeting on Wednesday to hear about a conference that some of the big guys went to. We also learned that that the company is going to match 50% of our 401K contributions from last year. This is down from the 100% they matched the year before, but still really good. Note to self: invest more in 401K. They are also supposed to put some sort of profit sharing in or something. We’ll see how much is added in the middle of May. We also learned that we would be switching health insurance companies. This brings me to my next meeting on Thursday with a lady from the new company. We had choices between 3 different plans that would all deduct the same amount from each paycheck. I won’t bore you with the details, but I found out today that the amount taken from each check is going to be close to double what it was before. Why the hell did we switch then? Oh well, either way it isn’t much for a single person on the policy.

We haven’t done much with our nights, watched TV mostly. Today I sat in two meetings before lunch, just had a long lunch, and now it is almost time for me to leave and head back to Cincinnati. I got a whole bunch of nothing done today!

Good news, we have an official Pig-Fest date and it is August 13th. Hopefully everyone who wants to go can make it, I know I’ll be there.

Well we went to the meeting and filled out our applications. We were told that we could not be a big couple since we were not married, instead they could try and pair us up with a brother and sister combination. I think they are just trying to reduce their waiting list. :) We now have to wait for someone to contact us, and then we go in for some sort of written interview. Sounds like this whole process can take up to a month, so I’ll keep you all updated.

Word on the street is that Kim’s brother Chris wants to race us this Saturday in the flying pig 5K. Chris ran cross country at St. X so I told her good luck and that I would race Chip, her youngest brother, instead.

Kim and I are going to an orientation meeting for the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City tonight. We’ve been talking about this for a long time, but we are actually going to go this time. Mike has been in the program since shortly after he moved out here. He and Legend (his “little”) go out all the time and seem to have a good time. Kim and I are looking to be a “big couple” for a special little kid. :)

Official results are in, and we finished the race with a time of 33:34 (or 33:35 if you are Kim, haha). Other notable times are Rob McGarry (a coworker) at 23:52, Steve Graboski (my boss) at 34:19, Joseph T James (aka Todd) at 32:01 and Doni & Phil at 44:28. Everyone shattered the hour goal set by Doni & Phil! The winner finished in 18:37, almost a minute behind the world record time of 17:39. At least I beat my own record time of 35 minutes, which was my time last year.

Frondizi’s was pretty good. The menu was a little more adventurous than I tend to be. The special of the night was some sort of braised rabbit ravioli or something. The really cool part of the menu was the wine list that ranged from $20 up to $2000+ for a bottle. We stayed in the $20 to $30 range. :) Kim had some really good stuffed peppers and I had the simplest item on the menu which was pretty good as well. All in all it was good time, but definitely a little pricey. From there, we all went back to our apartment for a few more drinks and some darts.

Saturday was our errand day. I’m not sure if Time Warner has bumped up the speeds for everyone, but here in KC our roadrunner is now up to 5.0 Mbps. What they failed to tell us was that our modem would not be capable of these speeds and we would be stuck at the old 3.0 Mbps. So the first thing we did was take the modem in and exchange it for a new one. If you have not done this I recommend doing so ASAP, start here. From there we went to petsmart, a sporting goods store, a carwash, supercuts and the grocery store. We also made a stop at blockbuster and picked up Meet The Fockers and Sideways. That night we watched Meet The Fockers and ate pizza. It was a pretty funny movie, about as good as any sequel comedy can be.

Sunday was the big race. My legs cooperated very well and we had a great run. It was pretty cold out which may have helped us reach our personal bests. The first mile we ran in 8:50, the speed at which the fairly large pack seemed to be running at. It was a little faster than we usually run but we kept up with it just fine. In the end we ended up finishing the four miles in just under 34 minutes. The official times are not up on the site yet, but I’ll be sure to get those up as soon as they do. After the race we had a little party over at our place. Bloody Mary�s, screwdrivers and mimosas were the drinks of choice. We even had a few people from my work over for the party. Later on I had a hockey game which we won and are now in the championship game next Monday!

No Will Hoge for me. Instead I fell asleep watching TV shows with Kim. I’ve decided that I need at least one day in between long nights out.

The big weekend has arrived, we are running the 4 mile long Trolley Run on Sunday. I can’t say that I’m really looking forward to the running part, but we are having a little party over at our place afterward. If only I didn’t have hockey later in the night I would really get to celebrate the run. Oh well, we are in the playoff’s as the 2nd seed.

Before this we will be celebrating Amanda’s birthday tonight at a place called Frondizi’s. It is the closest restaurant to our place but we have never been. It seems a little expensive and I guess that is why we have never bothered. We stumbled across some half price gift certificates though and we know have $100 to use at the restaurant. I’m sure it will be a good time!

I imagine that we’ll take care of any errands on Saturday and probably take it easy the rest of the day. The race on Sunday starts pretty early.

