And just like that, the week is over and I’ll be on my way back to Denver shortly. Our friends Phil and Doni are also on their way to Denver for the extended holiday weekend. It should be a fun one. I hope everyone else has a nice weekend as well.

I played a quick round of nine holes with one of my coworkes last night at Teetering Rocks Executive Links. This is a par three course that has super cheap evening specials. In fact, the cart cost more than nine holes. However, I guess you get what you pay for as this could possibly be the worst place I have ever played. The course had a nice layout, but most of the grass was in terrible condition. I’ll admit that I haven’t played anywhere else in KC this year, so maybe it has something to do with the weather this summer. The greens were in pretty good shape, although the grass was fairly long, but everything else was brown and spotty. Although we didn’t keep score, I played pretty well and consistent. That could be a first for the summer.

Last night I caught another Dave Matthews Band show. This time I traveled out to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (aka Sandstone) with Phil and Doni. I bought a single ticket just a week ago after realizing that the show was during the week that I would be in KC for work. Fortunately, the show wasn’t sold out, and I actually scored a ticket in the lower pavilion, less than 20 rows from the stage. I didn’t actually use the seat, since I met up with another friend, Mike, who had an extra spot in his group.

The show itself was good. Not the best I’ve seen of the tour, but still better than other tours I’ve seen. The extreme heat might have taken a little energy out of the show, from both the band and crowd. It was good to hear Grey Street, Hunger for the Great Light, and my favorite Dancing Nancies -> Warehouse. Phil also got to hear Gravedigger, which was a the top of his list for the show. Overall, I’d give it a solid seven. Maybe with some cooler weather, and a few beers, it could have been an eight. Still well worth the drive out to Bonner Springs.

Full Setlist

Over the weekend, Kim and I participated in a pub crawl along Colfax Avenue, aka Crawling Colfax For a Cause. Some friends of ours put this event together as a benefit for Spinal Cord Injury Patients, and with the help of everyone participating, raised $1300! So we had a great time and helped out a great cause.

The list of bars we hit included the PS Lounge, Goosetown, Atomic Cowboy, Sengers On The Fax, and Rock Bar. It was a great outing as all of the bars were just a few blocks away, and some were even across the street from each other. I think I enjoyed the Atomic Cowboy the most. This bar included a stack of board games as you walked inside that you could pickup and play all around the bar. I really enjoyed watching people throw back a few beers while playing Connect Four or Guess Who.

Hello from Kansas City. I’m back in the office for the week working from a lovely cubicle. Obviously the work setting doesn’t compare to my luxurious home office, but there are a few nice things about these work trips. First, I really enjoy going out to eat for nearly every meal and not having to pay for it at all. It’s also nice to see all of my friends in KC and hit up some of the old stomping grounds like the Brooksider or 75th Street Brewery. However, the weather here just doesn’t compare to Denver. I stepped off the plane and even though I was still inside a jetway, I began sweating immediately. I’ll be here for the week, so if there is something exciting going on, give me a shout.

I’ve been streaming so much music lately that I finally decided to go public with a streaming player I created for oarsa.org. Essentially we had all of these songs available for download but no good way to play them all at once (unless you already downloaded them all). Enter the XSPF Web Music Player, which is a simple flash based player that takes an xspf playlist. Once I wrote the code to automatically generate and update the playlist, displaying the flash player was a piece of cake. I’m not sure how much bandwidth this is going to eat up, so check it out now or you may never be able to. Just follow the oarsa.org link above and click the link on the left menu.

I participated in a live fantasy football draft last night. I am now in three different leagues, two of which are playing for money. I can smell the victories already. One of these leagues is still open to new teams, so let me know if you want to join a league. This one has a $10 entry fee with the top two teams taking the money home at the end of the season. Right now I have Chad Johnson on both of my teams that have already been drafted. Will he make it on a third?

Kim and I headed to Red Rocks last night for yet another sold out show. This was not your typical show though, everyone was there to watch Wedding Crashers on a screen that nearly filled up the stage. I was floored that Red Rocks could sell out just for a movie showing. There was a band on before the movie named Under A Blood Red Sky. Obviously they are a U2 cover band, but I don’t think many people were there actually to see them. In fact many people around us were annoyed by their performance. I didn’t think they were bad, but definitely no comparison to the real thing. As expected, the movie was a huge success and it was amazing to hear seven or eight thousand people all laughing at the same time.

While I was out of town over the weekend, Kim bought a bike. We’ve been wanting to get bikes to enjoy all of the lovely trails around Denver, and when she saw one at a garage sale she quickly bartered with the sellers and got it for $50. I don’t think it’s top of the line or anything, but it is better than what we had before, which was nothing. Now I just need to get one of my own.

Regardless, I just took the bike out for a spin over lunch. I ended up going almost 7.5 miles while out running a few errands too (route). Overall it was pretty enjoyable. The seat wasn’t the most comfortable thing ever, and the brakes squeaked a bunch, but at least it moved well. I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to bikes, but I’m hoping to learn more as the time goes on. First thing would be to fix and/or replace the squeaky brakes.

I mentioned it a couple times before, but this past weekend was spent at Deer Creek, aka Verizon Wireless Music Center, in Indiana for two nights of the Dave Matthews Band. I left first thing on Friday morning and flew to Chicago where a couple of friends picked me up and we were quickly on our way to our campground. Despite a few traffic jams along the way, we made it in pretty good time and immediately began setting up our tents and other camping goods.

Before too long we were heading into the venue for the first night’s show. I enjoyed the second night’s setlist a little more than the first, but it was still a great show. Song highlights for the weekend included “What Would You Say”, “So Damn Lucky”, “Jimi Thing”, and “Tripping Billies”, to name just a few. Heck, I could list almost every song they played as a highlight for me, especially with so few repeats between nights.

Besides the shows, we had a blast hanging around camp, enjoying the surprisingly nice weather, playing cornhole, hanging around a campfire, etc. In fact I slept most of yesterday just to catch up from everything. That included the drive back to Chicago, a nap or two on my friends couch, and then sleeping through most of my entire flight back to Denver. Even still I slept like a baby last night. All in all it was well worth the trip and I always look forward to seeing future shows at Deer Creek.