My Sister's Encounter with Obama

This is kinda cool, somebody actually posted a youtube video of Barack Obama coming to Ben's Chili Bowl in D.C. and my sister and brother-in-law just happened to be there. In the video, Kim (in the white coat) shakes his hand about 15 seconds in. Brian got to him just before...and then (off camera) recommended the half smoke (a chili dog)

Trying to Get Back to Normal

I promise no more depressing blogs for a while after this one...

Its been a week and a half since Hayden left us and it still doesn't seem real. I think about him everyday and I can still hear his voice in my head. Mostly either yelling at Monty (his dog) or Scott (his little brother) but still, just doesn't seem real. I've been amazed at how many people Hayden touched in his days. Just look at the number of visits I've gotten at this blog over the last couple of weeks:

June 5 … 24

June 4 … 46

June 3 … 43

June 2 … 55

June 1 … 70

May 31 … 58

May 30 … 84

May 29 … 109

May 28 … 155

May 27 … 232

May 26 … 181

May 25 … 11

May 24 … 2

May 23 … 14

May 22 … 8

May 21 … 9

May 20 … 13

May 19 … 9

May 18 … 10

Almost all of those have been through people googling Hayden. Then looking at all the comments here and all of the responses on his facebook page, unbelievable. I don't know if you need to be a member of facebook to read everything, but some of the posts on his "wall" show how great of a kid he was. A couple of girls are planning on getting his initials tattooed!!! We miss you Hayden!

To pile on, my grandmother (Bubbie) lost her brother last night...on her birthday! He had been sick and in the hospital for a while, and is truly in a better place now. It's just unfortunate that she has to go through all of this right now. I love you Bub!

On a completely unrelated note and definitely not depressing news, congrats to my two favorite and most important Kim's in my life! First, my sister Kim, accepted a new job with the Federal Reserve! Finally no more 80 hour work weeks! Then my friend "Nurse" Kim is graduating (and I know I'm saying this wrong) anaesthesia school in October and just accepted a job at a hospital in Huntsville, Alabama which apparently blew her away with their offer. Congrats to Kim's everywhere!

Who gets hurt playing KICKBALL???? Me!!!!

For the longest time I've been wanting to join a kickball league. Kim has been doing it for years up in DC. The main attraction this time around (as compared to the 2nd grade or so) is beer. And I won't lie...I like beer. But my kickball debut was not such a good one. Our team really had no clue. It was our first game, very understandable...but we lost 11-1. It was cold. Too cold to drink beer. (Seriously). The field was very muddy. And this is how I would meet my demise. Right around the batters box was probably where the worst of the mud was. During my 2nd at bat (do they even call it that in kickball?) I was about to kick the ball when I kind of slipped...then replanted to correct myself. Didn't really hurt at the time, probably because it was so cold. But by the time I got home, and was inside for a while, both of my knees were pretty seriously stiff. Woke up at about 4am in a cold sweat. Chugged a bottle of tylenol (not REALLY) and went back to sleep. Woke up still in pretty bad shape. Went to work, hobbled around all day, took all kinds of fun drugs. But I learned what worked better than any drug I could've tried...ICE!!!! After work, I came home, did the every 20 minutes thing with the ice on the backs of my knees and not too much longer, I was feeling a LOT better.

It's been a couple days now, my knees are still kind of sore, but I've been upgraded from "questionable" to "probable" for this Sunday's kickball game against the Blueballers. We're gonna make em look silly...because they may not realize this, but we play with red balls. Idiots!!!!

For anyone keeping track, I'm 0-2 with a groundout and a fly out so far. But I played a rock solid first base, only had trouble with the first ball that came my way, but it bounced in the mud funny! Definitely not scored an E-3!!!!

A First Class Nap - Weekend in DC

Pretty busy couple of days. March Madness began on Thursday, which is really the only time you'll catch me watching basketball. Especially with my advancing love of hockey these days, it's taken away from my college basketball viewing (I sure as hell would never watch an NBlAme game!). I run a pretty decently sized bracket pool, usually around 80 participants so that helps drive my interest. Using my nerdy obsessive excel skills I have the power to know exactly where everyone standings after each game. So, with the way technology is these days...may as well bring the laptop to a sports bar! So I did. There was basketball to be watched pretty much from noon to midnight on Thursday and Friday nights. Friday I had the conflict of a Thrashers home game. Not that I was gonna miss it. It was also my buddy Matt's last game of the year. We got to see Alexander Ovechkin's 60th goal of the year, only problem is, he plays for the Washington Craps. The Thrashers blew a 3-1 3rd period lead and lost 5-3. So score one "L" for Operation Believe in Tankland.

