I experienced my first decent amount of snow for the year on Tuesday. While we were away last week Kansas City got around 5 inches one day and I guess that was the opening of the flood gates. I think there has been snow falling for about 50% of the time since we’ve been back. We got between 1 and 3 inches Tuesday morning, so I had to scrape off the car of course (I’ve actually had to do it a few times already). This just gets me in the mood to go to Denver, which we are doing this weekend! This trip actually snuck up on the both of us, but we had booked the flight awhile ago. We now have a reservation and lift passes in Keystone along with a cheap rental car. We are all ready, well besides the packing. It will be a short trip, but we’ll have two days of snowboarding fun!

So I’m back in Kansas City, back at work. I sure didn’t miss this very much. I’m very tired still from the weekend, so I’m just hoping that the day goes by fast. NYC was a blast! The shows were excellent and the setlists were amazing. I ate so much pizza, it doesn’t get much better than that. As we expected the hotel was a dump, but the renovated rooms were actually not too bad. Since they ran out of double bed rooms, they gave us two adjoining rooms for the price of one. We did a few touristy things like going to central park and visiting ground zero. The time we were there flew by. Unfortunately I missed my return flight. It was a combination of over sleeping and then the cab I was in broke down. In the end I just rerouted my trip to Kansas City instead of Indianapolis. I guess it worked out, but I was tired of airports by the end of it all…

Well we made the never ending drive Friday after work. Since we were already tired from the night before, we made many stops along the way. The drive took us around 10 hours this time, and we finally go to my parents place at 5 am. I couldn’t fall asleep for awhile after because of the amount of caffeine that was in my body. So what do we do? Wake up at 8:30 to go watch Kim’s brothers play soccer. They won the game, and each of them scored at least one goal, so it was worth it. That win put them in the championship game the following day. After the game Kim took a nap while I watched football with my dad and brother Tim. I should have napped, but figured I would be alright at the wedding as long as my second wind kicked in. The wedding was nice, and did not have communion so it was about half the time of a normal catholic wedding. The reception was great! So good seeing all of my family in one place.

The next morning we did wake up and go to the championship soccer game. They ended up winning again, and this time Kim and I both took a nap afterwards. The rest of the night we spent over with Kim’s family playing texas hold’em and celebrating Jason’s birthday.

Monday we hung around with Kim’s family some more, and later on met up with her friend Amy at a bar. We played darts and also chatted with her cousin Katie and her boyfriend Bill. It was a good night!

Yesterday we went to the zoo with one of the new Hais foster kids, Lilly. We also went along with Kim’s aunt who was hauling around 5 more kids. It was a good trip but even more exhausting than the trip to the Omaha zoo. We then met up with all of my high school buddies at a bar and played pool for a few hours. It was very good to catch up with all of them.

Tonight we are going to dinner at Montgomery Inn with some of Kim’s friends. Since I’ve been back I’ve made sure to go to Skyline, LaRosa’s and Penn Station. Looks like I’ve been to all of my favorite places here, so my trip is just about complete.

Tomorrow we are off to Deer Creek Park near Columbus to celebrate Thanksgiving. Then on Friday I’m off to NYC!

I did get a couple things done over at sonic.edpaffjr.com. I need to change the font colors for the site text, but that will have to wait for a little while. Next up is probably putting in an application form. Shouldn’t be that bad…

Last night we actually took a run outside. It seems like it had been forever since we did that, and it felt like it too. The hills wore us out pretty quickly and so we only did 2 miles around the track, which I guess is really only 1.6 miles. We then thought about going to the vaco and pomeroy show for awhile and decided not to go. The show wasn’t going to start until 10:30, and with it being an hour away we wouldn’t have been home until 3am at the earliest. We will be going tomorrow though, and the show is a little closer this time and earlier. Steve Christy will be going to the show as well, so it will be more fun than last night. I just realized that the two bands are playing in St. Louis on Friday. I’m gonna think about maybe stopping there for the show and spending the night as well. It would break up the drive, and we will still get to Cincy in time for the wedding.

Speaking of which, if you didn’t already know my cousin Jeff is getting married this Saturday. I’m sure it will be a really good time with all of my cousins there. The reception is right down the road from my parents house, so it couldn’t be more convenient. Kim and I will then be spending the entire next week in Ohio (well I’m going to nyc next weekend) so we should have lots of time to catch up with everyone. As I just mentioned, I will be heading to nyc for the annual Thanksgiving OAR shows! I’m sure I’ll have lots of good times in the next week and a half, I’ve only got to get through 3 more days of work…

Edit: I lied. We cannot stop in St. Louis on Friday. We already made plans to be at Kim’s brothers soccer game on Saturday morning. I’m sure it will be just as much fun! :)

Well the charges have not been removed, but over the weekend I come to find out that over draft protection was just added to my account this past Thursday, the day after we talk to this branch manager. She avoided our calls most of Friday as well. If she realized they screwed up, then why not credit the money back to us. I’ve already placed a few calls to the district manager to get this resolved. Hopefully it will only be another day or two.

