Another busy day here at work, at least so far. And another crappy day in the land of fantasy football. I went 1-2 this week, and my only victory was once again against a guy who forgot to set his lineup. What really hurt me this time around were my quarterbacks.

In one league, I’ve played Bulger almost every week. This week I knew he was going to be sitting out because of injury. My other options were Brad Johnson, who was coming off of a couple bad weeks, and David Carr, who also had a bad week prior. I took the advice of some fantasy “experts” and picked up St. Louis backup Jamie Martin. I also let these guys convince me to play Martin over the other two options. So what does Martin do? He gets injured in the first quarter, skips out on the rest of the game, and earns me zero points. Thanks.

I don’t have as good of an excuse in my other league. I should have played Bledsoe instead of Favre, and then I would have won. My overall record is now 23-13. Hopefully I have a better week…

I put some pictures up for this past holiday weekend. Kim took all of them, and I tried to make them all look good, but some of them are hopeless. Don’t blame the messenger, blame the photographer. :)

The drive to Ohio was as eventful as always. We originally considered stopping somewhere along the way to rest up, but instead we drove all the way to Hueston Woods on Wednesday night. Besides a minor confrontation with Johnny Law, we had very few problems and got in sometime around 2 or 3 in the morning. Johnny must have been out searching for drunks on the road, because we escaped with just a series of warnings from him.

I slept in on Thursday, and when I finally awoke I found that the troops were being assembled in the hall. I quickly put on all the clothes I had with me and headed out to the paintball field. What a way to start off Thanksgiving, with a good ol’ family war! I was only shot once throughout the day. Some of the bystanders said it was because I was hiding, but little do they know just how good I am at this “game” called paintball.

After I was completely worn out, we headed in to a giant buffet style dinner in the lodge. They had just about everything you could ask for on Thanksgiving, and it was very good. I had to stop after my third trip to the buffet line. I might have continued to stuff myself, but a hockey team had arrived and cleaned out the remaining food. The rest of the night was spent visiting with Kim’s family.

On Friday we took care of some small errands and things, until it was time to head to my Aunt Barb’s new house in Indiana. They moved quite some time ago, but this was the first time I had seen the new place. It is really nice, and actually not too far away from civilization. We had a great time visiting with all of my family and later in the night we headed down to Paxton’s in Loveland, where my buddy Ken was finishing up his bartending shift. My other buddy Jon was there, as well as Ken’s sister and her new husband, Bryan Shova, who we used to play hockey with. Once Ken was done with work, we headed over to The Works to finish off the night. It was great seeing my buddies again!

We thought about doing various things Saturday afternoon, but never really got off of the couch at my parents’ place. Later on in the night we finally decided to head down to the Silverton Cafe to check out The Rusty Griswolds. I don’t think I’ve seen them in years, but they were just as I remembered. Jon came out to enjoy the packed bar as well. We left before the band was finished since most everyone with us had to get up early for the Bengals game the next day.

Yesterday was just as exciting as Wednesday. We left Cincinnati earlier than we ever have, and still didn’t get back until after 8PM. I had a hockey game at nine that I barely made it to. We lost again, but I had a great game. I think I had a goal and at least three assists. When our team scores nine goals in a game, I expect to win, but the other team scored eleven somehow.

Thursday we left work early and headed to St. Louis for another show. This show was at one of the coolest venues I have ever been in, the Fox Theatre. It seats just over 4000 people between the main floor and a huge balcony. The truly amazing part is the architecture on the inside of the building. It is very detailed and well maintained, unlike many other older theatres that I’ve been in. The show did not disappoint either, it was probably the best one out of the three so far. We met up with my friends Josh and Dani, who live in St. Louis, and they were gracious enough to give us a place to crash.

Before heading to bed, we did go out after the show for a couple drinks. The bar was called Pin-Up Bowl and is a martini bar and bowling alley in one. A pretty interesting but really cool idea. Hopefully we can go back again sometime, I heard it’s one of Josh’s favorite bars!

We woke up pretty early on Friday so we could get to Cincy at a decent time. After dropping a few things off to Kim’s family, we headed down to the hotel to get checked in. We had a number of rooms at the hotel, and a pretty large group of people. Of course the partying began almost immediately. The show that night was good, although I was expecting the crowd to be larger than it was. The setlist was the best I have seen in awhile, maybe because some of us help write it. :) It was pretty cool to be watching O.A.R. play in a big arena, even if only half of it was being used.

After that show, we headed to the viper room for the after show with Ordinary Peoples. I hadn’t seen OP in a long time, so it was nice to get the chance to catch their show. We didn’t make it through the whole show, but from what we were there for, it was a blast!

