first off, supa yes I got your email/pm about the casino, thanks for reporting it to me, I need to go back through the logs and do a little fall cleaning, anyway, little open blog update, this was a busy weekend, Iasca and MECA finals and I could not make it to either one, I was at another wedding. I had to go, it was Amanda's eldest sister. The whole event in its entirity was decent, but awkward at the same time. I am not going to get into the story, but neither of the two sides of the family knew each other and his family is from Mississippi. It was hard because they kept to them selves and did not really participate in the process and the reception was almost 100% the family of the bride. Oh well, I had fun with Amanda we did the lap around the family, so Amanda could brag about her ring and my new job. Then yesterday I took amanda to her cardiologist. This may sound odd, but she has a pacemaker, not to get into the technicial gargon, her heart does not always communicate with her brain and she used to pass out and her heart rate would plummet. Anyway, right after her morning appointment I suprised her with U2 tickets in Philadelphia. So we hoped in the sled, (with its fairly new and untested bilstien shocks) and hauled arse up to to Broad Street. We stopped by my diamond guy and he got to meet amanda and she got to see my secret of where I was getting her jewerly from. Then we went to this fun little irish pub and grabed some cheap late lunch and then headed to the Wacovia Center. The show started at 7:30 but we rolled in a little late, and caught the last half of the opening act. It was Damien Marley (son of bob), live his vocals were way to fast and jumbled and slurred to have half a clue as to what he was saying. But the rythem and the beats were good. It was odd, because he bought out two of his brothers, I did not know Bob had 3 sons. None of them were discernable as to what they were singing, well atleast not from the upper level. There was one man who's entire purpose was to wave the Jamician flag the entire time. THATS IT. At first it was funny then it got silly, Amanda got pissed and could not enjoy the music. Once they were off stage and U2 set up, the concert was amazing none the less. I just saw them back in MAY and the show was not the same. Really showing their level of talent that they can adjust such a large show on the fly. They preformed two new songs, Larry Mullen Jr. sang on Elevation, the finished with 40 (one of my favorites and a sick way to end the show). The wild thing about the night was that during the second "new" song, Bono looks out into the crowd and says we need a guitar player. The lower level went bananas ( I know how to spell it thanks to gwen stefani), and I could not figure out why. I had seen stage crew enter and exit the stage through out the show and not put too much thought into them, and ssuddenly someone walked up from under the stage but was not wearing all black and a harness. He just kept walking up to Bono, (during this time his back was to us so we had not idea who it was). Bono hands this guy the guitar and he puts it over his shoulder, and the crowd was growing even more crazy, all the while I thought people were booing the new addition to the band........... Well this new guitar player turns around to face the auidence and I instantly figured out what they were booing, err um Bruce'ing about. It all came together at one instant, Philadelphia / guitar player / extremely small list of people who can waltz on stage while U2 is playing and have Bono hand him a guitar. Freaking BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN broke into a jam with U2. I think 25,000+ philadelphian's simlutaniously shat their pants. Long story short it was sick to see that happen and to be at that concert. On the way home, we had to fight though a little bit of traffic and I knew if I romped it on this tight bend I could get on the I-95 ramp before the majority of people and be in the clear. Well, as I was dipping into the throttle around the turn, someone in a Jetta GLI was coming out of the intersection straight across from me, and I had only one option, more throttle. I had not pushed my car hard with power down oversteer with these fairly new shocks. The limit is apparently much higher than the older ones, but the sheer feeling of that threshold is a little less apparent than before. So we went from a moderate tail out slide to wild drift as the tach swept past 5500 rpm. My motor is a different beast in the upper rpm range and the yokohamma's broke loose with total abandon. I let off the throttle, as it turns out a little to fast for a car of this weight, and the rear end snapped back around violently but I was able to counter steer my way out of it. So a very exciting ending to a fun weekend.