So yesterday morning, we had originally planned to wake up all early and getin in line at the Civic Center and get tickets for The Lion King touring musical. But since we'd have to get up so early, we decided to just wait and buy them online. But Shannon stirred at around 5:AM, to go to the bathroom, so that woke me up and I didn't think I could fall back asleep, so I decided to let the again sleeping Shannon sleep :)

So I took my time, figuring that this wasn't that big of a deal, and eventually got down there at around 6:15 (skipping breakfast cause I wasn't very hungry) By the time I got in line, there was about 200 or so people in front of me. I found that quite amazing. So the line was snaked around in front of the Civic Center. It looked like it would be a long wait, but they had radio playing from the radio stations covering the event. This actually got annoying, because 1. Not normally radio stations that I listen too, and 2. Since there were 3 radio stations there, they were all playing musc and at one point for a while I was in the wrong place cause I could hear all 3 blending and mixing together and it was just making my brain want to explode (its one of my pet peeves to have two plus musics going at the same time where you can hear both OK but neither well).

So the 3 radio stations had teamed together to give out a bunch of prizes (well I guess since they are all owned by the same company it's not really teamed, is it?) and so it made it kind of fun. Initally they didn't mix up the numbers that they had passed out so a bunch of prizes were handed out to the back of the line. They figured this out, or someone complained and then it seemed quite a bit more random after that.

the line started to move, weather it was people going in, or leaving, or just crowding together, I'm not sure. It wasn't dreadfully cold, but being outside in chilly weather, when you are kinda just standing around, still affects you. I eventually passed Adam and Tiff waiting in the next line over from me (behind me). We chatted for a bit, but then the line moved.

So, more prizes were won (not by me of course). And they were handing out things, like cinnamon roles, coffee from Starbucks, animal crackers, Juice, DM Juce (the register's try at capturing the 20/30 something adult market, but because I was bored, I pretty much read it cover to cover). No prizes for me. But apprently cause Adam is the luckiest man alive, he won some things (chocolates and something), The radio station stopped for a while and then the TV station took over and started giving out CBS promo items and the DVD they made of the floods of 1993. Again, no wins for me.

After they were finished I was getting pretty close to the front of the line. In the final stretch, and the door was in sight. I remember that right when I was in the next group to actually go into the Civic Center, I remember hearing a commercial for John Stoddard Cancer Center (Which is part of one of the affiliates of Iowa Health System).

So I finally got in, and took out the piece of paper that they gave us to fill out when we first got in line. This was actually pretty smart. It had a calendar of dates and times and you were to fill out your top 3 preferences for tickets and what area. So you could just turn it over to the ticket agent and they'd run with it. I think it probably sped things up quite a bit. I had decided to go all out and get the best tickets that I could, since Shannon really wants to go to it (from their site: The Premium Ticket Package includes a premium seat location (Rows SC-H), a complimentary souvenir program and the complimentary VIP show merchandise item from Disney's THE LION KING.). So we are in row F pretty much in the exact middle. It should be a very good show.

After getting my ticket, they had promo items of t-shirts or the original cast recording. So I called Home, woke up Shannon, and asked her what she wanted, so after that I got the original cast recording.

So I headed back to my car, and drove towards home. I knew I had a long long day in front of me, so I decided to stop by La Mie and pick up a Mocha and some pastery for breakfast for myself and Shannon. I ended up getting a chocolate stick(?), I think it was called. Which was pretty much fluffy pastery folded over a center of chocolate goodness and covered in powdered sugar. So then I finished my journey home and woke Shannon up again to show her the tickets I had bought and to tell her that a La Mie pastery was waiting for her.

All in all, from door to door, the whole ticket buying thing took about 3 hours.

Being that I had some time, I sat down and started to play some Civilization 4, which had come out the past week, and after checking to make sure the laptop could run it (it could, but barely), I had to buy it. Huge fan since the first game. I have lost many hours to one of their games. They even have a sort of Civilization Anonymous, which kinda jokes about the addiction (Just one more turn!).

After Shannon got up and excersized, I started to straighten up around the house and get things ready for our guests for our party later that evening. After things were getting to the point where I wanted them, I quickly made us some tuna salad (extra mustard with a touch of Tobaco sauce (it would've been More then a touch if it was just for me)) and then I ran off to help Holly move.

I was the first to show up to help, even before Chris (her boyfriend), so while we were waiting for more people to show up I watched some TV while she continued to pack things up. Eventually Dave, Chris, and Jen showed up and we moved all of Holly's things into the truck. We then headed over to Chris and Pat's and dropped of the big screen TV (Jen and I were to late to help in that one, rats!) and said hello to Holly's kitty (big thing that he is) rested for a bit, and then headed to Holly's new place (she lived way out in the sticks, and now lives even futher out in the sticks (of Waukee)). (who knew I was gonna put so many miles on my car today?)

(Short Side note: It's funny to watch George prepare to go from the top of the couch to the open window sill. It looks like he's all prepared to leap for his life and then basically steps from the couch to the window sill.

We moved her stuff from the truck into her new apartment, which has a better, but still to small kitchen. Holy has several large and heavy items. But they were made quick work of and I sat down for a bit to catch my breath and watched segments of the Iowa State game (which they later went on to win 42-14). After a bit, I headed home.

While I was out, Shannon had washed the couch blankets, vacuumed and futher cleaned up around the house. I had a few errends to run, so I picked up a few more things at Dahls (chip dip, salsa, etc), got some money from the atm and deposited a reimbursement check from my California trip, picked up a White Chocolate Mocha from Grounds for Celebration and then picked up dinner from Burger King (not the best food, but certainly quick).

I got home we quickly ate, and I showered to get rid of the sweat from moving and got into costume and then did the final touches around the house, and Shannon placed the kitties downstairs and shut the door (so they had food, water, litter and wouldn't have to worry about the guests). Then we sat down to wait for the people to arrive.

So I told people to show up at 7ish, but our first guests didn't really show up tell around 7:20 or so. Brandon and Val were our first guests of the night, and they were dressed up as drinks, Poison (Black Velvet and Orange Juice) and Grasshopper (green creme de menthe, white creme de cacao, light cream) for another party (held by a co-worker of Brandon and mine). Through the night we had quite a few people show up and lots of people I didn't directly know. Some of Holly's friends were dressed up as a hawkeye football player (the girl) and a a fan or cheerleader (the guy). And they laughed when I told them them that they couldn't come in, and laughed again, when I said, "No, I'm serious, get out of my house". People started leaving to other partys, or events or other places. And sometime during the night a filthy and mean topic wise, game of charades started in the living room.

Over the night I talked about booze, computers, work, finances (house and etc), food, cooking, La Mie, bread, and several other thigns.

At around 1:AM Shannon headed up to bed, and being that I was exausted from waking up at 5:AM I gave the, it's time to go before I have to kick your ass out look, and the last people trickled out. I had been cleaning up things all night, so doing a short once over around the main level of the house, didn't take too long, and I was shortly brushing my teeth and getting into bed at around 2:AM.

So from 5:AM to 2:AM I was pretty much doing stuff all day. But it was a good day, a good party, and I got good tickets.

I guess the only real negatives to the day was that Ben (L Brokowitz (Voss)) couldn't come down cause he had experiments running over the weekend, and Seth and Brianna also didn't show up (Brandon, Shannon and I went out to lunch with them on friday at the Famous Daves).