• Am I going to get an sleep on this lake trip? Probably not but it will be a great time.
• Is the Allstar Game really going to make the town insanely crazy. The city sent out a letter to all companies within the city limits to try to reschedule any deliveries to and from your facility to reduce traffic. Really? Is there going to be millions of people driving around? Are companies going to deliberately lose money by not shipping products? Who ever wrote that should be fired for being an idiot.
• Finallly scored free Cards tickets and they are very good. Many thanks to KJ.
• My whole idea of getting in better shape for this trip went down the drain when I got sick. I tried to workout tonight but only lasted about 6 sets.
• My sholders and chest are still peeling from last week. I am really confused. I barely got burnt. Maybe I have a skin eating disease.
• Still loving the great deals I got on Sunday. Sounds like I came extremely close to buying a similar swimsuit as another guy going on the trip. That would have been a distaster. We already have a problem of all wearing white or black shirts every time we go out … lol.
• Has anyone watched the NYC Prep show? I just found out about it today. Sounds right up my alley but I can’t get it in HD so not sure if I can stand to watch standard definition.
• Looking forward to both the start of our sand volleyball league and baskeball league (for me) next week. Thanks for Sarah N. for designing the shirt. I came up with both funny names. Boutros Boutros Volley for vball and Boom Boom Pau for Bball. The bball name is a play of words for the Black Eyed Peas song but we will have a picture of Pau Gasol (of the World Champion Lakers)  instead of Pow.

This past weekend was a pretty laid back weekend as planned. I had my Lake of the Ozarks trip last weekend and two Lake Michigan trips next month along with an All Star week of partying so this past weekend was my only real free weekend. With that said, I did go to the Cards game which is actually going to be my only scheduled game that I can go to this summer. It was a lot of fun but it was hot (and we have the worst seats for the heat due to no breeze) so we went to the Casino Queen section bar to hang out. We followed it with another bar tour by going to Al’s, PattyO’s, Side Bar and then Rue 13. We did go to Maurizos afterward which was good. It had been at least a month since I had been there.

I woke up Saturday with a nasty cold. My  throat had been bothering me all week and it finally kicked in Saturday. I took it pretty easy by watching Role Models and a couple other movies then went to sleep early.

I did get some needed shopping in this weekend. I got some swimsuits like all the cool kids wear. I was happy because I found two that were my size and the store had buy one get one free. I also advantage of some super sales at Express. I got a couple ties for only like $6 each. Pretty good deals considering the same style of tie I bought there last year cost $50.

I did get a $300 special assessment notice in the mail this weekend for our condo. I was expecting it based on our last condo meeting. It is starting to be an annual assessment to do major improvements. Last year they redid the first floor by putting down a tile/carpet combo. This year they are installing an electronic key fob system at all the doors. I am super pumped. They are also installing better ventilation in the trash room, new hot tub covers, and new outdoor patio furniture. I think it is definitely good that they do this to improve the resale and stay competitive with other condos but it also can have a negative effect by now having two special assessments on our record. We seem to have one of the higher condo fees in downtown so not sure why we are not rolling in the cash.

I have been thinking alot about buying a waterproof digital camera. I have at least 3 different water vacations this some; not counting all the trips to the river. Plus, I had all kinds of adventures last summer where a “water” camera would have been helpful. I know Mike Hoff has one and he uses it as his regular camera but not sure what model it is.

I recently read this article on Engadget about the Canon Powershot D10. I was expecting this to be an awesome camera based on my initial reading but they ended the article saying it did not take good underwater pictures (or at least that is what I interpreted). I was expecting a lot more for a $300 camera knowing that you can buy an Olympus model for $160. With that said, that one might be waterproof but it is probably not shock proof and sand proof like the Canon. Olympus does have another 10 Megapixel that they are advertising as “tough” but it does not say in its description what makes me want to pay almost double for the same 10 megapixel. I’ve had bad experiences with Olympus and old good with my two Canon cameras. I wish I would have known 6 months ago that there was such a thing when I bought my new camera. I have brought along my old Canon the past two trips because I didn’t want to ruin the new one.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences? I would like to order one very soon for my trip to Spring Lake / Lake Michigan next Wednesday.

