Saturday, we had quite the night. After a morning of taking care of Gunther and Heidi, Emily and I headed uptown and had lunch at Zink. Pretty good food, ended up filling me up quickly – only had room for the pita-hummas appitizer and half of my pulled pork sandwich. Still a very nice place to go eat and have a drink before…

DUHHHHHHHHHHH DUH DUH DUH DUH Dahhhhhhhhhhhh

The Phantom of the Opera was back in Charlotte, I haven’t seen it in a long time, long enough to not remember half of the plot, and Emily loves the show so it worked out perfectly. Our seats were in the Orchestra section, left side, very close to the stage, really good seats – we were able to see everything. I thought the production was done very well, impressed by Christine, a little let down by the Phantom – but not his singing, his acting was a bit on the hammy side. I thought the Phantom was supposed to be all badass and cool and all furious when Christine took his mask off, but this Phantom decided that losing his mask meant he was supposed to stumbled around like she blinded him or something. Still, a great show.

Afterwards, we met friends over at Nikko’s Uptown for Katie’s sushi birthday dinner, Emily was getting a bit tired after that and headed home (we had drinks before Phantom, drinks after Phantom at PJ’s, drinks at the bar at Nikko’s, drinks during dinner – she was probably the smarter person to stop there) while I decided to continue the party. We moved the party to Mez uptown and then, finally, the XYZ bar located in aLoft uptown. Somehow, I found my way to an ATM and a taxicab and headed home to pass out. Good birthday times – and I know Jon has some ridiculous pictures that I’ll have to link to once he uploads.

Sunday – woke up feeling pretty bad – although I have felt much worse. And I decided to work through the hangover by using…. manual labor. Mom & Dad were extending a retaining wall in their backyard so I was brought in to move and place the 80-lb blocks. Amazingly, this seemed to help me sweat out the leftover booze and left me feeling better. Then it was back home for a little studying before Pops in the Park. “Magical Night Music” was the theme, definitly some good stuff. Theme from Harry Potter, Pirates of the Carribbean – my favorite was Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. You know it from many different cartoons (Donald Duck – Daffy Duck dueling pianos in Who Framed Roger Rabbit).

Monday was full of work and studying, we had another softball game that didn’t end in a tie, but like the game the previous Monday, it got ugly quick. Ended up beating Morningstar Lutheran something like 41-6. They played the whole game a man short and didn’t have many hitters on the team (but the ones who could hit, smashed some serious HRs) I think I wound up 5 of 5 or something, and that includes the two times I came up to bat and TRIED to get out. Not the best fielders.

Tuesday was my test, and Jon Harding and I started another home brew. I believe it’s based off Rouge Hazelnut Brown. I’ll be posting my thoughts on our current brew, Dante’s Honey Whear Beerferno soon and I’ll have to coin a name for the batch that’s currently fermenting.

Whew, sorry for the novel, but now I’m caught up and will remember to post more frequently so I don’t have to jam everything into a huge post.