Monday, October 16, 2000

October

I hope everyone is having a good Fall and getting ready for Halloween! We have more than enough opportunities to visit haunted house attractions here it seems like every other house in Cincinnati is haunted.

King's Island, Cincinnati's big amusement park, has converted the park into "Fear Fest," which is open past midnight on weekends. We hear it is awesome, as the parent company, Paramount, has poured millions of dollars into the attraction, with The Mummy's Revenge, The Museum of Horrors, The Sewer, Studio Fifty-Gore, and Torture Tower.

They are charging $19.95 admission and say Fear Fest was designed to be very frightening and is not recommended for children under 15, or for adults who don't care to be scared. They have transformed the park adding special effects and roaming "scaracters." And to top it off, five of the roller coaster rides are open.

We are not sure if we are going, but for future reference, King's Island is less than five miles from our apartment.

I am starting my 8th week of classes at Xavier and it is going well. Mid-terms are upon me, but I believe I am good and ready for them.

I recently went to the Cincinnati Bengals new stadium, Paul Brown Stadium for the Tennessee Titans game. The capacity is 65,000 and there were more than 64,000 at the game. I never saw a long line at a concessions stand, every seat has a Bengals helmet logo imprinted into the chair back, and the two giant scoreboards look like those new high definition television wide screens.

That stadium is like something people have never seen. It is really awesome. It is unfortunate the people have never seen a good Bengals team, which is currently 0-6.

The news stations here in town are all coming up with spoofs on the Bengals. It is bad. The local Fox Channel here showed a video of the time the Bengals last won, Sept. 12, 1999 with the Barbara Streisand's song "The Way We Were" in the background. Then when it came back live to the anchors, it showed them all crying with tissues. Finally, the main anchor asked the meteorologist about a last look at weather, and he said he was just too choked up to talk and he walked off! It was hilarious.

One more note in sports, the turf has come up at Cinergy Field (Riverfront Stadium), and the reds will be playing on grass for the final two years in the ballpark. The new stadium opens in 2003. They are currently tearing down half of Cinergy to make way for the new ballpark.

Progress!

Stacy and I made it back to Chattanooga for UTC's homecoming weekend. We had a great time. I saw people at the football game I had not seen in over five years. It was really special to see so many people come back to their alma mater. I still wish more came back I noticed many of my friends who were unable to make it.

We missed Midnight Madness, the tip-off of basketball season on Friday night/early Saturday morning, altogether. We missed UTC's, and later heard Cincinnati had over 8,000 people and Xavier had over 5,500 for their midnight festivities.

I cannot wait for the basketball season to get started at Xavier. There is a lot of hype here for it, as well as at UC. I know I have mentioned it before, but XU's new arena, the Cintas Center, is amazing. There is a great story about it and some photos at this website at http://enquirer.com/xavier/2000/10/13/xu_xavier_moves_into.html and a great graphic of the facility at http://enquirer.com/xavier/2000/10/13/xu_cintasgraphic.html.

Stacy and I were invited to the University of Cincinnati's President's Ball this Saturday. It is a celebration to recognize the Foundation's goal setting of acquiring over $328.9 million. It is a black-tie affair, so I guess I have to dress up!

Cincinnati weather has no major difference from Chattanooga's. Only two weeks ago we were preparing for 30 degree temperatures and the cold season, however that brief spell came and went. It is back in the 70's. It rained yesterday for the first time in a good while. I have noticed the temperatures are about 6 degrees lower on average than Chattanooga's. I guess that will make up for something if we happen to get any snow here this winter.