I went to Lake of the Ozarks on a last minute trip this past weekend. I was a bit worried because I wasn’t sure what the sleeping situation was, if I was going to get any boat time, or if it would be fun at all since I only knew a 4 out of the 29 people going. Fortunately it was a complete blast and blew away all my expectations.

We started our expedition late Thursday afternoon. It was a fun ride but did take quite a bit time to get there since it was on the other side of the lake but fortunately the “new” bridge did save us some time. Even though it was dark, we put on our suits and hit the water by the dock for at least 3 hours.

Friday was an awesome day. The other 3 guys (one being the owner of the boat and house) that were down there for the day went golfing so we got the boat all day. After we bought a new battery and I made some boat repairs, we were on the water all day. We eventually picked up the 3 other guys around 5. Basically we just drove the boat around and explored all the amazing big house down at the Lake. My one question is who is owning all of these houses. I don’t know of an area in St Louis that has this many big houses. All the house would be million dollar places if they were not on the lake so I can only imagine how much they are worth since they are on water. We stopped every once in a while to swim around. We did try to find Party Cove but we never found it. We found out later that we were super close to it … we missed it by one turn. I did also do some cliff diving. Pictures of me jumping along with the rest of the trip will be posted here once I get them from Josh. Needless to say, here is a picture of my arm in which I guess is a casualty of me jumping from a 35′ cliff. This only started to popup Monday and it could only be from jumping. We concluded the night by playing drinking games once all the girls arrived at our place.

On Saturday, we woke up somewhat early to have a huge breakfast of homemade B&Gs, eggs, bacon, cinnamon rolls, and other breakfast food. Once finished we headed over to the main house to enjoy boating and waverunner action. Amazingly enough, no one really wanted to boat. More people wanted to use the waverunner but it was not like people were fighting over it. I think we went through about 30 gallons of gas alone that day on the waverunner. I did go boating and enjoyed some water skiing and tubing activities. After we finished that, we picked up the girls and went cove hopping.

On Saturday night we decided to go out and we chose the Horny Toad since it was right across the cove. I had been there a couple times in college but not since. Man has that entire cove changed. They now have a hotel and everything. It was really built up along with the other bars but unfortunately it was dead. We should have gone to Shady Gators which was in the same cove and extremely packed but the group thought HT was better. I talked to some regulars on Sunday and they said Horny Toad is really facing a lot of trouble. Shady Gators and the very recently opened Lazy Gators is kicking their butt. We finished the night with playing beer pong till about 6 in the morning.

This trip really did raise my desire to buy a boat. I even though it would be cool to buy a place at the Lake but I feel like you would need a big place like we had so you could have a big group out. Needless to say, I think I have almost the same amount of fun on the river plus I can sleep it my own bed and its a “short” drive so keeping a boat on the river seems like more of a reality. It would be nice to get like a 24′ or 27′ boat that I could also take out to the Lake of the Ozarks for a couple weekend outings but that would require me getting a truck too so I doubt that is happening. With that said, I am a little afraid to drive a boat around other objects like when pulling into a dock so not sure if this is a reality or if this would go away with more experience.

Needless to say this trip was fun and I am somewhat glad that a bunch of people backed out because it gave us more boat time. We were supposed to have 29 but we only ended up having 18 or 19 people.

I also never heard so much “hooker face”, “Helen Keller”, and “F C U ME.” I don’t believe those are the real song titles but might as well be.

Bar Hopping in the Lou

Hoff and I did a lot of bar hopping on Friday. We started at Lumiere to meet some friends then went to Cielo Bar on top of the Four Seasons. It was empty but it is a cool place. Great place to bring a girl for a date. It was very relaxing with lounge chairs everywhere plus two pools and a great view of the city, the Arch, and the river. After that, we went from Dubliner to meet Dave to Lucas Park (which was more empty than I ever have seen it before) and then to Rue 13 since we knew the night was a wash. Not sure where everyone was at. People tell me it was because the Kumen race the following day. I’m not sure if I believe that.