After the Thrashers game, me and Matt needed food and wanted to watch basketball. We met up with some fellow Sweetwater friends - Stevens & Rochelle. They picked out a bar to go to a couple miles away, decided we'd take a cab. They had us walking all over downtown Atlanta looking for one. We walked towards the Westin, but noticed the road to our left was blocked off. So we went through the garage of the Westin to the main carport area, thinking there'd be a cab there. Nope. Roads were all closed because of the broken glass everywhere. We kind of snuck out the other side of the hotel. The street was definitely closed. Stevens and Rochelle walked ahead, me and Matt played the role of tourists. See picture - look at all the broken glass all over the place!!!! We turned a corner, trying to head back to an open street and there was a cop car sitting in the middle of the road. Me and Rochelle walked off, but the cop rolled down his window and asked why we were there. (oops). They told the cop that the guys from the Westin told us to go the wrong way. To which the cop replied "those guys are fucking retarded!" (No confirmation of the F-word was given though). Matt then asked the cop for a ride, but he had to stay where he was. Oh well. Next stop - The Ritz. We had a good plan cooked up, if anyone asked, we were in room 302. We did get the concierge to get a cab for us...and I scored a free bottle of water out of the deal! That was the end of the entertainment...I didn't really like the bar we wound up. There was a TV, but no sound and the kitchen was closed by the time we got there. The men's room had an Out of Order sign and I got yelled at for going in the women's room. Whatever. Bitches! Eventually me and Matt needed to get food, so we hopped on Marta, and wound up on the last train back towards his house. Whew! Got back at about 2...went over to Waffle House...back to Matt's couch (my second bed) and asleep by 3. Only to wake up at 5:15 for my 7am flight to DC!!!! D'oh!

I somehow managed to wake up and get myself to the airport in time. Oh, I need a shout out to my friend Jennifer. She's a flight attendant for Delta and hooks me UP!!!! I have to fly on standby, but I get whatever seat is available. If that just happens to be first class...so be it! Well, it had never happened before but it finally happened. Score! I've got me a first class seat! Of course, all I wanted to do was sleep. And that's all I did. I got a bottle of water and a pillow and I was done. Chugged the water, put my head on the pillow against the window and the next thing I know...we landed. I've NEVER been able to sleep that well on planes, but the combo of a first class seat and being on 2 hours of sleep I guess was all I needed! I guess if you're gonna look for a disadvantage of first class, since I was one of the first ones of the plane, I was the first to baggage claim and it felt like I was waiting there FOREVER. Finally my bag (aka - my bed - I was in charge of bringing my air mattress and pillows) showed up and Kim came and got me.

I don't think I ever talked about this on here but after Kim & Brian got married they temporarily moved into Kim's port-a-potty sized condo. They eventually decided to sell it and get a bigger place (Brilliant!) Well, it took them all of 5 days to sell it. So they had to scramble to find a place to live and they did a pretty damn good job! They're new place...which I'm still not sure how to describe - it's 2 stories, but its within a building of about 5 other "units". So it's not a house. Not a townhouse. Maybe a condo. I've never heard of a two story condo though. Whatever it is...it really is nice. And it's HUGE! And it's in DC! I didn't think that was possible. They've got a bedroom upstairs, a bedroom downstairs. A living room upstairs and living room downstairs - to be known as the "man-cave".

Saturday was also Kim's birthday. Later that night there was to be a birthday / basketball / housewarming party. The highlight though was the cake that Brian got for Kim. Yep, that's basically a photo shopped picture of Kim's head on a body sitting on their couch, reading some financial reports while watching her new favorite show - Real Housewives of something or other. Nicely done Brian! After a nice and well needed nap, they put me to work. I helped Brian put together a desk while Kim went out shopping for the party. I managed to keep myself out of harms way but Brian manged to splinter and staple himself. Also at some point we managed to scrape a piece of wood on their wall. Which is when I learned about Oxy-clean (I think that's what its called) Rubbed a little that on the wall and the black line we put on the wall was gone!!! After the desk was done, it was basketball time. It was nice watching Duke lose...as always. But then Kim got home and put me to work again getting ready for the party. The party was good enough for me, all I really wanted to do was watch basketball, so thats what I did. The social types were upstairs, while most of the guys were in the "man-cave" watching the games. One thing I learned is that I'm glad I don't like wine! About 9 bottles of wine found their way into their house as housewarming presents!

After bringing my air mattress with me, turns out I forgot the pump-charger, so the bed wasn't really inflated and I didn't feel like working at it anymore, so I just crashed on the couch and got a good, much needed 10 hours of sleep or so. Woke up just in time for some more basketball! The big activity for Sunday was that Kim was gonna finally teach me how to do my own taxes. I've managed to go all these years and got out of it every year! Between my dad and Kim, I've been pretty lucky with that. But, I guess after going through it, it wasn't that bad. Managed to get that done just in time to go back to the airport to go home. So, it was a quick visit, but it was a good one.

Flying back to Atlanta, again I got to sit in first class! Baby steps but I took a little more advantage of it this time. It was nice sitting there why all the poor little humans walked passed me. I actually felt important or something :) In first class you apparently get free alcohol but I drank enough the last couple of days that I didn't even take advantage of it. I did learn something though. I've always wondered why flight attendants say "we'll be by to collect any cups and glasses". Glasses? Yep. In first class, you get a GLASS! Fancy! I had about 3 bottles of water, but in that fancy glass it seemed like it tasted better than water :)

Kim & Brian's Wedding Weekend, Part IV - Party Time!

