Iowa, Baby!!!

So here I am, day 3 in lovely Iowa. The following is a brief recap of the previous 2 days and the agenda for today and tomorrow. - Apologies in advance for the gleeful thoughts that continue to press through my brain and out my fingers (10 back!).

We flew out here on Thursday for my sister-in law Coleens' wedding on Saturday. The travel itself went pretty well... no delays, both flights were smooth (yeah, there is no direct flight into Des Moines International airport, which begs the question, What international airport has almost no direct flights?, but anyway. After a long travel day, my wife decided to attend her sisters bachelorette party on Thursday, (which consisted of herself, sister, and mom!) - There was a brief tiff because I had hoped someone would pick my wife up, since we had just spent the entire day travelling, but I forgot for a second the people we are dealing with.
I decided to unwind and get some food, and the best I could find was a Bennigan's. A couple of Blue Moons and a nice tasty fried chicken salad and I was feeling better. It didn't hurt that the bartender was a Red Sox fan, and we enjoyed chatting about the evil empire being 9 1/2 back at the time. (Every day seems to add to the deficit, this is truly a wonderful time to be a REd Sox Fan/Yankee Hater. Lucky for the Yanks the Sox were rained out yesterday, or else it could be 10 1/2!

Yesterday I had most of the day to myself and I sort of confirmed a revelation i've arrived at... I like time to myself, a lot. It was nice to just ride around, relax, read, walk around the local (and very depressing ) mall. I found an Applebees for lunch (eating good in the neighborhood, indeed) and the only negative was the number of work phone calls I received. Suffice to say, a bunch of shit blew up, and I found myself sipping a tall Killians in the back, closed of section of Applebees talking with my boss at work, trying to fix the situation. (Maybe details later but probably not. I am not a big talk about work kind of guy)

Last night was the rehearsal dinner and that was decent. Spent most of the time talking with the "minister", a heavyset but very amiable 30 year old Iowa farm dude who obtained his ministry qualifications via internet. - oh yeah, the fun was beginning. I saw my brother in law, Mike, and that was cool. - Later we went back to the house of my sister in law and her hubbie to be and my old friend Greenie was there. It was a nice surprise, after our separation on Thursday. I told him he couldn't fly with me and promised him I would return Sunday, but he showed up anyway.!

(28-12, Red Sox on pace for approximately 112 wins - of course that won't happen, but right now with the evil empire 4 games under .500 I feel, very, very good.) Hell, the worst team 200 million bucks can buy is 6 1/2 behind the wild card leading detroit tigers, and the Sox just swept them, while missing out stud pitcher beckett.)

* Correction, I forgot about the Wafefield loss to Detroit, the Sox didn't sweep that series. However, since my last post that mentioned the amount of series (13 ) the Sox had played at that point, they have now won 2 more series, Balt. and Det. - that makes 9 of 15 series played have been won.

* 1:45 Iowa time - Red sox beating the snot out of the Atlanta Braves 7-0 in the 5th inning, well on their way to another win, and a 10 1/2 game lead on the evil empire!!! - If the Mets take care of business tonight the deficit hits 11.