21:36 CST Monday 03/01/2004

Guster was fantastic, as usual, and OAR was a surprising and fun bonus. Guster excelled in the usual places, notably with a powerful rendition of Come Downstairs and Say Hello. The crowd was a fun bunch, but dinner at Chubby's beforehand was a bit disappointing for the rest. I got my ever-reliable reuben, though, and was happy.

Countdowns: Chicago in a week and a half (coming together splendidly) and Kathleen's here the following weekend. W00p.

22:28 CST Saturday 03/06/2004

More local kids making good! It seems my friends named "Tim" are doing well for themselves, while everyone else barely reaches above mediocrity. I kid, I kid... Anyway, Mr. Herman of Toledo has landed himself in the news. He is involved in the conservation of an incredibly rare and dying species of toad from Tanzania. They're having a tough go of it, but Tim has found a few things to help them. And the World Bank is giving him money to work on it. Woo. Read all about it!

I'm more than a little excited to get to Chicago next weekend. Looks like the plan is falling together. Boozing with Susan and Co., Island hopping with Ben and Todd, massing with same, party casa DeWitt, a parade with the South Siders, and who knows what after that. Should be marvelous.

Kathleen is off on retreat with the JHU Newman folks this weekend. That means I don't get to use hundreds of free PCS minutes talking to her. :( Hopefully, I'll manage to amuse myself. I'm a sap..

Four cups in Mario Kart in one day.. Maybe I need to get out more.

17:41 CST Friday 03/19/2004

A few pictures from last weekend's trip to Chicago are forthcoming. I've got them all off-loaded, but I haven't managed to name and organize them for display up here. I'll get on that soon, probably after Kathleen heads home. I managed to catch up with a few folks, but it's never enough time, of course.

For the trip to the Windy City, I booked my flights at times so that I could take the bus (2 $1 bus fares vs. $5 per day at the airport). Unfortunately, I failed to note that the bus line to the airport only runs on weekdays, not Saturday when I was planning to leave. So I trudged home and drove. Lesson learned.

Sprint just payed out annual bonuses, so I took the opportunity to pick up the portable music player I've had my eye on for a while: a Rio Karma. I still have to clean up the tags on a lot of my music so the player will be a bit more useful, but it still plays everything. Life is good. I have it hooked up to some powered computer speakers here at work as I post this. Very pleasant.

Kathleen is hard at work at the apartment here in KC presently. She's visiting for the weekend, so it'd be swell if I could go home early. I find it more than a little doubtful, though. She's in town until Tuesday morning, though, so at least there somewhat ample quality time to be spent with her. Nothing is truly ample, though. My second cousin June is also in town for an American Medical Association conference at the Marriot not 3 block from our apartment. We've got a free futon, so that worked out. :)

John and I marched in the Kansas City St. Patrick's Day Parade through downtown, which was bunches of fun. We then proceeded to bar hop, which wasn't as fun to me. At the first bar, we met up with the gal who runs the tours at Boulevard, so she took a picture with us, her most loyal tourers. Perhaps it will be posted on Boulevard's site?

Happy Spring early. Enjoy the daylight. I don't get to.. I'll be working from 7am to 7:30pm. Blech.. If that's the worst of my troubles, though, I'm doing alright.

11:32 CST Tuesday 03/23/2004

I just got back from driving Kathleen to the airport. We had a swell weekend. Last night, I took her to a seafood restaurant (a big deal, if you know me) and I had mako shark, which was startlingly good. The waiter described it as a lot like swordfish, but I found it a little more fishy-tasting. Fortunately, it was well spiced and quite tangy. I was a fan.

Now to work on last weekend's Chicago pictures...

01:04 CST Saturday 03/27/2004

I'm off to Peoria in the morning to spend a long weekend at home. I haven't been home since Christmas, so I look forward to the visit quite a bit. The drive home will also give me the opportunity to further play with my Rio, of which I am quite proud, perhaps a bit too much.

The reason for the long weekend is bittersweet. We're moving to a new shift schedule. Yup, no longer will, and likely never again, will I work perhaps the cushiest hours ever in the whole world. Up until today, I never needed to use an alarm clock to get up in time for work, and would still get 8-10 hours of sleep every night. Yup, it was sweet. Now, I will be working from 7am to 7:30pm. Yup, I'm bitter. I still have odd weekends, though. Currently I have Saturday through Monday off. Now I will have Sunday through Tuesday and every other Wednesday off. I am also losing my shift differential. That's about a 10% pay cut. That may be made up though, so we'll see on that.

A good spin on it all, though, is that my last day on the old schedule is this morning (I got off at 1am), and my next day is not until Thursday. So I am taking advantage of the fact to perhaps find some booze with misters Wasson and Zarr, and catch up with the future mister and missus Burns. We'll see.

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