leftovers

On August 15, 1998, after convincing my brother and our friend Randy to drive with me from Hays to Chicago, I saw The Human League live for the first time. It was the first time I had been to Chicago, the first time I saw one of my favorite bands live, and the first time I went to a concert by myself. It was one of those life changing experiences. Before that, I had just bought records, tapes and CD's of my favorite bands and hoped that I might catch their videos on MTV or see photos of them in Rolling Stone or some other magazine. With the Internet came the ability to find out even more about these bands, and when I found out that The Human League, a band I had been collecting records of since I was about 10, was going to be touring the US I just had to go. I've blogged about this journey previously so I won't go into details about it again. Before the past weekend, I had seen the band five times since then. August 17, 2003 at House of Blues in West Hollywood, CA (al...

Wow, it's been a long time since I've done a How I Fell In Love With and this is the first time I've done a city (or even a location). Since I'm gearing up for a fun-filled Vegas mini-weekend, I thought it was a great time to blog this. My obsession with Las Vegas began even before I had ever set foot on the Strip. Back when I was in college, I still hadn't been to many places outside of Kansas, but my parents had taken a few trips to Vegas and I loved hearing their stories about all the lights, casinos, slot machines, entertainers, and the general excitement they seemed to feel towards the city. They would bring back big plastic cups from various casinos, from back when every casino actually had coin slot machines. It's gross to think now that we actually used those cups to drink out of, but back then we thought they were so exotic! When I first discovered the internet, one of my first "online boyfriends" was a kid who lived in Vegas. We had met...

My phone alarm started going off at 10 so that we'd have time to get around and pack up to be out of the room by noon, which was check out time, but I kept hitting snooze and didn't get up until 11. I got showered and dressed but everyone else was still sleeping so I had to start opening the curtains and rousing them. I didn't think there would be any way I could get them out of there on time, but noon came and went with no calls from the front desk or visits from housekeeping, so we seemed to be OK. We finally got everything gathered and moved out about a half hour late. We decided to finally go downtown since we hadn't made it last night. Jason had told us about a place called Mermaids that he said we should check out, and Dylan and I always like to go to Fitzgerald's since it has the rainbow. We found Mermaids right away and had a brunch of deep-fried oreos and twinkies, and hot dogs. We didn't have much luck there on the slot machines though, so after ...

It was father's day, so Brandon and I were walking out to his car because I thought I left my bag of clothes in his car (I didn't; it was in Dylan's). While we were walking down the hallway in the Riviera, we both called dad to wish him a happy father's day, but Brandon beat me to the punch and I got the voice mail. Brandon put me on the phone with dad when he was done, but dad thought he was supposed to hand the phone to mom so I just ended up talking to mom but then the call was dropped. Then Brandon and I went to this deli in the casino to get some food; I got some spring rolls and a slice of coconut cake - yummy! Dylan, Brandon, Angie and I got our swimsuits on and went down to the pool for the afternoon. It was pretty sunny and warm, but there was also a nice little breeze. The pool was pretty nice and we had a good time relaxing. Eventually, Luther and Andy made it down but they were wanting to go eat at a buffet so they didn't join us. After the pool, Bra...

Dylan and I had to get up and around - before 2pm! - because we were going to a time-share presentation, which is how we had gotten the three night free in the Riviera. We drove down to where the presentation was, which was very near a condo we had stayed at for our 5 year anniversary (in 2007) and also had gone to a time share deal, although that time we were lucky and the guy told us to go have fun because he knew "we weren't going to buy anything." I guess looking back maybe that was sort of an insult but we didn't care, we were just glad that we didn't have to sit through it. This time we were both a little irritated with having to do the time share thing... we've done many of them before and I guess we are just to that point where it's just really annoying. We got there and the place was so busy that they stuck us in this room with a video projector showing this reel about the resorts they have and these families talking about how great there lives...

I could not wait for work to be over today, as much as I'm enjoying my new job. Invisible Material is playing in Vegas tomorrow so I was so excited to get on the road. After I left work, it took FOREVER to get home! I was surprised at how much traffic, and how my few extra block to the new office ended up taking me so long. It took almost a half hour just to get home, which is insane considering I'm only 3 miles away. I had been trying to find cymbals but I just didn't have any time today so I decided I'd do it in Vegas, as well as buying my outfit for the show. Talk about leaving things until the last minute. I got home and Dylan was pretty much ready to go, so we headed across town to meet Luther and Andrew at Brandon and Angie's place. They decided to all ride together in Brandon's SUV but we had plans to trade passengers at some point along the way so we could switch things up. While we were still leaving LA, we pulled up beside them on the 210 freeway,...