Over the weekend we traveled to Baltimore, Maryland for the wedding of two longtime friends of mine, Mike and Carrie. I met Mike many years ago through O.A.R. and we’ve kept in touch for the years following. He’s the founder of OARfans.com, and because of the website he eventually met Carrie, moved to Baltimore, and the rest is history.

Their wedding ceremony and reception took place at the American Visionary Art Museum in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore. The museum is very funky place and was the perfect backdrop for their big day. They had a short ceremony on the central staircase of the museum. And from there, we had a cocktail hour, followed by dinner, drinks, and entertainment provided by a band that we’ve loved for years, Virginia Coalition. Needless to say, we had an amazing time and wish nothing but the best for the newly married couple.

I have some pictures that I’d like to share, but I’m having a problem with the gallery section of the site once again. Just as I was considering switching everything back to the old way, I have nothing but trouble today. Oh well, I’m sick of messing with it today, I’ll post them tomorrow.

Update: I’ve added the pictures directly inside of this post. Enjoy.

Kim and I traveled back to Ohio over this past weekend for a variety of events. One of which was one of the best Oktoberfest celebrations in the country, the Minster Oktoberfest. It had been years since I was last at this party, but once I arrived in the small town of Minster it all instantly came back to me. I immediately grabbed a milk jug of beer and headed for the main beer tent to take listen to the festive bands. And I wasn’t alone, according to their website 80,000 people join the celebration in the town whose population is not even 3,000 strong. It really is an amazing sight to see. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died, but luckily my mom was there to document the whole event. For Kim and I, we’ll be heading to another huge event this weekend, the Great American Beer Festival. I love fall!

Hard to believe it, but I’ve been out of high school for over ten years now. This weekend is officially my ten year high school reunion weekend. Fortunately I am back in Cincinnati to take in some of the festivities, including a big football game tonight with arch-rival school Elder, also my dad’s alma mater. Looking forward to seeing some good high school football. Go Crusaders!

If you didn’t already know, the Democratic National Convention started yesterday and is going through Thursday. Even though I’ll miss some of the bigger events, like Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field, I’ve been doing my best to get downtown often and catch any other happenings around town. Here are some pictures from Saturday, Sunday, and yesterday. The last pictures of the set come from a march gone bad last night in downtown, which can be read about here or here.

I traveled back to Cincinnati once again this weekend, but this time it was for a bachelor party weekend. I arrived late Friday evening in Dayton where my brother picked me up and we headed down to his pad. We were both fairly tired and had to get an early start the next day, so decided to head for bed after watching a bit of TV.

Saturday, after running some errands for a good chunk of the morning, we met up with my dad and some others to take a canoeing trip down the Little Miami River. Though the authorities have been trying to crack down on drinking while floating down the river, we didn’t run into any problems doing so. It was a great six mile trip that ate up most of the afternoon and into the evening hours. Since we ended up with an odd number of people, I opted to take out a kayak for myself, which I thoroughly enjoyed and would love to do again.

After that we went back to my brother’s, cleaned up, and started up the grill. Lots of others who didn’t go on the canoe trip came over and we had a great little party out on his back deck. Eventually the party moved indoors as the weather got a little questionable. We had lots of games of Rock Band, a beer pong tournament, and lots of good times. A big thanks goes out to my brother, dad, and all else who attended. Oh yeah, thanks to my mom too for dropping of all kinds of good sides and appetizers!

Another Pig-Fest has come and gone. As always a great time was had and the weather cooperated for the entire day. This year was a little different than the last few years, as there was no live evening entertainment. As I mentioned earlier, our friend MER was not able to attend this year, so we tried a karaoke machine instead. That pretty much failed just as we started it up. Either people weren’t quite “ready” or just not interested, but only a couple of people shared their voices with the crowd.

So I decided to run a flip-cup tournament instead. I formed nearly 16 teams of 4 players each, and drew up a bracket. The tourney went well into the night hours, and provided plenty of entertainment for the rest of the night. In addition, we had both the standard wiffle ball and cornhole tournaments. I also saw a few games of beersbee, along with oversized soccer and badminton. A full day of activities for sure!

Looks like my mom has already uploaded a bunch of pictures to her flickr page, and I’m sure others will soon follow. Keep your eyes on the Pig-Fest site which will be updated soon.

Anyone thinking of hitting up the Great American Beer Festival with us this year? I believe that we’ll be heading to the evening session on Saturday October 10th 11th. Tickets went onsale today, and though I don’t think they sell out very quickly, they always do sell out before the actual weekend arrives. Even though the crowds can be pretty large, I still find the event totally worth the price and hassle associated with it. Three cheers for our third appearance at the fest!

You may recall a flip cup tournament that we participated in last year. Well we attended again this year with a new team but had the same results as last year, pretty much nothing but loses. Our theme for this time was baseball, calling ourselves the “Grand Slammers.” Despite not winning a single match, we still had a blast.

This is going to be a busy week. My boss is on vacation and I’ll be covering many of his tasks for the week. I’m hoping that it won’t be as bad as it has been before when he took extended vacation, since there is another individual in the office who will be doing some tasks, but I guess only time will tell. So far it’s been a really busy day.

Our Memorial Day labor day weekend (I always mix the two up) was good though. We were back in Cincinnati for the wedding of one of Kim’s cousins. Kim was a bridesmaid in the wedding and we’ve known her cousins husband for awhile as well, so it was nice to attend their big day. And since a good number of her extended family was there it gave us a little taste of what our wedding will be like. Everyone better get their dancing shoes out and be ready to swing all the way into party mode! I took some pictures throughout the day and I hope to get them online sometime soon. I’ll be sure to post a link.

We thought that picking a date for last year’s Pig-Fest was hard, but it had nothing on the date selection process for this year. But at least we get to have two big parties this year, Pig-Fest XV and our wedding. The first of which will be held on July 5th of this year, yep that’s right the 4th of July weekend or as we are calling it the “Pork of July Weekend.” The invitations should go out soon, so let me know if you’d like one delivered to your inbox (if you are typically on the list, no need to let me know). Our musical guest for the past few years, MER, is not able to make it this year so we are seeking other nighttime entertainment. Let me know if you have any ideas.