Category Archives: Friends

2007 Wrapup

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I thought a Year in Review might be fun, since a lot has happened this year that’s worth mentioning. I did something similar last year…thought it might be a good way to start the year off right.

Got the year started by watching the Chiefs lay another playoff egg in Indianapolis. I don’t care that Manning and the Colts went on to win the Super Bowl…the Chiefs plain sucked in that game. I considered going Martha Stewart on my home office, but decided against it, having the gift my parents gave me for Christmas 2006 (a custom California Closets desk) installed. Alli spent a lot of time in January in Ohio with her mom and her ailing grandma. We spent 11 days apart, the longest since we’ve been married.

February was Oscar month. Scorsese finally won his Oscar, which was awesome. I also spent some time in the ER because of chest pains that fortunately turned out only to be Costochondritis. Phew. Alli and I both visited the hospital that month. I struggled to read much of anything early in the year because Kyle Smith’s awful Love Monkey kept me down.

March had both sad and happy moments. Alli’s grandma passed away and we visited Ohio for the funeral. Jake and Kelly got engaged early in the month. I considered getting braces. I professed my newfound coffee love.

April contained a lot of posting on the blog because a lot went on. Alli and I took the church Senior High group to Branson for Young Christians’ Weekend, the Jayhawks lost in the tournament again, the Chiefs made a great first-round draft pick (who I met in December), Alli and I finalized our Italy plans, and the producers of American Idol raised over $70 million for the ONE Campaign. We also made another hospital trip in perhaps one of the scarier days of my life.

May happened.

June did too. Alli had an art show at Starbucks. I went to Atlanta for the HOW Design Conference and saw a 7-foot, 9-inch tall man. We left for our 3-week trip to Paris and Italy, which also took up over half of July. It was the best trip I’ve ever taken. For a review, read this post.

I spent much of August reviewing our trip on the blog. Alli turned the big 30. She dealt with it much better than me. I predicted a Larry-Johnson-less Chiefs to go 5-11. Not a bad prediction. They showed how awful they were going to be by going 0-4 in the pre-season and gave us a glimpse of how dysfunctional they were through Hard Knocks. I finally got around to reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I loved every moment of it. Alli and I also got totally addicted to Big Love on HBO.

September marked the arrival of my first niece, Ireland. The Fall TV season started up with some good new shows that will ultimately be cancelled. I worked a shift at the Cowboy Boot Carnival. Apple, as they do, released another wave of ipods. This post was my favorite of the year.

October is usually a great month, but it was marred by awful Chiefs play. Helping to raise my spirits was Alli’s second art show of the year, this time at Terrace on the Green. I went pink for October on the blog and saw a couple of excellent movies. The Sprint Center opened and we got to check it out for the So You Think You Can Dance show. I also helped Luke announce the launch of his KCDiningSpecials.com website.

I returned to Atlanta for about 36 hours in November for a brief industry conference. I also discovered an absolutely brilliant comic website, The Superest. I railed on the Chiefs quite a bit in November. Who would have known that they wouldn’t win again during the whole season? I visited Allen Field House for the first time in my life. The Slap Countdown timer expired. KU lost a close one to Missouri at Arrowhead. I initiated the first annual ‘Complete this Sentence‘ project. I was thankful.

December is my favorite month of the year. Especially when it snows. The Chiefs continued the longest losing streak in team history. We launched some awesome new technology at work. I turned 31 and got 15 comments on my birthday post (a new personal best!) and saw some movies. I tried to fix my back problems. We rang in the New Year with Jake and Kelly.

As for my favorites of the year, I’ll try to be brief:

  • Favorite Movie: Across the Universe (not even a contest)
  • Favorite Book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
  • Favorite New TV Show: The Big Bang Theory
  • Favorite Reality TV Show: Top Chef
  • Favorite Existing TV Show: Either Lost or The Office
  • Favorite Album: Either the Across the Universe Soundtrack, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, or OneRepublic’s Dreamin’ Out Loud
  • Favorite Event: The birth of my niece
  • Favorite Trip: No contest here…it was obviously France/Italy 2007
  • Favorite Restaurant: Caffe Leonardo in Rome

Overall, it was perhaps my best year yet. Hope yours was great as well. Here’s to an even better 2008.

Late Night, Early Morning

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Last night, the boys and I got together at former New York Nationals star Jordan’s house for some poker.