Saturday we woke up and got ready for the wedding. My buddy from college, Nick, was getting married to his long time girlfriend, Jessica. We drove out to the church in Middletown, and somewhere along the way lost a bunch of time. We walked in 20 minutes late and somehow the mass was almost over. It must have been the fastest catholic wedding ever, 40 minutes and everything was done. From there we headed to the reception. It was nice to see so many people that I haven’t seen in a long time, some of whom I had forgotten about and vice versa.

We went to Rock Bottom later on in the night and met up with some of the O.A.R. fans, my parents, and some others. Good times, good beers! From there we headed up to Mt. Adams and into Longworths. It was a good night out, but it didn’t help us stick to our plan of leaving on Sunday at 9.

We actually left Cincinnati on Sunday sometime after 1. The drive was miserable, but the weekend was well worth it!

We went to another O.A.R. show last night, this time in KC at Memorial Hall. I’ve never been to this venue before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s an older building in Kansas City, Kansas, that is actually named ‘Soldiers And Sailors Memorial.’ It was built in the 20s I believe, and I don’t think any work has been done to it since then. Actually it isn’t that bad, it just has that older building stench to it. The sound was alright though, which was a little surprising, since I’ve been in similar places that had horrendous sound. Overall the show was good, and I got to scratch another song off of my list of songs not heard live.

I’d write more, but I’m only working a half day today! We are off on a road trip, which will lead us to two more O.A.R. shows and a wedding for an old friend of mine. It should be quite the weekend. The next update will be on Monday, after we return to KC.

Our entire volleyball team was finally complete last night. For the previous three weeks, at least one core team member has missed the match. With everyone there, we had our best matches yet, against one of the best teams we have played. What’s scary is that somehow the other team is in last place, they must have a tough early schedule. We won the first and last games, and probably should have won the middle game, but all their stupid rules kept getting in the way.

There is the rule that if the ball is hit more than once on your side, then one of those hits must come from a girl. The sad part is that the girls are the best part of our team. They should make a special rule that at least one guy must touch the ball. Occasionally Pavia will hit the ball to me, in the net, and I have no choice but to hit it over. These plays are illegal according to the above rule, but when you see the play, it’s clear that it should be legal. We stink. :)

So our team is now 6-6 and sitting in 6th place. In the next two weeks we are playing both of the teams that are tied for 4th place with 7-5 records. Hopefully we can knock one, if not both, out of those positions! Check out the full schedule and results here, once again our team is Dig This.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I put my pictures from the O.A.R. show up on the site. There are a bunch of good ones, so check them out!

Friday night we went out to dinner for Kim’s birthday, just a couple of days early. We headed over to our favorite Italian restaurant on the plaza, if not in all of KC, Figlio. The dinner was great, the wine was good, everything went well except for one little incident involving Kim, a bottle of olive oil, a smashed wine glass, and my own dirty clothes. You may have to user your imagination a little bit, but you should get the idea. From there we went reVerse for a couple of drinks to finish off the night.

Saturday we headed up to Ames, Iowa to see O.A.R. I bought tickets the day they went on sale, and lucked into a couple of front row center tickets. Our friends Steve Christy, Courtney, Stacy, and Tarah all made the trip as well. The show was definitely a good one, and the venue is awesome! I should have some really nice pictures from our seats, that I’ll try to get online soon. I saw O.A.R. play at this venue back in 2003 during the spring break trip, and once I saw the date I knew that I had to go again. We hit up a couple of the college bars before and after the show. It was well worth the 4 hour drive.

Sunday, after a stop at Famous Dave’s for lunch, we got back into town just in time for my hockey game. We lost yet another game, but I think I played one of my better games of the season. We have another game tonight, and one our forwards might miss it, so maybe I’ll get to play forward again. This was not a terribly exiting birthday for Kim, that’s why we went out on Friday. For a few months she will once again be older than me. :)

I spent another night at Charlie Hoopers last night. A couple of the guys from work were heading up there once again for import night. Kim stayed home so she could study for an upcoming insurance test. If you remember from the last time I went up there, a couple weeks ago, I did a tour of England. Well this time I decided to move the tour over a little bit to the west. The land of choice was The Netherlands, although I think their menu labeled it as Holland (which I’ve learned is just a province of The Netherlands).

First on the menu was Grolsch, which I may or may not have had before. Not a bad beer, pretty similar to Heineken, which is also from the area. I did really enjoy the bottle top though! From there I tried a Bavaria. This wasn’t a bad beer, but nothing really stood out to me. That left either Heinken or Amstel Light. I had to go with the rabbit’s namesake and drink the Amstel. This is one of my favorite light beers ever, so it was a nice way to top off the night.

In site news, as my mom pointed out in yesterday’s comments, I put some pictures up of us carving pumpkins with Dominique and Bianca.

After work on Friday I met up with pretty much everyone who I ever mention on here, most of whom were already out celebrating Kim’s promotion and another Friday evening. We watched the Chiefs game at the Brooksider and then later hit up Bobby Baker’s to round out the night.