I'm totally gonna use this picture more often than I should. Even though it looks like I haven't slept for weeks - I guess I always have that look - I like the microphone and tux look for me. It can work for almost anything!

Ok, enough about that, back to our story, wait, no, first...Yes, I'm a known slacker/procrastinator. It's taken me WAYYYYY too long to write about this wedding. It's been almost a month and a half now. I'm sure I've forgotten more than I should have, so anyone reading this, feel free to add to it by

adding it as a comment.

Now back to our story...So after all that, it was finally time for the reception. Again, the wedding party was kinda winging our entrance. We had no idea what we were supposed to be doing, where we were supposed to be going. I guess it all works out in situations like these. At the last minute we were told to make a U-shape around the dance floor for Kim & Brian's first dance. Ooops. We just kinda stood in a line against the stage by the band. It worked out ok I think. It was a little late, ok, it was during the dance but I had the idea to hold up signs to judge them during the dance (think Olympics) since the Cooper's are such a competitive family...it would've been funny. Oh well. They danced, you could tell that Brian was jogging his memory trying to think of what the next step was!

Next came some speeches. In a shocking turn of events, my mom actually was spotted with a microphone in her hand (I tried, but couldn't find any photographic proof) and said a couple of words. I think anyone that knows my mom was shocked...but it was nice. My dad may not have appreciated it though. It completely ruined his speech. He had all these things written down of what to say and wound up ripping up his speech (literally) and starting from scratch. Betsy (maid of honor) and Andy (Best man) gave their speeches. Then I had to poke in there, I don't think they remembered that I was planning on speaking, but I got in there in time. After all, I had been thinking of what to say for a couple of months by then! A couple of drinks helped my cause too! I really had been clueless on what I was gonna say. I started thinking about it after Liz's wedding when Rob, Danny and ummmm, uhhhhh, oh yeah, Jon had awesome speeches. And yes, I'll come clean, I really did go blank on Jon's name during my speech! I thought I played it off well though :) I knew I had to start things out with something of a mini sportscenter score update, so I happily announced that FSU beat Maryland (which I think is when Brian's Miami friend reminded me that Miami beat FSU, again, Kim's friend Lauren is the only non-obnoxious Miami fan there is). Some other important scores from the families of importance were that Kansas beat Iowa State...by a lot. And Missouri beat Kansas State, which was good and bad apparently. And that ended the fun part of the speech for me! So a couple nights before the wedding I was laying in bed at about 2am and I was finally coming up with some good ideas on what to say. It reminded me of Mitch Hedberg's quote, "I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen's too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny." It totally applied to my situation. It was pitch black, it was 2am and I had to decide if this stuff was worth writing down. But these days, who uses pens? I got my laptop and starting typing. I thought a couple of my favorite quotes were worthy....first, "Don't ever take anything I say seriously...unless I say it twice...Don't ever take anything I say seriously...unless I say it twice." (which I later remembered was from a neighbor of ours in Roanoke, Mrs. Kempster). and my other favorite quote that Grandpa used to tell me when fighting with Bubbie..."Stay Single". Then I bragged about Kim being the smart one, finally realizing that maybe Grandpa was kidding. She really is the smart one though, technically she's my younger sister, but I completely look up to her. Hell, I'm something of an accountant and she still does my taxes! I've come to her for help when I bought my condo, anything resume related, and any time I need advice. She really is basically my big sister that I technically don't have. Not to let Brian feel left out, I made sure to thank him for introducing me to my new shaving cream of choice, and that I was excited to get the chance to take some pictures with Wilt Chamberlain. I've never had a brother, and I think Kim did a pretty damn good job at finding me one.

That was the gist of the speech, or at least what I think I remember from it! I had to include that so that some of my friends who weren't there can get this one chance to see my cheesy side (why is cheesy a bad thing? I love cheese!)

The rest of the time was just a big party, dancing (yes, I danced...seriously! Kim threatened me if I didn't) lots of drinking - by the way, how great is my Bubbie??? 80+ years old, and still can act like she's my age. She did several shots with us (there's pictures somewhere in one of these blogs), and even had one of Brian's friends asking for a dance!

It really was a fun time, it was great meeting the Cooper side of what is now our family. It was great catching up with people I hadn't seen in years and hanging out with Kim & Brian's friends.

As if I haven't put enough on here, below are some more random pictures from the weekend.

Oh, and I have a request of Kim & Brian...who are currently on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Write about it!!!! I know you guys have been surfing and wandering through jungles so far. I'm very jealous!

Kim & Brian's Wedding Weekend, Part III - Mr. & Mrs. Brian Cooper

I think I let this wait long enough, hell the wedding was 1 month ago today and I promised myself to get this done before their honeymoon, so without for uhhh due...

So by now you're probably dying to know if we made it back in time for pictures!!!! No? Oh well, I'll end the suspense anyways...we did. I cut myself shaving about 4 times, but I made it! And it turned out that the photographer didn't even get started with us for another half hour or so, so we would've had plenty more time to wait at the bar for some more food and drinks that we'd probably never see! Ok, enough bitching about that place.

