Friday night we met everyone up at the Brooksider for a little bit and then went over to Doni & Phil’s for some pizza and cards. We started off playing Texas Hold’em. Todd taught most of us how to play since most of us had only seen it on TV, if anything at all. Funny thing is, he was one of the first ones to be out of the game. I was one of the last 3, and the last guy left. Kim ended up winning the whole game. I guess we are going try to go up to the Brooksiders poker night this week. Maybe Kim can win a free CD player or whatever it is they give away.

Saturday we tried to find some white pimp shoes for my Halloween costume, but didn’t find anything for a cheap price. We finally just bought a pair of black shoes from goodwill for $4 and a can of spray paint. We’ll see how well this works. After a full day of shopping we decided to head to the rodeo. We paid $10 for the cheap seats, but I think we had one of the best views in the place. After the bullriding was over we were treated to an Uncle Kracker concert. Man that guy sucks. I think we lasted through about 3 cover songs and 1 of his own songs, and then left. At least the rodeo was good.

Yesterday I spent a couple hours working on the Sonic website. It’s coming along, and I’m probably going to show it to Joe soon to see what he thinks. Feel free to give any feedback: sonic.edpaffjr.com

I’ve decided not to play hockey on Monday nights. That league is falling apart, and they are basically having open hockey but you have to pay upfront, $100+ for 10 weeks. I’ll probably miss a handful of those weeks anyway. I’ll just stick with Sunday and Wednesday for this session. So tonight we are going to make our return to spinning. I hope Jeff is still instructing the class.

We booked the Rock Boat! I’m so excited now, and it is still like a year away. The boat will be chartered, but it is a Carnival boat, the Sensation. The interior rooms on the bottom floor were already full when we went to book, so we are on the next floor up in an interior room. We didn’t feel that the window was worth the extra money. My first cruise…

Last night we went over to Doni & Phil’s to just hang out for a couple hours, played some cards, and had some wine. Well I didn’t have any wine, but the others did. I actually tried one of the wines and surprisingly enjoyed it…

So Friday night we met up with my buddy Josh Davis and some of his friends at McCoy’s in westport. They were in town for a concert, Kim and I headed up that way for dinner and some drinks. I had them all hooked on Infamous Arties, the mix of Brown and Raspberry Wheat that I love! So good.

After that we met up with Mike and headed down to the Outlaws game. We were a little late because of dinner, but we got free parking because of it. They only open the lower bowl of Kemper Arena, so we bought the cheapest seats we could since it really wouldn’t matter. The Outlaws won the game, their first game ever. I was not terribly impressed with the level of play, but it was hockey nonetheless. We ended up playing a few rounds of darts after the game and then calling it a night.

Saturday started with lunch at PF Changs, and then Kim and I took care of some shopping. Of course we ended up at the Robert Randolph show later on that night. It was an outside show, so we dressed up pretty warm. Kim had long underwear on, and I busted out one of my winter coats. The venue was a fenced off parking lot in Westport. They had 4 portolets there, and I’m not exaggerating this. There must have been between 1000 and 2000 people there and they have 4 portolets. What an awful situation that was. Just before the show was over, Kim discovered that they were letting you leave and come back in so that you could use the bathroom across the street. They should have announced that before RR started. I spent probably a fourth of the show in line. It was a good show though, and I think my tape should be alright. There were a few drunks in the crowd that almost took the rigs out, but we tried our best to form a wall. At least we survived with no damage.

Yesterday was pretty typical. We met up with Mike and his friend Elizabeth for some breakfast. Then we tried to get some good produce at the City Market, but there wasn’t much there this time. Then we watched the Bengals lose another game to the Browns (which made Mike happy). It was a pretty lazy day looking back on it. Kim and I even watched two movies after the football game. Then it was time for me to be active and play some hockey. We got killed by a team full of young punks though. I can say that now, especially when talking about a team with an average age under 21.

I got a voicemail from the head security guy at the Hyatt. About time. He said that they are cutting me a check for the missing camera. Woohoo! According to him, there was a temporary member of the housekeeping staff on duty that weekend, and they are trying to contact that individual. For such a nice hotel, why would they have staff on a temp basis? At least they are taking blame for this.

In other fun news, it looks like we are going to go on next years Rock Boat. This years just ended, but OAR was added to the lineup for next year as one of the headliners. This fills the gap that stopped me from going this year, there is now a headliner (out of three) that I really want to see. Marc Broussard is already announced to be a part of it again next year, and I’ve heard rumors that Matt Nathanson will be there too. We are working on getting a group rate, and should have that secured within the next day or so. Looks like I will finally be on my first cruise!

