boys night out

The second-to-last night of the year, a.k.a "amateur night eve", was spent out with by brother-in-law Mark. Mark and I are two-thirds of "Al and the in-laws" (the other third being Al), although "out-laws" might be more appropriate now.

We began with dinner at Venue. I've wanted to check out Venue ever since I was accosted in a bar by a woman in the O'Hare airport (on the way back from Miami) who insisted that eligible bachelors like myself should be there. I must say, Megan, that you were right. It's a great place. The menu was a bit expensive, but the quality of the food and atmosphere were enough to compensate. It's easy to dismiss it, being in a suburban strip mall. That sort of makes it a hidden gem, I guess. Cool.

After that, we went downtown, and at the last minute decided to stop into the Zoo to see who might be playing. The answer: The JazzWholes, from Omaha. They made a fantastic first impression just a few measures into their opening piece, and didn't let me down at any point throughout the night. (At the peak, I was considering "Holy F@#!" as the title of this post.) I'm going to watch for their return and go see them again.

Before they went up on stage, I saw their drummer practicing on a pad at a nearby table. I paid him a dollar to play Mark a 16th note shuffle, which I've been trying to get Mark to learn for a while now. I couldn't resist. ;-)

I hope everybody has a grand 2007. Go have some fun.