Coldplay

Monica, Geer, and I saw a great Coldplay show at Alpine Valley on Saturday night. We met up with Matt (Monica's brother) and a bunch of his friends - they're a really fun bunch which made the pre and post show time (aka. sitting in the parking lot) a lot more fun.

As I said a little earlier: the camera is out of order. So, here's the best I could muster from the camera phone. It isn't exactly the best picture ever taken but it does show you just a little bit of how incredibly huge Alpine Valley is. We actually had very good lawn seats and this incredible amount of people were still in front of us. That said, I had grossly overestimated the size of the crowd. Looking on their site tonight I see that the capacity is 35,000 which is a huge concert venue... but I was guessing way more.

RIP Camera

Well, I was going to give you some shiney new pictures of the shiney new condo today but I have other news instead. The old reliable digital camera has finally given out on us. It had gotten to the point where the battery would last about 3 seconds anyway but now the LCD screen has gone out and made it officially done with. I'm sure we could probably get the LCD fixed (and a new battery) but I think it's at the point now where it is just going to be worth it to pick up a new camera.

I know some of you have recently picked up new ones yourselves so I may be asking for some advice. I think my main criteria for the camera are that it's durable and not too big. My absolute favorite attribute of this last one is that I could put it in my pocket and go for a bike ride (or whatever) without worrying about it. The size wasn't cumbersome and at the same time I didn't need to worry about it breaking with some minor bumping around.

Maybe I'll try to borrow one so that you guys can see the progress in the condo... or maybe you'll just have to wait and see the final product!

Bachelor Party!

My bachelor party was this Saturday; a big thanks to Mike and everyone else involved for a great time!

I'd never played paintball before but it was every bit as fun as everyone says it is. I've got a one nice welt in particular but for the most part I'm just really sore! I don't know what it is about activities like this that tells my brain that I don't need to stretch, but I need to get that looked at.

The club and the cards were great too, although I must admit it wasn't a huge disapointment to lose the poker game. It was just too hard to concentrate on that after all the rest of the days festivities!

Mike has a bunch of pictures on his flickr site that you should go check out (click this image).

We made it!

Well, we are in the new condo! There are still many unopened boxes floating around but it's actually starting to look more like a home and less like a carboard box dump! and my commute this morning? AWESOME. I will be driving an hour less every day which is an incredible amount of extra-life that I've just acquired!

Many thanks to Rob and Brandon for the help on Friday. Co-MVP honors go to those Fox boys. Thanks a ton for all the help guys, it is very much appreciated!

Monica had a second bridal shower on Saturday and we are quite thankful for all the gifts! It's amazing how generous people are - and now we have all this extra space so we can actually have a place for it all!

As for this week: there's a lot of excitement about the unpacking, and I'm really looking forward to getting back out there for MAUL. After a couple weeks of skipping, largely due to presentation preparation - it's going to be "interesting" to see how well I do out there.