I guess this would be a good time to let everyone know that there are gonna be many pictures scattered throughout this blog. They're not exactly in chronological order, but it's too much work for me to rearrange them, and everyone knows that laziness is one of my best qualities!

I do have a new-found appreciation for photographers. Who knew that taking pictures would be such hard work? Well, when you're up against the clock and trying to get about 50 people gathered for specific planned pictures. Its tough! I got to play the role of Kim's bitch for a couple of hours...Emily tricked me into it!!!! So I had to make sure everyone was where they needed to be. Which was also tough, considering some people (I won't mention dannyone's name) hadn't even arrived at the hotel yet! After family pictures were done, Kim and Brian were officially getting married...I think. The wedding party, parents and two witnesses were all in a conference room while the rabbi actually married them. The end.

Just kidding!

So now comes the actual ceremony. Remember how I said during the rehearsal dinner that we never actually rehearsed?? Well, nothings changed. Still haven't rehearsed. I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. First I was told that I was gonna be walking Bubbie to her seat then come back outside. Simple enough. Then I got back in line, in some order that may or may not have been randomly determined while I was gone. Everything wound up working out just fine. All us groomsmen were able to figure out where to go...then the bridesmaids and all the other normal wedding stuff. Brian came out...then came Kim. Everyone stood, I assume to block my view. Thanks guys! So Kim walked down the aisle, and started walking circles around Brian. Needless to say I was confused, but apparently there's a Jewish tradition that I didn't know about:

There is a longstanding tradition among Jews that when the bride first arrives at the Chuppah, she walks around him seven times. Circling is a magical means of protection. By walking around the groom, the bride creates an invisible wall to protect him from evil spirits. Her circuits symbolically create a new family circle, demonstrating that her primary commitment has shifted from her parents to her husband and that her husband is now bound to her more intimately than to
his parents.

Learn something new everyday, huh? So they got married (again?) then after the ceremony, we totally winged the walking out portion. And the wedding party got to rest up, eat a little, drink a little and take some more pictures downstairs during the cocktail hour. At this point I was absolutely exhausted, I'm not used to being on my feet for more than 10 minutes at a time! (Kidding! But seriously, I was running around standing for a couple hours, and as I mentioned earlier...I'm way too lazy for that! I took this time to do some research for my speech, it was a college football Saturday and I hadn't seen any score updates in HOURS!!! People were counting on me for me for updates! Most important game was first...for Brian (and Emory), Kansas beat Iowa State, for whatever reason someone was disappointed to know that Miami lost to Virginia Tech (sorry Lauren, although you are the only non-obnoxious Miami fan I've ever met...more on that later).

Turns out this is gonna be a four-part story, hell, maybe five at this rate!!!! Keep checking!!!!

Kim & Brian's Wedding Weekend, Part Deaux - The Rehearsaless Dinner

So after our tour of the Capitol, we all headed back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. I got in a good 30-45 second nap, so that was nice, but we had to get ready. I'm pretty sure the temperature dropped about 20 degrees in an hour or so. We walked over to the Italian restaurant that the rehearsal dinner was at and it was FREEZING cold outside! On the way I almost got my dad and I killed by walking across the street. It seemed clear when we started, but that didn't last long. We were standing on the double yellow line, ready to make a run for the sidewalk as soon as we thought we wouldn't die. Luckily we made it, and we realized everyone else we were originally walking with were smarter than us...they went to this thing they call an "intersection". I'll have to look it up on wikipedia.

I've been to maybe 2 rehearsal dinners in my day...on average I'd say they had about 15-20 people. Tops. I have no idea if that was the norm, but it certainly wasn't in Kim & Brian's plans. There were over 100 people at this thing! It was nuts! But it was a lot of fun. For the first time, I finally met Brian's family. They were beginning to think I didn't exist, but since they are apparently big fans of my blog - and here I thought 3 or 4 people paid attention to my rambling - I decided I would prove my existence...I think they bought it!

I'm sure most of you know how Kim & Brian originally met, but if not, time for a quick recap. Kim was with her friends at bar in Georgetown called Tony and Joe's. Some random guy bought her a bright blue Windex looking drink. Along comes Brian, staring at Kim's drink - not her. Kim then asks Brian if he'd like to taste it. He says he doesn't take drinks from strangers. Little did he know, they wouldn't be strangers for long!

So I think the highlight of the rehearsal dinner...wait, hold up, this is something I haven't been able to figure out yet. Why are these things called rehearsal dinners? We didn't rehearse anything! Ok, I had to get that out. Anyways, the highlight was Brian's Uncle Jay (not to be confused with me, because I'm "ay"-less) created an awesome slide show detective drama about the Mystery of the Blue Drink. It was pretty funny too, he had all the old 80's detective show music involved...including, my favorite...Inspector Gadget. It was really creative and funny. He went and found tons of old pictures of Kim and then of Brian. But the highlight for us Zaikov's was probably the video clip of our old Co-op in Howard Beach. Apparent Jay has a friend who lives in Queens. He sent them on a mission, first to buy a VHS Camera - to make it look like a video from the 80's...$15 at your local pawn shop. Then gave him our old address and off he went. He shot footage of our old place and a bunch of hot spots in the area. Brought back lots of memories from the old childhood!

