The delay in today’s update was due to yesterday’s double post that would not go away (although it is now gone). I didn’t notice that the update from yesterday was posted twice until I got to work this morning. I then spent quite some time trying to delete one of the entries. I’m not sure if it was blogger acting up, or my computer at home, but I cannot wait until the conversion to wordpress is complete.

Last night we hung out with Bianca for a couple of hours. Kim actually made dinner and it was pretty tasty. After we ate, Kim and Bianca did some homework while I worked on a couple of things for Ed Hearn. He wanted to put a new image on the front page, so I created a couple of examples for him and we eventually went with the one that is on there now. Other than that, I’ve been very busy at work trying to meet a deadline at the end of the month. I think I’m actually getting close to completing it, so perhaps I’ll have more free time in the near future.

Yesterday was the first official day of spring and with it came lousy weather. Usually you expect spring to be a little rainy, but starting just after work yesterday we got snow! I checked the weather before leaving work and saw that we were under a “winter storm warning,” which I guess doesn’t only apply to winter. I heard predicted snowfall amounts in the neighborhood of 2 to 4 inches. In the end it didn’t amount to much, less than an inch, but just north and west of here got over a foot of snow!

You always hear that April showers bring May flowers, well what about March snow showers? What do those bring us? Perhaps it kills all the flowers resulting in fewer allergies for us to deal with in the next couple of months. It never hurts to think positively, right?

I got up at the normal time on Friday morning and drove out to the airport. No problems with my flights, although I must admit that the flight from Cincinnati to Dayton was pretty pointless. By the time portable electronic devices were allowed I only had time to listen to one song on my mp3 player before I was tapped on the shoulder and told it was time to shut it down. If it will save me a couple hundred bucks I guess its worth it. Anyway, Kim picked me up in Dayton and we drove over to my parents’ house.

Later in the night we headed down to the Holy Grail with my parents and my brother. We met up with Fighty, Liam, and the Hemmelgarns there and after a few rounds of Guiness we walked over onto UC’s campus for the second round NIT game against Charlotte. Unlike most college’s across the country, UC typically serves beer at the games, but unfortunately the NIT does not allow it. We all had great seats on the end of the court in the student section. At halftime we headed up to the UCATS Club after Fighty heard that it was open to the public for this game. We watched the second half of the game from up there and had drinks served through the end of the game. It made the bearcat victory even better!

After the game we spent a couple of hours at Christy’s and ran into a bunch of family members of mine and Kim’s. And of course, no night in Cincinnati is complete without a late night trip through the Skyline drive-thru.

After hanging out at my parents’ on Saturday we went to my aunt and uncles house for Emma’s 1st birthday party. In case you have forgotten, Emma is my godchild. It was nice to see everyone again, although we could only stay for an hour or so.

My buddy from high school, Jeff, was getting married and we were already skipping the ceremony so we didn’t want to be late for the reception. After picking up Jon, another buddy of mine, we finally arrived at Ivy Hills Country Club for the reception. There we met up with yet another friend, Chris, and his wife. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, so it was nice to catch up. The food was good, the band was great, the fireworks were a nice touch, and it was a very nice reception. This will probably be the only wedding that I ever go to that has a 15 minute fireworks display. I was a little disappointed by the lack of musical accompaniment, but I guess you can’t have everything. :) Congrats to Jeff and his wife Megan!

Our next stop after the reception was at Million’s to meet up with Amy and some of her friends. That bar has really changed since the last time I was there, but I was just happy that it wasn’t too crowded.

We got up early on Sunday and drove over to the Hais’ house. Kim’s brother Jason had a birthday present to give to me, and wanted to see us before we left Cincinnati. He made a marble mouse pad for me, something he has learned to do at his new job. I also got a bottle of Woodford Reserve from her family. I can’t wait to open that up! It was nice to see everyone again, and meet James, their latest foster child. Kim’s sister Bobbi drove us to the airport, complete with a trip on the Anderson Ferry and a stop at the Gap outlet store. This ended our trip to Cincinnati, but we’ll be back again soon.

I had another hockey game last night to round out the weekend. We won yet another game to finish the regular season undefeated. We don’t count our overtime shootout loss as a real loss. The playoffs start next weekend and hopefully we can win the mini tournament.

There hasn’t been a dull moment around here the past couple days. I was tired as hell at work yesterday, probably due to being up after midnight the night before, but that didn’t stop me from staying up late again last night. If you remember, I used to play hockey on Wednesday nights in a pick-up league. Well they are starting another session and wanted me to come back to play. I told them that one day a week is enough, especially with the weather getting better. They asked if I would fill in for just a night, since they are still short on guys.

So I ended up at the rink playing hockey at 9PM. Of course, I didn’t get home until around 11 and then I didn’t make it to bed until after midnight again. I had some stuff to take care of that couldn’t wait until today. I am once again exhausted here at work but glad that the day is over half complete. I’ve been searching for an online audio stream of the basketball games but haven’t had any luck so far. I was thinking that this would help the rest of the day move along faster.

Only three more hours of work for the rest of this week! I am off tomorrow and will be flying back to Cincinnati for the weekend. We’ve got lots of things planned already so I’m sure it will be a busy one. I love long weekends!

I dropped Kim off at the airport before work yesterday. She spent the day in Iowa for work and is flying into Cincinnati today. That means I’m all alone for the rest of the week, on a bachelor week if you will. So, what have I done so far?

