So, everyone wants to know about the Olympics! Here goes: The most fascinating event of them all was the Closing Ceremony, and guess what, WE WERE THERE! My parents bought Beth and I some tickets from some scalpers in downtown Salt Lake City. Tickets were still available to buy from the IOC, but they were $885 per ticket. We were able to buy the cheaper tickets and save $100 off their face value. The Closing Ceremonies was the most amazing event I have ever been to. It was packed with all kinds of stars: Bon Jovi, KISS, Christina Aguilera, Donnie and Marie Osmond, Gloria Estefan, Charlotte Church, N'SYNC, Moby and Willie Nelson. The entire production was amazing!

One of the neatest things at the closing ceremonies were the audience participation kits. They were in a nice zippered pouch, and included: a program, seat cushion, flash light, Italian flag, three foam snowballs, poncho, chap stick, Kleenex and hand warmers. I still have it all! The kits are currently selling on ebay for $10 to $100! I don't think I will be selling mine though.

Beth and I also saw the men's slalom at Deer Valley Resort in Park City. That was a lot of fun! Unfortunately, the US favorite Bode Miller finished well back in the pack after blowing out of the course about midway and had to hike. He was second going into the race. The course was tough though, the first five athletes were DNF and many more followed.

Park City was a blast -- It kind of reminded me of Virginia City. The main street was about a mile long and closed to traffic. It was lined with cute little shops and resteraunts and fire pits where you could warm your hands. At one end, there was a giant screen TV to watch the Olympics on, and at night, the town lit up with fireworks. It was a really neat experience. The other main attraction we visited was Gateway Center, a new outdoor mall in downtown Salt Lake City near Olympic Square. The mall was a great place for food and shopping and full of people enjoying the Olympics. We didn't actually get to Olympic Sqaure. We were bumbed about that, but we still saw a lot in the very short amount of time we were there.

All in all, it was amazing. The whole environment was uplifting, and everyone was in good, high spirits. Long lines and cold weather didn't bother anyone, as we were all there to have a good time and watch the athletes perform. You coudn't help but get caught up in the spirit of it all, and it left a lasting impression. It was a nice feeling, especially after September 11th. As for Salt Lake City, they did an amazing job hosting the Olympics. Parking was plentiful, traffic was minimal and public transportation was excellent -- at all the events, inlcuding closing ceremonies and Park City. A true model for future host cities to go by. I was very impressed.

I took about 40 pictures on my digital camera, and hope to have them on the website sometime soon. When I do, I will update the blog with more information. Beth and I both enjoyed ourselves immensley, and wouldn't trade the experience for anything. The whole thing, oddly enough, was therapeutic; bringing out the good in people. I am sad that it is over, and that I wasn't able to see more, but fortunate and thankful for the events I was able to attend..

By the way, our AOL e-mail accounts have officially been shut down! Yeah! And, although AT&T is still there, we don't check the e-mail and won't be. Make sure you are using our new e-mail addresses. If you don't know them, click on the links located throughout the website. They've all been updated!

Olympics, here we come! We were able to work it out, and Beth and I will be flying to Salt Lake, not driving! That makes it so much nicer. Southwest's last minute fares to SLC were reasonable, so we went with those. What an experience this should be. Can't wait!

Our drive home was uneventful, and we made good time. Although, when we drove through Tonopah there were huge piles of snow in the middle of the road, and Beth reported nothing there on Saturday morning. Interesting how things change in a day or two. The road itself was clear though, so no problems.

Dinner on Monday night went real well, I made the usual salmon with garlic salt and lemon pepper, pan frying it in butter and olive oil. Then, I prepared tomato noodles with fried egg -- a recipe from my wok cookbook. That was real good. Since I had been away from home for almost a week, I barely knew what I had in my kitchen to make a meal of, and barely scraped the tomato noodles together. It was nice to meet Beth's uncle, Dean. He wasn't able to make it to the wedding, so it was nice to see him.

Well, all didn't go well. Crew schedule gave me a trip on Friday, which ended in San Fran at 9pm...too late to get back to Las Vegas for an early morning departure to G-ville. So, Beth decided she would get up and drive early on her own from Vegas, and I rented a car and drove to Reno, since I couldn't even get a flight out Saturday morning to Reno. In the end, it all worked out well. I arrived in Reno about 9:30am Saturday, where my mom picked me up at the airport after dropping the rental car off. Then, Beth arrived in G-ville about noon. We had a nice and leisure Saturday afternoon and then met Dan and Steve at Red's Old 395 Grill in Carson City. None of us had ever been there, and the food was real good and we liked the atmosphere.

Today, we had a good day of skiing. Although the weather wasn't great...it was pretty socked in, and was snowing on and off all day. The good thing is though it wasn't real windy. The afternoon was much better than the morning, where we only got in two runs. We got four runs in in the afternoon. Now, we're real tired!

Hopefully, we will be able to meet Cathy and Jim Simpson for dinner tonight, although we haven't talked to them about it yet. We are hoping to go to Mandarin Gourmet, one of our favorite restaurants in Minden. Well, Cathy just called and dinner is on. Isn't that funny! I write about and she calls! Beth and I are heading out in the morning back to Vegas, and we'll be having dinner with her parents and uncle tomorrow night.