“I’m on a Boat”

This was the first weekend of the year that I went on the river. Man was it a great time. Mike P, Dave, Jeff, and Catherine made the trek. It started out to a funny experience with Dave dropping his glasses into the 10ft deep brown water at the dock. Jeff thought we could pick it with a magnet but I knew that wouldn’t work. I rigged up a net and amazingly Dave was able to snag the classes out of the mud after about 10 minutes. Once we were on the water, I forgot about how dangerous Jeff’s boat seems but he is merchant engineer so I believe him when he tells me the boat is in sound shape.

We got to the main beech around 1 but it did not start to get packed until around 2. We tossed around the football, walked up and down the beach people watching, but mainly sat on the beach enjoying our beer (in which we drank all of). We avoided playing sand vball because it was mainly guys. We ended the afternoon with the boat stereo blaring to “I’m on a boat.” Amazingly enough, no one had played it the whole afternoon. The girls on the huge boat next to me said they forgot to download it and were glad we played it. On the way back, Mike was hilarious. We were listening to some old school rap and everyone was having fun until we got pulled over by water patrol. Don’t worry, it was really just our friend Tom. He gets to drive a pretty fancy boat. Earlier in the day we saw him on a waverunner doing some undercover work.

After soaking up the sun and the fine AB products, we decided we needed some food. Mike had the amazing idea of going to the China King buffet only a mile away since we did not get the opportunity before Parties in the Park like planned. All I can say is that it was delicious and I can not believe we did not get kicked out. Somehow they must have known and sat us on the side of the restaurant that was totally empty and behind a corner. I got a text the next morning that perfectly described the event “The State Dept called, they said we were being extradited to China to stand trial for the war crimes committed at the buffet yesterday.”

I love sleep but love denying myself of its goodness

This weekend very much replicated last weeks sleep. I had very little sleep Friday night, went to bed around 9PM on Saturday, and stayed up past 1AM on Sunday night. Luckily there are no more NBA games to keep me up past midnight anymore.

The Lake Show

The Lakers won the NBA Finals on Sunday. I missed the first half because I thought the game started at 8 like every other game this playoffs. Supposedly the Magic came out strong but collapsed at the end allowing the Lakers to go on a huge run to end the half. In the end, the combination of Gasol, Ariza, Odom, and Kobe were way too much for Orlando. The series surprised me some what. I thought all the games we close except for the first one. I really expected it to go to 7 games; especially after the trouble that the Lakers had in the previous rounds but Orlando’s amazing 3 point shooting went cold.

I do think that both Ariza and Odom do need to come back next year. If I had to choose one, I would pick Ariza even though I am a huge Odom fan. Hopefully Bynum will pick up his game and be more of a force to ease the loss of Odom. The Lakers do need to pick up a more consistent shooter for the bench. The bench was their strongpoint at once and now it is their weak point.

I’m Addicted

I did start playing the new (I think it is a year old) iteration of Civilization 4. It is called Colonization. To all my Civ 4 friends, this game is very addicting and it is similar to the 3 versions of Civ 4 but it is also totally different. There are so many things you need to control so it is a bit overwhelming. You basically start a colony among Indians and 3 other nations. You can befriend the Indians and the other colonies or fight them. If you are nice to the Indians, they give you things but they also do not allow you to expand your empire without pissing them off. The game has like 20 different types of workers which makes it totally different than past Civ games. I’ve played it twice and I still do not know what I am doing. I think the goal is to build enough points so that you defect from your country like US did from Britain. I haven’t even come close before running out of turns.

Last night was another round of Parties in the Park in Shaw Park. Unlike last time and like we all thought would happen, this one did not get rained out even though it did poor for the trek from Cardwells to Misos. It was actually rather warm: uncomfortably warm. Overall it was a great turnout and I liked the Beatles cover band even though they never seemed to be playing. Besides the ladies in attendance, the other thing that I like most about this event is that I see a lot of people that I rarely see. It might even be that I only see them at this function.