So I mentioned in Part one that Kim had me and Alyssa draw some stick figures. Turns out she had a plan for them. Kim & Brian brought both sets of parents up and presented them with framed pictures...of our stick figures :) Apparently real pictures will replace them eventually. They also called up all the bridesmaids and groomsmen to give them little gifts. I'm not sure what the ladies got, but Brian gave each groomsman a very FSU-colored tie :) and we each got cuff-links with our initials on them in these cool boxes in the shape of a tux. Very cool. However, Brian felt the need to totally ruin it all by taking a cheap shot at my Noles though, questioning whether FSU was even gonna make a bowl game! pffftttt!!!! I believe his dad put him in his place for me, after all, Kansas has only been good for 3 months now!

Saturday morning I woke up and headed downstairs because I was pretty sure I could hear some Zaikov's chattering all the way from the 9th floor. So I hung out with the family for a while, the hotel provided a lunch at 11:30 us in Bubbie's room. It was nice, but all I cared about was getting to a bar to watch the Maryland-FSU game. Priorities!!! I managed to grab dad and we Metro'd our way to an absolutely terrible bar called Buffalo Billiards. I've been there before, but it was always pretty empty. Keeping in mind that the University of Maryland is maybe 10 miles away I'd guess...there were NO TV's with the Maryland-FSU game when we got there at about 12:15 (kickoff was noon). Unbelievable!!! There was a huge crowd gathered for the Ohio State-Michigan game for some reason. I had to talk to a manager to even get the FSU game on a TV in the corner. It took him what seemed like forever and finally he turned it on right as I got to see a replay of FSU's first touchdown! Woohoooo. So, we were warned that we weren't gonna be getting any wait service in the section we were in. No big deal, the bar wasn't that far. Little did we know what we were in for! Eventually a crowd of Brian's friends and family showed up. I'm pretty sure Brett was the only Maryland fan in this PACKED bar. WTF? And that wasn't even the worst of it for Brett (neither was the fact that Maryland lost) he ordered a chicken sandwich from the bar...and after asking about it 2 or 3 times, it finally showed up, literally an hour later. By this time, we all had to leave really soon to get back in time for pictures. I also went to the bar to get one last beer and close my tab. Unfortunately I signed my check before he physically gave me my beer. He began pouring my beer, stopped the tap so that the head would clear...but he walked away. He was taking other people's orders, putting dishes away. My evil look in his direction was no match for his plan to completely forget about my poor little half filled Guinness. I was soooooo tempted to cross off the - already small - tip from my check! Finally I yelled out to him to ask him to finish with my beer already. He said he forgot. Great. I took my beer and ran off. Drank it way too quickly and as soon as FSU officially finished off Maryland, off we went. We were quickly running out of time before we were supposed to be ready for pictures.

Did we make it back in time??? Tune in for Part 3!!!!

Kim & Brian's Wedding Weekend, Part 1 - The Days Before

I don't think its really sunk in yet. It doesn't exactly roll off my tongue just yet, but its true...I now have a brother-in-law. For one day anyways...I was a BLOG (get it? Ok, Brother in Law Of the Groom) Oh come on, thats funny!!!!

Anyways, it was an awesome weekend, and I will now tell you all about, so hope you brought your reading glasses, and maybe some coffee...if you're into that sort of thing. Actually I'm gonna split this up into a couple of blogs, just so no one gets scared away from seeing an obnoxiously long blog! So here comes Part 1...

The weekend got started in typical fashion...my flight was delayed. I met my cousin Alyssa who had a layover in ATL. Her flight was an hour after mine. I tried to work it out to where we could get on the same flight, but Delta wouldn't have it. Oh well. I got into DC and was just gonna wait on her. My parents and Kim met me at the airport and wouldn't you know it...my suitcase was actually one of the first ones out! Figures...since I was in no rush. Alyssa got in about an hour later, in between, to kill time, my dad learned all about how Segway's worked from a cop in the airport riding around on one. Finally, Alyssa showed up - apparently her bags arrived on my flight, good thing they couldn't work that deal out for people! My parents then finally dropped us off at Kim's condo. Kim had me draw a couple of stick figures on two separate pieces of paper, but wouldn't tell me why. Alyssa didn't like my first attempt so she drew the 2nd one. Meanwhile, I made Brian watch the end of the Oregon-Arizona game, where #2 Oregon lost to unranked Arizona, which is good for his and my adopted Jayhawks. We were all pretty exhausted, so it was bed time.