A busy weekend, but fun! My parents are going to the Olympics next weekend, and Beth and I might try to drive up there and meet them. We'll see how that goes!

They've found me! Ugh! Crew schedule did forget about me yesterday, bu they remembered me today. Jerks! I need to fly to San Jose this afternoon so I can fly to Los Angeles and stay overnight. The real trip doesn't start until tomorrow morning. I am going to Chicago though, one of my favorites, so that isn't so bad. I should be back in Vegas Thursday night, and provided all goes well, Bethany and I should be able to drive to G-ville on Friday as we had hoped we could.

So far, my hope for crew scheduling forgetting me this week is coming true. They won't be using me tomorrow, or so it seems anyway. However, there is a trip needing coverage on Tuesday in which I have the unique qualification for which to be assigned that trip. I am sure my name is all over it. That is fine. I'd rather not work tomorrow, but Tuesday is fine. Keep your fingers crossed for.

Hopefully all of you have gotten our new e-mail addresses. Our AOL account will be terminated on February 16. We are no longer checking our AT&T e-mail. If you need to e-mail us and don't have the new addresses, there are several e-mail links throughout this website in which to reach us by.

Molly and I've been writing to one another a little lately. It has been nice to chat with her and try to catch up. I just found out, and embarrassed to admit, that she didn't know Beth and I got married! I couldn't believe it. I felt so bad. There were some communications errors in when trying to reach Molly to notify her of the wedding, and we don't know what happened from there. Molly, I still feel really, really bad! Please don't hate us. We missed you not being there.

Beth and I will be traveling to Gardnerville next weekend to go skiing! Yea! We are getting very excited. We are hoping that my schedule works out and we can leave Friday afternoon, since we're driving, and not Saturday morning. We hope to meet up with Dan and Steve while we're there, and Brett and Sherry. Although, we have no idea what our plans will be, and God knows where we're going to get the time to do all of this. I think there is just going to have to be one big lunch somewhere! That would work out real nice! Guys, we'll keep you posted.

Jenn and I have worked out our little tift about devulging information on our blogs. (It wasn't really a tift, we were having fun yanking one another's chains. It was all in good fun.) After a forced phone call to her :-) and some questions, I was able to guess who it was. Even in the end, she didn't tell me, I had to guess! Ugh, the nerve! In the end, it all made sense though! Love ya Jenni!

The recipe page has been updated with an aphrodisiac-laden menu for Valentines's Day. Also, in the "Cooking 101" column is an interesting article with some information from Ellen and Michael Albertson, the "Cooking Couple" who created the menu. So, what's on the menu? Chocolate Martini, Creamy Fennel Soup with Shrimp and Herbed Chicken with Goat Cheese and Pine Nuts. Sounds delicious to me. If you cook it, let me know how it goes. I plan on preparing the menu myself.

Ok, an important message regarding web blogs and the information we decide to disclose on them. Jenn made the decision to inform us all she recently discovered a high school crush of hers returned the crush. Now, she is refusing to name this person. Jenn, what were you thinking? You had to of known we would harass you until you spilled the beans. Now, I am not suggesting you discontinue writing your blog, but maybe put better consideration into the information you post, and be prepared to respond to comments about those posts. Now, of course, your not disclosing his name on the blog is keeping in the theory of this prinicple, however, you can individually notify those who are interested. Did you really think no one would ask? Inquiring minds want to know. (I still love ya, though!)

I am on reserve this month at work, which as many of you know, basically means I am on call. Well, I just finished a five day stretch of being on-call, and the bastards flew me all five days. Needless to say, I am very tired. Perspective: usually they will fly me two or three days, if any, in a five to six day stretch. I went to New York twice this week, and also spent one night in Los Angeles and two in San Francisco. Hopefully next week they'll forget about me. Yeah, right!

Beth and I are planning to go to Gardnerville over President's Day weekend to go skiing. It will be our first ski trip this season, and hopefully it won't be our last. My brother Brian drove to Utah yesterday with three others from Channel 2 to cover the Olympic Games. He'll be there the entire time. It sounds like it will be very exciting, although a lot of work.

Does anyone have a job for me? No, no, no. I still have my job at AA, but they are offering another five month leave to cover the overage of flight attendants on the payroll. I would love to take the leave so I could be home every night, but I would need to make comparable income to pull it off. I make about $30 an hour now, and that would translate to about $14.50 an hour if I were to work a traditional 40 hour work week. I am, as they say, a jack of all trades and a master of none. Although, BS-ing is nearing a master's level of profficiency. I am available from May 1 through September 31. I would like weekends off, and need May 31 through June 2 (Friday through Sunday) off for my brother's wedding.

If interested, please e-mail me. There are numerous links to my e-mail located throughout the website. This offer ends soon, so don't delay.

All e-mail links within the website have been updated.

If you notice things aren't loading properly, please let me know. I think the original probelm is fixed. Thanks.

Bethany and I have finally changed our e-mail addresses to something we hope will stick around for a while. We both have utilized AOL for sometime, and have used AT&T partially over the past six months or so. We are forgoing both, and have settled on Hotmail for now. Effective immediately, all e-mails should be sent to our new addresses.
Bethany: bafleener@hotmail.com
Kevin: kshickey@hotmail.com

Our AOL and AT&T services will terminate by February 15, 2002