Despite the fact that we started entirely too late and that my back (seriously, more on that later) was in shambles by the end of the night, it was a decent showing for me, considering I haven’t played in ages. I started off slow and dumped an early hand to the aforementioned Harlem Globetrotters nemesis. Then, I staged a pretty significant comeback.

It started when I was dealt [cards]9h 9s[/cards]. I was out of position, but with only seven relatively tight players (and perhaps the most aggressive to my right), I raised it just a little before the flop.

The flop was pretty good:

[cards]9d 9c Js[/cards]

It’s never a bad thing when you flop four of a kind. Everyone had been scared off by my sissy little raise except Josh. I wanted to keep him in the hand as long as possible. I checked, hoping he had maybe a pair of something or had caught the Jack. Next card out is an Ace and Josh bets it and I think to myself, “I’ve got this.” I raise his bet enough to get a call.

The final card is a blank, but I’ve got Josh on AJ, which puts me in a great position. He checks and I bet about 8 times the blind…about half the pot at this point. I want him to call me and he thinks about it for a while, then makes a move that would have been really difficult for me (and is an example of why I’m a bad poker player) — he folds the hand.

He shows me his AJ and for fun, I show him and the rest of the table the quads. That built my stack up considerably, which allowed me some freedom to play more aggressively than I typically do. I’m rolling right along as chip lead for most of the night until I run into a freight train driven by Josh.

I am dealt [cards]jh jc[/cards] under the gun. Jake has gone out by now so Josh is right behind me in the big blind and last to act. I limp in (my first mistake) and a couple other stragglers do as well.

The flop comes out [cards]4h 10h 4c[/cards], a great flop for me with my over pair. Small and big blind (Josh) both check to me and I bet out about 4 times the big blind (about the size of the pot). The two others in the hand fold behind me and Josh goes all in. I think back a moment to a time that Josh had smacked me in the face with A4, so I consider laying it down, but I can’t.

I call and am crippled when Josh turns over [cards]10d 4d[/cards]. Stupid big blind hand flops a full house. Ouch.

After that, I manage to play pretty close to the vest, doubling up a couple times where I shouldn’t have, but finally managing a 3rd place finish. I end up in the money, which is better than I expected before the night started. It was a decent night of poker, but one I am not anxious to repeat with the way my back felt when I finally got into bed around 12:30.

Why does my back hurt? you might ask. More on that later.

KC Dining Specials

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Kansas City Dining Specials

A couple months back, a friend of mine at work came to me with a project he’s been working on in his spare time – Kansas City Dining Specials.

What is KCDiningSpecials?

Visit KCDiningSpecials.com daily to discover new restaurants to try for Breakfast, Lunch, Happy Hour, and Dinner. It’s a website created for the Kansas City Metropolitan community to share their favorite local restaurant dining specials.

Kansas City Community – Useful

Visit KCDiningSpecials.com to quickly find dining specials for today, tomorrow, and well… any weekday at any location that is important to you. We hope that you’ll find the specials listed on the site so helpful that you’ll continue to visit, spread the word, and contribute by “Adding” your own favorite specials.

Kansas City Community – Driven

That’s right… YOU can contribute. The idea is that it’s community driven; Kansas City Community Driven. Who knows the best local area restaurant specials? YOU! Quality, taste-tested, patron approved specials can and should be provided by the folks who know.

Bet you didn’t know…

Every time you visit KCDiningSpecials.com you’re presented with the current day’s specials at every named location available. Click the location links on the right side of the page to view only the specials at the locations that are important to you. Create a bookmark once you’ve selected the locations that are relevant. Every time you visit the bookmark you’ll be presented the “today’s” specials at your favorite locations!

Congrats to Luke for his work on this site. I designed the logo for him and gave him web design consultation along the way, but the programming and Ruby on Rails ninjary is all him. I suggest you check out the site. If you know of specials in your area, add them.

The Cowboy Boot Carnival

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Did you know…

…Olathe, KS, my city of residence, is where the cowboy boot was invented?

To celebrate, Olathe throws an annual festival called Old Settler’s Day. It’s a crazy time for the city, culminating in a 3-hour long parade. Organizations and businesses from around the city have booths and spaces where they either peddle their wares or promote their organizations.

Our church, the Olathe Community of Christ, has had a booth there since the 1950′s, the early days of the congregation. The festival started in 1898, but I can find very little information about what it signifies. I’m going to go with the invention of the cowboy boot.