I thought this cold was gone, but I guess it doesn’t want to die so easily. My body aches and I have felt tired for the past day and a half. None of the medicine I have taken has really helped with that. I no longer have the nose issues, but my throat is sore and I just feel like crap.

Tuesday night I got a little preliminary work done for the Sonic website, but I definitely need to put some more time into that. Last night I went to hockey even though I really didn’t feel like it. I thought that maybe I could sweat this disease out, but no such luck. I still had a hard time falling asleep because of the aches in my legs and back. I wanted to go to the Carbon Leaf show last night, but after hockey I really didn’t feel up for it. The last straw was when I went to the now infamous $1000 ATM machine, and needless to say it didn’t have any money in it. Someone must have come through earlier in the day and emptied out their account. So without the money required to get into the show, I just went home and tried to get a good night of sleep.

Tonight I’ve got a dinner meeting with my boss and a co-worker. It’s for the Kansas City Quality Assurance Association. Sounds exciting huh? :b Hopefully it goes by fast, I’m ready to take some knockout drugs and sleep for hours and hours. I need to get better by this weekend. Robert Randolph is on Saturday!

Another year another trip to NYC for the weekend after Thanksgiving! I just booked a flight to go back for the annual OAR shows in NYC. Last year was too much fun not to do it again. I’ll be flying on US Airways, my first time using them. Reason is that they were the cheapest. I got a flight for $225 that goes out of Columbus, OH into NYC and out of NYC into Indianapolis, IN. This works out great since I’ll be in Columbus on Thanksgiving with Kim’s family. Then we need to be driving back to KC on that Sunday, so Kim can just pick me up in Indy and we’ll continue on the way. The only part that doesn’t sound fun right now is the 11AM flight out of NYC. Maybe we should just stay up all night. :)

I’m leaving work now and heading to the gym. I’m gonna attempt my first run since I quit last week. Hopefully these new shoes help out…

I can’t believe I forgot to mention this earlier. VACO‘s new CD is out! I believe you can find “Ok To Go” in stores like Best Buy all across the country. Be sure to pick up a copy. I’ll put a song or two in some upcoming songs of the moment…

Biggest news first. The car was broken into two nights ago. Window was shattered and they didn’t open the doors at all to prevent the alarm from going off. They got away with the stereo, some miscellaneous CDs, and my stack of shopper discount cards. A guy walking his dog later found the shopper cards and our woodside ID’s, so I got all of that back. Among the CDs was Marc Broussard’s new disc, so he is gonna be blowing up in the ghetto shortly. Kim had a CD book filled with her “chick music” that is now gone as well. Thanks! :b So we filled the police report and called the insurance. They sent a guy out and he found over $1000 in damaged pieces on the car. There are few scratches on the outside and inside of the door, but I think we can work those out our self. So after the $500 deductible and the $180 new window we should actually make a little money out of this deal. We’ll have to get a new stereo, but that shouldn’t be much more than $100. Progressive loves us…

Besides that this weekend has been great. We picked up Eric and Nick from the airport and later headed to Tomfooleries on the plaza. I think this is my favorite place on the plaza. Late night happy hour from 9 until close has $1.50 domestic pints, that’s pretty hard to beat anywhere. The food is also excellent, skillet pizzas are the greatest! So we stayed there for an hour or so, and then came back to the apartment to play darts for the rest of the night. Yesterday we had to hang out for awhile until the window was replaced, but once that was all taken care of we headed to Westport. We went to Harpos because it was a nice night out and their back deck is pretty hard to beat. There was a three piece cover band playing Coldplay as we walked in. Sounded pretty good, but then they took a break after it. We hung out there for awhile and watched two full sets from these guys. Pretty solid as far as covers go, and there was even an original song that I enjoyed. Problem now is that I cannot find out who it was. At first I thought it was local guy Ryan Patrick Imming but I don’t think he plays with a band at all. He also has covered OAR and the frontman here said they like OAR but don’t do any covers. Don’t you think you would say your bands name at least once in 3 sets of music? I know I would, and plug a website too…

Today I’ve been sitting around in my new running shoes “breaking them in.” I think we are gonna head to McGonigles in a bit to pick up some meat to grill out tonight. Our visitors are heading out tonight around 8, so I guess we should get moving…

I headed to Lawrence on Saturday night, Kim stayed behind because she was feeling a little sick. I met up with Steve and his brother Jeff, at Jeff’s apartment in Lawrence. We headed down to the show which was at Abe & Jake’s. This was the first place that OAR played in Kansas according to Steve. It’s a pretty large place, but they have some strange “obstacles” all over the place. There is a small pool in the middle of the place, and towards the back there is what appears to be a McDonald’s jungle gym.

