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!

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. :)

After work on Friday we met up with Maria and her boyfriend, who was visiting from Chicago. Amanda also met up with us at George Brett’s for dinner and drinks. It was a nice and fairly relaxing night.

Kim woke up early on Saturday to catch a flight to Charlotte, where she will be for most of the week. I slept in and drove down to Wichita later in the afternoon. I hung out with Steve Christy at his place for awhile. Later in the night we went out to a couple of bars and observed all the freaks in costumes.

I made the long and boring drive back to KC early on Sunday afternoon. By the time I got back, it was almost time for my hockey game. I finally got to play forward again, but maybe I would have been better on defense. We probably would have lost regardless.

Not a terribly exciting weekend, but it felt like a busy one.

Its official, we have spent a good chunk of our cruise refund. We have a reservation at the Mountain Green Resort in Killington, VT from January 26th through the 29th with two day lift tickets included. My friends Aaron and Tracey will be joining us in the room. Another group is working on reserving an additional room for the same time, hopefully that works out.

We booked our flights last night, so pretty much everything is taken care of already. We fly into Manchester, NH where Aaron will pick us up on his way from Boston. We will then head right to Killington to start off the weekend. I cannot wait!

This trip will add two states to my list of visited states. Why don’t you count up your total number and post it in the comments section? Currently I’ve been to 30, after this trip it will be 32. Remember that airport layovers do NOT count but DC does.

Our cruise on The Rock Boat has officially been cancelled. We were supposed to sail on the Carnival Sensation, but that ship (along with a couple others) will now be docked at Galveston to house some of the victims of the hurricane. I am happy that Carnival made the decision to help out as best as they can. In addition, I am actually fairly relieved at this point. It was becoming a pain to make new plans for a new port and probably would have cost us more money. Now we suddenly have 4 vacation days back and a whole bunch of money. Well we don’t have the money yet, but we will eventually have a full refund from the cruise.

Midwest also just announced yesterday that they will give a full refund to anyone who had booked a flight to New Orleans before October 30. This is nice because they don’t fly too many places and we aren’t really sure what we are going to do for vacationing.

Let the planning begin…

My entry before the trip pretty much sums up what we did the whole time. After flying and getting settled in at our hotel we had dinner and then went to the show at Wise Fools. The Alternate Routes played first and were great. Their CD is just as good and I recommend picking it up if you are searching for some new tunes. Some other band played who I think was local to Chicago and then Greenstreet rocked the house. They were happy to see all of us back at their show and with so many new friends. From there we went back to the hotel and hotel bar for the rest of the night.

Saturday started off early with the continental breakfast. We then hung around the hotel room for awhile. The cool thing was that we had a perfect view of the Air & Water Show. After awhile we had ourselves a nice little pregame party and then before we knew it we were off to the venue for the festival. I saw a ton of the bands of the festival and enjoyed some of them. I walked in as The Southland were finishing their set. They sounded pretty good from what I heard while setting up my recording gear. It was good to see Stephen Kellogg again, and they put on a pretty nice show. I didn’t really care about most of the other bands besides Citizen Cope, who played well but didn’t really fit in that well. O.A.R.’s set was great! Lots of the newer songs were played which was great for me and my friends. The crowd was pretty weak until later in the night but even then I was expecting it to be bigger than it was. The venue was nice with a great view of the downtown area, but the lack of a “village” with different booths setup was pretty disappointing. I guess I was just expecting big things from the show and it ended up probably being worse than all the past festivals in Cleveland. The good news was that O.A.R.’s set and hanging with my friends was well worth the trip!

After the show I hung out with my email buddy Nasim and the guys from the band for awhile. I ended up going with them to a bar called Rockit where an after party was going on. There was a line outside to get in, but we were quickly escorted in and to a sort of private area of the bar. I met some cool people up there and had a couple of free drinks. From there I went back to the hotel to meet up with everyone for a repeat of the previous night.

Sunday we didn’t do too much. We had some Chipotle and then realized that we had some extra time. We then went over to my buddy Pat’s apartment and played cornhole on the roof there. The Air Show was going on again, so we also watched that while playing a few rounds. Then we all went out to the airport and went our separate ways. Kim picked me up at the airport along with Dominique and Bianca. Kim dropped Amy off earlier in the day and so she brought our brother and sister along with her to keep her entertained. We dropped them off and then headed home to relax for yet another exciting work week. Bad news to end this entry, I have to work all five days this week.