Saturday was my shift at the booth. Me, B, D, J and J arrived around 11:45 and were quickly trained by the crew before us, helping them to navigate the lunch rush. Around 1:30 PM, the parade ended and the lunch rush became chaos. One member of our church came up with the concept of a foot-long brat which proved to be incredibly popular at the festival. We had many workers from other booths coming because they’d heard of our brats.

Working with my friends was a lot of fun. Jason and I manned the front of the booth and interacted with all the folks purchasing food which Darin and Bryan fulfilled orders and Jeff worked the grill. Despite a couple of minor setbacks when we ran out of certain items, it went really well and we made an awful lot of money for the church while having a lot of fun in the meantime.

Still, a festival is still a festival. A carnival is a carnival. And a carnival in Olathe…well, let’s just say that the residents should not be so quick to put themselves on the same level as other Johnson County residents quite so fast. Olathe is still very much a farm town and Old Settler’s is a great example of it.

As much as I’d like to…

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…this is not a trip update. I just haven’t had nearly the time I want to commit to giving a thorough overview of the trip and I’m still fighting with myself to get our pictures up on Flickr. I promise that trip updates are coming soon.

But not today.

We had a great weekend and just wanted to talk quickly about it. We spent Friday night at Community America Ballpark watching the T-Bones (from a suite, no less) as a celebration of Big Mike’s 31st birthday. It was fun hanging with all our friends and playing the “pass the cup” game that makes T-Bones games a lot more interesting. (It’s nothing sinister, I assure you.)

Saturday, I got a lot accomplished. I mowed our lawn for the first time since we got back into the country, which led to a small bout of dehydration. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the summer? It is the most VILE of all seasons. Too HOT. After recovering, I tackled cleaning and scrubbing the kitchen while Alli went to the baby shower for my future niece, Ireland. In 7 short weeks, I’m going to be an uncle…how cool!

After Alli returned from the shower and I finally got IN the shower, we went to the movies for the first time since we saw Shrek the Third in a French theater just off the Champs-Elysées. We caught two movies that I’ve been dying to see – Live Free or Die Hard (AWESOME) and The Bourne Ultimatum (EVEN AWESOMER). We were shocked to see one of the biggest theaters at the Olathe 30 AMC completely packed for the 9:50 PM Bourne, but after seeing the weekend box office numbers (Bourne took in over $70 million), I guess it isn’t all that surprising. That movie ROCKED.

Then yesterday, we had an early Priesthood meeting and a great church service in which we got to sit with our buddy Reece, which is always fun. He and I had a good time playing motorcycle while I tried to pay attention to his dad’s sermon.

After church, we grabbed some Chipotle with Mom (an obvious Sunday lunch choice…and every other day for that matter), then headed home for a quick nap and then back out to Lee’s Summit to hang with Jake and Kelly. Watched Stomp the Yard (pretty good), some Iron Chef America and Entourage before heading home with the 7th Harry Potter book in hand (boy, do I love my future sister-in-law for hooking me up!). I read until about 2 A.M., getting through around 300 pages. I’m determined to finish in the next couple of days so I can finally start reading all about it on the interweb. Fortunately, I’ve been able to avoid spoilers up to this point. Needless to say, it was difficult waking up this morning.

Keep an eye out…I promise a trip update soon.

P.S. If there are any generous reader-types out there, I’m totally wanting this Harry Potter set that is going to come out in a month. I only have one of the 7 books and I want the whole set. If someone out there is interested in making this boy’s day…I’m just saying.

Welcome to the world!

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Miss Camryn Avery!

Brett and Sarah welcomed a nine-pound baby girl into the world on Saturday. According to the Picture Mail I received on my phone, Mom and daughter are doing quite well while dad…well, we always wondered about him.

Congrats you guys!

79th Annual Academy Awards

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So last night, Alli and I held the 2nd Annual Olathe Community of Christ Young Adult Oscar Party. It’s a great time watching the show with a bunch of friends and competing over who wins the awesome prizes provided by Brad and June.

Alli successfully defended her title as Best Prognosticator of Awards and unsurprisingly, I came in second once again. There were several great moments, some confusing moments, and some downright surprising moments.