Friday morning, Kim and my parents met up with Brian and his parents and the rabbi who was to marry them. I got to sleep in :) When they were done me and my dad left for our day of tourism. We were hoping to go see the Air and Space Museum along with getting a tour of the capitol, but ran out of time. We also had to pickup my tux, and that took way too long, so we only had time to go to the capitol tour. My cousin Rob works for Congressman Michael Honda (CA). We missed out on meeting him, but were told that he gets a kick out of people taking pictures from his chair. So...we did just that. Then we got a tour of the Capitol from a co-worker of Rob's. It got off to a bad start when Alyssa got caught with mace. Apparently they don't want you bringing mace on tours of the capitol. They were very against us just throwing it away, so Rob had to bring it back to his office. Finally the tour started and I've gotta admit...it was pretty boring. Our tour guide was pretty much worthless. To her credit, there were almost 20 of us on the tour, when I think they're used to groups of about 5-10. And even Rob admitted that she wasn't very helpful. The only fun part was this one room which was built in such a way where, at one spot on the floor, if you speak into the floor, you can hear that person in another spot on the floor across the room. That's kinda hard to explain, but thats the best I got. There were lots of statues all over the place - Samuel Adams for example. I enjoy his beer, so I took a picture pretending to be drinking a beer. I only mention that because its hard to tell what the hell I'm doing in that picture (below). The fun part was trying to emulate the poses of some of the statues, also seen below - from left to right - Beer Man Samuel Adams, General U.S. Grant, and Robert M. La Follette, whose name, ironically rhymes with toilet, which is where I believe this guy was sitting when they made this statue.

A Bad weekend to be out of town

Maybe there's some way I can talk my sister into postponing her wedding a couple of weeks? (Kidding!)

But for those of you lucky enough to be in Atlanta in 2 weekends, I'm jealous. On Halloween I was supposed to be going to see The Smashing Pumpkins at the Fox Theatre. I was REALLY looking forward to it, but the drummer had some health issues and the show was postponed. Guess when the makeup date is!!! :(

Here's what I'll be missing:

Thu Nov 15 - Dane Cook - Gwinnett Arena
Thu Nov 15 - Smashing Pumpkins - Fox Theatre (Makeup Show for Oct 30th)
Fri Nov 16 - Smashing Pumpkins - Fox Theatre (Makeup Show for Oct 31th - who wants to buy my ticket????)
Sat Nov 17 - Maryland @ FSU...last home game of the year. Ok, so technically that's not in Atlanta, but you get the idea. And I pray that its a noon kickoff, so I can at least watch it.
Sat Nov 17 - Seether, Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace - Tabernacle

I got a sneak preview of that last concert last night in Chattanooga, and that will be a blog in itself. Chattanooga is a horrible horrible city. The UTC Arena is a horrible horrible place for a concert. The sound is just BAD. But the people were 30 times worse. But more on that later...

My wonderful sister and her fiance - who is "ok" too

Just playin Brian.

I thought I'd share this little article or whatever you'd call it that was in today's Washington Post [Express]. I put the "touching" part in blue. Thanks guys ;)

Brian Cooper, Kim Zaikov

Brian, 29, is a sales professional. Kim, 28, is an audit manager. They live in Cleveland Park. [Washington DC]

●The Main Event: A traditional Jewish ceremony on Nov. 17 in Bethesda, MD.

●How They Met: Sipping drinks at Tony and Joe's at the Georgetown Waterfront. "Brian commented on my Blue Curacao drink, so I offered him some," says Kim. "He responded, "I don't take drinks from strangers!"

●First Date: They disagree on this point: "Dinner at Rio Grande," says Brian. "Hanging out on July Fourth," counters Kim.

●How He Proposed: Before popping the question, Brian made Kim breakfast in bed, then served Blue [Power]ade as a reminder of how they met.

●When They Knew: "Kim helped me paint my condo," says Brian. Kim says it was "after Brian spent the weekend with my family and survived."

●Their Song: The Fray's "How to Save a Life." "We got it from watching 'Grey's Anatomy'" admits Brian. "Yes we watch the show."

●Most Hated Clothing Item: "Brian has running pants covered in paint that could mysteriously disappear."

●Making it Unique: In lieu of favors, the couple will be making a donation to Emory University's Eye Center. Kim's brother was diagnosed with eye cancer a year ago and was treated and cured at Emory.

●With an Infinite Budget: "We'd have dueling pianos at the cocktail hour."

●Weird Family Traditions: "Brian's family has a strange obsession with Wilt Chamberlin, so Wilt winds up photoshopped into many pictures," explains Kim.

Me and Flying Just Don't Seem to Get Along

I went up to DC/Baltimore this weekend for my sisters' fiance's bachelor party this weekend(there will be a somewhat censored blog about that in a bit I'm sure). But until then, I just feel the need to bitch about how bad my flying experience was this weekend.

