For the third year in a row the Bengals are going to play the Chiefs in Kansas City. We attended the previous two games, along with tons of friends from Cincinnati, so why should we stop now? This year’s game falls on October 14 and emails are already bouncing around about the weekend and game. For those of you from around Cincinnati, check out Skybus for ridiculously cheap flights out of Columbus. I have no experience with it but I know my family is looking into it more.

This time around could potentially be even more fun than before. Even though I tried not to, I always stressed about having a good party at our place while everyone was in town. This time I would be in a hotel with everyone else. That means that we’ll have to spend the entire weekend at the Granfalloon, although it seems like that’s what we’ve done every other time. Although this year, maybe we could try out the newly opened 810 Zone on The Plaza. Whatever we do, you will not want to miss this weekend!

Kim and I went out last night for a slightly overdue four year anniversary dinner. As we typically do, we decided on an Italian restaurant called Trattoria Stella in the Highlands neighborhood, after reading many great reviews. The food isn’t what you would find in a typical Italian restaurant as the chefs are a little more daring with their entree combinations. I guess that required me to be a little more daring than usual, and I was. I ordered a lasagna special that combined an arrabiata sauce, asparagus, and tomatoes among the layers of cheese. It had the right amount of spiciness and tons of flavor. I was very satisfied with my choice, not only with my entree but with the restaurant as well. The amount of food was perfect and I was even able to squeeze in a little desert. Here’s to many more years!

Back when I bought a cable modem from Circuit City for Comcast internet service there were a bunch of rebates valued much higher than the price of the modem itself. There were two check rebates, one for $20 and one for $60. In addition to that, you could get a $100 gift card with activation of Comcast service. The total rebates available totaled $180 and the price for the modem was $80, if I remember correctly.

I received the $60 rebate very quickly, and was expecting the same for the others. Well after weeks went by, I finally decided to contact Circuit City to see what was up. First they had a hard time finding any info from my order number. I actually had to call and get a new number and then get everything verified again for the rebates. The process didn’t make much sense to me at all. I waited for another couple of weeks, and guess what finally shows up today? That’s right, my remaining rebates!

It gets better though. I received each of the remaining rebates twice! That’s right, two $20 checks and two $100 gift cards. I’m not sure if my original request went through along with the second one from the new order number, but I am not going to complain. I’ve verified the remaining balance on both cards, and they both have $100 on them. The total value of the rebates I’ve received is $300!

Now my question is what should I buy for $200 from Circuit City? I have to use the gift cards within 90 days so I don’t want to wait too long. I’ve been considering getting some high end headphones that I’ve always had my eye on. Are there any audiophiles out there who can help me make a decision? The other option I’ve been kicking around is getting a couple of smaller sized mp3 players for use while exercising. I definitely want an FM tuner, flash memory (around 1-2 GB), and anything non Apple. Suggestions? Feel free to suggest something else as well.

I headed out to the 75th Street Brewery last night to meet up with a couple of friends. While living in KC, their food and beer were always a favorite of mine, so I was very happy to return. The brewery was lucky enough to survive a fire that destroyed a couple of buildings directly next door just a couple months ago. They were temporarily closed to inspect and remodel parts of the building, and just recently reopened. One thing that has not changed, their food and beer remain at the top of my list. In fact very little has actually changed. However I did notice one change, the bar staff now wear some very creative and funny t-shirts referencing the fire on the back. My favorite of the bunch, “Enjoying the beer? Thank a KC firefighter.”

Do you know what is going to be awesome this summer? O.A.R. at Red Rocks, that’s what! The bands summer tour dates were announced a couple of days ago, and Red Rocks is on the calendar for July 14. Talk about great timing on my part. I move to Denver in January and the bands first ever show at Red Rocks is the following July. This is something that I’ve been waiting to happen for a long time. And to make it even better, many of my friends from OARfans.com will be making the trek out for the show. I’m already predicting that this will be one to remember!