The show was awesome, we had a great time. The crowd was pretty big and enjoying the night as well. I ran into Tanner Walle at the show, so I talked to him for awhile. His CD just got mastered in NYC, so the release date is going to be a little further away than expected. I can’t wait to hear it though!

Yesterday we had to drive all the way out to the airport so that we could get a flight back to Cincy for Halloween. We did it though, so we’ll be home then. That is the next time for me, although Kim goes back the first week of October for work…

Last night Kim’s cousin stopped by with a friend while on their way to San Francisco. Her friend is moving out there, so they are on their cross country trip. We went out to dinner and drinks, which they bought since we were letting them stay the night with us. Can’t complain with that! :)

We are sitting over at Doni & Phil’s doing some laundry and watching a movie. We attempted to go see The Presidents of the United States of America, you know the old 90s band who sang “Peaches” and “Lump”??? I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t know who I was talking about, Kim didn’t know until I played her those songs. The show was down at Westport, and was outside in a parking lot and the nearby street. It was packed full when we got there, full of teeny boppers and seemed to be a kind of rough crowd. The funniest part is that it was a “rock the vote” kind of show, but most of the crowd probably wasn’t even 18. Kim and I quickly gave up on that idea and ducked into McCoy’s for a few beers. I got to drink a couple more of my favorite beers around. It’s a mix of their Hog Pound Brown and Red Light Raspberry, called an “Artie” or something. It sounds interesting and tastes even better. I need to find a way to have those at home. Or something similar…

I think we are going to go see Pomeroy tonight in Lawrence. My buddy Steve Christy is heading to the show with his brother who lives in Lawrence. That gives us a place to crash and a good show to attend. I believe this is one of their last shows around here before they go overseas to play for the troops for three weeks. Go to their site to read about that…

If you didn’t already know, I’m planning my next trip home for Halloween weekend. OAR is once again playing a Halloween show in the Midwest, and I’m not going to miss this one. Actually I’m not going to miss these 2 Halloween shows, the first one is on Saturday in Cincinnati and the second is in Columbus on Sunday the real Halloween. I just requested Monday off of work, one of my few remaining vacation days, so I look for some flights. Did you know that Delta reduced their fares in and out of Cincy? Awesome! I earned $400 in Delta miles one of the last times I flew out of Cincy by giving up my seat on an overbooked flight and taking the next flight. So I find a roundtrip flight for just over $200, so that would be just over $400 for Kim and I. Perfect, I can use my “Delta Dollars” and then pay the difference. I sign us up for the flights, go to the payment page and enter in some numbers on my voucher, but the damn system won’t take any of the numbers. I search by my frequent flyer number, nothing. I search with my credit card numbers, nothing. I then start reading a few things on their site and find a statement that says vouchers earned from giving up your seat can only be redeemed at a Delta ticketing center. Wonderful, I have money that only Delta will take, but yet their website won’t take it. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were Delta ticket offices like there are in Cincy, but in KC no such thing exists. I am forced to go to the airport this weekend, and hope that the rates haven’t gone up. What a pain, but at least the flight will be very cheap…

That makes one thing to do this “poor” weekend of ours. We came to the conclusion that we don’t have much money to blow this weekend, after the fun we had the last weekend. So, I think we might go hike around a lake, or head down to a bike trail, or some other kind of outdoor activity. Should be fun, especially since we haven’t done anything like that in awhile.

Kim is taking some sort of insurance exam today, I think it’s about boats and stuff, what they call ocean marine. Do you know the difference between a tug boat and a tow boat? That’s what I thought. :) It seems pretty tough, but I think she’ll do fine!

Doni & Phil are taking a long weekend trip to Chicago I believe. Kim and I get the pleasure of watching their cats again. We loved taking care of them so much the last time, that we are going to go over twice a day now! I just hope that they are either perfectly trained to crap in the toilet or they gave up on the whole concept and are back to the litter boxes. Picking the poop up off the floor and putting it in the toilet for the cat is not a good form of training, but who knows maybe it helped…