For whatever reason, I always have the WORST luck when it comes to flying. Usually, if I'm on Airtran, my flight is almost certain gonna be late. Which is why I renamed it Latetran. Typically on Delta, they're typically on time, but will lose my bags. Pick your poison I guess. Those are typically my 2 main choices when flying somewhere. Two weeks ago, I flew up to Boston on Latetran...with no problems! They were actually early, it was nuts! Now, this weekend more than made up for it. And it was Delta, not Latetran this time. I can't say it was Delta's fault. This was all weather related. My flight was supposed to leave at 5:20 on Friday night. I was being picked up by a couple of Brian's friends whom I'd never met before, then driving up to Baltimore to the hotel. So, we finally board the plane and leave the gate. We get to the runway and there's about 20 planes ahead of us. And here I thought I already drove through Atlanta rush hour! Pretty soon the wind picks up its getting real dark...and finally, lightning. Keep in mine, I think its rained three times in Atlanta since 2002. Or at least it seems that way. The pilot comes on and says they're shutting the engines off and we're gonna be sitting there a while. Ughhhhhh. Not good. I didn't want to hold up the bachelor party, but what could I do? We weren't supposed to be able to use our phones, or so I thought? I heard someone behind me a few rows back turned their phone on...the girl next to me turned hers on, so I said, well, if everyone else is doing it...so I called Brian to have everyone just go up to Baltimore and not to wait on me, and I'd meet up with them eventually, probably Saturday or something. I was pissed!!! At least I did get to sit next to a pretty cool girl on the flight. She had amazing blue eyes, which made me feel weird because I don't usually notice or even think things like that! Aleatha, if you're out there somewhere, you have nice eyes, and sorry for probably butchering the spelling of your name! Turns out she also just moved a month ago and lives pretty close to me (Vinings), and she's also done the NYC-ATL-FLA living situation. So it was good that I had someone to talk to. You could only try and sleep on a plane for so long. I think we sat on the runway for 2 hours, then finally took off. The skies still looked pretty bad. And we had a rough take off. I really thought I was gonna die, the plane went up, there was lightning everywhere, and it seemed pretty close. The plane went up and it seemed to stay level for a bit and felt like we were maybe even going back down. I kept telling myself (and her) that they knew what they were doing and that they wouldn't let us take off if it wasn't safe. HA! I was still scared shitless (what exactly does that mean anyways?). I remember almost grabbing her hand before I realized that I really don't know her and that would be a little weird. So, instead I just shut the window. That didn't really last long, because I just had to look out there. Eventually we got through the rough stuff and off to DCA we went. Along the way, I had the most delicious (and most-needed) Miller Lite I've probably ever had. It may have been $5 but it was wonderful :) At this point, I'm still thinking that I'm gonna miss out on the Friday night bachelor party festivities and probably just on Kim's couch all night, while everyone else was out having fun, so thats part of what made the beer taste good. And that it was really cold! Eventually we started going down to land and even that was rough, it really didn't feel right. But, it worked, we landed. Turned my phone on, and there was a text waiting for me from Brian's friends saying that they were gonna wait for me. I was giddy and almost forgot how awful my flight was...yes, I said almost.

Alright, so we skip ahead to Sunday (don't worry, there will be another blog dedicated to Brian's bachelor party). As I'm sure you all know, Sunday afternoon was the championship of the Little League World Series! A team from just south of Atlanta was playing against a team from Japan. It went into extra innings, but I missed the end of it because I had to get to the airport for my 7:55 flight (which I originally thought was 6:55 and would've been the same flight as that Aleatha girl from the first nightmare flight.) Of course, almost as soon as I get to the gate...an HOUR before my flight, the flight is already delayed 40 minutes. So, 8:35 the flight leaves...the gate. And just as almost expected, we got to the runway area...and the pilot comes on the loud speaker and tells us of bad weather to the south and that we'd be sitting there a while, so he shut off the engines. Are you kidding me? Again? The good news is that this flight was only about a third full, so I had 3 seats all to myself, so I got two blankets and sprawled across the seats the entire time. After about an hour and a half we actually did take off pretty smoothly, but again, you could see lightning out the window. Scary stuff. Once we got above the clouds, it was cool seeing the lightning from above. I tried getting my camera out, but then remembered...its acting brokened. It knows a replacement is on its way (I won a digital camera through my fantasy baseball skills! So stop making fun of me!). Anyways, got into Atlanta, and just when you'd think the miserable trip is over...there was no place for the plane to park!!!! We were supposed to go to terminal C, but we wound up at terminal E, which is the international terminal. I was starting to wonder if I was gonna have to go through customs or something? I didn't, but the terminal was about 55 degrees. It was COLD! Found my car, paid 42 friggin dollars to park for 3 days (I guess paying $20 not to ride Marta twice may have been worth it). Got home at about 12:20am. Ughhhh.

And what do I do tonight??? I book another flight to DC. What the hell is wrong with me???? I'm not flying on Latelta though (ok, so that doesn't work as well), but I'm going on Earlytran next time!!!!