My favorite moments:

  • Forrest Whitaker’s speech
  • Scorsese finally wins Best Director (and receives it from Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg)
  • The cool dance troupe segues that formed the interpretations of the Best Picture nominees.
  • Ellen’s opening monologue – totally spot-on, perfectly self-deprecating and not insulting to the nominees at all (do you hear me, Chris Rock and Whoopi Goldberg?)
  • In fact, the Errol Morris opening nominees montage was really cool too.
  • Ellen overall – she did a great job hosting, in my opinion. The part with her dropping off the script to Scorsese was priceless.
  • Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly’s song – awesome.

Confusing:

  • Jack Nicholson’s bald head
  • Jaden Smith and Abigail Breslin’s presentation
  • Dreamgirls getting all but shut out (2 wins in 8 nominations)
  • Chris Connelly. I can’t stand this guy and I can’t figure out why they had him backstage if he was just going to pass by the stars. Pointless.

Surprises:

  • Eddie Murphy loses Best Supporting Actor. Not a bigger meltdown since Russell Crowe’s for A Beautiful Mind. Guess releasing Norbit when you did wasn’t such a great idea, huh Eddie? I was very happy for Alan Arkin though.
  • The Departed wins Best Picture. I had it 3rd on my big board, behind Babel and Little Miss Sunshine.

Overall, it was a decent night. I was glad to see Scorsese win, but I think that it showed that the level of films this year was just average. The Departed certainly is not Scorsese’s best film to date, but for some reason, he wins for it. That seems to happen a lot (see: Denzel Washington).

I’m hoping that the next year brings some better movies and a more competitive race. As good as Jennifer Hudson was in Dreamgirls, I doubt we’ll hear much more from her ever again.

Favorites of 2006

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I really liked Brian’s post about his favorites of 2006, so I thought I would drop mine onto the internets.

Favorite Book: This is a tough one. I’ve read more books this year than in any year past. If I wanted to seem all intellectual and whatnot, I’d say that The Tipping Point was my favorite read. And truthfully, it was my favorite non-fiction read of the year. Great writing and a fascinating book. However, I would probably say that my favorite book of the year was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Call me cheesy or whatever, but after reading all 6 Harry Potter books this year, I finally see what the big deal is. While I held high acclaim for several books this year (I had about 8 that scored higher than 9 out of 10 on my scale, including The Historian, which I called “the best book I’ve read in the last 5 years”), I can’t think of a single book outside of the fifth in the Harry Potter series that I enjoyed more.

Favorite Movie: OK, so the year’s not yet over, but I’m going to need to categorize my favorite movies…

Favorite Comedy: There were not a lot of terribly funny movies out there this year. Out of the few, I had a great time watching both The Devil Wears Prada and Little Miss Sunshine. Very different movies, but both were a lot of fun. However, my favorite comedy of the year was Stranger than Fiction. Honorable mentions for Clerks 2 and Thank You for Smoking.

Favorite Drama: Another tough one. I would like to retract my earlier statement that Leonardo di Caprio did not deserve two Best Actor nominations. After seeing Blood Diamond, I realized that he deserved every bit of them. Blood Diamond is excellent as was The Departed. I would give a slight edge to The Departed only because Jack Nicholson is so awesome in it.

Favorite Action: Casino Royale. Hands down.

Favorite Animated: Cars. Pixar does what only Pixar can do.

Favorite TV Sitcom: The Office is my clear choice here, but it is followed closely by How I Met Your Mother, which Alli and I have dubbed “the new Friends”.

Favorite TV Drama: Lost has really lost a lot of steam. Even at the top of its game, I don’t think I would enjoy it more than I am enjoying Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip these days.

Favorite TV Reality: Top Chef. Always Top Chef.

Favorite TV New: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Perhaps my favorite show on TV right now. Honorable mention for the late Six Degrees.

Favorite Album: Either St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley or Continuum by John Mayer.

Favorite Event: Changing jobs. It was really hard to leave PSI, but it’s been a great experience so far. I’m really liking my new position. Also, the Chiefs making the playoffs is up there.

Favorite Home Improvement Project: I would probably say the tiling project if Alli and I hadn’t decided to make our bedroom a priority. We just got a bed, nightstands, new lamps, and drapes. Totally changes it (although we haven’t gotten the bed yet). Now we just need a new mattress.

Favorite Trip: VEGAS BABY.

Favorite Poker Night: Coming back from being desperately short-stacked to winning in the longest heads-up match against Darin at Jason’s house.

Favorite Restaurant: Pizza Shack. Would have been Chipotle if not for an AWESOME 30th birthday outing.

Favorite Present: Easily my painting.

That should be all for now. Here’s to a great 2007.