Work has been crazy once again. Margaret is out of the office either doing some training or vacationing, so that leaves Steve and I to do all of the testing. Luckily we have been able to pull in some help from other groups otherwise I could be here all night. One of our largest clients is not happy with our product right now and we need to fix it within the next couple of weeks. Lots of things to test, little time to do so. Especially with my half day tomorrow!

I have not started to pack so that will need to be done tonight. We also have to make a trip out to the airport to pick up Amy. She is coming into town to entertain Kim while I am in Chicago for Everfine. I’m sure they will find all kinds of things to keep busy.

This weekend should be great for me though. I get into Chicago toward the end of the afternoon. From there we are having dinner at Flat Top which I am really looking forward to. After that we’ll catch a show featuring Greensteet and a few others. Saturday of course is the festival, so we’ll likely spend a good chunk of the day right near the lake. Not sure what Sunday morning and afternoon have in store, but I’m sure I’ll come back with some stories. Wait, I still have another day before I leave, better get back to work…

The drive Thursday night was alright. The party and show on Friday night was great. The party and show on Saturday was great as well. The drive yesterday sucked!

So back to Thursday night, we got into Cincinnati at the normal 3AM or so. We headed straight out to my parents to rest up. Kim left early in the morning to visit with her family. Mike and I stayed back to help out with some setup stuff for the party. Eventually my buddies Joe and Will showed up and we headed down to Liam’s place. We partied for a few hours and eventually took some cabs over to the show. We saw some of Glen Phillips and all of Broussard. His set was short but good. Afterward we headed over to Habit’s for a few more drinks. It was a good night for sure.

The next morning, we all woke up on Liam’s hardwood floor and decided it was time to head back out to my parents. After a couple of stops along the way, we were finally there and ready to party. And party we did! It was extremely hot out, but there was still a good sized crowd during the day. A late afternoon shower cooled it all down for a great set of music from Greenstreet. The cops came a time or two, but that’s to be expected. After the music was shut down, we hung out until late in the night until we could no longer keep our eyes open. It was definitely a great party!

The drive back yesterday was horrible. It seemed like it would never end. The only good thing was our record setting license plate game. You know the game where you try to see a license plate from every state. We ended up with everything but Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, North Dakota, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. We also saw Washington DC along with 4 Canadian provinces: Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. This is a combined list from both drives, although most of them were found on the drive into Cincinnati.

I’ve got another day off work tomorrow! These four day weeks are awesome, I just wish that I could do it year round. The good news is that I still have one more shortened week next week. I’m taking a half day on Friday so I can meet up with my buddy Steve Christy and then get to the airport. Back to this weekend though, we are driving overnight again back to Cincinnati, again. Our friend Mike is coming along with us to the fest. He is the lone KC’er with the dedication it takes to attend. He will come back with stories that make everyone else extremely jealous. :)

As of right now we have 129 confirmed guests from the evite and more keep pouring in. A reminder email went out so all of those slackers are finally accepting their invitations. One of those slackers is none other than Kim Hais. Sheeeesh!

Lots of my “internet friends” are coming into town tomorrow so that we can all go to the Broussard show that night and then trash Liam’s apartment after that. From there we will make an early arrival at the Paff Entertainment Complex on Saturday to help out with any last minute preparations. Once those are taken care of, the beer will start flowing!

In case you missed it in the comments from yesterday, my pictures from the weekend are up. That’s pretty much what I spent a good chunk of last night doing. I had about 250 pictures on my camera and I chopped it down to just under 100. There are some really good ones in there but unfortunately none of those are from the wedding. I also put together a panorama shot from Devou Park that is really sweet. I wish there was a better way to display it, but so far I haven’t had any luck. That’s about the only productive thing I got done last night, so much for the free night.

Pig-Fest is just around the corner and everyone seems to be getting really excited. My dad informed me that the site had almost 1400 page loads coming from 47 unique visitors to the site! The event has also been found on jambase.com, hopefully we don’t get too many random visitors. In the past couple of days I’ve also thrown together a little logo that we are going to use for some shirts and stuff. If you can’t tell it is an alteration of this years bonnaroo logo.