Saturday started a little earlier than I would have liked, but it was worth it. We picked up Dominique and Bianca and brought them over to our place. We made some lunch and then carved the pumpkins we bought last weekend. I never realized how tough the carving actually was. I’ll have to remember to get some pictures up soon.

From there we hit up Susan’s fish fry for a couple of hours with Mike and his visitor from out of town, Chrissie. It was a nice excuse to make some skyline dip and then try to eat all of it. Eventually we had to get back to our place for the Shaking Tree pre-party. My buddy Steve Christy was coming up from Wichita, along with a girl who is dating the drummer. Courtney also joined in the party, as did Steve’s brother Jeff and our friend Maria.

The show was good, although by the time it started most of us were getting pretty tired from a very long day. It was nice to finally get out to another show though. After the show was over, we had almost everyone mentioned earlier back at the apartment and when I woke up the next morning they were all still there, covering most of the floor.

Sunday I watched football over at Mike’s. He’s got the “sunday ticket” package, so we could watch whatever we wanted. I wasn’t happy with most of the results though, I don’t think Mike was either. From there we ran an errand or two and then I was off to my hockey game. I thought I played pretty well, especially since I was playing defense again, but my passing could have been better. I’m still trying to adjust to my new stick I guess. We lost the game, but have another game tonight. Hopefully we can get back on a winning streak.

We hung out with the kids again last night. They didn’t have much homework, so we had them read for a little bit while we finished making some pizza. We had dinner and then played a few rounds of spoons, while listening to O.A.R. I’m not sure if they actually enjoyed the band or were just impressed by my love for the band, but they took home a ton of my promotional postcards and a couple of posters. I told them to pass out the cards at school to all their friends. Maybe I can even turn this into an outing with them, we could hang up posters all around town for the upcoming concert. It would be much more entertaining that way and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.

I put up a couple of pictures from the weekend. I meant to include one of my new framed poster collection, but I forgot this morning. Gallery, the photo manager I use, was giving me all sorts of problems on the new webserver. I think I’ve worked all the issues out, so hopefully I won’t have any more problems. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

You can pre-order O.A.R.’s next studio disc, Stories Of A Stranger, here. I’ve already ordered the Limited Edition version and cannot wait until it’s in my hands! Not much to report for myself, I do have an update on Gabe and Brad’s situation though.

Well, the news has gotten worse and better for us. Let me explain. First of all, as you have all seen, the conditions in New Orleans “proper” are just falling apart. Looters (stealing shoes and jerseys, nice), fires, flooding, chaos, shooting at helicopters trying to evacuate people to Houston?! I don’t think it can get much worse. Diseases, no power – just terrible. I keep thinking about the kids I work with – some of them may not make this and it makes me sick.

However, we live in Kenner, which is about 10-12 miles WEST of the city. The west side did not get hit as hard as the east side and the city of New Orleans. Now, that is not to say it did not suffer any damage – it did – but it is not as bad as the city. From everything we can find out – internet, TV, friends, etc……….our house is probably ok as far as flooding goes. This is not set in stone for sure – but this is what we have good reason to believe. So that is one REALLY good thing. (Word is that if your house survived this with no flooding, the value might double or triple! Sell, sell!! :) Now, we could get back there and a tree could have fallen on our roof, or a car could have been put on the top of our house by the wind – there still could be HUGE damage to our house. We just don’t know. Time will tell. Unfortunately, the media loves covering the city, they are not too interested in the suburbs.

Ok. Parts of Kenner already have power, and City of Kenner police (we are a city and have our own mayor, police, etc.) are letting people back in on Monday to see their houses and view damage. You can’t stay on Monday though – just check your damage, get anything valuable, and leave. Brad talked to his boss yesterday. They need him at the plant – his boss is there, they are getting power today or tomorrow (they have their own power plant at the plant) Brad is a maintenance engineer, and is needed to fix machines that have been damaged and to start up that plant. Dow has apartments in Baton Rouge for Dow employees that cannot live in their homes. So, the plan as of 9:30 am eastern standard time on Thursday, 9-1-05, is to drive into Kenner on Monday, assess damage, then drive to Baton Rouge and stay in a Dow Apartment indefinitely. Brad has to get back to work, there is a press release saying that I may be needed to teach in another parish where students from the New Orleans area have registered (kids are going to school all over the state and in TX, AL, etc).

We have so many questions – we have bills to pay – will we get paid? I think we are going to call Visa, Toyota, and Countrywide Mortgages this morning and let them know the situation. Sometimes I am fine, sometimes I am a mess. Currently, I am feeling stressed. This is just unbelievable. We are driving to Michigan today, then back to Ohio on Saturday night. We are taking things day by day. Kenner might change their mind and not allow people back on Monday, we just don’t know. I will keep you all posted.