Sorry about the lack of updates. I’ve been working very hard lately, and very closely with my boss. That should end today, so then I should have plenty of time to update this regularly.

This weekend we headed to Omaha, Nebraska with Doni and Phil. It was my first time in Nebraska! Kim and Doni got free tickets to the University of Nebraska at Omaha hockey game through work. They were playing Bowling Green from back in Ohio. We not only got tickets but free food and drink! The game was good, I really miss college hockey. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a game. Of course I had to explain a few of the rules throughout the course of the game. UNO won the game 4-2.
Saturday we went to the Omaha Zoo. They have the worlds largest everything! Largest indoor rain forest, largest geodesic dome, largest indoor desert, etc. It was really cool, and I’m sure my brother would have loved it, even though we didn’t see any elephants. I think it was too late by the time we got out to where they were. The gorilla habitat was really nice though, and I even saw a couple of Cincinnati natives there, not people but gorillas. I think the rain forest was probably the best part of the zoo, but they seem to be doing never ending work to make all their exhibits better.
After the zoo we created our own little Omaha Old Market pub crawl. It was definitely a good night in Omaha!

Kim took off for North Dakota again today so I will probably be doing lots of computer work tonight and tomorrow. I need to get some stuff done for Sonic anyway…

Since I added another state to my visited list, I realized that the link I had here before didn’t work very well. I created a page on the site to display the image, and you can now see it here.

This thing is finally working again, sorry for the delay.

Let’s see, work must have once again read this because I can no longer get on hotmail or gmail. Those seem to be the only things that I normally go to that I cannot get on, so I guess it isn’t that bad. I guess I shouldn’t use those emails as much as normal since I can hardly check them. So if you need to get a hold of me while I’m working use my work address.

I took off a little early on Friday so that we could catch our flight. That was the first step towards a good weekend. We got into Cincy and our friend Amy picked us up from the airport in her brand new Jetta. It’s pretty similar to the one that I cruise around in, but it has all of the features like automatic windows and a sunroof. We headed out to my parents house for a bit. I knew that I wouldn’t have much time this weekend, so getting in a couple of quality hours was on the top of my list. I also needed to pick up the Mazda, so I could get all around town. Man I miss that car, 264 thousand miles and still going strong! I picked up a group of friends from Chicago at the airport later that night and headed downtown to the hotel. We dropped everything off real fast and headed down to the Hofbrauhaus. We only had an hour or so down there, but we made the most of it. Liam and Fighty met up with us down there, and even made a little guest appearance with the polka band. Good night out in Cincy, besides the fact that the bar was dead.

Saturday we had lunch at RockBottom and later on ended up in the hotel bar. All of our friends began arriving and we had quite a party going on in the bar. Some came and went, but a group of us stayed there until show time. The show was at the Taft Theatre, a older theatre right in downtown. We had great tickets in the second row, and most of our friends were all within the first 10 rows. I got the band to play a song for me including a little shout out! They were a little rough but that is expected since it was the first show in months. We had fun being so close to the action!

Sunday I went to Skyline, and even drug most of the Chicago crew along. They did not like it though, but at least Liam and I did. Afterwards we drove up to Columbus for the next show. I borrowed a pair of big blingy earrings from my friend Noelle, and that completed my costume. The paint on the shoes didn’t last too long, but it did the trick. Only a few of my friends dressed up, but it was fun regardless. Of course we hit up Chipotle that day. Free burritos yesterday if you went in and bought one on Sunday! This show was all general admission, so we would of course be hanging out in the back of the venue. The Shantee opened the show and were great as always. I just found out that they are breaking up soon, so that might have been the last time I see them. At least I saw them play in front of a large crowd once. OAR came on the stage dressed as pirates, and played a good set. I could hear this show much better, but that was probably just because of location. We went to a cheap bar afterwards and soon called it a night.

Monday was my travel day. I drove back to Cincinnati and dropped the car off to my dad. My mom picked me up and we went out to meet Kim and her mom. From there I went over to visit with some of Kim’s family for a little bit and to get everything packed and ready. We flew out later that night, although we almost got bumped to the next flight. Maybe next time. We had dinner back in KC at Flat Wok which is a Mongolian bbq place. I loved it! Kim has wanted to take me to one of these, and I’m glad we finally went. I tried to find a website for this place, but haven’t had any luck. I would highly recommend it…

Yesterday we had to go back to work. It was a pretty quick day however and we followed it up with a quick workout. Later in the night we went to Todd’s for an election party. I think everyone just was looking for an excuse to throw a party. I tried to stay up last night to watch all of the results, but ended up passing out on the couch. I’m kind of glad the election is over, now we don’t have to deal with the protestors and all the political discussions that have been popular lately.

Today has been very uneventful. I finally got the stereo that I won on eBay, so I’m going to hopefully install that tonight. I need to make sure it all works before I cancel my complaint. I’m still waiting on the check from the Hyatt. Is 2 weeks too long? I may call towards the end of the week if nothing shows up. I need my circuit city gift card as well. Maybe all of our mail is just getting lost somewhere…

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!

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…

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…