As I mentioned yesterday we went out and saw Mr. Poltz last night. Kim was out at happy hour after work with Amanda and convinced her to come along for the show. We arrived and met up with Steve Christy and some others. Steve told me how Poltz had recently given up drinking and we debated the impact it would have on the show. If you have never seen or heard Poltz before he is a very interesting but hilarious guy. As it turns out he is the same exact way without all the alcohol. In fact I think this was the longest show I have ever seen him play (about 3 hours). A guy named “Stinky” who plays in Steve’s band “The Rugburns” joined him onstage playing a cardboard box with drum sticks. I didn’t think a cardboard box could sound good, but it really did. I loved the show and couldn’t get enough but the girls were fading off towards the end of the night. I did not record it since they have started recording and selling their own shows every night. Steve bought a copy so hopefully I’ll get it from him sometime.

Will Hoge is playing out in Lawrence tonight, but somehow I don’t think we are going to make it. I may have to work on heading out on my own, we’ll see.

Yesterday after work I met up with Kim at Metro Walk & Run. No, they did not close their doors as was rumored, they just moved over to 95th & Metcalf. Anyway, I have been having pains in my left hip so Kim said I should go in and get checked out. After just a few minutes in the store I was equipped with a lift in my left shoe. The guy who was working with me said that my left leg is a little shorter than my right. We’ll see if it helps, but early indications from today’s run are not promising. About two miles into the run I got the pain in my same left hip. We stopped to stretch for a minute or two and then were on our way. Soon after this I got pain in my other hip which has never really hurt before. We took part of the lift out of my shoe to see if maybe it was too much. I made it the rest of the way back home completing our four mile run, but was in slight pain towards the end. I’m not sure if we’ll run again before the race this Sunday, but at least I feel more prepared for this one than last year’s race. Kim also bought a new pair of shoes while we were at the store, but I guess she won’t start warning them until after this race or the next one. Isn’t running grand? :)

Tonight we get to see Steve Poltz! It seems like I haven’t been to a show in a long time, so I’m really looking forward to this one.

I guess I neglected to say that yesterday was the two year anniversary for me and Kim. Time flies eh?

I got a nice surprise towards the end of work yesterday, my free iPod shuffle! I’ve been following the shipping status on the FreeiPodShuffle.com website, but according to them the vendor was still waiting for more of the units to arrive. Now it is time to decide if it is worth keeping or not. I’m leaning towards keeping it since we are running outside more and more and it is always nice to have some sort of lightweight device to use. I guess time will tell.

If you didn’t already know, the conclave has been assembled to elect the next Pope. I really don’t know much about who the predict winners are and supposedly it’s anyone’s game, especially after seeing the brackets.

Today is my brother Tim’s birthday and my dad’s birthday was Saturday, so happy birthday to the both of them!

Here is what happened during our weekend:
Friday I went straight up to Mike’s rooftop deck where he, Kim, Amanda and Geoff were already starting off the weekend. We stayed up there for quite some time, even when Kim and Amanda left to pickup Amy from the airport. Before too long everyone was ready for some food so we headed down to the Falloon. That was the last stop of the night and most of us headed in fairly early to rest up for the next day.

Saturday Kim, Amy and I went to a local home-cookin’ place called Mama’s for some breakfast. While there we made plans to head out to the Royal’s game. We all squeezed into Mike’s car to save $9 on parking. It was the three of us, obviously Mike and Jeff and Casie too. After a little tailgating we headed in for “John Buck Jersey Day.” After doing a quick search on the net, I found this quote from georgeblowfish.com:

Saturday will be interesting. It’s John Buck batting jersey day. Buck is batting .138 as the Royals starting catcher. What a pathetic role model for a major fan giveaway.

Back to the game. We sat in the outfield for most of the game. It was a great day to be outside even though the game was pathetic. Well I guess it wasn’t pathetic until the end of the game when the Royal’s gave up 4 runs. Before then it was somewhat of an interesting game. After the game the girls decided to take a nap, while Mike and I continued to have a few more beers on the porch. Someone new moved into the apartment above ours so we watched them for awhile and then woke the girls up to start preparing for the night. We decided that we would head to the Isle Of Capri so Amy could get her gambling fill. By this time I was well on my way to completing a marathon of beer drinking and was in no shape to gamble. I did win 200 pennies though on the slots! We managed to stay in the casino for a few hours and still had enough money to get a cab home.

Sunday we slept in a little bit and then decided to head to Baja 600 on the plaza for some lunch. Doni met up with us there and afterward we did a little shopping. From there we decided to take a trip to the local par 3 course. Mike came along with the three of us and ended up winning the contest by one stroke, beating yours truly. :) From there it was time to head over to Doni and Phil’s birthday bash for Todd. I couldn’t stay very long because of hockey, but it was a good time while I was there.

That about sums it up. As you can tell it was definitely a busy weekend. Amy took a flight out this morning and we are now back at work. I’ll probably stop at the grocery later tonight since we didn’t get a chance to do it this weekend. Other than that we don’t have too much planned.