Last weekend I made a trip to the great state of Nebraska with my cousin Andy and his friend Tony - they were visiting their friend Will who goes to the University of Nebraska, and I was there to visit the many friends I still have living there (and since I missed making the trip in October). Thursday at 5pm we left Rochester with Caribou coffees in hand. After a short stop in Des Moines for gas, we pulled into Lincoln about 11:30pm, to Will's apartment in Lincoln. The 3 of them stayed up talking and playing video games until like 5am, while I happily took Will's bed and slept :)
Friday morning, I got up about 8 and headed back to Omaha (about 45 miles on I-80). I planned on spending the day with my good friends Trevor and Karli, but they were both working until lunch, so I drove into Omaha on Dodge Street to find a coffee shop and see how much farther west Omaha has gotten (my curiosity with development and roads always gets the best of me). When I was growing up, Omaha ended at about 120th street on Dodge Street, most of everything after that was a 4-lane road passing by a few smaller towns. Omaha now starts around 210th street, and is close to taking over Elkhorn, which used to be WAY outside Omaha. I finally found a Starbucks on 136th & Dodge, and was about to hook up to their wireless internet, only to find out that theirs isn't free (I don't know if they're all that way or not). So I read the old technology newspaper instead :) At 11:30 I headed down to the "Spaghetti Works" one of my favorite places to eat, to meet my friends. We spent the afternoon hanging out, playing video games (they have "Rock Band" for the Xbox 360 which is pretty fun!), and hit Old Chicago for dinner, and then back to their house to watch "Casino Royale" on Blu-ray, a movie I hadn't seen before.
Saturday morning we went to breakfast at a great new restaurant in Omaha called Wheat Fields. My favorite Aunt JoAnne happened to be there with friends, and so I got to say hi to her. I then headed over to Glenwood, IA, to see my friends Paul and Jeremy, and we met up at our friend Justin's house for an afternoon of more video games (you can tell what I spent a lot of time doing growing up!) We played our traditional Tecmo Super Bowl tournament (I actually won!) as well as lots of Wii Sports and Bioshock. Saturday night was back to Lincoln to play some poker with some more friends I hadn't seen in awhile. Poker and watching football until about 3AM, when I headed back to Will's apartement (of course they were all still up!) and a bit of sleep so that we could head back to Rochester on Sunday around noon.
One of my theories on friends is that it's about half things in common/proximity and half shared experiences. I don't see these guys more than once or twice a year, but when we get together it's like no time has passed - the thousands of hours we all spent growing up together are always there and we still have a good time. I've been very blessed in my life to have so many "sets" of friends in all the places I've lived, and I still love to see them.
This weekend has been a little quieter - dinner last night with some of Erin's friends, coffee and the world's problems with Shelley this morning, and tonight going out for CP's birthday to Whistle Binkies. We're going to do "the boot" - a glass boot-shaped pitcher containing one gallon of beer (shared among all of us of course). We'll see how that goes :) Tomorrow morning the many-talented Accelerando handbell choir of which I am the director will play for church services.
On the horizon, next Friday night my salsa band, "Fuego", is playing at the Blue Moon Ballroom for latin night. Always a great turnout, and a lively dance crowd.
Last but not least, a couple of pictures of my nieces - I know I'm biased but how cute are these :) Laynie (6 months) and Keagann (3 1/2)
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