We bar hopped alot. We went from the Park to Cardwells to the place next to Misos (always forget the name) to Misos to Kilkennys. Cardwells was packed until the rain started and the place emptied. Misos was surprisingly not insanely packed which is good. The problem I have with Misos is the layout. They play 80s music and videos so it has so much potential but you can barely move around the crowd. I even think there is a simple solution. Get rid of the chairs and tables between the Sushi bar and the main bar. That still leaves ample seating compared to other bars plus more areas to move around. Miso owners, if you are reading this, at least try it the next Parties in the Park since I assume these events are one of the major customer nights.

There were some memorable moments that all involved ladies; mostly from Jeff. We were giving him a hard time. Another friend had the “cougar” of his dreams come up to him after he had gawked at her the past two Parties. He even called her a cougar to her face and she didn’t get offended. I thought it was pretty risky because she was only 37.

Steve did talk me into going to the Del on the way home but that is now going to stop since I have planned two lake trips in the past 24 hours.

No this is not a post about people and which phones they use but is more a rant about how they use their phones. I have a hard time understanding how some people I know do not answer their phones, check their voicemail or quickly respond to text (if even at all). There are two reasons that I don’t buy some of the responses I have received for their actions. (1) I wouldn’t get fired but it would definitely not help me out in my job status if I wasn’t always responsive to my phone. (2) I have heard a response that I haven’t looked at my phone in the past 12, 24, or even 36 hours. Isn’t anyone afraid of family emergencies? Speaking from experience, I know what its like to get a dreadful call in an emergency.

While I am on the subject I feel somewhat the same about emails. I think everyone should get Blackberrys so that I can then email everyone instead of leaving voicemails and texts. The world would be a better place. With that said, my friends would need to reply to the emails and hit “reply all” if it is a group email about plans. Something you can not do with a text. Also, if someone sends an email or a text asking about plans but you can not make it, be courteous and respond back that you can not attend.

I am not sure what to think about this week but one thing I do know is that I need to take it easy for a little bit. There is way too much going on in St Louis and I have to try to stop doing it all. With that said, I have a customer dinner on Monday, Dr Z is playing Twilight Tuesdays at the History Museum, Parties in the Park is on Wednesday, and another Lakers game is on Thursday (as well as Tuesday). Needless to say I will make an appearance at Parties in the Park and watch the two Lakers game at home … or at least that is the plan. With all that out of the way, here is what happened this past weekend for me.

I attended the St Louis Heritage festival (otherwise known as Beerfest) for the third year in a row. The weather was 10 times better than last year … no drudging around in the mud. They also moved the event and it looked to have twice the area of prior years. One other thing I noticed is that they also doubled the glass size. Good thing Matt Smith had the idea of “tasting” all the beers so we started getting our glasses only a ¼ full about an hour into the event. All the major StL breweries were in attendance and some of the new ones. AB , Schlafly, Buffalo, Amalgamated, O’Fallon Brewery, Mattingly. Alandale, Trailhead, and Augusta. Surprisingly, Square One was not there which I think is a bad PR move because they are a good brewery in a prime location but still very unknown to the general public. Good times were had by all. It was a perfect night for drinking some beer in the park. The one bad part is that St Louis cab companies still do not have their act together. There was probably like 2 or 3 cabs waiting after the event ended and at least 5 other groups waiting for cabs. We called a cab but then ended up walking to Kingshighway where we ran down a cab. Next on our list was the grand opening of Banana Joes right next to my condo. This place is in the same building as McGarveys that opened a couple weeks earlier. The place was dead but did have a good layout except for the fact that we went in the McGarvey’s entrance which had no cover but then had to go out of our way to go to the Banana Joe’s entrance to pay the cover for it. But I heard that all the bars downtown were dead so not sure if that was a good judgment. One other thing, is this the same owner of the old Bananna Joes on the landing? If not, they did a horrible job in naming since a quick Google search only shows reviews for the old location. Also, how can you expect to start a bar these days without a website? At least have a Facebook or MySpace page about the bars.We went to Pepper briefly to see if it was alive but it was also dead so I had a little afterparty hot tub session round out the night.