If you didn’t already know, I am back in Kansas City for a week of work in the office. I’m not here for any big reason, just to visit with everyone and get a few things configured on my work computer. Not a lot has changed here, in fact I feel like I just left. It’s been over three months since I was working in the office, and other than a different person using my actual office, things are still pretty familiar around here. It has been nice catching up with all of my work friends. I’ve even found the time to get in a game of tennis, tour someone’s new house, and even made a stop at the Brooksider, one of the old water holes. I’m not sure what’s on the plate for the next couple of days, so let me know if something big is going on…

I went out for a little stroll on my rollerblades Sunday afternoon, and ended up going much farther than I was anticipating. I put my rollerblades into a book bag, along with some water and my mp3 player, and took the D Line down to Mineral. A quick search on the Internet told me that I could get on the Platte River Trail near the Mineral stop and head north back toward where I started, the Broadway station. This route appeared to be between 8 and 9 miles, but I figured I could always get back on the light rail if it was too long.

It was my first time out in a long time. We didn’t rollerblade in KC that often because truthfully we never found any good trails. Fortunately there are tons of trails for us to explore now in Denver. Things started off great. I found the trail right away and after quickly asking someone which direction to head, I was on my way. The trail was relatively flat and very smooth, in other words perfect for rollerblading. After a few miles I retied my skates as I felt some blisters starting to develop. I’m not sure it helped though, and around 6 or 7 miles I could really feel the blisters with each stride. Just as I was considering finding the light rail and calling it a day, I hit a detour on the wrong side of the river.

As the name implies, this trail runs up and down the Platte River. Sometimes it is on both sides of the river, and sometimes it is just on one side. The detour took me further on the wrong side of the river, away from the river actually. There was a very steep ascent on the sidewalk along the detour. After a long struggle I made it to the top and just decided to keep going. I ended up just rollerblading all the way back home, a trip that clocked in at over 11 miles (route map). Besides the blisters I felt great! Overall, it was a great trip. Next time I will do more research on trail detours though, as I don’t want to do that one again.

We had one of our last days on the slopes this weekend, if not the last. This time we headed back to Beaver Creek for the second time. If you remember from the first time, the conditions were great. This time the conditions were not so great, but we still had a blast. Much of the snow was already gone, especially at the bottom of the mountain. What snow there was on the ground was actually a slushy mix. Definitely not the best conditions, but there were very few people there. As we later realized, I think everyone was at Copper for Sunsation. We stopped off there on our way home to see a free performance from Michael Franti & Spearhead. There were tons of people not only on the slopes but in the general area of the concert. It was an overall fun loving crowd. I think everyone was just out enjoying the beautiful weather.

This was the last weekend of the season for Beaver Creek, as well as our favorite Keystone. Breckenridge and Vail are both open through this weekend, but we won’t make it out before then. Arapahoe Basin does stay open late into the season, but it’s so small that we may only go once or twice, if at all. Despite taking a month off to heal my damaged ankle, the pass was well worth it. Kim was trying to calculate the number of days we used it, and at last count we were easily up over 10. I’ll see if I can put together an official total.

We headed to the Pepsi Center last night for our third Mammoth game of the season. Earlier in the week, I got an email from KBCO about free tickets to the game, an offer that was too good to refuse. After picking up the tickets, I was shocked to find out these were 14th row tickets. I was expecting to get tickets up in the third level. We were also in one of the end sections, another bonus in my book.

The final regular season home game against the San Jose Stealth turned out to be a great one! We took two of Kim’s brothers to the game prior to this one. While watching that one we talked about how so many people in the crowd had cowbells. So what did they get me for my birthday? That’s right, my very own cowbell! There were plenty of opportunities to ring it too, with the final score of 13-12. Hopefully they continue to win on into the playoffs. I would love to see another game this season.

Kim and I played our first round of golf yesterday after work. She has a big outing at Sawgrass next week and she wanted to get in some extra practice. We’ve been to the driving range a few times, but this was the first time for us to work on our short game too. Since we didn’t get started until around 6, we decided to just play 9 holes at the Family Sports Center.

The course was actually in pretty good shape, especially for a nine hole course. Another bonus was that it only cost us $11 each. The cashier gave us the twilight discount! It started off a little rough for me as I watched my first drive roll into a bunker. Once we finally got back into the groove we played pretty well. My short game has gotten pretty good. I had problems with hitting my irons over the greens a bunch of times. My shots were also slicing pretty often. I hope I’m just a little rusty. I did get par on one hole and almost had a birdie, but blew it on my approach shot. The most important thing is that I actually enjoyed playing yesterday.