Fall 2010: Another Great Line-Up

I hate to think about it, but my calendar does not lie: we will soon be in the final week of July. Summer, you have done it again. Where are you going so fast?

I have made this summer a great one so far. Thanks to 80-degree weather hitting the area as early as March, I spent the early part of the summer canoeing on the Pigeon River near and in Mongo, Indiana. These trips were awesome and I definitely plan to go back at least once more before the summer is up.

I have spent lots of time in my favorite nearby parks with Elli, including Oak Openings, Farnsworth, and Sidecut Metroparks. Each of these trips have been great, although Oak Openings is a significantly different place now due to a tornado that touched down there in June.

So while summer is still in full force thanks to unusually persistent 90-plus degree weather, I am at least beginning to look forward to everything that fall has to offer, and for me the fall season will kick off in under two weeks with the Wood County Fair.

Just as I did last year, here is a summary of my upcoming fall season.

Wood County Fair - Aug 3rd - Aug 9th

This was the event of the summer during my high school years, and while it lost a lot of luster during my college years ("It never changes!"), I am looking forward to the fair this year. I am more interested in the fair food than anything else, but I am also looking forward to socializing with friends and family all week long at the fair.

Green Day Concert - Aug 23rd

I saw Green Day last year at the Palace of Auburn Hills and they put on one hell of a show. Green Day has lost a lot of my attention in a year, but I am still going to see them at DTE Energy Music Theatre this August. I am actually more interested in a concert at DTE than I am Green Day. DTE is an awesome venue for concerts, especially if the weather cooperates. With beautiful surrounding country, lots of space to move about and great snacks, being at DTE is more of a draw than seeing concerts there. I am weird, I know.

Roche de Boeuf Festival / Sea Wolf - Sept 25th

A small but busy area festival has certainly grown on me in the last couple of years - The Roche de Boeuf Festival in Waterville. Because it is close to my parents house and held in an immediately-familiar town, I love spending all day (a Saturday in this case) at this festival. A variety of food certainly helps - both homemade candies and delicious pizzas and burgers. I take Elli to this festival all day and she always seems to have a blast. Hopefully this year will be no different.

An excellent indie band - Sea Wolf - will be in Toledo this day too. Mickey Finn's Pub is the venue, which is convenient since the "Finn" is indeed that Finn. I first saw Sea Wolf as an opener for Silversun Pickups several years ago, and they absolutely rocked. I am sure that being able to see them in a tiny, intimate venue like Mickey Finn's will be quite an experience.

Birthday Vacation - Oct 1st - Oct 10th

Ahh yes, my birthday week. As tradition dictates, I will have this entire week off work to do whatever I please. My birthday falls on a Monday this year, and on that very Monday another band I love - Band of Horses - will be in Cleveland at The House of Blues. Quite the birthday present, huh? I will get to see two of my favorite indie bands less than two weeks apart! As for the rest of my birthday week off, I have no particular plans, although the Apple Butter Festival takes place in Grand Rapids on October 10th, so I may very well spend the last day of my vacation there (even if it has become a bit too crowded in recent years).

Xbox 360 / Rock Band 3 - Oct 26th

I have not been huge on any particular game lately. That changes near the end of October. While I have been tiring of the rhythm game genre throughout most of 2010, Rock Band 3 looks like a legitimate revolution of the genre. With a full-featured "Pro" mode that recreates one-to-one guitar, drum, bass, and psuedo-keyboard note charts, RB3 will be a teacher more than a game. I am going to go all-out for this, buying all-new game peripherals and a new console as well.

I will be making a serious investment in Rock Band 3 as a whole, but I will not be doing that on my Wii. The Wii is a great console no doubt, but for such a big investment I find the Wii lacking: online options are weak and there is no universal account system. A great multiplayer game like Rock Band 3 requires a great online community and purchasing music from a huge library of thousands of songs deserves a solid place to store and manage them. Rock Band 3 is the game that will finally make me buy an Xbox 360, so this October I will be making that plunge as well. I am thrilled.

As October closes and I enjoy my new games, I will be looking forward to the holiday season ramping up. Thanksgiving will certainly approach quickly, then not far behind it Christmas and the end of 2010 - only to start the cycle all over again in 2011. Time absolutely flies, does it not?

B3 out.