I was exhausted Saturday so I skipped the gym, the pool, the BBQ I was supposed to go to in the afternoon and the BBQ grad school party in the evening. I am really disappointed about not going to the grad school party because the guy had karaoke at his house and I heard it was a blast. Instead I meant to take a nap around 5PM but ended up not wake up till 3AM the next morning. Because of that, I went to Schnucks and made myself some breakfast and watched movies all morning. I watched Valkyrie, Big Fish, and Benjamin Button. Big Fish is one of my favorites so it was good. Valkyrie was good but I was expecting better and Benjamin Button surprised me. People said it was too long but I can’t see what scenes you would cut. Overall, I thought it was a good movie. I rounded out the Sunday afternoon by driving around randomly with Mike and Courtney. Mike did get the last Palm Pre at the downtown Sprint store so that was a plus. They said they had 40 and did have a line Saturday morning. The night ended perfectly with a nail biting Lakers win. Courtney Lee is lucky we are not in Japan; otherwise he would probably have to shoot himself. Hoff and Courtney did bring over a bunch of junk food for the game so that did not help the eating healthy mentality.

• I am sore in really weird places from my first basketball game in preparation for the league we may or may not be starting in tonight. The Y let me bring in Ryan and Rengel for free. I was exhausted after playing two games of 2 on 2 then two games of full court 4 on 4. I did get jacked with an elbow so I have a swollen upper lip. I also got nailed in the face with a ball when I was playing defense but I shook it off. The backs of my hands are actually sore. I guess it is from the dribbling. I would bet that I would be mores sore if I had not been doing squats the past month. I did score more points that I ever have … even some fast break points but all my shots were layups since I was basically playing a low post position.
• I am on the fence about buying new golf clubs. I have never owned a complete set and really thing newer clubs could improve my game. With that said, I have not played golf in 3 years so why bother but it seems like I might pick it up now that school is done and a lot of my friends play.
• I have really gone to town with my newly purchased label maker and filing cabinet. I have totally organized my massive stack of papers that I have been piling up for a year. Now I just need to transfer the files I already have organized in my portable single file organizers. My one drawer is almost full so I will need to buy another one.
• I am excited about the new shows starting next week like Weeds and Nurse Betty.
• I bought my tickets for the St Louis Beerfest yesterday after I got screwed over for my work Cards tickets. Hopefully it won’t be a muddy mess like it was last year. It is supposed to rain all week so they better be prepared this time.
• I am excited about the Lakers game tomorrow. I am even more surprised that Jameer Nelson is in the 10 man rotation for Orlando after he has been out for a super long time and supposed to be done for the year. He did average something like 29 points against the Lakers but there is no way he could be in playoff shape after sitting out this much time. I did not know until this morning that Orlando won both games against the Lakers. I would have thought that they would have matched up well. I bet “TI” burned them too.
• Not overly thrilled about the recent murders around 20^th and Market. We walk through this area almost every weekend on our way to Harry’s. I am glad the StL police are stepping it up in that area. How can they not with Union Station right there?
• I am really enjoying the constant emails that have been going back and forth this week from a group of my friends. They really get on each and it might be the most hilarious banter you could ever read. I would post some of the conversations on my blog but I am afraid they are NSFW. People have stopped by my office this week and asked why I was laughing so hard.
• The news about Sheldon Richardson not going to MU anymore is crazy. How does someone not get at least a 16 on the ACT to get into college; especially when its a free ride? How can you be a 5 star recruit that is destined to be a future NFL star if he gets good experience in college not work his butt off to get the tutoring to get a 16? I would expect that the average 8^th grader could get a 16.
• The news about McEagle Properties plan for the rejuvenation for North of St Louis is a little outlandish in my mind. There is no way that we will ever see this even though they say it’s a 20 year plan. The vast wasteland of empty lots and burned or boarded up homes will continue to be there. I drive through this everyday on my way to work and it is amazing how there are huge areas where there are no homes for blocks. The reason why I don’t think this will work is because he would need to transform the whole area at once. Otherwise you would not be forcing the crime out and no one would want to move there. One thing I do not totally agree with these TIFs that are proposed to be used for this and the Kiel Opera house. How can the government give this much money for private enterprise? I am sure McEagle will make a ton if this goes through. He should have to give that money back after they do.
• I hate my Bold at this moment. I keep it on the charger at work and I can have it be dead by 10 o’clock at night. I am also having issues where Blackberry’s own internet browser, Twitter, and Facebook say I don’t have a connection but then I can hop on Mini Opera and it works. I then have to restart it which takes like 5 minutes. I am going to take it in this week.