Touring Fenway Park

So after leaving Cape Cod Monday morning, me, Kim and Brian drove back to Boston, we were hoping to get to be tourists all day until our flights, but it didn't quite work out. Traffic was awful getting to Boston, so all we had time for was the Fenway tour. For starters I can't believe how busy these tours were on a mid-Monday. We got there at about 11:30 and the 12pm tour was sold out! So we had to kill some time and bought tickets for the 1pm tour. These tours allowe up to 200 people per tour!!!! Sold out on a Monday afternoon!!!! And its not like it was a bunch of kids who were still out of school for the summer. So we had over an hour to kill and just walked around the outside of the stadium. There seemed to be alot of construction going on outside the stadium. Parking seemed like it is probably a problem on game days. We had to wind up paying $15 to park in a garage in the middle of the day. Only because I apparently broke the parking meter we originally found! Oops! There's actually a Fenway High School across from the stadium. How cool is that? Going to high school across the street from Fenway! Anyways, kept walking...people charge $30, $40, even $50 for gameday parking. Unreal! We went into some bar to get a beer, it was called "Game On". They had some pretty nice TVs in there. Then met up with the tour at the big souvineer shop on Yawkey Way. This old guy started the tour in the shop with a couple corny jokes. He was asking where people were from, some kid said Ohio. He then went for an Ohio State joke...saying they'll be really good...once they get everyone out of jail...someone was from canada and he commented about the national anthem, it has been changed to something like Oh No the Expos are gone. He asked what the NY in New York stood for...and said "Next Year". I felt the need to booo on that one. I'm guessing he didn't use that line in 2003, eh? :) Oh, a friggin shot glass (I collect them) in that place was $10!!! I couldn't do it. Even in the airport the only shot glasses I saw were Red Sox ones and were $10. Oh well.

Alright, so we finally start the tour, went in the stadium and the first stop was the seats above the Red Sox dugout, but still a couple dozen rows up. (See view from first 2 pictures attached).The tour guide was some young 20 something asian girl. She was actually pretty good, she knew her Red Sox trivia...even cracked a few jokes. She made sure there were no Yankees fans around. I was wearing my Mets t-shirt and people were giving me crap for it, but in a fun way. I just had the easy comeback and said, hey, we hate the Yankees too! Anyways, the "trivia"...the very first Red Sox game was against the NY Islanders...now the Yankees. Found out that the ladder on the green monster is absolutely worthless (the black one, not that silver one that is actually being used as I took the picture!). The green monster used to actually be navy blue (Yankees colors???) with ads all over it. The players started complaining that it was distracting as they were trying to hit, so the owner changed the color and removed the ads. The owners wife actually picked out the color and can now only be purchased by the owner of the red sox and the head groundscrew. So, no one can paint their houses that color - Fenway Green.

Next we went to the seats all the way upstairs in RF. I learned that Pesky's pole (the yellow foul pole in right field) wasn't officially named that until last year apparently. It was named after an old Red Sox player named Johnny Pesky who seemed to hit all his home runs right by that pole - which is the shortest homerun distance in the major leagues (302ft). Anyways, the seats up here are actually tables, with either 2 or 4 seats per table. These seats cannot be owned by season ticket people, they are put up for a lottery and if you win, you have the option to buy a table, once per season, and includes 4 seats for about $500. But you get a $75 voucher for food/drink I think. You can kinda see (in the picture on the right) that the Red Sox grounds crew got a "B" on the outfield grass. Kim was curious and asked the question if all teams have a B in their outfield. Ok, so maybe it came out wrong, but it was funny.

Next we went over to the seats farther up and above the red sox dugout. Got a good view of the seats above the green monster where the prior tour was at, I guess. The tour guide said that the seats right behind home plate and upstairs, some actually have seat warmers built in. You have to buy those tickets and commit for 7 years or something. I think a seasons worth costs about $325k. All the seats in that place were insane. The seats we were actually sitting at were about $90 a game, a little bit higher sell for "only" $75.

After that we went up to the green monster seats, which the tour guide said sold out for the season in just over an hour. Apparently they have one red seat in the outfield. A long time ago, Ted Williams hit the longest HR in Fenway history - 502ft (kinda surprised no one's topped that) and it apparently hit some guy in that seat who fell asleep. (Williams said that he noticed the guy sleeping and aimed for him - he's a comic too apparently) Anyways, the guy who got hit was a yankee fan. After getting hit by that ball, the media was asking him questions, asking if it was fate telling him not to root for the yankees anymore...and they said he woke up as a Red Sox fan. So the headline the next day said something like "Williams knocks sense into Yankee fan". The left field foul pole is called the Fisk Foul Pole (I got to touch it!) because of the famous homerun by Carlton Fisk in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series where you can see Fisk trying to push the ball fair with his arms as he's jumping on his way to first base. The ball did stay fair and the Red Sox won game 6...but lost game 7.

Then on the way out, saw Coco Crisp (yes, there is a baseball player named Coco Crisp) pulling out in his orange hummer.

And that was our tour of Fenway. Well worth (Brian's) $12 (Thanks again!!!). I wonder if every stadium has tours like that? Fenway has got to be the best one just because its the smallest and oldest stadium out there. A coworker of mine said he took the Braves tour of Turner Field...not quite 200 people...he said there were about 8. HA! One thing I regret is that apparently during the offseason the tour includes alot more, like a tour of the clubhouse, maybe even the dugout and the field. And I was sad not to have gotten a tour of the Bill Buckner hall of fame :)