Last night I made the drive over to Lawrence, Kansas to see the band Zox * who were previously included on Now That’s What Ed Calls Music 2004. That was the year that I first heard of these guys, and although I only saw a song or two of their set at the Feeling Better Than Everfine Festival, I knew they were capable of putting on a very good show. I’m happy to report that they did not disappoint, even though the “venue” they played left a lot to be desired.

The Gaslight Tavern is one of the few places I had yet to see a show at in Lawrence. I had often heard from friends that it was small, but this didn’t prepare me for how tiny the place truly is. I didn’t see a sign on the wall indicating the maximum capacity, but if I were in charge of these signs I would give this place a maximum of 20 people. That’s the approximate number of people who were in attendance last night and I don’t think anyone else could have fit comfortably. The bar is very nice and clean. And although I was not drinking last night, they appear to have a great selection of drinks. The room is just not conducive to bands playing. I think a solo singer/songwriter is the perfect fit for the Gaslight. Despite these problems, Zox played a great show and I look forward to seeing them again in April when they are back in Lawrence at the Bottleneck.

* The link to Zox’s website is now correct. Sorry about that.

Many of you (myself included) are likely still a little sour that Cincinnati was left out of the NCAA Tournament, but if you want to participate in a Pick’Em here’s your chance. Doni has setup a yahoo private group that you can join for free. I know that Kim, Doni, Phil, Mike, Todd, and I are already in. Who’s next?

To join follow these steps:

1. go to http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/men
2. Click Sign Up
3. sign in using your football sign in or sign up for a new one if you
don’t remember or have one
4. Click on create or join team
5. Click on select under Join Existing Group
6. Click on select under Join a Private Group
7. Enter the Group ID# (69234) and the Password (morelock).

I’m hoping that Doni and Phil agree on some sort of prize to give out to the winner. I’m thinking a date with Gabe would be nice! Or a couple of free rounds at the Brooksider!

Our weekend was full of some crazy weather changes. Friday was a decent enough night to sit outside and have a couple of beers. Before doing that, I went to SidePockets with some folks at work. This was put together as a going away party for Chad, who is leaving the company this week. Hopefully we’ll still see him around on Wednesday nights. From there I headed home to find Kim and Christie out on the porch having a couple of drinks. I joined them for a couple of hours, and then we called it a night.

Saturday was a beautiful day in Kansas City! Kim and I started off the day with nine holes of golf. I think both of us played much better than we did last year, even if it was only the first time we’ve been out this season. Kim’s new clubs seem to be doing the trick or at least giving her enough confidence to really hit the ball. I actually enjoyed golfing for a couple of the holes. From there we returned home to prepare for a little gathering at our place. Mike, Christie, and Maria all made their way over for some cornhole, cards, grilling, and drinks. We all had a great time and it was good to see everyone again.

We went from a beautiful day to a truly ugly one. We left the apartment with plans of running errands and hanging out with Bianca, but didn’t make it further than the nearest gas station. We stopped there to pick up a few drinks and as we were pulling in the national weather service was announcing severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for most of the area. We decided to head back home to wait it out. In the end, there were three separate waves of storms that swept through the area, but luckily for us, our area was mostly untouched. It’s been said that “We had a full season of tornadoes today and tonight alone,” with something like 15 tornadoes spotted. Once the storms were all past us, we continued on with the errands. Kim and Bianca hung out at our place while I worked on the computer until my hockey game later in the evening. We won our game and I finally scored another goal! Even on my way home from the game, they were announcing more warnings for some of the counties just outside our area.

Today it’s cold outside, and the clouds are again forming out my window. Don’t you just love spring?

Kim is taking one of her insurance tests today and has been studying for it all week. This should help to explain the lack of entertaining updates, but that should end today. I hope to have a great weekend to tell you all about on Monday.

Here is a logo idea for my site that I put together last night. I really like the design of it, but I cannot decide if the colors are too bright. I’ve been reading that the colors of web 2.0 are greens, blues and oranges, and that they are mostly bright and cheery. I’m pretty sure that I want to use a blue and green theme, just trying to decide on some final hues.

One of the things I want to include in my re-designed site is an online calendar. Ideally I could use it instead of the paper calendar I carry with me daily, and furthermore you all could view it to see what I’m up to from time to time.

As of right now I’m going to be using wordpress to run the blog section of the site, if not more. I’ve been looking for a good calendar plug-in for wordpress, but so far none of them do everything that I want them to do. The one thing that I love is the simple integration with wordpress, which will be the building blocks of the entire site.

Today, after reading about google’s planned calendar application, CL2, I began looking for existing applications that are similar to it. I found many existing web 2.0 calendar websites: 30 Boxes, Planzo, AirSet, etc. They all seem to offer similar functionality, and even offer someway to display events on your own site using a “badge.” The question now is if I should wait for google’s product or just go ahead and evaluate these others.

In the words of fighty, yawn.

We are getting closer and closer to selection sunday and with that brings the abundance of conference tournaments taking place right now. My parents are currently on a trip with their friends the Hemmelgarn’s in good ol’ New York City for the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden. Cincinnati had a noon game today against Syracuse that I know they attended. Unfortunately Syracuse made a last second three point shot to give them the win by one point, 74-73.

I’m not sure if they are still planning to watch any of the other games, but I hope that they enjoy their vacation. I think this is my dad’s first time ever in the city! They are staying in the same hotel we stayed at a few months ago when we visited NYC. Hopefully I didn’t give them too much bad advice.

With Cincy out of the conference tournament, we can only hope for a good spot the Big Dance. Hopefully then they can have a little better success than in the Big East tourney.