Nightlife

I took it easy on Friday since I was so tired from traveling and lack of sleep. I watched the Lakers game then briefly went to Dubliner with Mike and Dave but called it a day after a drink. Saturday was another story. I went to Blueberry Hill for Ryan Ellen’s graduation bash. But before I discuss that, I would like to talk about the possible cab scam that I uncovered. I called number I had in my phone for Laclede Cab to get a ride to the party. The lady that picked up was hard to hear but she told me she was booking a cab. After an hour with no cab, I call again. This time she does answer Laclede Cab and tells me that driver 123 is on his way. After another 30 minutes, I call the number I have in my phone for Yellow Cab. The lady answers the phone Laclede/Yellow Cab. I told her that I called twice but she did not have a reservation for me. She set one up for me and it was here in 10 minutes. The interesting thing about this is that I have used this number in the past many times but I did realized that the last two times I called a cab it did not show up nor did I get a call after we left. The last time being the night we went to Double Ds and we waited for a cab for 30 minutes. Once I finally got there, it was a good time. Everyone was nice and liquored up. The one thing I regret was all the Jager bomb shots. I have a hard time judging my drunkenness when I do shots so I paid for it the next morning.

Shopping

I finally got a night stand filing cabinet. After, I looked everywhere I got this one at Walmart. I am happy with it but it did take forever for me to put together plus I am missing two screws so I can not mount the top drawer. Like the reviews said, the instructions were horrible. It calls out different letters for each piece but there were no markings on the pieces with the matching letters. I also did not realize that it was legal size so I need to take back the letter sized hanging folders I bought. I still would have like two drawers but could not find one anywhere in an expresso finish. I might go buy another one but I am really dreading putting it together.

I also went to the Good Works outlet looking for some accessories. I found two items that I have also been looking for. The first is a magazine rack. Good Works had one with an expresso finish so it matched my coffee table that I also bought at Good Works. The second item was a lamp for my night stand. It is a stacked wood lamp with a big white cloth shade that is also expresso that matches my bedroom furniture. I also switched to all compact fluorescent lightbulbs with natural white light. Wow, what a difference in lighting.

Sports

It was a pretty good weekend for sports. The Lakers wrapped up the series which made me very happy. I was pretty worried. The Cavs did not so Lakers got back home court advantage which is key. One interesting stat that I did not know about the Cavs was their record against the top tier teams like the Lakers, Orlando, and Boston. I believe it was something like 3 wins and 8 losses. Their average margin of defeat was something like 15. I think it comes down to the fact that they do not have enough elite players like the other teams do. They must rely on Lebron way too much. The Detroit vs Pittsburgh series started up this weekend. I thought it was going to be a good series but Detroit has won both hockey games.

In fantasy news, I shutoff my opponent (Matt Smith) for my second consecutive shutout. My team had a slow week but I still pulled off the shutout so I’m happy. I have a big rematch against Rengel’s brother this week. I should be sitting pretty good because I should get a majority of my pitchers twice this week since they only pitched once last week.