Yesterday was an eventful day. Our first event was Conway's birthday. A whole group of us went to the Big Bowl in Lincolnshire for dinner. I was a little worried about Colleen finding something she liked, as most of Big Bowl's menu items are not made of cheese. But our trip to Big Bowl just might have fueled Colleen's upcoming obsession with Asian cuisine. She loved the veggie potstickers. She loved picking all the ingredients for the stir fry. And of course she loved the dessert.

After dinner, me and Colleen broke from the group and hit up the Gufs concert at Austin's Saloon in Libertyville. It was kind of weird that there was a mandatory coat check, they wouldn't let anyone wear coats in the venue. I didn't mind, because I hate wearing a coat into bars. I also really enjoyed that it was completely non-smoking, which meant 2 things: No one in the crowd burning you with the cherries of their cigarattes and none of that "post-bar scent" thats stuck on you when you return home.

After checking our coats, we waited outside the doors of the Fuel Room waiting for it to open. It was all a matter of time before I ran into someone I knew, and I did. It was Jerrod Howard, who I knew from my theatre days at the PM&L Theatre. It had been many years since I've seen him, so I was cool to catch up with him. We also reminiced about our crazy days the summer we worked on the musical Grease. It was kinda interesting that I ran into Jerrod and talked about the summer of '98, because if it's any music that reminds me of that time in my life…it's the Gufs.

There was an opening band called Northern Room. They were pretty good. The lead singer kinda sounded like Bono. When I bought the tickets, I paid an extra 5 bucks a ticket for the VIP section. So halfway through Northern Room, me and Colleen left Jerrod and his friend to go check it out. It was basically a balcony with nothing except one small circular table. I hope they have future plans to spruce up the VIP section, because it was pretty sad. I'll cut them some slack though, because the Fuel Room is brand new. So the VIP section wasn't decorated or furnished, but at least there was a waitress serving you drinks. There were only about 15 people up there at the time. Me and Colleen staked out a spot in the front of the balcony and sat on the floor to watch the rest of Northern Room through the bars of the banister. It was worth the extra 5 bucks just to be able to sit down for a little bit. We went back down to the floor for The Gufs. They took the stage a little later and played a great show.

I love seeing bands in smaller venues like the Fuel Room. It wasn't that crowded, so you could get very close to the stage. It was also really cool to see Colleen have a good time seeing a band she's never heard of. Good times.